Tales from the Sisterhood……

Posted on March 10, 2011 by Lily

We laugh a lot, my sisters and I. Humor laced with bits of irony, maybe a touch of sarcasm and on occasion a little satire fill our sister weekends, trips, breakfasts, lunches, dinners. During holiday family gatherings and extended family reunions we might keep our more hilarious humorous tendencies to a minimum…. or not.

This particular sister weekend started out to be a Las Vegas weekend on Sally’s January birthday. Since none of us won the lottery or received a really large bonus the weekend changed to the Jeff Dunham* show at the Expocentre arena in Topeka.

There is a lot to be said for having sister weekend in a non-work or home location. Penny was working in between sister activities. Of course she did think our plans were for the second March this year. ** I digress…. Several years ago I hosted a sister weekend and worked all day Friday and had to be to a meeting at 7:30 AM Monday morning. They carried on without me.

Plans were made for Leslie and me to pick up Penny, then Sally and go out to dinner before the show.  Sally called and offered to drive if her older sister was too shook up after her morning tangle with the Illinois license plate. Penny called and told us to slow our progress down a bit. She was running about five minutes late. We would still be on time, she said. She only had to change her clothes and put on mascara.

Having knowledge of Penny’s time management history, we slowed down accordingly. We were still pleasantly surprised to pull in the driveway behind her vehicle. Leslie and I chatted for a bit before tapping the horn to let her know we were waiting. Her husband sauntered out to tell us she was almost ready. He said she was dressed and standing in front of the mirror doing something. Leslie mentioned we did not have time for eyeliner, mascara better be the extent of her primping. He said he wasn’t sure what she was doing. I told him if she did not hurry she was paying for dinner. My brother-in-law left in a hurry, calling back over his shoulder the “she’ll be right out” promise. He broke into a trot and then a run as he neared the front porch steps. She appeared almost immediately. I did not see him push her out the door… however… I’m just saying.

We checked out a newer restaurant on Kansas Avenue. Sweet Pea’s is owned and operated by a cousin’s in-laws. The food was good. There were entre options, with sides served family style. The décor was early comfortable. The kitchen stove being used as a side server in one area would look good with my pinewood possum belly kitchen cabinet in the old-fashioned kitchen corner of our family room.

We were laughing and joking about whether Penny had made it out in time to avoid picking up the tab. The check came and I had another cup of coffee while she left to visit the powder room. The next thing we knew Penny was back and grabbing the check off the napkin holder. I heard her say she would pick up the check and tuned out the rest. The next thing I heard was her saying she had on one black pump and one navy blue one, wanting to know if we had time to take her back to the house to change. We three looked at each other and burst out laughing so hard we had tears running down our faces.  We disabused her of any side trip ideas to her house. She would just have to deal.

In the Jeep on the way to the Expocentre I called Keri to check on White Storm’s final placement in the derby. I was telling her the story of Penny’s one black and one blue shoe when I was shushed from all sides. It seems Penny offered to pay for our dinner as a bribe to keep the odd shoe story a secret. Oh well, that ship sailed. Keri wanted to know the statute of limitations on Aunt Penny’s shoe story. We arrived at the Jeff Dunham show laughing so hard our sides ached.

After laughing our way through the show and the drive home Leslie and I left Penny at her door. As she left the vehicle we told her she ought to wear the other pair of black and blue shoes tomorrow.

The family who laughs together finds a way to be together always……….

* www.jeffdunham.com

** Lilypad on the road…

©2011 Susan Kendall.  All rights reserved

Posted in Sisters | Leave a comment

Busy Days……….

Posted on March 9, 2011 by Lily

Hayley and her parents stopped by so Hayley could stay with Grandma and Sam for awhile. Sam and Hayley played side by side with Sam’s toys. Aunt Leslie had to go pick up milk at the dairy store. Hayley went along to see the cows and Sam took a nap.

Alice, Hayley and their mom came over to Aunt Leslie’s house after school. We talked and played and spent time together. They went home for dinner.

