Ks Are Wild

Ever had one of those less-than-stellar parental moments when perhaps you’re standing in the kitchen working on dinner, waiting for your spouse to return from work, and muttering to yourself about your kids driving you nuts and just when you’re about to freak out and blow your top and do – you scream at the kids in the other room, “That’s IT!!!!  I’ve had it!!!!” only to hear happy cries of “Daddy!!!” (who must’ve just walked in the door but you didn’t hear the door open because you were too busy losing your temper), and the radio goes silent as it switches to a new song, which distracts your brain from its tantrum long enough for you to notice what the new song is and comprehend the lyrics in a whole new way?  And then it makes you feel sorry, ashamed, and foolish enough to chuckle at yourself and then go apologize to your kids?

Well, I did.  Just yesterday in fact.   And this was the song that was the comedic ice breaker:

Lyrics to “Undun” by The Guess Who

She’s come undun
She didn’t know what she was headed for
And when I found what she was headed for
It was too late

She’s come undun
She found a mountain that was far too high
And when she found out she couldn’t fly
It was too late

It’s too late
She’s gone too far
She’s lost the sun

She’s come undun
She wanted truth but all she got was lies
Came the time to realize
And it was too late

She’s come undun
She didn’t know what she was headed for
And when I found what she was headed for
Mama, it was too late

It’s too late
She’s gone too far
She’s lost the sun
She’s come undun

Too many mountains, and not enough stairs to climb
Too many churches and not enough truth
Too many people and not enough eyes to see
Too many lives to lead and not enough time

It’s too late
She’s gone too far
She’s lost the sun

She’s come undun
Doe-doe-doe-doe-doe doe un doe-doe-doe un doe-doe-doe
Doe doe-doe-doe-doe un doe-doe-doe doe-doe-doe
Doe doe-doe-doe doe doe-doe-doe doe doe

—— flute ——

It’s too late
She’s gone too far
She’s lost the sun

She’s come undun
She didn’t know what she was headed for
And when I found what she was headed for
It was too late

She’s come undun
She found a mountain that was far too high
And when she found out she couldn’t fly
Mama, it was too late

It’s too late
She’s gone too far
She’s lost the sun

She’s come undun
No no-no-no-no-no no
Doe doe doe-doe

On the flipside, I handled a very similar moment to this comic strip the other night much better than my aforementioned breakdown.  After being awoken in the middle of the night to tend to Kellen’s growing pains (this entails Ibuprofen, Ben Gay type substance massaged into legs and sometimes arms, and nuking a sand/rice hull heating pad in the microwave).   I had been enjoying this quiet, private, very sweet, tender moment with my son whereupon many kisses and lovey dovey words were exchanged and had turned to leave when Kellen suddenly cried out with great urgency, “WAIT!!!”  Startled, I asked him what was the matter.  The reply and subsequent interchange went something like this:

Kellen:  I have something important to ask you.

Me: Yeeees?  (thinkingto myself:  What on earth could it possibly be?  That’s so urgent and so important to know right now at 2 am?!!)

Kellen:  How do you make pizza?

Me:  Giggle, giggle, snort, tear, tee hee…  I love you Kellen.  I’ll show you tomorrow.  You can help me make it for dinner.

Kellen:  Ok.  Mom, will you get off my blanket?  I want to sleep now.

Me: Ok.  Giggle.  You are too cute, Little Man.  Sweet Dreams.

(door closes)  Man, I wish Kham was awake so I can tell him that one!!!

Compared to Kosette’s thought-provoking but taxing and loaded questions of late like “Who and why was the earth created?  And why does Mother Earth give me headaches?  Why did Mother Earth make me so short when you’re so tall?  And why would someone want to kill themselves?” it was a relief to get a question I could answer without having to think so hard and answer so carefully.  Ah, my children amuse me so much.  Think I’ll keep them around a little longer.  <Wink>

No posts because I couldn’t find my password to update my new computer.  Too stubborn to reset the password because I knew I’d find it.  Finally surrendered and came up with a new one.  Feeling a bit sheepish about it.

