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.

What Does Bottom Look Like?

Does it look like being drunk in more than one bar with less than 3 other people in each of them in one night?  (I'm not counting the dog.)

Does it look like texting your ex (from memory since you'd deleted his number more times than you can count) and then proceeding to text him meaner and meaner things until you find yourself having to text an apology the next day?  (Even though you had erased all evidence, other than a snapshot of some of the really nice things he was texting back to you.)

Does it look like texting your current very complicated crush at 3am his time that you 'need to talk'?

Does it look like seriously considering making out with a man whose girlfriend you had met not but one hour earlier, because he told his friend he thought your were hot?

Does it look like scolding the friend, who also is your friends boyfriend, for trying to hook you up with him, when in fact it was you who told him to do it?

Does it look like accepting a trip back to the bar to drive by to see if the attractive man that was sitting there when I left to chase taken tail was still sitting there?

Does it look like discovering about forty fuzzy photos on your phone of you trying to get a cute picture holding the puppy, and having no recollection of it?

Or maybe, does it look like all these things combined?


Just wondering.

Pizza, Brooklyn, and Jameson Oh My! (or Goodbye NY: My East Coast excursion comes to a close, NY Winter Adventure pt. 6)

Wednesday was my last day in the hood, and rather than push it just to make sure we fit in a museum while I was there, we relaxed and walked a lot and talked a lot and made it one helluva last day.

We had pizza, which Megan was insistent on (after our food tour and not doing pizza OR hot dogs she still felt she hadn't fulfilled her New York hosting duties).  It was good.  I shamefully could not finish my piece.  I knew we were going to a pot luck within a few hours and I didn't want to shame myself again in front of more than Megan by not eating there.

We went to visit an adorable new deli and specialty shop that we sell some oil and vinegar to, to check it out, meet the chefs, and buy some goodies for the aforementioned pot luck.  Torrisi Italian Specialties is warm, inviting, adorable, and has salami in the window.  If you find yourself with access to Mulberry and Prince in Nolita you must go, and eat something.  Anything.  It's delicious.

After a hit of shopping in Soho we hit the subway and landed in Brooklyn.  We had a couple beers with Kryn, who grew up across the park from us in Madison and I hadn't seen in too many years, and then headed to Tommy, Hannah, and Jen's for what would be one unexpectedly boozy pot luck welcoming Fuzzy back for a visit.

(A little background - Tommy's been one of my best friends since we met in the dorms the first week our freshman year in college.  He's a master of friend mashing - as in, so many people have met because/through him we could start a cult.  How many people I have specifically because of him is a blog for another time, but I will say that good people tend to attract good people, this rule applies to Tommy, and Tommy's one of the best.)

It was a fantastic night.  There was a scrumptious spread of a ton of cheese, some Torrisi goodies, taco dip, polenta somethings, wine, and lots oh lots of Jameson which we started enjoying with Hannah's hot toddy concoction, and then went on the rocks after we ran out.  Needless to say the night got progressively more fuzzy, but some of the topics we covered:
Jersey Shore
Felatio
Blogs before blogging was the thing
Frat boys
Freshman slutties
Jersey Shore
Man stank v. stank
Man stank in contrast to weed smell
Smoking
Titanic (the movie not the boat)
Jersey Shore
Madison High School Girls Swimming 1992-2007
Advertising
Reese Witherspoon's high level of bitchiness

Scary baby dancing:

Still life of whiskey and Tommy's face:

Middle School Dancing!

Megan and I got home late and got very little sleep before we got up to get me to the airport in the morning.  I was exhausted for days, but it was beyond worth it.  The trip was fabulous.  I would not have changed a thing, other than to have more time.  I can't wait to go back.

Cheers

Every once in a while, it feels really good to get really drunk and loud and maybe make some bad decisions and wake up with some bruises.
Not all the time, because then you're just a mess. Just enough to work the kinks out and remember what a hangover feels like, and maybe prove to your rapidly aging self that you can still function relatively well on small amounts of alcohol induced sleep.
Now where the f*$& is the aspirin.

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.

Djibouti Independence Day!

I turned another year older a couple days ago, and I could not have asked for a more perfect weekend. I started 28 on a wave of love and joy, filled with intense gratitude and wondering how the hell I got so lucky.