Sam and his mom went to dinner at the home of one of her close friends.

I dressed and went out with my friends of almost 55 years. Dinner was wonderful. The conversation was great. We sat and talked for several hours and then we went back to my sister’s home and talked until about 11:30 PM. We reminisced about school, friends, families, first puffs of cigarettes. Sam and his mom came home. He slept through the admiration party by all of the grandmas in the room.

Saturday morning found me with my three daughters and three of my granddaughters in a Kansas City suburb at a baby shower for one of the nieces from my first marriage. Their mother and I continue to be sisters-in-law in both deed and action. My niece was so cute with her baby bump and my other niece is obviously delighted with becoming an aunt. The other niece is engaged and her wedding will be in August. The save the date magnet is on my refrigerator. Hmmmm…..might be a really interesting story day.

Saturday afternoon we were at grandson Jacob and White Storm’s District Pinewood Derby contest. I am happy to report, White Storm came in 7th out of 105 contestants. Sam, his mother and I gave Alice and Kahlan a ride back to Topeka for a child care gig, while Peter, Jacob, Hayley and their mothers slumber partied in Olathe. After the derby, my son-in-law was somewhere, hiding out, I am sure.

Sam and his mom were off to another friend’s home while grandma was doing the town with her sisters.

Stay tuned for more adventures on the road with Lilypad and Co……….

©2011 Susan Kendall.  All rights reserved

Posted in Children, Family, Friends, Grand parenting, Sisters, Travel | Leave a comment

First Morning………

Posted on March 7, 2011 by Lily

My sister and brother are very early risers. When visiting them I like to get up as early as I can make myself. We drink coffee, watch Morning Joe and flip news channels whenever Pat Buchanan is more than we can handle. These are my political junkie siblings and I love it.

Leslie had timed her workout session to be back in the house to make breakfast by 7:30. She chatted briefly and then left. Max and I kept on talking about tea parties, odd politician behavior and our take on the world today. Leslie showed back up in about three minutes. We looked up expectantly wondering what she had forgotten.

She stood behind her chair for a moment before speaking. She said she had decided not to work out this morning and back into Sam’s mom’s car instead. We both looked at each other and then back to her. Our stunned silence turned to silent sympathy.  The story gets better. Her really cool jeep has a back up camera and beeper. She says the camera lens was dirty and she ignores the beeper because it always beeps when she backs out of the garage.

She said the damage seemed to be contained to the license plate holder and sat down to wait for Sam and his mom to appear. Kudos to my daughter; she took her aunt’s morning wake-up news very well.  First there was disbelief “you’re kidding, right”, then acceptance as Leslie handed her pieces of the broken license plate, followed by fairly cheerful resignation after an examination revealed nothing more than a scratch or two under the license plate.

Our favorite part was the backup camera and beeper. Of course, there is the fact that Max and I waved goodbye and didn’t say a word. We were really grateful we were not the ones to provide the first fender bender to the new Jeep, no matter how light the damage.

Leslie established an 18 month statute of limitations on mentioning this new entry in family lore and legend.  Judging the action on the subject the rest of the weekend she was probably correct. We do love to joke and tease and poke about each other’s miscalculations. What can I say, except some of my best personal insights have come from laser sharp observations made by one of my siblings?

Stay tuned for more tales from the demolition derby zone………

©2011 Susan Kendall.  All rights reserved

Posted in Family, Sisters, Travel | Leave a comment

Lilypad on the road……….

Posted on March 6, 2011 by Lily

We drove to Kansas several days later than expected.  Sam’s mom had a cold and Sam’s ear infection was back so we skipped the first two days of the trip which had included a visit to Allen Field house on the University of Kansas campus to watch the KU Men’s basketball team beat Texas A&M. Every year I think I will get to be Aunt Margie’s escort to at least one game. Sigh. Maybe next year.

