Head up and march

I'm deciding - at least for this week- to find some reason to smile and put my head up and carry on.  I have a knack for finding ways to fall apart, and perhaps, it's time to try to glue it all back together. I mean if nothing else, Dad taught me to laugh when life hands you lemons, because who gives lemons as a gift?

Well, that sucks.

I'm flying to Tulsa this weekend. I'm going to get out of the house, not do any work, and potentially see a few friends in the process who will make this month suck a lot less.

That is... if I manage to not miss my flight.  Which I wasn't able to do this morning. Oh, if I had been all of a minute earlier, I'd have made it. But nope. Apparently, a 10:50 flight can depart at 10:47 and still be on time, and I would not be there.

Rebooking was quick and easy and so long as I don't do it again, I'll make it in to Tulsa at 4... only 4 hours late. Somehow, that's fitting for me and my flights to T-town. I always manage to be 4 hours later than I wanted to be. 

Until then, I'm rocking out to John Prine in an airport. which is terribly ironic.

The Silence...

Andrew Belle - Make It Without You

Silence terrifies me. Seriously, and absolutely terrifies. I can not, for the life of me, think of a time when I have been surrounded by silence. If I found myself in the house alone with the t.v.s miraculously off, I would hear the sound of the dogs or I would quickly break out my walkman/iPod/radio and put something on. If somehow I wound up awake when the rest of the family was a sleep, I'd hear the steady off-beat snores from everyone in the house.  If I found myself in the middle of a glen in the woods surrounded by no one I'd hear the life and the wind around me. In a car with no radio, I'd hear the hum of the road and the roar of the engine. Even in my solitude there has always been sound.

Until this past week.

My father was the ultimate champion of a game without a name, a game we referred to as "Name the Artist." And that was the game. Walk in to a store, catch a commercial, turn on the radio and 95% of the time Dad would look at the people he was with, pick the person he thought was least likely to get it right and pose the question as a challenge. "Name the artist."

By the time I was 15, I was right the vast majority of the time. The last five years, I've been right so often my Dad stopped asking as a challenge but as an opening to a conversation to talk about music as it was, what it turned in to and who or what could save it. (He didn't have high hopes, and all of my offerings fell short... but then what can a 20 something pop hipster say to a 50 something rocker that's meaningful?)  To know enough of music to win at this game that often, I've spent the majority of my life with a radio on, my nose in a music magazine, or watching music documentaries.

So when he passed, I wracked my brain for an appropriate song to be the first song I heard to try to fill the void he left.  He was forever talking about the lasting power of classical music, he loved the Eagles, Dan Folgerberg, Pink Floyd and Supertramp, his song for me was by Cat Stevens, I've got a slew of favorite bands who all have fitting songs about loss.  I was wracking my brain for the one that was just right.  I couldn't come up with it in the time it took to get from the hospital room to the car. I couldn't come up with it for at least a solid 24 hours. Somehow, my never silent family managed to not play the radio or sing until a day or two later when we went shopping and finally turned on the radio.


The rest of the week was rather the same. Periods of silence punctuated by ill-fitting songs and stories.
I've never been afraid of turning on the radio, I've never been afraid of having a song that didn't fit get stuck in my head. I've never embraced the silence for fear of sound -even the right sound- tearing apart whats left of my heart.  But then, I've never been this alone.  

Forcing The Pen To Write

My dad passed away on Monday morning.

Seeing as it's now 3am on Thursday, you can imagine this week has been full of decisions which were much more difficult than they should have been and ridiculous questions. Trust me, the font on a thank you card should not take 20 minutes to decide on, and no one should ever ask a newly grieving widow or child (regardless of age) how they're doing. (Oh, I'm doing fine. I only woke up sobbing three times last night, and finding his hat in the laundry this afternoon only left me curled up on the floor in a numb stupor for an hour.  I'm doing splendidly. Thank you so much for reminding me that this wound is not -in fact- visible to every person I meet.)

Still, this week has made an opportunity for a million different conversations I doubt my family, friends and I would have ever had other wise. There is a certain amount of blunt honesty that comes along with the pain. That's almost refreshing.  