I did the farmers market on Saturday morning, and some farmers and chefs started the day of well by giving me arugula, basil, tomatoes, pizza dough, and fresh mozzarella to enjoy for my birthday.
Friends arrived to the farm mid afternoon and we played in the pool with drinks and music for the rest of the day. (Lesson - if you want to get people to get to know each other quickly, throw them in swimsuits on a hot day with lots of beer and music, and make sure a few of them are from the midwest [more on that later]. Inevitable friends.)

Aunt and Uncle spearheaded dinner, which started with brick oven pizzas (with fresh eggs on top), cheeeeeeeese, and favas, had roasted chickens and veggies from the markets in the middle, and ended with a smorgasbord of desserts including lemon bars, some ridiculous pie bars, cookies, and s'mores cupcakes. Uncle started the dinner almost making me cry by toasting me with a 1981 Chateau Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande (I know that because I now have the bottle sitting right next to me on my desk. It looks important.)

Then I opened up some presents (Presents!!!) that were lovely, including a shoe necklace from the Met in NYC, a series of singing lessons (singing lessons!!! And I thought Auntie wasn't paying attention to me in the car...), pretty smelling things, books, lottery tickets, and a handmade card.

I got to listen to a few amazing save-worthy voicemails, including a birthday-version of "You are My Sunshine." The night ended with me so full, so happy, and so so grateful. I woke up to a hot gorgeous day, a run, coffee, goodies, brunch, and the Sunday paper with some lovelies. It's gonna be really hard to top 28, and that's a really good place to be.

Some moments...

"Making Mom's Proud Since 1980"

Num Nums

More Num Nums

Aftermath... (This was after a bunch of clean-up)

I woke up to Lilly's adorable feet. It was 7am Sunday morning and I woke up with "Push It" in my head, giggled and tried in vain to wake anybody else up, and took this picture instead.

Bananie

When I was in Kansas City over a weekend a little while back with a big chunk of my huge extended and adopted family, I spent most of the first day and night laughing at things coming out of my cousin Annie's mouth.

Although I am easily entertained and still find fart jokes pretty funny, this night also included at some point our youngest uncle deciding, since we were raiding his liquor cabinet anyway, to just set up a whole whiskey tasting extravaganza for about seven of us ranging from ages 19-30.
Absinthe however after about 5 'tastes' of different whiskeys is something I won't mind not repeating but boy did I feel good.

Annie is almost exactly six years younger than me and we grew up about a mile apart, and since I remember her being born AND worked as her 'nanny' for about a summer and half when I was in high school, I feel totally justified in claiming responsibility for 'basically raising her'. I coined that phrase over these last holidays during one of the first times we were in a bar legally together and I walked in and announced to her that "Mommy's gonna get drunk tonight" after which I proceeded to drink liquor at an exceedingly fast pace, cheered on by Annie, my sister, and a group of friends, until I found myself (along with everyone else) leaving Annie at the bar and going home to lock myself in the bathroom wondering why a tweezers wouldn't hold my hair up on my head, while Annie continued to drink bad tequila in my parents kitchen with a friend of ours.

Since that night, and since I told her parents that story complete with me claiming rearing responsibility and they found it hilarious, I try to work "I basically raised you" into almost any conversation I have with Annie.

I was railing on her about something that I was not proud of her for, like, having to leave Kansas City too early, or, maybe, not drinking something I wanted her to (frankly, I have no recollection what it was but those are two good guesses) and I said, "You are no child of mine!" to which she responded, and I know because I took this down word for word,
"You cannot just toss me and claim me at your will! I will not be that for you!"

Now, I understand this might very well be one of those you-had-to-be-there moments. However, just imagine how Annie, every time I say I may have had something to do with bringing her up, basically rolls her eyes and maybe squeezes out a chuckle for my sake. So for her to react with such endearing passion just about made me wanna weep, but I was too busy holding my pee in from laughing too hard.














Caitlin & Annie, 1990ish. Shortly before the jagerbombs.

Extravaganza En Memoriam

Tonight I'm presenting my 'story' at my grief group therapy. This is our opportunity to tell the group about the life of the person who died, not just as defined by their death. After going through photos, letters, a DVD, and websites to decided how to piece together my presentation I get that this is a bigger exercise than just talking to 8 other people for half an hour (which I could do without any preparation.)