I just wrote a very lovely post about Kellen and his birthday party.  You won’t be reading that because this *&*^#^#(*&&$*&& just reset as I was hitting publish so it is all lost.  ARG!!!!!!!!!!!!   Now all I’m going to say is Kellen turned five this week and we’re throwing him his very first birthday party tomorrow.  So I’ve been busy, and will be extremely so today, readying the house and stuff for it.  Maybe I’ll even sew him a costume if I have time.  Yes, it is themed.  Yes, I’m going all out like I did with Kosette’s 5th, Fairy themed.  I don’t even know if more than 2 kids are coming at this point which is frustrating.  Could be a potential of 12.  That’s a wide margin of absences/attendees to plan for.

I’m happy for Kellen who is so excited….he has been counting the days, and now is counting down the hours.  His sister demands so much of the attention around here, that I look forward to him having the chance to shine and hog our focus for a day.  We will be his minions, as is your due when it’s your birthday dontcha think?

This is now an older story (from the beginning of the school year but it’s still cute so I’m going to tell it anyway).

Kosette’s first days of school didn’t quite go as anticipated.  She sighed dramatically when asked about school, “I don’t want to talk about it.”  More prompting from me.  “Booooooorrrrrriiiiiiiinnnnnnggg  All they do is read and write!!  All day long.  Write, write, write.”

She switched the next day from being the excited, never-look-back girl (I kid you not – preschool and kindergarten she disappeared and wanted me to do the same when emotional mommy went back in to get her last hug), to dragging her heels and asking if she had to go.  It was sad to see, actually.  Really, I think it was just her getting used to that transition from super-fun low-expectations lots of music to having to do actual work.  This continued on for weeks.  I was beginning to get nervous.

But then, one day, while talking to Kellen in the bathtub, Kham overheard her say that she “I’m in love with Parker”.  I was sitting at the computer just a room a way with the door open and that made me stop in my tracks.  Kham asked my question, “What did you just say?”  “That I love a boy.”  Well I just had to come down the hallway for this little conversation.  “Of course you do, honey.  Kellen is your brother.  He’s family.  You can LOVE family.  But “love” is a very strong word and it’s not something that we want to throw around and waste on just anyone.   Wait until you think this might be the one you marry and you have to be at least 25.  But you can say ‘I LIKE Parker’.  That’s okay.  So…who is Parker.”  Turns out he’s a 5th grader!!!!!  Ruh-Roh!   If she’s anything like her mommy, we’re in trouble.  Next thing I knew she was excited to go to school again….to see Parker.  She actually saved her chocolate square of dessert and put it in her bookbag to give to Parker.  Ack!

I had one of these moments when I heard the initial bathtub love disclosure:

I wish someone had uploaded a bigger clip of the scene, but you can seen what I’m talking about.

Father of the Bride – Another movie I love.  The house looks like mine growing up, the yard, the neighborhood, the crazy outgoing Dad named George who loves his daughter and family and home to death and wants to see their dreams come true, and loves spoiling them with family experiences like concert tickets.  I’m going to have to watch that again.  Too bad it’s on VHS.  I don’t even know if my machine works up here anymore.  It groans like it needs to be “put down” like a horse.

Anyhooo, it was Parker this and Parker that for months!  Kham actually met the dude for a second.  Said he had a swarm of little girl followers.  Weird.  What Kosette has said, what little info. she’s revealed hasn’t necessarily yielded the best picture, but she’s not exactly someone you’d go for for a whole story.  Anyway, it gaves us a quick heart attack and an early taste of our future life of wanting to check this guy out.  I gave the quick, “whatever you do don’t poo–poo the guy off the bat or she’ll just rebel” speech.  Daddy might be the cool one now, but mommy might have to be the mediator when we hit the day-to-day stuff in teenager-ville.

For now, I’m going to soothe those nerves with memories of her saying “bemember” for remember tonight.  She’s still just 6, she’s just six, just six, 4 more years until the crazies begin.  I had better enjoy and document them more while they last.  Kosette’s first crush = Parker.  Whoever he is.  I should have somebody point him out to me one day.

