To-Do List

11 Things Every Minnesotan Should Try in 2011.

Now everyone come visit me so we can check some of these puppies off this list.

JOY

As I recover from my annual knock-me-on-my-ass cold and finish thank-you notes from the holidays, I've been reflecting on the holiday season that was actually packed with lovely things...

On Christmas Eve I got to have brunch with Mami, liquor shop with my Dad, and see my original nugget, home from teaching and selling cheese in NOLA.  On Christmas my parents and I went to a really good movie, did some decorating, and opened some presents.  That evening we hung out with our second immediate family and their extended family for lots of food and gab.  Later I went to a bar two blocks away for a major high school flashback (plus more drinking legally minus making out in bathrooms).  Even later that night  I came as close to fulfilling a freshman fantasy as you can without ruining it.

The next day we had our 3rd annual party and it was a doozy.  I felt a little extra pressure to make sure it was one people talked about until next year because Megan is overseas and I wanted to make her proud, plus some lovely sisters even came down from Minny just for the occasion.  I think I succeeded; the number of people that tell me they look forward to the party more than the actual holiday supports this, as well as the number of people that slept on various surfaces around my parents house that night after playing games until 5am that are always a bad idea except for when you're drunk enough.  (We were.)

I stuck around town a few extra days to hang out with some snowed in East-Coasters, and it meant more quality time all around, especially with my parents and miniature people.  (See below.)

To top it all off, I got to go to New York for one of my besties 30th birthday party a couple of weeks later, thanks to the generosity and airline miles of a dear friend.  It was, as Tommy put it, one of the "Top 5 epic weekends".  Truly.  Complete with margaritas and whiskey all over Brooklyn, speeding cabs in the snow, making friends with Australian strangers, karaoke in more than one private room, discovering that bar time isn't until almost dawn (with the drawback that you can't get pizza in Brooklyn at almost dawn), one cousin, one favorite musician, one really Bad Kitty, some of the best friends that the universe has ever beheld, and last but certainly not least a big Packer win celebrated with a bunch of fellow cheeseheads plus my new future ex-husband who doesn't know it yet.

Some select moments that make me happy all over:

Which one is my mother?  Sometimes we can't tell:

Another Big and Mini that I love:

 

Epic Morning After brunch:

 

2nd Day of Recovery Lunch:

 

In this picture there are two of the best friends anyone could ask for (who also happen to be sisters), three glasses of wine (out of the shot), one baby whom I love, and one puffer fish bath toy:

"I will buy you beer one day...":

Rachel's favorite French beer to start NYE:

New Year's Day Roses and Champagne:

Somebody's afraid of heights...

Bad Kitty...

"And maybe be your baby tonight...":

"Maybe be my baby tonight..." from Caitlin Scanlon on Vimeo.



I sort of want to live in Tommy's video of his trip to WI:

Horray Wisconsin! from thomas schwenn on Vimeo.

I don't know what my first memory of my sister is, but I like to tell people it's the time when I was still a baby and she, a toddler, was holding me on her lap, and she leaned over as if to kiss me but instead bit my ear.  (She describes it now as if she meant to show me, her baby sister, affection, but was overcome by a wave of jealousy that somehow manifested into an ear bite.)

Megan is two years and twenty days older than me; she was born on my parents 10th wedding anniversary and I like to think many of her personality traits reflect the manner in which she was conceived:  planned, organized, calculated, logical...  (She will think I'm teasing there, but really, they are traits that I wish I carried more strongly.  Or at all.)  My growth spurt and puberty hit not long after hers did (I think because I was always trying to catch up and play with the big girls, maybe my body took a cue) and I used to make people guess who was older, and giggle with glee when they guessed me.  In reflection, I shouldn't have been surprised many years later when after a couple bottles of wine my sister mentioned casually how much she hated me in high school.  

Megan didn't go to college right away; instead, she went to South America and worked with orphans, learned Spanish, ate lots of street food, and got her first tattoo.  Then she went to college, which included a year in Africa as well as a return trip to Bolivia to research her undergraduate honors thesis, and graduated about six months before I did.  The years between then and now included two in the Peace Corps, three getting two masters degrees from an ivy-covered school in the Northeast, and lots of travel.

