My mother (the nurse) allowed Mittens to breed every now and then so my brother and I could watch the birth of kittens. I think this was some sort of sick effort on her part to make sure we never had sex. We then were made to care for the kittens before selling them or giving them away to a good home.
I hated the last part, since I felt we should just be able to keep them all.
One of those times, Mittens had a new batch of kittens that were housed in a 5-foot bin in the garage. My father built them a special home so they couldn’t get out unless someone was there to watch over them. My father built the bin in such a way that Mittens could climb out, but the kittens remained there unless we removed them.
They were about four weeks old at this point.
During this same period, my mother and father temporarily gave up use of the garage for my brother and his friends to build their massive train city. About once a year they would gather their train tracks to our garage and set up this huge landscape of train tracks, stations, houses, trees, cars, dirt and about 5,000 army men.
They spent weeks getting their landscape perfect. They would then plan a date for when they would destroy it in one big pretend battle scene from World War II.
This particular week my brother was on restriction for hanging my dolls by their necks in my bedroom. He used to love to torture me by messing with my dolls.
He was number one on my “people to get even with” short list.
When he wasn’t doing all the chores assigned to him for his restriction, he was putting the finishing touches on the landscape in the garage for the battle day with his friends. He had a plan for the Saturday after he was let off restriction to gather his friends and bring them back to do battle. He had been looking forward to it for weeks.
I didn’t have much time to get even.
Don’t ask me where my mother and father were at this time, because I have no idea. But one day I quietly moved passed the kitchen like a lion stalking her prey. With the precision of a bank robber, I slowly opened the back door to sneak into the garage. Every inch of the floor was covered with cars, trucks, trees, rocks, dirt, train tracks, bridges, and a long 6 foot train set sitting ready at the station.
It was perfection.
In the background I can hear the tiny quiet meows of eight furry, fluffy kittens. I maneuver my way over to the bin and push an old chair up against the high wall. I stand on the chair and reach over to scoop up one kitten at a time, and then I gently release each them on the floor of the garage. Now mind you, the garage door is closed.
Shortly, all eight kittens are out of the bin. As I slowly exit back into the house, I turn to view the kittens. One was already sitting on a train, another had a tree in her mouth, and a third was beginning to bat at a line of soldiers, scattering them across the floor under my father’s work bench.
I crept back into the house un-noticed.
About two hours later there was all this yelling in the garage. My brother was having a fit over the fact the kittens somehow got out of the bin. I guess they did a pretty good job at destroying his train country. I never went to look, as I was afraid I would some how give away the fact that it was me who let them out.
My mother and father scratched their heads trying to figure out how the kittens were able to get out of such a tall box.
I never told my part of this story until we were well into our 30s.
You should never mess with a redhead.
Today a friend sent me a link to the following YouTube video:
Yep. This is how boys are when you trust them with your stuff.
One day in 1998, after my father’s death I found myself suddenly angry at the bizarre nature of funerals and death in America.
I poured out my heart in an English paper, describing the ritual of picking out my father’s coffin. I saw the irony in picking out something my father was going to be buried in like one might choose a prom gown or a new car. My English teacher wrote in the corner of this paper, “I have never read anything that touched me like this story. I cried. You have a gift, please share it.”
And that was it. Words began to gush, revealing my anger, bitterness, sadness and loneliness onto the lined pages of my journal. The writer in my was born.
Then my mother and I had a fight. The kind of fight two heart broken females have when one is a teenager and the other is the parent. I moved out in one day. I packed everything into my car and just drove off. I burned the journal and stopped writing.
I stopped writing for 18 years.
Fast forward to 1997 when a funny thing happened at work. I was given a laptop computer and access to the Internet. I was to test software and how a loan officer might use the Internet. Once home, like a chocolate addict given the keys to Sees, I used my computer as a magic carpet and flew all over the world exploring events and cultures I only imagined. (who cares what a loan officer uses it for).
One night, while quietly reading about Ireland and Gaelic language, my very first Instant Message popped up on the computer screen. It made this great little sound . . . like a bird whistling.
I almost dropped the laptop; it startled me so.
Suddenly there I was, writing from my lap in our little cottage home. Writing to people live – in real time. I love the back and forth banter between two people in an instant message. It is a writer’s paradise. We are most at home when typing a conversation, rather than delivering it in person. The ability to write to new found friends over the Internet gave me the strength to leave an unhappy marriage.
I became sick with Hashimoto’s somewhere around 2002 and went through a particularly rough period in my life. One day, while lying in bed I came across the opportunity to begin this blog. I had so many thoughts running through my head screaming at me to be written down. Without even thinking, I naturally followed the steps to create a blog and dove head first into writing.
I was back.
It was very difficult at first, like stretching a new muscle. But over time it evolved into the flow of a person’s life story.
Maybe not everything, but an idea of what my life is like.
Then the emails began. People writing to me about their thyroid problems, opening up and sharing very private, painful experiences. Experiences I can all too well relate. Suddenly I was surrounded by kindred spirits.
When naming our children, many of us go through a lengthy process to decide the one most perfect.
