The summer I fell in love

Opening Day of 2003 I was 8 months pregnant and toddled down Clark to meet the girls for bloodies at 8:30 am. Tradition trumps everything. Had a big virgin one with extra pickles. The Cubs had an inauspicious start to the home season; the beat the Montreal Expos, a team that I think ceased to exist right after that game.

There was lots happening in the neighborhood that spring. My husband and I were waiting for our first child to arrive. To speed things along, I took long walks around the neighborhood. Another reason was our new next door neighbor, Eric Karros. Eric walked to and from Wrigley (anonymous, then) and we became friendly. I started watching Cubs games more often, so that I could name each player’s position and strengths. When we walked down Southport you could go from store to store and listen to Pat and Ron uninterrupted. At home we would sit on blankets in the yard and crank up the radio and listen to the crowd. We got really good about guessing what was happening in the game just by the different cheers. We waited.

On our daughter’s due date, May 15th, I went out with my girlfriends (we met weekly at what we called ‘Wednesday Night Club’) to watch the Cubs and catch up. From the bar, we watched Eric hit a home run that night, and the Cubbies beat the Brewers 4-2. It was the last game of a 4 game stand in Milwaukee and a turning point in the Cubs season. Everyone started paying closer attention to the games.

Cassidy Mary finally arrived Memorial Day, also memorable for the 10-0 thumping we took from the lowly Pirates. At home.

My parents arrived to meet the baby in the midst of the Houston series but I had already rented out our parking spot (Cubs fans: $20, Astros fans: $40).

We took our first family vacation to Saugatuck, Michigan. Cassidy was a month old and a screamer. Most of the vacation was spent with my husband and I taking turns rocking her in our tiny cottage and looking at each other fretfully; what are we doing? With this baby? We watched the Cubs beat the Brewers one night on the 13 inch TV as she intermittently screamed. The blue screen seemed to soothe her.

After the All-Star break, Eric’s family moved in next door. Gorgeous wife, two little kids. The Cubs were knocking down wins, and the neighborhood was perking up. I spent afternoons on a rocker on our porch, exchanging hellos and baby anecdotes with Eric’s wife. Her enormous ring glinted in the July sun.

My husband did a hilarious impersonation of Pat Hughes after particularly noisy nights with a crying baby: "Ronnie, Our first baseman, Karros, seems a bit sluggish today. He mentioned in the clubhouse that he didn’t sleep well last night. Wonder what kept him up so late?"

The next few months were a blur of diapers, rocking, Cubbie baseball, visitors. By the time the Cubs won the NCLS we were cocky. Perhaps an attitude better left to the Yankees. When Prior was set to pitch on October 14th against the Marlins, we thought we were home free.

You know the rest of that story. It all fell to pieces.

I spoke with Eric one last time before he left town. He was packing up his car and I was pushing Cassidy in the stroller. We met on our shared sidewalk beneath turning leaves. I couldn’t help but ask how he felt about everything. It just seemed so sudden. "Well, I came home last night, and it was tough. Not what I expected." He sighed. "I just wanted to hug my kids." In that way, I think, he was simply like many of us that day. "It wasn’t that kid’s fault, I know that’s what people are saying, but no one thinks that," he said, refering to Bartman. I couldn’t meet his eyes, and I settled on a half-empty beer bottle on the sidewalk that someone had been too sad to finish. "No one?" I asked. "Nope," he said. "Well, wait ‘till next year."

I did. And keep waiting.

why I'm a secret narcissist

These facebook tests I get all the time are not especially revealing. Most of them have misspelled words or poor punctuation and cannot give an insightful answer based on 5 questions with limited answer possibilities. BUT I take them all the time anyway.
Which leads me to think I'm a total narcissist.
But I took that personality test to see if I really am and it turns out I'm a 10 on the exhibitionist scale but not too full of myself.
Still, this doens't help me think I'm any less interesting to everyone else, so I have this habit of calling in to various radio shows. I've been on like 3 times in the last few months, always live. (Who's the radio star now?) So yesterday I called in about things that tick you off; it's like an open bitch forum. People are calling in with real serious things, like not being able to afford their gas bill to health insurance bureaucracy. Mine was, I hate when someone gives you an address of someplace, asks if you know where it is, you say yes, and they proceed to GIVE YOU DIRECTIONS anyway! Don't confuse me! So I'm driving home from having my car repaired, all hopped up on Saturn of Glenview's coffee, and I'm live ON THE AIR when I realize that I'm lost. I totally lose my train of thought and have to end the converstion pretty confused and not as funny as I'd intended to be. Next time I guess I should pull over.

