Morning Madness

Standing in the shower has always left my mind free to wander. Sometimes I think about a dream I had, sometimes a song is stuck in my head, most mornings I think about what I have to do that day. Well today annoyed me.

As I stood washing my hair I realized how much I didn't feel like washing my hair. Then of course, knowing I would have to condition next unless I wanted an intricate web of tangles, I felt even more agitated at the never ending process of it all. I mean, how often have you ever stopped and considered your morning routine for what it really is- a maddening time consuming attempt to make you feel better about yourself even though you know in the end, it isn't going to solve all your insecurities anyway.

For example... when I shower there are many steps involved. First, I must comb my hair thus avoiding tangles in the shower and hair in the drain trap. Second, the wash. OK, simple enough. Then there is the condition, which must sit for two minutes at the very least. Now we have the face scrub, the body scrub and the special foot scrubber because who doesn't want cute pedi's all summer. Now I'm going to avoid the hairy situation of shaving- ladies I don't even need to go there because you all know what a pain this is. As for me, I also brush my teeth in the shower- saving water here... Finally, I can step out of the shower after using shampoo, conditioner, soap, body wash, body scrub, acne face scrub and shaving cream. Phew!

No wait, still not ready. After toweling off comes the body lotion. Taking two minutes to apply, I then must rewash my hands so that I can use a different lotion for my feet and hands. Then I must use another topical lotion rinse for my face, followed by yet two more lotions including SPF. Oh my God! How much stuff do I really need to use! Did I even mention mouth wash or floss- OK I'll admit it here, I gave up on both the minute my braces came off. I finally can dress and sigh a little before I realize I'm still not ready.

Back to the hair. Detangler spray, my hair is super thick and wavy, anti-frizz for the summer humidity, comb it though, blow dry, brush, dry some more perhaps, should I straighten it today? (I think you see my point.) These steps require more product and appliances and another 30 minutes at least. My hats' off to you ladies who can do these things and somehow make it out of the door in the morning. After the hair is done, hopefully I am satisfied with my outfit, I'm done. Hasta luego. Oh wait- is that a chip in my nail polish?

The Rail Line at Stalk Grove

OK- I know it is taboo to have a long post in a blog. People don't have time to read your rambling thoughts for extended periods of time. Well- with that said, I do think it is fair game to first warn you that I am IGNORING protocol and am doing it anyway. Below you have two choices. You may either stop at the end of this paragraph and navigate away from this page or you can read a short story I wrote for fun. I would like to ask the members of the latter, if they would be so kind to leave a comment and let me know what they thought. You may decide now.

The Rail Line at Stalk Grove

As Alicia stood there surveying the tracks underneath the heavy growth, several oddities occurred to her. The first was how could this place, as beautiful as it is, possibly reach her list of places one should just not go, a list created mainly by her parents, only developed further as her own curiosity grew. The list includes grave sites, haunted houses, scenes of horrific accidents and other traditional scary places of course. But Stalk Grove?

Stalk Grove is small town. Littered with rows and rows of cornfields, there isn’t much else to see. Once, it had its day. Many would go through on their way to Garden City on the Old Clay rail line. But the train stopped running in 1951, the year of the Great Flood, which nearly destroyed all of Kansas. But it was a few years before that, that Woodland Avenue; the largest rail line intersection in Stalk Grove, was actually deserted.

It seemed to Alicia that the air felt different here at the place where the tracks once crossed Woodland Ave. She felt silly for even thinking it. It was merely a child’s story that brought her here after all. Her good friend, Gale, who thought Alicia was just a little silly for chasing ghosts had been in Kansas City the week before and heard the story from a little man she had met in a bar. She laughed her ass off she had said when the man finished his tale. Alicia was half asleep when Gale had called but she remembered Gale thinking it was his crude attempt at a pickup. His story had been enough to get Gale to call Alicia, if not to get her home with him.

So Alicia had come to Stalk Grove. Now standing here at Woodland Ave. observing the area where the trees stand still, no leaves rustle and no birds’ chirp. The little man at the bar had said that very few people even dared to pass by the area anymore and a local town proprietor had confirmed, adding that children avoid this spot altogether. As is customary no one in town talks about Woodland Ave., those that do need prying or strong liquor at the very least. Larry, the proprietor Alicia came across said, that many simply can’t recall what happened there, but some still do. Over a cup of coffee he had told Alicia that the town elders and naive adults sum up the events of August 16, 1949 as nothing more than a child in the wrong place at the wrong time. But the children know better he said, but she better not tell anyone he says so.