Sister Leslie had broccoli and chicken or pork rice casseroles ready for us when we arrived. I had the chicken with mushrooms option. YUM! Sam played hard to get with his great-aunt and great-uncle. His latest trick is winking his eyes closed like he is hiding himself. Kind of like my little woodchuck. It took at least 10 minutes of sidling around and clutching his mom or my legs before he warmed up and made himself at home.  The lord of this manor is Mr. Knightley, the cat. Sam was on the floor with Mr. K and his toys almost immediately.

Sister Penny is very busy at her work these days. She was busy Thursday rearranging her schedule for the weekend festivities because she thought we were not coming for another month or so. I guess she thought there were two March’s this year.  She wanted to meet us for breakfast this morning, early she said, 8 – 8:30. She called later on and said maybe 7:30 would be better. Okay, we were game. She called again around 7 this morning and said to slow down our departure because she was just up. I love Penny!  Sam, his mother and I squeezed into Leslie’s 2011 Jeep, a REALLY nice ride, and stopped by for Jami.  A really good breakfast was had by all at IHOP on Wanamaker Road in Topeka.

Tonight is dinner with two really dear friends. We first met 55 years ago this upcoming September in the afternoon kindergarten class at Oakland Grade School. We share March birthdays and celebrate together as often as we can. We have been through marriages, divorces, miscarriages, children, grandchildren, parent deaths …………

Come with me the next few days as we follow the proverbial Kansas yellow brick road………

©2011 Susan Kendall.  All rights reserved

Posted in Children, Family, Friends, Grand parenting, Travel | Leave a comment

Procrastination machination ……

Posted on March 2, 2011 by Lily

It is 9:00 PM and I am sure my children are at home with their children, which has nothing to do with why I am doing a little self inventory right this moment. Sam, his mom and I are leaving for a Kansas trip in the morning and I am not packed.

Years ago, maybe 1981 or 1982, I read an article on procrastination. The only thing I remember is the phrase “procrastinators have a fear of failure”. This statement became part of my mantra whenever I was tempted to wait until the last minute to prepare for a test, presentation, training…. just about anything at all. I repeated the phrase over and over as I created a list and/or timeline to organize myself.  I ask myself why I think I might fail and what actions might I take to avoid failing. The ritual helps me even now.

Several areas of my life still have serious procrastination symptoms. One of them is preparing and packing for a trip. Wondering why I would be afraid of failing a trip, I typed procrastination into my search engine. Reading the information* helped me avoid the packing for awhile.  I learned “fear of success” and “afraid of failure” are still among top reasons for procrastinating. Imagine that, procrastination 30 years ago is the same as procrastination now.

I will have to worry about my trip packing procrastinating behavior and whether or not Procrastinators Anonymous is the group for me when I return, because it is now 10 PM. Maybe I will go to bed and pack really early in the morning…..

©2011 Susan Kendall.  All rights reserved

*http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200308/procrastination-ten-things-know

**http://procrastinators-anonymous.org/

Posted in Health, Musings | Leave a comment

The Eagles Have Landed………..

Posted on March 2, 2011 by Lily

When I moved back to the area six years ago I stayed with friends for several months an hour away from my place of work. Needing a place to deposit my money, I found a US Bank we used years ago. The bank was close, convenient, had branches in Kansas and a friend of mine who works for them. After signing on the dotted line, I found the closest branches to where I wanted to live permanently were 8-10 miles away. Since distance is not as important as how long it takes to get anywhere in the Chicago metropolitan area, I began a search for the most direct drive in the shortest amount of time.

My favorite route is north on Randall Road to the Meier’s US Bank branch in Geneva. There is a long stretch of fields and woods with a stream from the Mooseheart/Orchard Road intersection to the Batavia Main Street intersection. This piece of road is very calming to a Kansas girl making her home in Illinois. A bonus, this particular Meier’s grocery is north of Barnes and Noble in the Geneva Commons shopping area and south of a Costco.

Last April we joined Costco and between the bank runs, Costco trips and my Barnes and Nobel dates with myself we were up and down Randall Road quite a bit. We started noticing groups of cars at the curve where the Mooseheart field turns into the Mooseheart woods. The line of cars was reminiscent of a trip through Yellowstone National Park. Very unusual for the area, people were out of their cars with tripods and really large telescopic lenses.