Vega$ and skinny jeans

Vegas: Gets bigger every time I go. Losing a lot of old-school charm b/c of massive, block long hotels as ornate as Notre Dame cathedrial. Now when getting from hotel to hotel in a taxi, drivers always take back ways, not going down strip, because it's so packed. Meanwhile, the hotels are so big that it takes 20 minutes just to get from your room to the strip. Saw a lot of the backs of hotels. Saw a lot of kids. Little kids. I'm usually not judgemental (!) but I would never EVER bring a child or three to Vegas. So on this trip there were 16 girls (and one guy, a brother) and we travelled in a pack and dressed up and ate well and drank even more and stayed out real real late (several moms in group, one pregnant girl, moms breakin' it up!) and gambled on our lucky numbers and made a hundred people laugh, especially ourselves.
One friend fell on the last night and hit her head really hard. The security guard at Harrah's was like, how dare you do this to me right before I get off work. Real charming, right?
My friend whose b-day it was had a great time too. We have been friends for 25 years. But we can still giggle like 15 year olds.
MEANWHILE:
Back at Wayne Manor, I was mortified at how my jeans fit. (When I say I ate well in Vegas, I mean ALL THE TIME, even when I wasn't necessarily hungry but just because it was social.
Or there was a lull in the action.
So I decided to go back to the gym.
First sign that it wasn't going to go well was that I couldn't remember my combination to my lock (okay-- it's been awhile). Next, I had to dig through many many frequent-eater cards in my wallet to find my gym card. Then the lady next to me, easily my dad's age, lapped me on the treadmill. I started watching her screen little guy run the track instead of mine for motivation. Why get discouraged your first time out?
Rome wasn't built in a day.

Cook County Rocks!

So for the first time in 6 years I started thinking seriously about getting a job.
And then one landed in my lap!
Jury duty!

I couldn't have been the only person in that jury pool holding pen on the second floor of the Criminal Courts building on 26th St. to desperately want this gig. I was the model juror. "Hobbies? I'm reading Abe Lincoln's biography and I teach CCD." I assumed I would get picked, have a front row seat to a sensational trial, then write a best seller about it and retire.

I did get picked, I stayed a week and the case was a bore.

But it was an adventure, down to the awful food (same menu as the inmates next door? Because I typically don't mind industrial food) and the teeny tiny room with loads of dead bugs stuck in the florescent lights to which we were quarantined. Magazines in our jury room were from 2000.
We were advised not to use the 2 (!) water coolers in our room. I walked up the same set of stairs every day, and stepped over the same Dunkin' Donuts cup and cigarette butt 4 days in a row.
As a group, we were all herded by the deputy (nicely, but still) into the elevator, into the jury dining room, out the front door at night.

True to random selection, we had a diverse and friendly group.

At the end...I know this is corny, but I think we all had the satisfaction of having made the right decision. We deliberated for about and hour and a half. After the verdict was read the judge came in to speak with us and complimented us all for being a "good jury."

So now I'm going to get a real job.

please be kind if I'm a mess

and I couldn't do it any better thatn Rufus Wainwright.

Cigarettes and chocolate milk
These are just a couple of my cravings
Everything it seems I like's a little bit stronger
A little bit thicker, a little bit harmful for me

If I should buy jellybeans
Have to eat them all in just one sitting
Everything it seems I like's a little bit sweeter
A little bit fatter, a little bit harmful for me

And then there's those other things
Which for several reasons we won't mention
Everything about 'em is a little bit stranger, a little bit harder
A little bit deadly

It isn't very smart
Tends to make one part
So brokenhearted

Sitting here remembering me
Always been a shoe made for the city
Go ahead accuse me of just singing about places
With scrappy boys faces have general run of the town

Playing with prodigal sons
Take a lot of sentimental valiums
Can't expect the world to be your Raggedy Andy
While running on empty you little old doll with a frown
You got to keep in the game


Retaining mystique while facing forward
I suggest a reading of Lessoon in Tightropes
Or surfing Your High Hopes or dios Kansas

It isn't very smart
Tends to make one part
So brokenhearted

Still there's not a show on my back
Holes or a friendly intervention
I'm just a little bit heiress, a little bit Irish
A little bit Tower of Pisa
Whenever I see ya

So please be kind if I'm a mess

The Blagojevich story

Lots of people have their own stories about our former Governor, here's mine:



Sunday, September 23rd, 2007 was a blue-sky day and a sports lover's dream. The Cubs were cruising, it was the last home game of the season, Zambrano was pitching, and there was a Bears game later that night. I was at Wrigley before the first pitch for a change (Kat's family's season tickets, Sec. 17, awesome seats, with lots of room in front.. like the exit row ont he airplane) with friends Heather and Kat, who in pure Chicago fashion were taking the train to Soldier Field for the Bears game later that evening. I mention this because they had bags with a change of clothes with them for round two later that day.

