Road Trip

Had a solo road trip Thursday, on a route Kt and I used to frequent, north through MD and PA to NY and back. It was glorious weather, and she would have insisted on doing the driving.

Of course I thought about her an awful lot. There's a partially destroyed billboard north of Harrisburg that says:

CH??CH

What's missing?

I remember the first time we saw that; I said "That's weird, wonder what it means?" and she instantly replied, "It's saying YOU ARE missing -- U R, get it?". So smart, so quick.

Anyway, I loaded up a stack of CDs for the drive, as we used to do (pre-iPod!), and rediscovered some great music. I spent a lot of the time listening to my second-favorite Canadian prog-rock band, Rush. We saw them play once at Nissan Pavilion; I think that was the first live rock concert she ever went to.

One tune in particular was on heavy rotation most of the trip home, Afterimage from 1984's Grace Under Pressure:

Suddenly, you were gone

From all the lives you left your mark upon

I learned your love for life

I feel your presence

I remember

I feel the way you would

This just can't be understood...

Understatement.

Three months today

I've been trying to come up with something to post all day, and just not getting anywhere.

92 days. Something over 2200 hours. And of course she's still here, in every corner of this house, in every corner of my mind. Every day I still think of things I have to tell her, things I have to make sure she knows, things I want to hear her tell me.

I sit here in the den and look at Yellow Bobby and the pictures of her and it all seems so surreal. Our beautiful, whip-smart, happy, clever, loving, funny, sweet child, in such incredible and unsustainable pain. Why???

Saga link of the day: "What do I Know?"

How 'bout dem Packers?

Well, I was actually nominally cheering for the Steelers, but I didn't really care that much, and it was a pretty good game.

Seeing all the linemen with the wild tattoos reminded me of an incident when Katie was maybe 10 or 11. We were at Macaroni Grill, and at a table of twenty-somethings,a young woman's shirt had ridden up in the back, exposing the tattoo at the base of her spine.

Seeing it, Katie asked Anita, "What is that?"

Anita explained that it was a tattoo.

"Oh", Katie said, "I would never get one of those. But if I did, it would say, 'If you can read this, you're too close'".

Classic Kt wit...

And while her attitude towards body art mellowed over time, I think Katie would have liked the graphic below; if it's too small, the original is here, on GraphJam.

Radiohead

Something Katie and I had in common (not the only thing!) was waking up with a song playing in our heads. Perhaps not unusual, except at least in my case, I often have no idea where it's coming from. The other day, for example, I woke up with a song from "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown" playing ("The Book Report" -- jeez, everything is on YouTube!). I haven't heard it in at least thirty years (proof: what I had playing in my head wasn't even quite right).

And I don't have any metal fillings; I guess it's possible the CIA has a radio implant in my head, but I don't set off metal detectors at the airport.

Today's selection was John Waite, "Missing You", which at least makes some sense. And I did hear that on the radio a couple of days ago when I was in California.

Sure wish it was just miles that separate us like in the song, eh?

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