“It seems that as children we are given the power of strong imagination, but more importantly the power to believe. As we age these things are buried by the things that jade us like failed relationships and stressful work. I know all about stressful work. I have never stepped a foot off Kansas, never,” Larry had said to Alicia. He had gone on to say that “Somehow, we never believe children when they speak of things that we just can’t grasp. It’s like our minds have been wiped clean of what we once knew." Unsurprisingly then, the folks of Stalk Grove just couldn't accept the children’s version of the incident.

Alicia gripped the Stalk Grove Daily in her fingers. She thumbed it absent-mindedly. Larry had given her one of his dozen or so copies of the paper that had come out two days after the disappearance of Curtis Austien. She had taken it back to her room at the Old Clay Inn and read it through, twice. The events that occurred that night were recorded as follows in the Stalk Grove Daily; young Curtis Austien had gone for a walk in the woods that surround the old rail trail. Night had fallen around him and he had lost his way. Stumbling through the dark, he had come across the rail line and had decided to follow the tracks back to town. (So speculates the reporter here Alicia notes.) The paper goes on to say that Curtis got his foot stuck under one of the rail ties and the 1 a.m. express to Meadville came through and he was struck. Officials searching for the missing boy the next day identified some teeth as Curtis’s and the poor boy’s father identified a bloodied sneaker.

While everyone agreed that the boy had yes, gone for a walk that night in the woods, what happened next comes in two very different versions. Curtis’s parents like the other adults in Stalk Grove took the story the reporter wove around the only fact, the boy had gone for a walk, as complete truth. This is the way it was and no one could tell them any different Larry had said. “The children tried to tell them the truth, but they just wouldn’t listen. How could they? The story the children offered frightened all that heard it until ultimately it was dismissed. Any child caught telling the tale was punished. Some children continued to preach the story, in the end the adults finally silenced it, at least amongst themselves. No child would speak of that night to anyone, except for someone who could believe what happened, in all cases, this meant another child.”

After hearing out Larry and reading the paper for herself, Alicia decided it would be best to actually see the area and draw what conclusions she may. Going over it again, “the children say that Curtis wasn’t alone that night,” well that was certainly possible thought Alicia, “according to the children, Curtis had indeed set off for a walk but he was to meet his friend Alice who lived a mile or so from Meadville. He had taken a short cut through the woods as he always did,” it was hard for Alicia to see that as a possibility now. The growth here was so thick, but maybe, before time had forgot this place, the area may have very well been less dense, enough so for Curtis to cut through. It was from here that Alicia couldn’t be sure, and perhaps the only way for her to be sure, to “sense it” so she called it to Gale, was to walk through herself.

As Alicia set off she thought of the children’s tale. “Curtis didn’t get lost. He had walked to Alice’s house many times before, once in a summer thunderstorm when the sky was gray, the woods pitch-black and sheets of rain were falling from the sky. Curtis made it to Alice’s house that night without any problems,” or so he thought- thought Alicia.

After sweating, panting and stumbling through the first part of the wood Alicia sat for a break. Unfolding the newspaper she found the police report clip Larry told her she would. He wouldn’t tell her how he came to have the document, but she accepted it any way. What she found there was the account that Alice gave to the police the next day. For some reason, the reporter did not include Alice’s testimony to the police in her article. Perhaps it was too unbelievable to her, or perhaps she was frightened out of her wits. Whatever the reason, many still don’t know anything about Alice or that she had seen the boy that fateful night. For those that did hear her story they just couldn’t believe her. She’s out for attention was what they said, and so the girl’s story never made it beyond the walls of the police room or their old files. Only a few of Alice’s close friends would listen to her. They told younger children who in turn told younger children. Now only the children that handed it down to the next generation even remember it at this point.

“Mother made meatloaf and mashed potatoes for dinner,” Alice told the Stalk Grove Police. She had gone to the Meadville Police the night Curtis was killed. The police listened to her story reluctantly, took brief notes and had her mother pick her up at the station. The next afternoon, after the discovery of Curtis’s shoe and teeth, the Stalk Grove Police had called Alice in for questioning.

“We ate and then I went up to my bedroom because Curtis had phoned earlier to say that he would be coming by. We never told our parents when we got together this way. It was always late and getting dark, mother would never approve. Curtis is also funny about his friends knowing. He wouldn’t have it. I was so fond of Curtis that I didn’t object, so long as he came. Whenever Curtis would come by he’d throw pebbles at my window softly so mother wouldn’t know of course. We’d been doing it for years. I wasn’t in my bedroom very long when I heard a tink, tink on my window. I knew it was him. So I called down to him, Curtis is that you.”