This week has also brought a good deal of laughter as we reminisce. Anyone who knew my father would know, that's the way he'd want it to be. So for now, I'm in the practice of forcing myself to continue to move, to write when I feel like crying, and to laugh when I feel like dying. Because, ultimately, that's what Dad would do, and that's all that I can do.

Baby it's cold outside!

I know I still haven't posted from my adventure last week, and I'm about to sojourn again. Terrible of me, I know.

I just got over a major cold and am ALMOST caught up on holiday decorating. Almost. The end of the day tomorrow I'll be done and I'll post some more pictures.

And I'll get on that whole roadtrip to Nebraska story and the road trip to Oklahoma City story soon too. But for now, what's important to know is that it's finally really looking like winter. We've got a few inches of snow, and it's leave-your-groceries-in-the-trunk-while-you-hit-the-next-store-and-they'll-freeze cold. That more so than anything else is finally making it feel a lot like Christmas is around the corner. So I lounged around while putting up the Christmas tree and watched Rudolph this morning and White Christmas tonight. Now, finally, it feels like Christmas.

Time Traveling Book Stores

Like most travelers I know, I have a tendency to love reading while I'm waiting for the plane and so I have a tendency to buy books I don't actually want to read in over priced post-security-screening book stores (which also sell a plethora of traveling "necessities" you didn't know you could possibly ever need).
Needless to say, the purchases from these desperate attempts of entertainment sit on my shelf of books I refer to as the books that "I really, really, truly mean to finish reading soon. Really. I mean it. Soon. After I finish this book series that makes me want to forget how to read."

I've got a lot of traveling to do this winter, and I could really use to have a book that can keep my interest after I land too. So I took advantage of a book shopping opportunity this weekend. It's not often that my brother suggests heading in to a book store with me. I'm not that much of a shopper - I'm more of a get in, find what I need and get out kind of shopper- but a good used book store can keep me entertained for hours. So when my brother suggested the Book House, I prepared for a multi hour excursion with tough decisions. (Oh my gosh! They do have that book I've been putting off buying! Oh and look they have that book I lost last month... oh crap, I think I found $60 worth of books I want. I have bills to pay. UGH!!! What goes back?)

The Book House is just what it says it is. It's a house full of books. Literally. It's a house that is so full of books it can be hard to turn around. Two stories of house converted into a literary hub. In short, it's amazing. It's what I sometimes fear my house will turn into.

So, I picked up a few books as a result of a few hours there. The books I've been meaning to buy for a while, but somehow just didn't. It's hard to pass up $5.00 for a book you've been meaning to read for a year.

Typically, I'm not a big sci-fi fan. I don't do the whole time-traveling / alternate universe / robots / aliens / space thing.  My idea of sci-fi is a group of elves, dwarfs and short people running around a Nordic ideal of earth.  But, with my love of Doctor Who and several years of hearing that Jack Finney is amazing, I'm diving into a new world of sci-fi. I'm buffering myself with Isaac Asimov. I read Asimov forever ago (sixth grade!) and loved him, but didn't care for sci-fi so I never kept up on it.

All in all, it looks like I've found my reading material for the winter. Here's hoping I found well. 

And then there was... today.

I travel fairly regularly, you would think I would have mastered the art of fitting three days of clothes into a cary on bag. You would think I've mastered the art of time zone changes. You'd be wrong. 

This trip hasn't bee a complete sob story.  Some amazing food has been found, and loved.

Like this Oreo Shortcake.

And while I can't support any of Cincinnati's sports teams,  there are some lovely neighborhoods and really unique suprises at every corner. 

 

Like this street light at the corner of Rosslyn and Erie.

I'm on my way home tomorrow, and I get the feeling I'll have to come back to Cincinnati later and find more awesome things around the bend.

Song for the Day: West Coast by Coconut Records

Highways and coffee beans

A lot of October was spent getting ready for Halloween weekend. And that kept me pretty far away from my laptop and too wrapped up in flannel to have much to say. (excuses, excuses, I know.)  But I have to gush about this weekend to everyone I know, and that means you! Shameless bragging alert... well not bragging. I so don't deserve the awesome-ness of this past weekend.