Researching migratory birds and bird watching sites online, I could not find anything about the current group of watchers in North Aurora. Several days later there were signs up on this stretch of Randall Road. The signs instructed us that only emergency parking was allowed here. The newspaper reported there were two eagles apparently nesting in a tree at the edge of the Mooseheart Woods. Mystery solved.

We managed to glimpse the eagle pair almost every time we drove up and down the road. Eventually young eagle heads were popping up beside either mama or papa. Sometimes we would see one of the parents soaring over the nearby fields. Watching this young eagle family sometimes became a destination drive-by. There is something beautiful about watching wildlife carve out their space in the middle of a booming suburban area. Kudos to the International Order of the Moose for maintaining the Mooseheart Children’s Home woods and field’s area in North Aurora.

The eagle family went away sometime last fall. I remember looking to see if they were still there and one day they were not. I wondered if the mated pair would be back in the spring. I am happy to report I spotted an eagle perched on the nest at the top of the tree yesterday. I felt gladness and was delighted they were back. There is comfort in the life cycle ritual of wildlife returning to the same nest to raise their young.

Spring is in the air, birds are twittering in the yard and the eagles have returned. Enjoying this one perfect moment in time…………………..

©2011 Susan Kendall.  All rights reserved

Posted in Animals, Seasons | Leave a comment

It’s the culture……….

Posted on February 28, 2011 by Lily

Over twenty years ago I was a new program director. My executive director wanted me to explore diversity programs we might be able to offer our members. She gave me brochures and pamphlets she had been collecting for years. Her personal favorite was a Philadelphia, PA based Green Circle Program started in 1957 by Gladys Rawlins. The program was being used by schools, youth organizations, Girl Scout councils and the National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ) to name a few.

While attending new program director training at the Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) national conference center in New York, I met a Green Circle and Valuing Diversity facilitator trainer from Wichita, KS. My home was only 2 ½ hours away from her. We had found our program.

The first week back from the training I contacted my new friend and Green Circle Program ally. The dates for the next facilitator training were about six weeks away. I put together a program proposal and budget and set out to recruit a volunteer advisory group. First I needed a volunteer committee chair or at least a potential facilitator to take the training with me.  With a little help from the membership directors we found a former leader, a woman of color who had helped with a council diversity program in the past. She agreed to go to the training with me.

Let me be clear. I was a novice in the “how to’s” of developing a valuing differences program and clueless when it came to understanding and identifying institutional racism. I have a very basic belief in equality of all humans. This deep conviction is drawn from family dinner table conversations regarding injustices perpetuated on Jews, Gypsies and other enemies of the Third Riech in German Occupied Countries during World War II and the Civil Rights movement playing itself out on the nightly news throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s. What I did not have was the language necessary to be an intelligent articulate spokesperson on the importance of valuing differences programs to the development of effective leaders or the knowledge of how to develop and integrate a program like this into an organization.

My experience during the two days we were in Wichita “rocked my world.” I became uncomfortably aware of how people of color are ignored and overlooked.  Both the white desk clerk at our motel and the white waitress at the restaurant where we ate looked at and talked only to me. They glanced at my companion only when necessary and other wise ignored her. We stopped at a mall and had fast food from a taco diner. As it happened I was the only white person eating there. I was not subjected to the same treatment my companion experienced earlier. We had not even had the first session of the training and my education had begun.

The two four hour trainings and the all day session with the regional Green Circle facilitator trainer were invaluable to me in my valuing differences and diversity awareness journey. My training with those facilitators laid the groundwork for years of effective work.

My most important take aways from those days in Wichita…. Our cultural environment incubates either prejudice and discrimnation or tolerance and understanding. We cannot ignore our differences, be they color, economic, environment, family, sexual orientation. Acknowledging and accepting our cultural differences will lead to less intolerance. Education will lead to less ignorance.