So as we get to our seats, our Governor, Rod Blagojevich, is on the field with his family, waving to the feisty crowd and he is getting BOOOOOED big time. I felt bad for his 2 kids. Patti looked mortified. I didn't even know what he was doing on the field (singing national anthem? couldn't find his seats?) but was quickly distracted by the Bud vendor.
Two ice cold beers-- I mean outs-- later, I was turned to Kathryn on my right when I felt someone on my left. And usually NO ONE is allowed to pass in front of our seats. Emily, our dear usher, sees to that.
And I turn and it's Blagojevich. With Patti in tow.
"Oh, HI, Rod!" I say. To the Governor.
He looks a little shocked and is trying to get by us but is tripping over the stuff at our feet.
"I see you running in my neighborhood all the time!" I continue. Which I do, with a police escort on a bike. Did.
This sort of gets his attention. He pauses and puts his hand ON KATHRYN'S KNEE.
"Well," he begins, "I had to stop running for awhile 'cause I hurt my leg." He takes his hand off Kathryn and points somewhere near his knee. "But I'm still working out, though."
Rest assured, our Governor is getting his exercise.
Cubs won that game 8-0, but you know how the rest of the season went.
It's all true.
Let me make that perfectly clear.

Farm Cats

Near Joliet on Interstate 55, the air conditioning in our Chevy Nova at full blast,
my mom’s cigarette smoke tossed around the inside of the car, I have bitten the inside of my
cheek so much that it is raw and tastes like a penny. This is the third trip we have made to the farm this summer to visit my cousins, and my 9 year old mind is on one thing; the kitten in
the hayloft who I have named Sudsy. I am counting down the exits and working up my courage.

My mom is easier to convince than my dad, who wears a suit to work in a big building and
doesn’t like surprises.

"So, which of the kittens is your favorite again?" I ask, knowing she has already admitted,
at my prodding, that the runty tortiseshell cat is her favorite. But my mom is more of a dog
person, so this is a difficult admission. She takes a long, satisfying drag on her cigarette and looks at me sideways.

"These cats are not house cats," my mom begins again. "They’re living outside in the
winter and eating barn mice, for christssake! These cats are not like Fancy! (our aged,
docile cat at home, sleeps 23 hours a day.) So play with them all you want while we’re here, but
please wash– no, scrub– your hands when you come inside. And no more pets."

This is a clever and overused tactic by my mother, turning something exciting into a
lesson for responsibility or cleanliness. As much as I admire those rough and tumble kids who get filthy at recess, my mom has ruined this for me. But down on the farm, where my cousins Mike and Kelly and my favorite Aunt Nancy live, anything goes. The moms sit at the picnic table in the kitchen and drink out of glasses rimmed with salt that make my eyes water. Down on the
farm, Aunt Nancy has a whole cabinet of treats, including sugared cereal, Hershey’s syrup, and
pixie sticks, just to name a few.

We kids have lots of exotic activities, including go-carts on the gravel driveway, jumping
off high planks in the football field sized hayloft, and playing hide and seek in the endless rows of
corn that border the farm property. Here, I can let down my guard and really get messy by
accident instead of dirtying my knees at recess just to look carefree.

"How ya gonna keep ‘em down on the farm..." my mom sings this every time.
We drive until the houses are a mile apart. I think that this is why my mom physically
relaxes as we pull into the long gravel driveway leading up to the old farm house. As we come
around the bend, passing my favorite tall pine tree, the suburbs seem much more than an hour’s drive away. Adults like being here too, and everyone usually gets rowdy right around the time we kids head off to bed. When my mom leans over to kiss me it smells like gin and cigarettes,
familiar. Many nights I have tried to sleep in Kelly’s bottom bunk with two pillows smashed to
the sides of my face, trying to drown out the sound of Motown and my mom’s own gravelly
laugh, which is louder than everyone else’s. Usually this starts with my mom or Aunt Nancy
telling one of their famous stories, and they laugh like it just happened. Once Uncle Al, a pilot,
landed his Cessna in the front yard on a dare.

"He could lose his license," my dad said in the car on the way home . My mom rolled
her eyes and lit a cigarette.