If Megan and I hadn't had Brendan to balance us out I think we may have actually hurt each other in middle or high school.  He was often a little shit, but he was our little shit, and we loved him more than anything, and that was often the one thing we knew we had in common.  The morning that Brendan died, and I called my sister after hanging up with my parents, knowing she already knew and dreading what we had to do, I remember holding on to the phone and listening to her sob and telling her I loved her over and over.  We knew from that moment that the only way to survive was together.  It still is, and we are, and we do.

Last Friday at 5 a.m. my parents and I put Megan on a bus to Chicago to get on a plane headed to Indonesia.  She'll be there a few months certainly, most likely a year or two, or more. She's in Jakarta now, I've gotten a text and a couple emails, and all is well.  I miss her terribly. 

The Day After Tomorrow

Less than 48 hours until I'm no longer a resident of California...

My room/house looks like a hurricane came through it, but its getting better.

I'm writing this from my knees.  My computer's here on the desk that will be picked up by movers tomorrow, and my chair is elsewhere.  I'm surrounded by clothes to take, clothes to pack, and clothes to donate.  CD's to sort through.  A few boxes of journals and letters that will come with us in the car.

"Us" is my sister and me.  We're going to go see the Grand Canyon this week; neither of us ever have.  We'll see a good amount of desert too, then we'll see lovelies in KC, then we'll pull into Minneapolis about a week from today.

I keep thinking about what's the same and what's different from when I did this the last time.  Almost everything is different, but yet here I am, surrounded by items, a car still to clean and route to plan, drinking coffee, listening to a mix of sappy country and angry rap music, thinking it's a beautiful day - just like I was three years and three months ago.

I'm not alone this time.  When I left Fayetteville I was gloriously alone and all was right.  As I leave Healdsburg I have Megan, and all is right. 

I've said goodbye slowly and quietly here.  One at a time.  I won't get to see everybody I'd like to say goodbye to before I leave this time.  Last time there were parties.  A few of them.  This time, I want a conversations, a glass of wine if there's time, and hugs.  I still cry a little but I know all is well.

It is indeed a beautiful day.

Warning

Do not tell me "I can't get you out of my head" if you want to be out of mine.
Especially when it's based on little more than a few hours and a healthy dose of chemistry.  Especially when preceded with the words "I don't know what you did to me but..."  Especially when certain specifics seem to align themselves just right, yet others seem so impossible.  Especially when I believe you actually have the will and the way to make it more than just potential, more then a far-off fantasy of maybe-one-more-night-together.

Scatterbrained

My mind is all over the place this week...

Americans who tried to take Haitian children across the border to a Dominican orphanage have been charged with abduction.  The whole story is creepy to me, especially that they keep saying they were just trying to do God's work, and that they're looking to God for a positive outcome.

I had weekends off last month and I've been using the time to get caught up with friends, take care of loose ends that have been dangling for months, and just cavorting and sin in general.  There's been a lot of eating, drinking, laughing.  It has felt really good, but as I start to get a little more focused and sober some of the questions I was dealing with before are coming back in even higher relief and with more urgency...
How can I trust my emotions?
How can I trust anybody else?
Where do I want to be?
What do I want to do?
How many rules will my moral compass allow me to break?
How much discreetness before it becomes secrecy, and how much secrecy before it becomes lying?

Oscar nominations were announced, and ever since I was a kid I've been a sucker for the Academy Awards.  I get excited for the nominations, and then I feel all this pressure to see movies before the awards.  I never see all the ones I want, yet I never let myself off the hook.  It's not even fun, yet I do it year after year.  Maybe it's residual Irish/German/Catholic guilt leftover from my parents generation.  The same guilt that gets me when I'm late in Thank-You notes, when I don't call my parents back, when I think about my messy room...

We got ducks last week.  A neighbor winery was diverging of it's assets, and Colleen said we'd take the ducks.  She and I hopped in the Element with some boxes and came back six ducks and a bunch of duck poop heavier.  They are massive - I was worried about them in with the chickens but they're about as big as the rooster so not so worried anymore.  Today's the first day they're waddling around outside the pen.  At first I felt a little emotional about them, they've got such cute quacks, but now I'm totally ok with the foie gras and confit that is to come.