As I blast through my old drafts, I see that I didn’t follow-up on how Kosette’s and Mommy’s Night of Fun went, when we attended OSU’s production of Pirates of Penzance.  It was great fun for both of us.  She was so excited, ate her dinner speedily and with no whining so we could leave sooner.  She wanted to “dress up fancy” and borrow my pearls.  After having received a brand new fairy doll that day in the mail, she insisted that “Jasmine” come along too.  So off we went to OSU’s Whitycombe Hall theatre, just the two of us, dressed “fancy” (for Corvallis).

As we waited in line to pick up our tix from will-call, lots of people smiled as they spotted her, the only 6 year old in a crowd of grown-ups, “dressed up”, wearing her mommy’s pearls, clutching her fairy doll.  I got approving looks and nods from some of the older crowd as if they were telling me how great they thought it was that I was exposing a new generation to the pleasures of musicals and live theatre.  I was filled with pride; not with myself for the exposure, but because my daughter already had heard the music and WANTED to come; not HAD to come.  Once inside, and our seats found, Kosette grew quiet and she just looked all around, studying things.

I was dying to know what she was thinking but allowed her her moment to just sit, and absorb, and process this new experience.  Finally, I talked to her about what to do if she needed to use the restroom and refreshed her memory on what we had discussed in the car ride over about what was appropriate theatre behavior.  This talking jogged her into formulating questions from her observations from inside the theatre, and they just burst forth in an endless stream like water released from a dam.  It was fascinating and amusing to see what she had noticed, what made an impression on her, such as light placement, orchestra members, stagehands in black, people standing in the aisles and not sitting in their seats, and why she couldn’t talk but the annoying women to my right would not SHUT UP the whole time and spoke at full volume.

I think the funniest thing was that she seemed annoyed at the casting.  Clearly the male character with the Kevin Klin- like, Pirate King pants, and the brown hair should have been The Pirate King.  And Cedric was short and stout, not at all the pretty boy lead as cast in the film version.  The differences between the film and the stage production agitated her.

Despite the late hour, she stayed awake the entire time and made it to a block from home before she passed out in her carseat.  Kham met me at the driveway to help carry the sleeping girl since I was wearing super high heels.  I slipped her shoes off and tucked her into bed, pearls still on, with her hand on top of the covers still clasping the fairy doll.  I felt like I was in the scene in Annie when Daddy Warbucks and Grace return with the sleeping Annie from her first time at the movies and they change her into her nightgown and tuck her into bed, without disturbing her passed out slumber.  It was a sweet nightcap to a sweet night with my sweetie.  Daydream about having a daughter of my own #5: Take my daughter to her very first live production of a musical.  CHECK!!!

(…but not to smell the day after!!!!)  That’s the title of a children’s book I’ve been reading to the kids this season by Naomi Howland. 

It’s a revisionist story of the Grimms Bros. “The Magic Porridge Pot” set in a Russian Stetle.  The main character, Sadie, after being generous to an old woman is given a magic latke making skillet in return for her kindness.  But only SHE can say the magic words to turn it on “Latkes, Latkes Good to Eat. Cook me up a Chanukah Treat!” and off “A Great Miracle Happened Here!”  Trouble ensues when a mischievous little brother tries his hand at the pot.  I highly recommend the book.  Its illustrations and folk story stelling style are reminiscent of, and on par with, the legendary children’s book author Tomie dePaola.  (FYI – You should check out The Legend of the Poinsettia, a story from Mexico.  I hadn’t heard the old folk tale before, but I’ve always wondered why the Poinsettia plant became so associated with Christmas).

I like to read my kids a mix of seasonal books on traditions and different ways of practicing and/or celebrating different holidays and religions.  But I learned some new stuff this season.  I’m sure it’s pretty basic knowledge but for this goya, this book finally made the connection between latke consumption and Chanukah evident (It was the back information page).  So, I’m sure you know about the 8 nights of Chanukah and how they light the lamp (or candle) as a symbol for the miracle that occured in the synagogue with the lamp oil burning on for 8 whole days and nights instead of the projected 1.  Latkes are fried in oil.  To cook with great amounts of oil, i.e. fried, is also symbolic for the miracle.  I feel a little stupid for not ever linking those two things in my head before a children’s book had to point it out to me decades later.  It also reminded me that the four sides of the Dreidle are the first letters of that saying, a “Great Miracle Happened Here”.  Interesting to note, I thought, was that in Israel, their dreidles have a different last letter to stand for “HERE” and anywhere else in the world, like America, the dreidles have the letter that starts the word “There”, as in over there in the Holy Land.