Deputy Don Reigner had been listening to Alice, so far with no more interest than if he were flipping through the paper at the doctor’s office.

“If you knew it was him, why did you call out your window that way?”

“That was the way I always did. I knew it was him, but what if it wasn’t? It was just what we did.”

“Go on Alice, what happened next?”

“Curtis called up, ‘of course it’s me,’ he said, ‘who else would I be?’ which always made me laugh. And then I gathered up my coat, tossed it down to where he was standing, climbed out my window onto the birch tree and slid down.”

“And then?”

“We set off together, as we always did.”

“And what do you always do?”

“Walk. Especially this time of year. The leaves are so beautiful and Curtis knows, knew, how I love to hear them crunch beneath my feet.”

“And was anything amiss last night? Was Curtis acting strangely?”

“No, not at all. He was excited in fact. He was to be vacationing with his family next month in Paris and was beyond himself to tell me all about his plans. Everything was wonderful.”

“When did that change Alice? When you went to the Meadville Police last night, you said the night was dreadful. Their records say you were clearly upset and looked a bit disheveled.”

“I said that the night was horrific. My time with Curtis was wonderful, but I couldn’t have known. Neither of us could, it was just, just…”

And the reports say here that the interrogation stopped for approximately five minutes or so, so that Alice could regain her composure. She had burst into tears.

The Deputy went on, “Please Alice, tell us what you believe happened next.”

“Well, we’d been walking for so long, he was still talking about Paris and I was so wrapped up in what he was saying, I’d lost track of time and of where we were. I grabbed his arm to stop him a moment so that we could turn back…”

“And then Alice?”

“He kissed me. For the first time, the only time. As he was about to say something to me, I believe he was going to ask me to go with him, his family I mean, to Paris, but he didn’t say it. He just stared past me into a cluster of trees.”

“How’d he look?”

“He looked alarmed. It was as if someone had been watching us he said to me. It was then that I reminded myself of the hour and that it must be getting very late. His look had spooked me so much that I told him I’d like to turn back right away. I needed to get home.”

“How did he respond?”

“He still wouldn’t look at me. He was staring into the bushes so intently. As if in a trance he just replied yes. He said yes we should leave this place and abruptly grabbed my hand and started tugging me back the way we had come. He was glancing over his shoulder as he did. I asked him what was wrong, what was it he thinks he saw. He said he didn’t know. He said he felt as though there was someone leering at us back there, someone hiding in the trees. He said he was worried we had gone to far and then quickened our pace so much that I was practically running to keep up.”

Alicia looked up quickly. Had she heard a bird? No. Did the trees rustle? No, no, no. This had to stop. She was just letting the story scare her silly in this really quiet, really beautiful place. She stood and began walking again. It wasn’t long before she came to the clearing where the rail line stretched on and on it seemed. Following it west, towards Meadville she continued to read, moving slowly.

“Things went a rye from here you say,” the Deputy says to Alice. He pours his coffee and sits back down.

“Yes.”

“Please, Alice, continue. What happened next?”

Alice begins again.

“I stumbled. There was a thick root from an Oak in the path. It must have been buried under leaves. I didn’t see it. It was so dark. I tripped and fell to my hands and knees. As Curtis bent to help me to my feet, he grabbed my ankle and yanked me backward.”

“Who?”

“Him, the man. The hobo.”

“How do you know he was a hobo?”

“I don’t really. I just don’t know what else to call him.”

“Describe him then.”

“His hair was slick with grease. It was untamed, it had twigs in it, it fell just above his shoulders. His shirt was tattered and torn. A large hole was above the left shoulder and another was in his midsection. He smelled disgusting. Liquor, sweat, urine? I can’t, I don’t know what all the smells were. There was hay on his pants, or maybe it was straw. These only came down just below his knee and were ripped at the knees, they were stained in the crotch, brown, muddy-like.”

“Alright Alice, then what happened?”

“His nails scratched me and I could feel the blood, it was warm and tingly in my socks where it was collecting. But his face…”

“What about his face?”

“It wasn’t sinister. It was grave. Or maybe it was hopeless or desperate maybe, but it was, oh, I don’t know the word to describe it. There were cuts, slashes across his cheek and the bridge of his nose. He was missing skin around his chin, like a chunk had been cut away. His eyes were blackened and dirt was in the corners.”