My mom’s an animated storyteller and her favorite farm story to tell and retell was when
one of the dogs, Charlie, proudly walked up the front porch steps one steamy August night with a live skunk in his teeth. Out of habit, I opened the screen door and Charlie bounded into the living room. When Kelly screamed and ran, it scared Charlie, who dropped the skunk and was promptly sprayed. Later, while Uncle Walt bathed Charlie in tomato juice in the house’s only bathtub, my mom wandered into the kitchen and sat at the table where Aunt Nancy and I were playing cards.

"No Bloodies?" asked my mom.
"Don’t ask," Aunt Nancy said sharply, slapping her card face down. "Gin."

My cousins are jumping up and down on the front stoop as we pull into our spot on the
lawn. Although they are both younger than me (Mike by 6 months, Kelly a year and a half, a fact I reminded them of often), my cousins have talents my mom would never allow. At the age of 7,
Kelly could fix a perfect martini, drive the Impala to the end of the driveway and back by herself to get the mail, and pump gas. Mike has a BB gun and a dirt bike.

But the best thing about the farm is the animals. There’s a Mama cat, a tough as nails
marmalade beauty, who has kittens at the appalling rate of one litter per season. Not many
survive, and few are named. The three legged cat is named Stool, and one cat whose
head was knocked permanently sideways by a horse is called Ten After Six. At any given time
there are a dozen cats running around the acres of the farm. I live for the moment after dinner and clean up when Aunt Nancy lets me fill the cats’ dish with leftover scraps and a dash of Meow Mix. The cats are always waiting for me, winding around my ankles and pawing my knees as I set down the dish, while I plug my nose against the smell of it.

So after I stretch out of the car and hug and kiss and say hello to everyone, I immediately
ask Kelly, "Where’s Sudsy?"
"I was thinking of another name for her. How about Sweetie?" She asks
Mike yawns and said he was going back to finish his experiments, which seemed to
consist solely of a magnifying glass and a daddy long legs.
My mom and Aunt Nancy stand in the sharp morning sun, talking about the boring drive
and what’s for lunch.

"Let’s go to the hayloft," I say. We run, because you never walk anywhere when you’re 9.

We climb up the rickety two by fours to the hayloft, located in the big barn. The air up
here is sweet and sticky and 10 degrees warmer than outside. There is only one tiny window at
the peak of the roof, nearly 20 feet above us, so the air inside is still as water. We find some cats
in a little nest in one corner of the hayloft, snoozing in the sun. Aren’t they hot in all that fur? I
spot my grey and white kitty in the downy mix. As she sleeps her long, dainty paws twitch in the sun. I sit next to her on a hay bale and rub her exposed white belly.

She opens her yellow eyes and immediately hisses at me.
Then she bats at me with an exposed claw.
Kelly gasps as I snatch my hand away; a thread of red appears on my arm.
This is not the kitty she was a few weeks ago. There’s something weird in her yellow eyes
that creeps me out. Plus, she’s huge. I am undeterred.
We regard each other, Sudsy and I.
I lunge to pick her up and she leaps up to the highest perch, scaling the bales like a
mountain goat. Then, as Kelly and I watch, she scampers across the hay and disappears down the hole cut out in the floor where the ladder peeks up.
Kelly and I fly down the hole and the chase is on.
The dogs, Agatha Christie and Charlie, sense the commotion and get into the act, chasing
and barking at Kelly and me, while Sudsy barely stays in our sight. She maniacally runs through a farm obstacle course, over a combine, under a tractor, through the yard and straight up the skinny pine tree that is in the middle of the property. By the time Kelly and I and the dogs in tow reach the foot of the tree, Sudsy is 30 feet up. We squint into the sun and call for the cat to come down.
Sudsy turns her yellow eyes at us, hisses nastily, and runs up another 5 feet. Now she is
lost in the thick branches. We slump beneath the tree and sigh, sweaty from the ordeal. The moms watch silently as the dogs circle the tree, whining.
Other cats in this tree have not been so lucky. One was shot out of the tree like a slingshot
(clothesline tied to the Impala, a bent tree), and one was scared down by a raccoon. Sudsy retreats hours later when I come out with the scraps. I swear her tail is between her legs.

I took home the kitty the next day and renamed her Muffin. She spent a few years in
domestic bliss but never really acclimated. She was relocated to a farm in Minnesota, where she
was Queen of the Barn. She even outlived my mother, who of course was right. You can’t feed
salmon to a cat who prefers scraps.