My kids don’t like potatos, in any other way besides french fries.  I know!  Freaks!  Not mashed, not country fries, not scalloped, not in soups, not baked with lots of goodies…  It’s practically unamerican.  But this book got them excited about it.  Me too, for that matter.  Reading this over an over really got me jonesing for some latkes.  So, since I had that gigantic batch of fresh applesauce to use or freeze, potatoes, and sour cream to finish up, I figured the stars were aligned for some latke making.  I read the recipe in the back of the book, hopped online and read a bunch more, and then came up with my own.  It seemed simple enough.  Hot diggity dang!  They were good; especially with a wee bit of kosher salt sprinkled on top.  Little did I know that a lot of people fail at it; even accomplished cooks.   I discovered that afterwards when I read more about latke making.  I do know one thing though, buying quality, organic sour cream is absolutely worth the money.  It is so rich, dense, and creamy and tastes totally different from say, a generic store bought brand.  I would compare it with the difference from carrots fresh from your garden vs. old, stale, dried out, split, carrot stubs in a bag from Safeway – Night and Day people.  Night and day.  Do yourself a favor and splurge on that.

But, oy vey, today, I feel so ill because the house reeks of fried oil.  Bleh!  Really vomitous.  My biggest mistake was not closing off all bedroom doors beforehand.  That’s with doing the dishes right away and taking the oil outside.  I’ve sprayed Febreze through the fan intake, I’ve turned off the heat and opened all the windows for a cross ventilation, I’ve burned 7 sticks of incense but alas, it is still clinging to everything.  Anyone know any tricks?  I actually read on a site that they buy and toss disposable plastic ponchos each time they make them.  I was shocked at how wasteful that was.  My clothes are actually fine.  It’s the house that smells awful.

Mom, thanks for the book.

If the exclamation point didn’t cue you in, I am VERY excited about this. Just Mommy and daughter, wearing our fancy shoes, maybe a party dress, perhaps some gelato beforehand….

OSU Theatre is doing Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance, a musical both Kosette and I adore. The only other person I know of who likes it as much as I have, is my dear friend, Jenny. It was something we bonded over as college mates. I’ve found that there are many who claim to like musicals, but balk at those whose songs tend to be more operatic.  Jenny, you are a treasure to me.  I wish I had known you earlier in life.  Horses and Musicals – we were destined to become fast friends!!!  I wish you were coming with us.

I think with me, it was very much a case of being exposed to it so young. We had it (1980′s the version with Angela Lansbury, Linda Ronstadt, Rex Smith, and Kevin Kline) on our old Laser Disc system and my sister and I watched it almost as incessantly as Grease.

As I wrote in an earlier post, Kosette sings “Poor Wandering One” as “One Hundred One”. I’ve also noticed that she seems to be imitating my vibrato. It would be amusing if it wasn’t something that annoyed me about my own voice. I got teased for it growing up, especially by this girl in my Jr. High – Lisa Steckler. She wasn’t mean, or a bully or anything, she just was popular and very good at “bagging on” (playfully insulting or making of) people, so her zingers could really make you wince….

Wow, this is an old memory, but it’s very telling of what I was like growing up.  Lisa and I were walking over to 7-11 from my parents house and sang as we went along.  When we went under the freeway overpass and noticed the fantastic echo amidst the pigeons cooing and the cars whizzing past we couldn’t refrain from singing at the top of our lungs.  We barely knew any songs in common, so we took turns singing.  She sang a lot of New Kids on the Block, Boys II Men, and Milli Vanilli.  I sang, “Puerto Rico, you Ugly Island, Island of Tropic Diseases, Always the hurricanes blowing, always the population growing, and the babies crying, and the bullets flying.  I like the island Manhattan.  Smoke on your pipe, and put that in!  I like to be in America…” (That’s from West Side Story for those who don’t know.)   (It was not a popular move on my part to not be a New Kids fan.  My Jr. High years were the HEIGHT of that craze where birthday gift requests consisted of anything New Kids related.  In fact, I think Lisa was best known for her New Kids obsession.  I think she even had the sheet set.  But I just couldn’t fake it; not for her or for anybody.  I would have rather listened to something other than pop at that time; anything else or nothing at all.  And most of what I listened to during those years were Broadway tunes and Oldies.  Yeah, see the popularity hinderance?  I still couldn’t name any song by New Kids.)  Anyhow, she made fun of my “operatic” voice, even though I had actually tried to suppress the vibrato, and light-heartedly referred to me as Opera lady thereafter.  I swear I’ve been self-conscious of that vocal trait ever since.  That’s why I think I was so drawn to Pirates of Penzance…because my voice felt at home singing its songs.