“What do you think he wanted from you?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t carrying any money, no pocket book, just my coat. Perhaps he wanted that.”

“What happened next?”

“Curtis struck the man with a large branch that was laying near by.”

“Where?”

“In his arm. The one that was holding my ankle.”

“And then?”

“The man was furious. He was enraged. He released me and clawed at Curtis’s face, tearing away at his cheeks, scratching his throat.”

“What did you do?”

“I, I don’t know. I screamed. I couldn’t help. I didn’t know what to do. I screamed and screamed and then nothing.”

“What do you mean nothing?”

“I must have blacked out.”

“The Meadville Police have note that you say you were struck by the man.”

“Yes, yes I was. He hit me with the branch that Curtis hit him with, to silence me I guess and then I blacked out. When I opened my eyes again, I was lying on the ground next to Curtis. He looked bad his face was bloody, clothes torn. I shook him awake and helped him to his feet. I felt so woozy, like I was going to fall again. His arm was broken and he was screaming in pain. We thought the man had left. We were wrong.”

Alicia stopped in her tracks. She became aware that chills had just run through her. She quickened her pace as she read on.

“Then what happened,” asked the Deputy.

“We started walking as quickly as Curtis could, he was limping so we were moving slow. I kept asking why, why did the man attack us? Who was he? I asked Curtis, did he know? Curtis wasn’t answering any of my questions. He was such a mess. His pockets were torn out so I thought the man had wanted money and when he didn’t find any he left. But then he was upon us again. He hit us from behind with something sharp. I don’t know what it was, it felt like glass. I went sprawling on the ground and looked over to Curtis. The man was spitting and yelling at Curtis. I couldn’t understand him. I was so frightened. Curtis turned his head slow and mouthed to me, run. And I did, and I’m sorry Curtis. I ran. I ran.”

Another brief break is recorded here and more tears from Alice. It is awhile before Alice continues.

“I was lost. I had no idea where I was but I found the railroad a few moments later. I started following the tracks in the general direction that I thought was Meadville and never turned back. I just ran as fast as I could until I reached town.”

“And what were you thinking Alice?”

“That I had to get help. Someone needs to help Curtis. I screamed all the way into town, help me please. No-one heard me until I reached the police station.”

“And you say that you do not know what happened from there. How Curtis’s teeth and shoe were found near the tracks?”

“That’s right. I don’t know. I hope he escaped and I hope you find him and bring him home.”

The report continues another few pages from there, but Curtis was never found.
Alicia stops. I’ll never sense this she thinks to herself. She sits down in the gravel next to the lines. As she is stirring up the gravel with her shoes and thinking about Alice and Curtis something catches her eye. It’s a small trinket, nothing much, but it could be something. As Alicia bends down to pick it up she recognizes it for what it is at once, a jackknife. An army issue if she is correct. Could this have belonged to the hobo or to Curtis perhaps? Alicia doesn’t stay long. Some mysterious are better left she thinks as she heads back to Stalk Grove.

“ Some children say that the police closed the file because they had nothing and didn’t want to come across as inadequate. Others say that the police themselves were afraid a madman was on the loose and they had no leads on him, better not to scare the people and keep it quiet,” Larry had said.

If they had walked where I did and felt what I felt, which they most certainly must have, then they simply knew better than to mess around with these things Alicia thought.
Alicia returned to Stalk Grove and found Larry on his fourth cup of coffee since she left him that morning.

“I have found something. It isn’t much I have to tell you. It might even belong to someone around here for all I can be sure. I thought at first to leave it well alone and get the hell out of there. But as you are the keeper of this tale and some police documents that I am convinced you obtained illegally, I thought you should have it.”

Alicia placed the jackknife in Larry’s open hand and turned and walked out of the diner. She went back to her room at the Inn, packed and boarded the next flight out of Wichita to Boston. When she made it home early the next morning, Gale called.

“Well- did you go? What do you think?”

“I, I didn’t go Gale, it just sounds a little too…”

“Let me guess, childish. I thought you might think that. Ah, well, it’s probably best you didn’t. I bet it would have been a big waste of time, the little man at the bar was probably a loon.”

“Yeah, he probably was Gale.”

Alicia hung up the phone and just looked at it for a while. A loon she thought, just a loon with a good story.

