That's my girl

Last night I was thinking about "West Side Story" for some reason, and remembered 5? 6? years ago when it came out on DVD and I bought Anita a copy for Christmas. We were opening presents, and Katie handed the package to Anita. It was obviously a DVD, and Anita looked surprised and said, "This must be for one of you -- I don't get DVDs".

Without planning, without coordination -- without even looking at each other -- Katie and I burst into song: "Oh no, Anita, no, Anita, no -- it's for you, not for me; that is your DVD" (to the tune of "A Boy Like That").

That's the Katie I want to remember.

For the benighted among you who don't get the reference, here's the original scene on YouTube. The part we were mangling starts about 1:36 into it.

The boys are back

A month or so ago, we were driving down Rounding Run and a passel o' kids were out playing street hockey, with a couple of dads. We stopped and asked if they needed another net, and they said "Sure!"

So one of the kids followed us (on his rollerblades) to the house and took away Kt's net, as well as a stick. A few days later, the group showed up on our court (which is a better place to play anyway -- less traffic!), and I gave them the rest of her stick collection, including the Koho I brought from Canada in 1986.

They've been showing up every few days, and again today, and it's good to hear the cries of joy and exuberance. Kt would have been thrilled to see them out there, as are we.

Made the day a bit better, although they're gone now, and I'm sinking into the late-afternoon funk that always seems to hit me about this time. I guess it's that during the day, it's easy to pretend that Kt's at school; but about now she should be slamming through the door, or texting to say that she's doing something with friends and will see us later.

Instead I'm sitting here trying to ignore the tightness in my chest and get some work done. Without much success.


I have been working a lot on documentation the last few days, which gave me a chance to listen to a number of covers of one of my favorite songs, Talking Heads' This Must Be the Place (you can hear the original here). There are a ton of covers here on YouTube, ranging from the unlistenable to the amazing. The Numa Numa Dance guy and Justin Bieber notwithstanding, YouTube is pretty darned cool.

Another non-blizzard

We've had two non-blizzards in a row: major snowstorms that missed the DC area. Both times we got under an inch -- not even enough to close the schools. Kt would have been irritated (at least pre-college).

Just before waking up this morning, I dreamed that I woke up, and as I was about to leave our bedroom, Anita rolled over and said, "Where's Katie? She's taking a long time". And I just stood there, gutted again, with absolutely no idea what to say or how to react. Then, mercifully, I woke up.

And day before yesterday I made the mistake of dropping some canned goods, hotel soaps, etc. off at a nearby church, for their food bank. Why was that a mistake? Because they have a preschool. It was bad enough seeing a rack of kids' books and hearing them in the classroom; as I was leaving after bringing in the last box, the class went somewhere, and 20 or so little faces all peered at me, probably wondering why this old guy looked like he was about to burst into tears.

Katie was such a happy child, and so interested in everything. My father once commented to me that he'd never really thought about enjoying talking to his kids, and was quite pleased to realize that this happened. We always enjoyed talking with Katie, because she was interested and interesting and made connections we'd never seen before, and damnit, just plain interested (there's that word again, I realize) in the world.

When I was a boy, I was determined that I would understand everything when I grew up. Of course I eventually realized that was unrealistic, but I never thought I'd wind up understanding so little.

Saga link of the day: Believe