And I loved the costumes.  I never could decide which color dress or shoes I would want to wear the most, or as little girls frequently mistake garb for identity; which girl I wanted to be.  I totally had a crush on Frederic and melted when he reached his high notes in “Is there not one maiden’s breast?”  And it’s the Pirates movie that made me love Kevin Kline.  As much as I appreciate his comedy in A Fish Called Wanda,

I think he’s a comedic genius as the Pirate King in Penzance.  I would’ve loved to put his film version of “I Am A Pirate King” but nobody has uploaded that yet.  Instead, here’s a snippet of “Paradox”:

I know I’ve posted this clip before, but, I can’t help it.  This and the scenes just prior are some of my favorites because you really get some good closeups of the girls’ dresses and shoes.  Plus, it’s the most fun for me to sing.

I want these nightgowns and robes.  Always have.  Wish I were a talented enough sewer.

I swear my singing voice is getting higher than when I was younger (especially when I’m nervous, then my vibrato is totally out of control) because I find I can sing all these parts I stretched at earlier, and it’s been a LONG time since I sang with any good, true, breathing discipline practice.

The only troubles I’m anticipating is Kosette not being able to see over the grown-ups’ heads, and keeping her from singing along in her seat.  This is such a momentous moment for me to be able to share this love of mine, with my daughter.  It really feels like one of those full circle big parent moments.  I know it was the kind I eagerly looked forward to as I awaited her birth.  I wish her Grandpa George and Auntie Kelli were able to come too.  They know what I’m feeling.  And I know Jenny gets it.

I sorta wish I could tell some of my old Jr. High (Laurel Hall) friends, because they REALLY would understand how big this is for me.  They were in choir, drama, and cheerleading with me.  They sang and danced with me at recess and camp.  We watched Aspects of Love at McKenzie’s birthday party, Into the Woods at J.J.’s, and Michael Pourcia and I sang and did a drama skit to “Part of Your World” our frosh year at NDHS.  Christie Nelson and I (sorry, it’s Christine now) sang every single word and part to Phantom of the Opera, The Sound of Music, and Les Miserables.  J.J. and I often sang The Little Mermaid and had Disney song-offs during our long car rides to Disneyland and Cheer Camp.  Wow, memories.  (Ladies, if you somehow stumble upon my blog, you are forever a part of my life and some of my most pleasant Jr. High memories.  Thank you.)  Come to think of it, I bet they’d be quite amused and unsurprised to hear that I named my daughter, “Kosette” (spelled with a “K” instead of a” C” of course).  Yep, Broadway madness was the my  Boy Band obsession equivalent.  In fact, I had a 5 disc cd changer and Les Mis and Phantom (both 2 discs) didn’t come out of their slots for at least a year.

Maybe I’ll get around to telling you how it went.

…of Canadian Geese.  It is a sound that halts my activity and tugs at those sentimental heart strings as I flash back to that magically intense first half year of mommyhood.

It was fall time in Elko, Nevada and Kosette was all of 3 or 4 months old max.  I’ll never forget waking up to the sound of ginormous multitudes of flocks of Canadian Geese migrating through the Ruby Mountain Range.  Evidently, we were a major resting point on their route.  It took me a few moments to figure out what had awoken me.  I thought, “Wow!  Canadian Goose alarm clock.  What an incredibly wonderful way to wake up in the morning.”   That’s a lot coming from this grumpy puss of an anti-morning person.  It sure beat the honks of the 134 freeway in LA that I was used to in my childhood home.