Empty House

When you go on vacation it's quite natural to feel out of your element. The double bed you're sleeping in is not only much smaller than the king size you have at home, but it also doesn't have the familiar body dips that you sink into every night. The bathroom is almost too clean. You don't even dare to put items in drawers because the layout is strange and you know that putting your hairbrush in a drawer most likely means leaving it behind.

The coffee smells good and tastes better because for once you didn't awaken, pad across the linoleum and make it yourself. The furniture is comfy and matches better than yours at home. Waking up at ungodly hours is OK too because you might actually see the sunrise.

Walking around the house, the cabin, or the inn is like visiting a museum. Paintings, pictures and antiques dress up the rooms and make the place feel warm and almost familiar. You always feel welcome. You always feel like you have stepped into open inviting arms.

The next best thing to that vacation, for many, is the return home. Opening the front door and seeing your mismatched sofa and arm chair, seeing your T.V. covered with dust and getting a big wiff of that familiar smell of home is a very settling experience. Dropping your bags you make your rounds around the house, room to room, just checking things out. The bed is there with the body dips, the bathroom shelf is waiting for the toothpaste and the chairs at the kitchen table are as you left them, sort of pushed in. Ah, home at last.

For many unpacking is the first thing to do. I never left types. The laundry is done immediately, coffee is brewing and your back at the computer checking email, reading the news. Home has welcomed you back after having missed you dearly.

Others drop their bags and plop down on the couch. I'll unpack tomorrow types. It's nice to be home, but it's back to the old routine and this thing called work. They often make the scrapbooks so that not a moment of splendid away time is forgotten.

I can probably think of millions of other types of people and coming home, but I can't think of many who go home and feel that it is empty.

I am that type. I look at my walls and they are bare, white. I need more pictures, art, anything to make this apartment feel less airy and more like a warm home I think to myself. Everything is just as I left it and that disappoints me too. I miss having a room full of people, well not people, my mom.

A week just doesn't fill me enough with laughter, fun and chit-chat. I need more time. I think about her at home after the boys and I have just left to head back home and imagine how empty her house feels now too.

It takes me distracting myself with chores to keep from calling my mom the second I get home. How I will miss talking everyday, do miss talking everyday. I'm back home. Back to once a week phone calls. Back to work. Oh, and back to my white walls.

Goodbye Scarecrow, I think I'm going to miss you most of all

Suffolk University on Cape Cod had a graduation dinner party last night for the 18 of us that finished this year. While the food was excellent, it was the company I will long remember. Who knows when we will, if we will, gather together again. All the grads stood up and gave speech's and thanked everyone and like most things of similar nature, someone will cry, I just didn't think it would be me. When my time came I couldn't begin to say what I wanted. I felt much like Dorothy leaving OZ. Tears overwhelmed me and I sat down before I thanked the people I wanted to the most.

Last night I had intended on thanking Jim Kershner for believing me and giving me the chance to stretch my editorial skills. Everyone around me is crediting me with 'saving the Mainsheet,' and all I can really say is that I did what anyone else would have done. I had poured so much of myself into that paper all year that I couldn't just see it come to an end, especially on the note it played last. So for two editions, I was the editor and it did feel really good.

I had so many courses with Jim and still don't know why I saved Journalism for last. I wish that I had gotten involved sooner so that I might really build a position at the Mainsheet. In the end, I still have that sense of accomplishment I am looking for and can't thank Jim enough for that.

I wanted to tell Tim Miller that his remarks on my papers were some of the ones I took to heart the most. As he writes professional opinions, I was always nervous to hand him my work. Would he like it, would he hate it? In the end I know that either one would be alright as long as it made enough of a splash to invoke some reaction. "All Killer and No Filler," I will remember that and carry it with me and hope to make him proud.

Alicia. God, she was more than my inspiration. I don't really know how to say what I want to about her. I don't think should I ever have another editor, that they would be as kind, insightful, encouraging or as talented as Alicia Blaisdell-Bannon. My very first class with her awoke the hungry writer inside me and convinced me that I had found my calling. She stopped me as I left my final that day and said to me, "Jen, keep writing." I pondered the nature of her comment for a while and all but convinced myself that I needed to really work on my writing because it was lacking big-time, but understand now that she believed in me and my words. I suppose that's how any writer feels when their craft is appreciated, but knowing that Alicia appreciates mine makes me feel a real sense of accomplishment. I hope one day to see something of mine published that would make her proud. Thank you Alicia, thank you.

As for my classmates, I believe that Doug said it best when he said he would take some of us with him always. That's exactly how I feel. I loved Suffolk, I loved our small classes and I will think back to the memories we created always.