I was nervous about doing the presentation this week because I was in Kansas City last Thursday through Monday to be at an opening of an art show in honor of Brendan. My aunt, an artist, wife, and mother of two young children, put together a show that spans two galleries, includes artists from multiple cities and genres, and whose opening included several live music performers, fire jugglers, mimes, tightrope walkers, acrobats, live art, and one hell of an after-party. There was something around 30 of our family around for this opening (I'm including a horde of artists from Chicago that made the trip in this number), and most of us were sleeping at various spots in my aunt and uncles home.
(**Note: this trip also includes stories of father wearing a feather boa, happy meals in a minivan full of adults, waking up in an art studio, having a hand catch my head before it hit the pillow, whiskey tasting, going public art spotting with a 4-year-old, a man in a striped spandex body suit, and a dog on valium, but more on all that later.)

The show included an installation of Brendan. It was a life-size figure of him, made from his clothing, with arms upstreched, and art and possesions surrounding him. I have yet to find the right words to describe the power of this piece. And it had tangible power, presence... the artist who created it had never met my brother but says he feels like he's gotten to know him. He spent time with him, he drank with him, he talked to him. Maybe all this energy, the power, some how took residence in this beautiful corner where Brendan is on display, because it is undeniable. Everyone who knew him was speechless (for a moment; my family doesn't stay quiet for long) and even those who didn't remarked upon the power of this piece.

Contrary to what I had worried, this week is actually ideal for me to give my presentation on Brendan to my grief group. All weekend was literally a celebration of him and what he loved, and it was fun. I am incredibly lucky to have the family that I do, and every time there is a gathering it is reinforced. I cannot think of one thing that I would have changed, other than having it last longer and having a couple family members that couldn't make it be able to. There was lots and lots of art, beer, conversation, meeting other artists, food. And Brendan was there. At moments I felt the incredible pain of his physical absence, but I was able to look around me and see an amazing legacy. This doesn't make it better, but it means that I will survive and that people will not forget, and that is everything.

As I talk to eight other people in grief tonight about my huge little brother, the most important thing I can say is that he continues to inspire people. When I talk about the blonde troublesome loud baby who I loved more than anything, it is one and the same with the 6'7" loud artist who became a legend for his style, talent, and persistence.

Letter to My Brother

March 20, 2009

Dear Brendan,

Happy Birthday. You would have turned 25 today.
It falls on a Friday this year, and I think you would have made a party out of it. Last year on your birthday you played in a show and you posted a comment to me about it. I remember saying something like, "Man I would love to but it's gonna be tough to get to from California." You'd probably do something much the same this year, drink some beer, maybe play some music. I'd call you at some point during the day and I'd do that creepy happy birthday singing thing I like to do to you and Megan to creep you out and make you laugh because I keep it going just long enough to make it awkward. You'd answer the phone saying, "Hiiii Sister!" because that's what you did, to both Megan and I and man I know we both loved it. You were our baby and you really could do no wrong. I know you'd have friends around you to celebrate and you'd probably get drunk and stay out late putting stickers all over your city. At some point today you'd probably think about the fact that you are a quarter of a century old now (because I'm sure that's how dad would remark upon that milestone). I'd probably tease you about being closer to 30 than 20, and then make it about me by whining about how I can't believe my little brother is so big and grown up. Your hair would have noticeably receded by now so I'm sure I would tease you about that too, because I could, because I'm your big sister and that's my right.
So Happy Birthday Brendan. I can't believe how old we're getting. I can't believe you're gone.

Love,

Your little big sister, Caitlin

Brooklyn Breakfast

This article highlighting (among other things) locally hand made chocolate, pickles, AND cheese was the first thing I read this morning with my coffee. It made me really happy, and really want to visit Brooklyn. One of my favorite people ever lives there so I'm overdue for a visit anyway, but really, "...superbly light ricotta"? That sounds like a little piece of heaven.

Read it and see if you don't get hungry. (Or thirsty - they talk about some delicious sounding beer too, and I am a big fan of beer in the morning.)



(Photos copyright The New York Times)