Kham was already at work and the grey light of morning slowly infiltrated our bedroom.  With my head still on my pillow I was able to watch the geese pattern the sky with their chevrons over the Ruby Mountain peaks which were ablur with the impressionistic blotches of fall colored trees like Quaking Aspen.  It was glacially formed and this was a place that got to negative 22-24 degrees and stayed that way for weeks!!

But the chilly looking hazed scene outside my window was the antithesis to the warm, snuggly scene inside my bedroom.  Our cats, Duncan and Little Girl, were earning their keep as my foot warmers.  Little baby Kosette was nestled right next to me, facing me, curled into me, and I around her like a human yin-yang symbol.  Such a hot sleeper she was and still is…a toasty ball of fire.  She must’ve heard the commotion in the sky as well because her eyes were opened wide, and she looked as if she was straining to hear and make sense of the sound.  Her little face turned to me as I peered down at her with a good morning smile.  Her oooohed lips quickly changed to the lip smacking kissing noises of a ravenous baby bird and her little body wiggled away trying get closer to breakfast.  Her hands and toes made contact with my skin which really sent her limbs aflailing in its physical expression of its desire to nurse.  And nurse she did; her rhythmic sucking and the quarternote honking of the geese sent us both off to dreamland once again.

I nursed her  many, many, MANY more times (she was an hourly nurser who didn’t like the bottle or formula!) to the accompaniment of Canadian Geese.  They were quiet, moments that I savored even then, knowing that they were the making of future cherished memories.  And they are…so cherished, so beloved.  So when I hear those honks, I’m right back in that bedroom,

Or in the quilt covered Papazon,

Or couch, or everywhere nursing….

looking at views like these from our windows:

experiencing the wonder of mommyhood and it’s many small delights….a time when it felt like it was just her and me, nestled in and hunkered down in our little place by the mountains,

waiting for Daddy to come home from his extremely long work days and regular overnights,

talking to her for company, saying “just us chickens,” getting used to our new roles in life, and figuring out our tricks and routines, doing nothing but being in the moment and being there for her every need and want, and being glad to do it…..HONK.

Sigh.

When she was a little older, I’d drive to the nearby park with a fishing pond and she’d get to toddle after them.

whether he’s complaining or about to launch into his preliminary defense of something that he is going to ask you for that he thinks you might say no to like “Since I was so good today and since I ate all my dinner…can I____________?” the pitch of his voice achieves this high whine.  It’s like his preemptive tantrum whine.  Anyway, when he hit those high notes last night, it triggered a memory in me – he sounds just like Beaker from The Muppet Show!  Then I stopped being agitated with his whining and started laughing…like, in his face.  Boy do kids hate it when you do that!  It just made him frantically amp it up into his whistle scale of whining which just made me hoot and holler even more to his great annoyance.  I know, I know I was a very unprofessional mommy.  But you try keeping a straight face when your son sounds like this!!!:

And just for kicks, Beaker sings “Mimi” aka “Feelings”:

Only as high as I reach can I grow.
Only as far as I seek can I go.
Only as deep as I look can I see.
Only as much as I dream can I be.
Reach high.
Seek far.
Look deep.
Dream much.

Sage advice and our well-wishes for you, our darling Kosette, on your first official day as a first grader! We love you!

Stopping to pose in our front before the mad dash drive to school.

Man, oh Man, do I love my brother.  I was really blessed with awesome siblings, it just took me until I graduated from High School to stop being petty and jealous an start appreciating my sister.  But my brother, Kalani, who is six years older than I were always tight and I worshiped him.  I wanted to learn about all the stuff he liked so that he’d let me hang around him more.  I think he genuinely enjoyed “teaching” me too – like how to climb a brick wall, chain link fence, punch, throw a ninja star, light a lighter, use hydrogen peroxide and Sun In on your hair, how to play PIT, how to boogie-board, this is Robotech, Piers Anthony, Depeche Mode, Samantha Fox, how to blow a giant bubble with Big League Chew, Star Wars, a Delorian, Star Trek the Next Generation, how to get to through the Dungeon levels on Super Mario Brothers, let me see the cover of a nudie mag, how to drive stick, he even was my guardian at the Renaissance Faire and I couldn’t be more than 20 feet from him at all times.  Alas, I wasn’t “in” enough to be welcome in his Dungeons and Dragons playing.  I was still the annoying little sister though, the one coming up with every excuse in the book to be able to knock on the teenager’s door to tell him dinner was ready, or mom wanted him, just to get him to open the door so I could see what he was doing.  And he’d open it, just wide enough to see one eyeball, and I’d strain past him to get glimpses into the forbidden zone.  I’d fetch stuff for him all the time.  I remember my mom telling him to get stuff for himself but I didn’t mind.  It was a free pass to leisurely explore his room as I made my way to the requested item.  I loved to touch his many-sided D&D die.  I browsed his tape collection, picked up nun-chucks to see how heavy they were, tried on his acid washed jean jacket, clicked his multi-colored pen, being very careful to place everything back exactly as I’d found it because I knew he would notice….It might as well have been a chapel with the deference I gave it; quiet, awe-struck, curious, reverent.