Color me convicted and committed to valuing cultural differences , eradicating institutional racism and changing his and her story………………

©2011 Susan Kendall.  All rights reserved

Posted in Leadership, Musings, Volunteer | Leave a comment

Taming the Travel Tiger……..

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Lily

Driving home yesterday was an exercise in patience and self-control. There is not a really good travel route from our house to Sam’s condo which is up north about five blocks from Lake Michigan. The Touhy Avenue entrance ramp onto southbound I-294 is an interesting configuration. Construction work and west bound lane closures under the I-294 overpass makes for a really frustrating section of road at 6 PM on a workday.

The back-up from the Touhy Ave and River Road traffic signal was almost back to the Dee Road and Touhy Ave corner. I waited patiently in my lane, silently watching right lane drivers inching towards our lane. They had warning regarding their lane ending and yet they still drove right up to the move left arrow sign.

The driver in front of me was not having any of the “every other car” narrowing down to one lane. He and his neighbor car played chicken, with a lot of horn honking, while I tried to keep a safe distance and not allow three cars into the space. My efforts were successful; I only let two cars in front of me.  And, I only missed the next traffic light by one car. Sigh.

After negotiating the traffic onto the expressway I found myself thinking the traffic wasn’t all that bad and wondered when I had become inured to the traffic back-ups and parking lot mentality of rush hour in very large metropolitan areas.

The first time we lived in Illinois I barely drove east of First Avenue. I white-knuckled a Brownie Field trip to the Merchandise Mart in Chicago my first year. Coming out of the parking garage onto Wacker Drive, left onto I-90/94 south, right across all lanes of traffic to the I-55 exit was my initiation into heavy traffic driving. I did not drive anywhere near the Chicago Loop again for a very long time.

Several years later my Dad made me drive his car, pulling a pop-up camper through Cleveland during rush hour in the rain. As we got closer to Boston I was again driving the car and camper on I-90 to I-95/Rt128 to Rt. 28 south to Randolph around 5 PM. One year I was in Boston and had to drive from Massachusetts General Hospital to a south suburb. There were twists and turns to get on the Interstate at 5 PM and then there was the demolition derby drive 20 miles or so back to Rt. 28 and Aunt Mary’s house. I did it with lock jawed determination and a solid belief in my ability to get through anything.

Several years ago Alice and I left Illinois with a map, cell phone and a GPS navigational system in our Honda mini-van. We drove to my friend’s home on Long Island. You have not really lived until you drive across the George Washington Bridge from New Jersey to New York and I-295 across the Throgs Neck Bridge and take the Cross Island Parkway down to Freeport. When I punched in the address for the Bronx Zoo two days later my comfort level was pretty high.  Navigating my way out of the Bronx and across Connecticut and Rhode Island I was feeling confident. The rest of the trip; Massachusetts, thru Boston, New Hampshire, back across Massachusetts, upstate New York, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois was a piece of cake. We had a wonderful time.

This summer I am taking a grandchildren trip to Washington State to attend Kyra Rose’s graduation ceremony and party. We are finalizing our plans next week when Jill, Sam and I take a trip to Kansas for a niece baby shower, a sister night at a Jeff Dunham concert and a 60th birthday party. There has been some discussion regarding who is going and how long we will be gone. We are going to work out the details and practice video blogging so you can come along on our adventure. We will keep you posted on trip details and itinerary.

And I was wondering what a Throg is anyway and does it really have a neck…………….

©2011 Susan Kendall.  All rights reserved

Posted in Travel | Leave a comment

Dashboards, plug-ins and widgets, oh my…….

Posted on February 22, 2011 by Lily

Several months ago I thought dashboards were attached to steering wheels, a plug-in was inserted into an electrical socket and widgets were made in factories.  I had no idea these items are found everywhere in our world. Without a dashboard I could not manage my blog site or my website.  A plug-in is necessary to increase my software capabilities. Widgets enable me to install easy to use applications on my sites.