Michelle came down for the weekend and we road tripped it on down to T-Town... Tulsa, Oklahoma. The weather was perfect and as usual, we wound up talking the whole six hours down. In short, she's amazing and people suck - a lot - and we have to be willing to stand up for ourselves when the rest of the world turns their back. The trip was the continuation of the amazing drive, with awesome music, fantastic finds around town  (Blue Rose Cafe, Center of the Universe and hair braiding on the River Walk!) and miracle of miracle, not getting lost even on the highway.


The ultimate cause of the trip was the Hanson Fan Club Member Event (there's some debate and a lot of Hanson fans will call it a MOE - Member's Only Event- I contend that they're wrong but that's another post.)  I won't bore you with all the facts here, but the event included a costume contest, and seeing as I was a Starbucks Caramel Macchiato with Isaac's name misspelled five times and a quote from both Noah Roberts and Taylor, I came in Second only to Charlie Chaplin (Amazing! Truely!) I cleaned up: coffee, the 5of 5 dvd set, and I garnered the look of awe from my favorite band. The show was amazing and was well worth the trip even without the prizes.


The only thing that topped the event was the fact that we also received word of a final date for my niece and nephew's adoption to be officially final. Done, final and forever ours. It's fantastic and underwhelming at the same time. Fantastic because it will make them officially ours. Underwhelming because as far as my heart's concerned, they've been officially ours for a few months now, and they were ours long before that. Underwhelming because regardless of whatever the courts say, Cassia's already claimed Tim and Liz as Mom and Dad long ago, and nothing the courts could ever say would mean more than that.  Still, I can't believe the day is finally come. I'm so excited. And can't wait to get up to see them all.  I can tell you now what I'm thankful for this Thanksgiving: those kids.

Almost too fitting Song for the day: Penny and Me by Hanson "Penny and me like to roll the window down
Turn the radio up push the pedal to the ground
Penny and me like to gaze as starry skies
Close our eyes pretend to fly
It’s always penny and me tonight

Penny likes to get away
And drowned her pain, in lemonade
Penny dreams of rainy days
And coffee cake by the fireplace
And aimless conversations about the better days"

Short but Sweet

I'm posting from my mom's bed room which was my room when I was growing up. Her bedroom window is open and from the computer desk, I can hear our neighbor's Motown mix.  It's too quiet for any other room of the house to hear it, that's my personal childhood memory neither one of my brothers quite share. That has something to do with why I've loved Motown for as long as I can remember.

Song for the day "Mr. Postman" by the Marvelettes.

BOOO! um... BLUES!... um...

I've been a bit lax about writting lately. Mostly that has to do with how busy and unbusy I've been the last week or so. The fall has come swift and chilly this year. The temperature dropped virtually overnight to be the perfect weather for long walks watching the leaves change color, and that is exactly what my family has been doing. Our walks around St. Vincent's Park has given us a lot to laugh about as our dogs challenge each other (and us) to see who's going to take the lead and who's going to get back home first. For two dogs who do more eating than running this gets to be quite a hillarious challenge.  The walk is gorgeous, laughter aside. It's truly a woodland scene plopped right in the middle of city life. 

Our walks bring us home just in time to settle in for the Blues games. Ah, yes the hockey season has started. And what a start it's been. It's no secret that I'm a Blues fan, and that's about as far as it goes. Other teams' historys are lost on me, but the Blues... oh the Blues are a dominant ficture around my house every season. Four games into the season, we've already seen what will probably be the best hit of the year (Thanks, Winchester) and some the trends that have to change for us to make it to the Cup.  Like every year, I am ambitious and my father is not.  Every year is "the year" we'll make it to the Cup in my opinion. With faith like a child, I sit in front of the tv and hope. Hope that Polak will make the hit, that Halak or Conklin will make the save and that Oshie or McDonald or Steen will make the goal. While my dad sits next to me on the couch and tells me why I will hope in vain. I am a homer, and he is a ... realist. Don't get me wrong, he'd love to see us win. He just sees the flaws as well as the flare. Twice this season, I've been disappointed, but every game I'm encouraged. We've got the passion and it seems like we've got the desire for it. So again this year,  I think we'll make it.

In the mean time, I've got some serious decorating to do. Halloween is almost upon us and I JUST got my jackolantern out. My desk and my bedroom aren't decorated at all. I have been slacking... Granted, I've got other things done. My costume for example is finally underway. I should have that done in about a week and I'll post instructions and pictures when I do.