I felt special when I was with him.  He’d share things with me that he wouldn’t tell or show anyone else in our family.  He’d invite me in to the forbidden zone of his room and he’d help me with Math sometimes.  I’d time him on solving the rubix cube, or holding his breath at the bottom of the pool, or count as he added yet another Saltine cracker to the pile in his mouth at Bob’s Big Boy.  When I was bullied at school, I knew, at least he liked me and that he understood because he had his share of meanies growing up.

I just felt lit up and loved when he was around.  Although, he RARELY ever expressed or expresses those actual words.  When he went off to college in Colorado, I missed him terribly.  He gave me his childhood teddy bear for me to keep until he returned.  And even though I was in the 7th grade, I slept with that thing nightly.  He wrote me a letter on his college notebook that he sent back with my dad after helping him move that helped me through some of the anxiety I felt towards entering Jr. High with new kids.  Letters from Kalani are precious and few and I cherish that one the most.  And when he returned for summer break, he introduced me to Led Zepellin by playing “Stairway to Heaven” while we laid on the carpet and stared at the ceiling.  It was magical.

I guess there’s a lot I could attribute to Kalani’s influence: love of scifi and fantasy, a softspot in my heart and a tenderness towards “nerds”, love of 80s music, interest with the Renaissance Faire (where if I hadn’t gotten involved, I never would’ve met Kham and be where I am today), and a general love of all things Generation X (I’m the last year of that at 1977) – including “older” men like my husband, he-he.

And he’s fantastic with kids.

Kalani holding an infant Kellen at his wedding

Kalani and Jesse

But the bummer is that my kids barely know him ortheir Auntie Jesse because they rarely see or have much interaction with them.  I think that’s the crime of the century!  Kellen, in soooo many ways, reminds me of Kalani (and Kham’s brother Chris).  We joke that Chris had our naturalist/biologist son, and we had Chris and Kalani’s Engineering Techie son.  Well, we’re just going to have to foster his interests by sending him to Camp Kalani and Camp Chris.

The kids have been pumping me for info. on our relatives like what they did when they were little, what is their favorite _____(color? animal? candy bar? movie? musical? food?)? It’s been interesting because memories have surfaced from long ago and also, has shown me how much I’ve forgotten or don’t know about my own family that I know about my friends.  Kosette and Kellen just soak it all in and really latch onto stuff.  So when we went to the Benton County Fair last month and I saw Kellen’s fascination with the juggler, I told him that his Uncle Kalani could do that.  Their eyes widened in disbelief.

Kalani, part of the Juggling School, at 1997 So. Cal RenFaire

They thought I was kidding so I asked Kalani to send me a video clip of him juggling so they could see.  He did it within an hour of our phone call too.  It was awesome!  Those are the things that he does to show his love for people.  He might not say it or write it very often, but he does stuff like this.  My kids are so lucky to have him for an uncle.  And the older I get, the more my love for him deepens.

At my parents 2008

On a semi-related side-note, I have  enjoyed revisiting the series Freaks and Geaks, that was tragically canceled after just one season.  It is so well-written and performed and really launched the careers of its writers and actors.  You must rent it if you love that 80s decade!  It’s wonderfully funny, sad, and has an awesome soundtrack.  The weird thing is that unlike the last time I watched it, I’m seeing things from the parents’ perspective and judging their reactions to situations.  Boy is that an indicator of age and where you are in life.