Here's to the Suffolk University graduating class of 2009, with love

~Jen

From May 12, 2009- Snippets & Snapshots

As this is my final column for the Mainsheet, I leave you with a few things I have learned in college that can benefit us all. I know the A through Z method is old fashioned, but tried and true seems to fit here.

"Accuracy, Accuracy, Accuracy!" This word is fundamental in the journalism world but carries through virtually everywhere else as well. If you can't see its importance, see Professor James Kershner and he will clear it up for you. Bold is better. I have gotten by 'safely' with my writing before but in the end, bold produces "all killer and no filler." (Again for clarification, see Professor Tim Miller.) Cranky attitudes create cranky environments and can burn bridges fast. Deep breaths can flush out anger, animosity, and other icky things before they are released on the wrong people. (Take a minute to try that now.)

Empathy can not only make you a kinder person, but it can also open your eyes to real-world issues. Faculty members can be more than teachers. They can be colleagues, mentors and friends. Gain respect by giving respect. Haiku poetry can be a funny way to release thoughts that are troublesome.

"I need to find work,
A meaningful job will do,
Someone call me please."

Ignoring the problem will not make it go away. "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming"... (OK- that one I learned from "Finding Nemo.") Keep an eye on the road ahead but make time to enjoy the moments before because it all goes so fast. Learning isn't all about textbooks and courses; everyone around you has a story to tell and so much can be learned if you just listen.

Making money is a fine objective, but following a passion is often more rewarding. Never trying is the only true way to fail. Omitting information can be the same as lying. Persistence will help you overcome the most difficult of challenges. Question of the week in the Mainsheet is a fun way to get people talking. There is real value in stiking up conversation with people you don't know. (Try that one later.)

Remember that just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Strive for excellence and ask for help when you need it. Think first. How many of us spout off at the mouth again and again when a little insight first could save face later. Understanding the task is the key to completion and success. Valentine's day and like holidays are dreaded in the newspaper business; they are old, old, old. Try to bring a fresh idea to all that you do and keep an open mind. Whining, complaining and excuses don't help and are unpleasant for everyone. Xerography is a dry photocopying technique (in case you were wondering.)

Yale and Harvard are top-notch schools true, but the energy, passion and dedication put forth by the faculty and adjunct members of Cape Cod Community College make the education far superior here at CCCC. In our small community we can build life long connections beyond comparison. (See letter 'Q' for the importance of talking to people.)

Zygotes make up all of us regardless of our skin color, ethnicity or sexual orientation, so lending a line from "Bill and Ted," be excellent to each other.

From May 5, 2009- Snippets & Snapshots

Cinco De Mayo has been a time-honored tradition in my family ever since my father met my stepmother 15 years ago. Not one of us is Hispanic or Spanish or even speaks Spanish fluently. And yet Cinco De Mayo has come to mean barbeques, Coronas and horseshoes in the rain. On that day all who gather are family, and as we all sing in chorus style that "there's booze in the blender and soon it will render, that frozen concoction that helps us hang on," we really believe it's so.

Red, green and yellow chili pepper lights hang from the hearth of the fireplace, a smiling cactus holds dips on the kitchen table, and a dancing pepper sings Ole- Ole, Ole- Ole feeling hot, hot, hot. Family, friends, friends of friends mill around my parents house as if it were the Taj Mahal. We meet and greet familiar faces that we haven't seen in a year. Stories are shared, jokes are made and we laugh, boy do we laugh. Simple card games like Uno Attack turn into drinking games, flip-flops are lost in the shuffle and at least one person gets their photo snapped while they are in the Sombrero.

This year it seems as though our annual celebration of a holiday that in no way belongs to us, will not be happening. I am bummed beyond belief. Attendees that I anticipate year after year will not be declaring that "with all of our running and all of our cunning, if we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane," they won't be devouring Shawnie's tacos or be attempting to drink out of Dad's stein filled with holes.

I'm going to have to create my margarita solo ( with a splash of Bols Orange Curacao) and be una cabeza de loro alone this year (Spanish meaning; a parrot head).

As my family grows I realize how important having a special tradition is to me. I'm not talking Christmas or Thanksgiving; I'm speaking more so of the Country Music Festival that my best friend Amy and I go to every year or the flea market scavenger hunt. If I hand down anything special to my children, it's going to be a tradition unique to our family. (Sombreros will be optional, but horseshoes in the rain required.)