I have learned some intimate things in the past month about myself, and about some others in my life, all whom I consider to be at the very least close friends.  It has been entertaining, and educational, and a little emotional.  (Hey look at that!  Three E's.)   I wish I could share more but I can't until I get it all a little bit more sorted out in my own head.  Lesson - keep yourself open to learning from those that you think you know already.  The universe has surprises for all of us, and some of them are bound to be good.

New York Winter Adventure pt. 1

I'm in New York City!

It took a short and beautiful plane ride from Chicago (of course, after having to come to and from the west coast everything feels short)...

We arrived last night and opted for the bus rather than taxi to Megan's apartment in Morningside.  That was the first great decision of the trip, for a few reasons:
-We spent about $2 each (or for me, nothing, because it was the first swipe of my one-week-unlimited Metro Pass that was my Christmas gift from sister) rather than the $30 we would have spent on a cab.
-Our luggage was easily manageable and I'm pushy enough that we snagged the one tiny luggage area on the city bus.
-We were packed tightly into a space full of people from completely different places doing completely different things, and we all managed to get along just fine to get where we wanted to be.  That is being in a city, and it was perfect.
-I got a seat offered to me (by a young loud friendly Puerto Rican man), and then, I got to offer a seat to somebody (an elder, friendly gentleman from Chicago).

We got to the apartment about 8pm, freshened up, lounged around, I started to rearrange Megan's room (the beginning of a bigger project that I will finish by the time I leave in five days), I called a few of my New York based friends to "trumpet my arrival" (yes, I'm quoting me), and we wrapped up to hit the streets.  We had to come back a few times because I needed a hat, then a pen, and then we were on our way.
Where were we walking to at 10:30pm?  ANYWHERE!  Why?  BECAUSE WE COULD!  The noises of the city gave me energy and I could have skipped down Broadway, although it may have warrented some looks from the security guards sprinkled about the Columbia/Barnard campus.  (There were plenty of NYPD about too, but I doubt they would have looked sideways.)

We made quick detour onto Columbia campus - so pretty!  So important!  So twinkly!  - and exited just in time before Megan made her standard "Ivy League is Bullsh*t!" comment to continue down Broadway.  (She can say that, she's an Ivy Leaguer.)

We walked and walked as it snowed and people happily made their way in and out of bars and restaurants around us.  Even a few people asking for change wished us a happy new year.  Our destination turned out to be a Chinese restaurant that not only has tasty and cheap food, but unlimited free wine with dinner.  It's white and sweet and says Franzia, but did I mention free?  We left full and drunk for around $30.

We crossed the street, bought bagels for this morning, and headed north already looking forward to today.
Today we lounge (as I write this, lounging), mani-pedi, grocery shop, cook dinner for a group of friends, then... KARAOKE.

All The Way Home and Back Again

A lot of things have been happening and I feel like I am having a hard time catching up...

Ted Kennedy died last week. One of my first memories of my father crying had something to do with Robert Kennedy. There are countless Kennedy books on my parents bookshelves, and I've stood at JFK's Eternal Flame with my father more than a couple times to pay our respects and shed our tears for could have been. I didn't read the articles the day Edward Kennedy died nor have I watched the President's eulogy, nor did I spring for the $10 Newsweek Special Commemorative Edition... it's all happened to fast and I want to give it due time and reflect properly but it's been a week and it's getting ahead of me.

I was in Wisconsin for almost 80 hours last weekend, Madison for most of it. I walked through my high school for the first time in almost a decade and was impressed with how clean it was yet how it had only seemed to change in insignificant surface ways. I walked through with my father to see an art show of my brothers work that he did as himself and as Solve, curated in by my mother and cousin in the gallery in the high school that he almost didn't graduate from.

It was unseasonably cold but sunny and beautiful all weekend. Friday night there was an unexpected thunderstorm that I got to feel start standing on my parents front porch with a glass of whiskey in my hand and the arms of a man around me.

I found out one of my oldest and best friends is having a baby, I cried when she told me and when I saw a photo of the sonogram.