Some, name their children after favorite relatives, others after a favorite place. We see the very pregnant clutching the latest baby names book trying to come up with exactly the right one. Some parents worry about what the initials will read, like BAD. I have even known parents to add up the name and see what number it creates, and then check if the number is lucky.
They really need to drink more wine.
Today Brian asked how I got my name, Catherine. Many times we have discussed how he got his name, but I suppose we have never talked much about how I got mine. He only knows me as “Mom”.
If someone were to ask him his mother’s name, he would steadfastly reply, “Mom” (First and last name).
However, for our mother, the ever devout and practically-a-nun Catholic, I am named for Saint Catherine of Siena. Saint Catherine was the 25th child of a wool dyer in northern Italy. Yes, I did type 25. (I think I’d find a way to glue it shut – saints forgive me). She started having mystical experiences when she was 6 – seeing guardian angels. At the young age of 16 she became a Dominican tertiary, and it was said that she would have visions of Christ, Mary, and the saints. Her letters “Saint Catherine’s letters” and a treatise called “a dialogue” are considered among the most brilliant writings in the history of the Catholic Church.
She was a writer – go figure.
Saint Catherine is the patron Saint of of Fire Prevention, firefighters, bodily ills, illness, miscarriages, sick people, sickness, nurses, and nursing services, sexual temptation (thanks mom) and Italy.
How’s that for a namesake? No pressure.
Picture the “deer in headlights” look on Brian’s face when he said, “Huh?” as I explain where my name comes from. I think he better understands how he got his name and prefers my method to my mother’s.
Brian is named after Brian Boru, the first King of Ireland, But what really cemented the name for me is when Monty Python’s Life Of Brian came on the television while I was in hard labor. I love Monty Python. The doctor became upset with me for paying more attention to the movie, than to my final pushes.
Hey folks, it was my sign.
Thus the life of Brian came into this world.
Little does he know that in the background when he was taking his first breath the following was coming out of the television:
“Brian: I’m not the Messiah!
Arthur: I say you are, lord, and I should know… I’ve followed a few.
Followers: Hail Messiah!
Brian: I’m not the Messiah! Will you please listen? I am not the Messiah, do you understand? Honestly!
Girl: Only the true Messiah denies His divinity!
Brian: What?! Well, what sort of chance does that give me? All right. I AM THE MESSIAH!
Followers: HE IS! HE IS THE MESSIAH!
Brian: NOW, FUCK OFF!!!!
Arthur: How shall we fuck off, oh Lord?
Brian: Oh, just go away! Leave me alone.
I think this is what our teenage years just might sound like.
Posted by Catherine, the redhead mom blogger on Oct 4, 2006 in It's A Mom's Life
Today’s blue sky has turned ash in color, similar to the gray of pewter goblets. Large storm clouds roll over the horizon resembling puffs of thick cigar smoke, which blow down onto the quiet city streets below.
The first winter rain has arrived in Northern California. Raindrops fall like thousands of soft crystal beads bouncing like tiny wet rubber balls on the pavement below. Cats and dogs run for cover, and the smell of wet pavement permeates the air. Beds feel extra comfy on such days and the will to remove oneself from bed is lost in the warm embrace of soft sheets.
Until Boonie the spotted terrier dog decides it is time to pull off the covers, exposing my skin to the shock of the cool morning air. Rain, sleet, heat or snow when a dog is in need, we must go. The grass feels like damp wash cloths, as the wet blades push up between my toes. Raindrops hit my face and Boonie’s fur. She is oblivious to the weather and runs to every corner of the wet landscape.
Where is summer?
Rushed dog walkers pull their rain hats over their heads and hurry down the street tugging at their pets who resist by pulling back with childish defiance. The smell of burning wood brings the realization there are those who are lucky enough rising to a warm crackling fire. It smells like Halloween. These are the times I miss married life. Soon I will decorate our place with visions of ghosts and witches, goblins and bats. We will be deep in planning Brian’s costume. I long for our old home, a husband and one of my crazy Halloween parties.
Maybe in my next life.
Brian wishes for a snowstorm that will render it impossible to go to school. Unfortunately for him, we picked the wrong part of California to make this wish to come true. He must go to school, and I must work. Life 101.
Soon, Thanksgiving will be here and our thoughts turn to Christmas. Turtle necks and knee high boots become the norm as we greet our front doors in darkness before 5:30pm.
By the time we come back out for spring Brian will be well on his way towards Junior high and I will be closing in on yet another year nearer to 50 years of age. My father died at age 48 . . . it seems young. The seasons move so quickly. Before we have a chance to say “Merry Christmas”, it will be St. Patrick’s Day and another winter will be lost to time.
With each passing day I feel better and better. The new thyroid meds seem to be working. Like a slow moving train leaving the station, my metabolism is beginning to pick up steam. I wonder how I will feel come next Spring. Already, the difference is amazing. Within a month the hills will turn emerald green and Sonoma County begins to resemble Ireland.
I dream of traveling there – far away from so many unhappy Americans. I long to raise horses, plant roses and walk to a small town. A small field of clover blooms just outside my back gate. I wish this wish every day.
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