KTDID

When I walked into the dorm room across the hall from mine during my freshman year of college (18 years ago), I did not expect to meet my best friend, especially when she took one look at me, raised her eyebrows in annoyance and didn't acknowledge my presence.

I will admit, I did look something like Blossom in linen overalls back in the day. 

I took the annoyed look personally and turned to leave the room figuring I would have to meet other people on my floor to make friends,when I spied a poster for a band that MacTroll's friend was in. I turned and asked whose "Neptunes" poster it was, and KTDID perked up. She also had a friend in the three-boy band. And her mood lightened considerably. Turns out, she wasn't all bad ass and evil, she was terribly homesick. We've been friends ever since. 

X-man has never known her as anything besides "Aunt KT." And although we're not sure he really understands that she's not related by blood, we do know that he understands she is related in all the ways that actually matter. 

And so he gets that when his Mom goes under the knife, Aunt KT is going to take him to school. She's going to pick him up. She's going to make sure that his life continues like normal, even when he feels like it's upside down. 

You can't thank a person enough for that kind of love. But I am grateful for it. 

Good Friends

I have met a number of good people in my lifetime. People who have different values and different ideals and different ambitions for their lives. It's given me perspective. It's taught me not to make assumptions. It's taught me how to be open-minded, and it's made me very thankful to them for being welcome to share in their triumphs as well as their challenges.

When I first met KTDID in college, we came from two very different types of life. I was from an economically depressed city where the number of kids in my high school was at least 3 times more than the people in her entire small rural town. She held creationist values. I'd been an agnostic since I was in fifth grade. She was stricken by homesickness. I was thrilled to finally be independent... but she was fun and she was smart, and she knew how to listen and call me on my crap.

Now, we're living in the same building again. We've gotten more similar in our big picture beliefs as we've gotten older. As individuals, we've been broken and put ourselves together so many times, with so much glue, that we're amazingly adept at figuring out where each of the little pieces go for each other and helping to hold those pieces in place until the glue dries again. And in those cases, I can ask for her help without feeling vulnerable or like I'm losing my dignity.

In addition to the emotional stuff, we are able to live together, car trip together, go to Ikea on a Saturday and pack a car together without one annoyed or stern word to the other, share a tight kitchen, bathe apprehensive cats, raise a precocious little boy and have each other's backs.

Those are all rarities in this world, and I just wanted to acknowledge our 15 years of having them.

Extended Family

I moved out of my mom's house 4 weeks after I graduated from college. Out of the 4 years I was in college, I lived at home for one summer, but I worked 2 jobs that summer so was hardly home. We never had a grandparent live with us, and even though my father is the oldest of 4, we really only saw aunts and uncles for major holidays for a few hours. We saw even less of my mother's two siblings. The point being that I've never really had extended family around in my every day life. 

Now that KTDID is returning her Budget rental truck, and all of her possessions are in our basement making kind of an "in-law" suite, it changes the dynamic of the house a bit. I'm about to install a lockable doorhandle to keep X-man out of her area. KTDID has a cat and the apartment is hers -- not to be disrupted by my cats. My cats have been kept out of the basement since my Loosey cat died in February, so that shouldn't be any big deal. She has a lot of storage, a closet and a full bathroom to her disposal, not to mention her own parking area in the garage. 

I am so happy to have her home that I could burst. Somehow I always hated that my best friend barely got to know my favorite person in the whole world -- X-man. And now, she gets to see the delight and the challenge up close and personal. 

As for X-man, he helped carry things to the basement today. And when he couldn't carry things he directed KTDID's family members about where to go. The only thing he is confused about is where KTDID is going to cook her food. When I explain that she'll use our kitchen it crosses the boundary line I'm trying to create that the basement is KTDID's home, and we live upstairs. It, of course, didn't stop him from dragging his doll and crib downstairs. But I'm sure it'll be a work in progress for a while.

In other news, the jackasses at the apartments next to us (I usually find them to be fine neighbors except around the 4th of July) have started setting off fireworks at all hours of the night. Last year they were smart enough to do it over the lake in the park. This year, the dummies just set them off in the middle of the complex. 

In other news, we were supposed to head up to my Dad's on Saturday morning for the holiday, but he currently has the flu with a fever. So, we're going to call him tomorrow a.m. and see how he is. If he's sick, we'll stay here. Which makes me think maybe we'll go to the Monticello fireworks tonight. Should have bought the train ticket, I guess!

Welcome Back KTDID

Right now as I type this KTDID and her father are on a 3-day journey from Santa Ana, California, to Savoy, Illinois. It's a 2000-mile trek with her dog Zoe and her cat Ella. She's relocating back to Illinois to be closer to friends and family, and I couldn't be more excited. 

She'll be taking up temporary residency at chez Loosey starting tonight. So, if you see me, MacTroll or X-man around town with a brilliant and stunning short-haired brunette, you'll need to introduce yourselves. :-) 

MacTroll's Monday

When MacTroll is home during the week on Mondays, I try to make every excuse to be out of the house. Monday is MacTroll's conference call day. He has between 4-6 of them today. Each of them taking at least an hour. You do the math. It's a lot of time to be on the iPhone.

I was supposed to be outside all day staining my fence, but given the sheer amount of crazy ass rain we got last night in the never-ending storms, I'm stuck inside doing inside jobs. 

UPDATE: You can head over to Cruzin' and see how MacTroll and I spent our morning being Toad rescuers!

Most of these I can do in the basement or the 2nd floor. But around the first floor will be nothing but pacing and loud talking, "LDAP, LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos, Magic Triangle, deep into the keychain code..."

Blah. Yuck. I think I'd rather be vacuuming little tumbleweeds of fur that got scattered around the house last night from their hiding places due to our no air conditioning/open window preference. 

In other news: The cookout at Rayne of Terror's went very well. I got to meet Soy is the New Black and Mrs. Chicken as well as some other great people. I loved Mrs. Chicken's pasta salad. And X-man and I were the first to jump in the pool. It was a beautiful day.

Today is also Day 1 of the weekly budget. I just spent half of mine on gas. Seriously. I'm picking up the trailer and the bike this week. Let's see if that will save me some $$$  in the weekly drive-the-kid around situation.

I am just a couple weeks away from seeing KTDID, my nieces and nephews and from vacation. This year we're driving up to Oostburg, a few miles south of Sheboygan to stay in a rental house on the beach of Lake Michigan in September. I liked that it was in a family friendly area where we could just walk out of the house and be on sand.