I went to the farmers market with my sister and we bought coffee, cheese curds, tomatoes, and pastries full of carbohydrates because she said that was the only thing she really wanted.

I saw my cousin get married on Saturday with almost my whole family and it was a fabulous party, complete with a wardrobe malfunction (mine), a drunk best man that quoted Macbeth and called me a bitch in the same breath (which he was quite proud of), a speech from the father-of-the-groom that brought everyone to tears, first in laughter then not, and a bad ass first dance.
Most of us drank a little too much but as always we had not nearly enough time together, and it made me want to do it all over again next weekend, and not just for the generous open bar. My family is just... well, they are amazing. Everyone thinks so. And now they've started placing bets on who will be the next cousin to get hitched.

Sunday I went to a movie. It was totally unplanned and not a movie I would have seen by myself but I was invited and I went and it actually felt like a proper and wonderful date. It was a perfect Sunday afternoon and then we met my family to eat food from the festival that happens every year in the park across the street from my parents house.

My sister slept off the fever she'd had for a day and a half by Monday morning, and we bought coffee and t-shirts from the closest coffee shop to my parents house, then walked the mile and a half downtown to see the show in honor of my brother downtown. My Dad bought us some of my favorite sandwiches on the way to my airport.

Before I knew it I was back in California. I had a scratchy throat and I cried to my sister on my two hour drive from the airport to home about not knowing what I wanted to do with my life. Then I got home and my aunt and uncle were happy to see me and I felt like I was home, and the dogs wagged their tails.

Yesterday I worked for around ten hours and today my throat's still scratchy. I have not yet blocked off time to read about Ted Kennedy, although I did manage to unpack my over packed carry-on suitcase.

Girl After My Own Heart

My beautiful young cousin Annie has decided to leave the country and go to China to teach English for (at least) a year since she's got the travel bug bad and she just graduated college and job offers aren't abundant over here. She's the younger sister of two brothers in that family and I would venture to say the favorite child (sorry Mike and Danny, I calls it like I sees it.)

She made a stop in California last weekend on her way out of the country so our family's representatives on the west coast got to see her for a couple days. I especially got to get some quality time in before she left and only teared up a little after dropping her off with our other aunt. (This is not being overemotional as I did practically raise her, after all.)

While everyone is proud of and excited for her, there was also some sadness to see her go and a little nervousness at the remoteness and mystery of her destination. (The city she is assigned has reportedly almost 5 million residents, yet no listing in the Lonely Planet. A few lines on Wikipedia. This seems odd.)

Needless to say I was happy and relieved to see her online the other day and we chatted for a bit and she was safe and sound in the city she was going to be in for about a week before she went on to the mystery city. She had spent the night in a South Korean airport, was sleeping on a bed with no mattress, and still hadn't heard much about her final destination but was all in all excited and comfortable.

A small portion of our conversation:

Annie: im actually trying to decide between staying in xian and going to the mystery city right now
Caitlin: how's that going?
Caitlin: any more on the mystery city?
Annie: just that its "very traditional"
Annie: "NOT modern"
Caitlin: huh
Caitlin: i mean, they've seen whities, right
Annie: i dont know, as compared with shanghai or beijing it sounds like a relatively reasonable alternative
Annie: but xian is small enough that its not terribly polluted but there are a ton of fun options
Caitlin: hmmmmmm
Annie: apaprently jian, despite the size, has a pretty good chance of just having nothing there
Annie: which would be interesting
Caitlin: totally
Caitlin: i don't know annie, you've got a good amount of mountain goat in you
Caitlin: if anyone could dig that it'd be you
Annie: but i really want to learn mandarin, and being a female in such a "traditional" place could mean that i am not allowed to have a social life
Annie: haha, true story
Caitlin: i mean, they've seen whitie before, right?
Annie: apparently at least one
Caitlin: and?
Caitlin: was it male or female
Annie: but i dont get the feeling they are used to them or that they would be ready for a white woman like me
Caitlin: ha
Annie: i feel like in rural, traditional china drunk american girls are frowned upon
Caitlin: LOL
Caitlin: i love you
Caitlin: girl after my own heart