Twenty years ago I did not even have a DOS monitor and a CPU on my desk at work. Now we have two flat screen monitors, two towers and a laptop in three different rooms in our home. They all have access to the internet with our own Wi-Fi connector. We have a copy, fax, scanner and printer machine in our home office. In high school I refused to take a typing class because I did not want to be a secretary. Now I word process everything.  

My new G2 handheld Android lets me talk or message my friends and family, manage my bank account, send and receive emails, check Facebook, tweet people I do not even know, keep my calendar, find my way anywhere in the world and a whole lot of other things I have not even learned yet. Two days after I picked it out someone told me it was already obsolete. I told them I was okay with that. Obsolete is really relative. There are a whole lot of people in my world who do not even know what a tweet is, they never check their emails and do not have a Facebook page.

 I have at least ten email addresses for a variety of reasons, two Facebook pages, a blogsite, two websites, and an internet business. I am impatient for my bank to start letting me scan checks to make deposits from my home…. Sometime this spring, so they say.

My great-grandfather had the first radio in his farm community in 1917 and used metal photo developing plates for his photography business. I take pictures with my G2, upload to the PC and print them out and check the news feed on my home screen to see what is happening around the world.  My grandmother kept the books for my grandfather’s plumbing business on ledger sheets. I bought Quicken last year and am thinking of upgrading to QuickBooks in the next week.

Lest you think all of this technology came easily to me, I resisted even a Blackberry for years before caving a little over a year ago. Up until six months ago the last games I played with a monitor and a handheld controller was that gobbling smiley face and Donkey Kong. Regular solitaire and maybe Taipei were about my speed. Now I smash zombies with plants almost daily.

No one is more surprised than me how quickly I have adapted to the new technical world order in the last year. Excuse me; I have to get back to my writing. Soon you will be able to download my eBooks after you visit my PayPal account……….

©2011 Susan Kendall.  All rights reserved

Posted in Business, Technology | Leave a comment

Everlasting Love……

Posted on February 21, 2011 by Lily

My 17 year old granddaughter “loves” my blog. She messaged me from Facebook and I am so touched.

I was present at her birth. The tension and angst of her mother’s pregnancy fell away as I spent the first day of Kyra Rose’s life with my daughter. New grandchild euphoria consumed me. I found out the truth behind the “If I had only known how wonderful grandchildren were, I would have had them first” crowd.

For the next two years she and her mother and then her sister lived in our home. She and Alice were shiny bright stars during what was otherwise a dark time in my journey.

Her grandfather and I had her with us a lot as her mother finished up her high school credits at the alternative high school, attended the local college and worked a part time job. The three of us shared child care duties as we were working full time and I was taking nine hours a semester at the same local college.

Kyra was old enough and sensitive enough to feel the tension surrounding the breakup of an almost 25 year marriage. One day, shortly after her grandfather was back in the house after a one month separation, we had Kyra in our bedroom watching TV with us while her mother was with Alice. In her cute little pajamas, fresh from her bath, she was the center of our attention. Kyra leaned over and took her grandfather’s hand placing it over mine. She sat looking at us and holding our hands. We were both overcome with the longing in her gaze and knew exactly what she wanted. Filled with bittersweet regret we were both unsure of how we would ever find our way back together, even for her.

Five months later I found Kyra standing in her grandfather’s side of the closet surrounded by what few clothes he had left hanging. She was keening his name. I had read about keening with grief and was unprepared for the reality of the emotions the words conveyed. There was such a depth of longing for what she could not ever have again in the sounds she made, as she held on to his clothes and called his name. We cried together and I held her in my arms on the floor of the closet for a very long time.

Kyra has an indomitable spirit. She has been faced with unimaginable loss several times in her life and finds a way through. Like others in her gene pool she embraces her journey with an understanding of the vagaries in life and love.

Love finds a way and Kyra Rose has a whole lot of love in her life……………

©2011 Susan Kendall.  All rights reserved

Posted in Family, Grand parenting, Love | 1 Comment