Tag: life

It May Have Been Mother’s Day, but there Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked… and the Wicked’s Family

On By KathleenIn Bio Pics, Family1 Comment
Some mothers would be content with homemade scones & an afternoon relaxing. Not my mother.

Some mothers are content to spend Mother’s Day at brunch followed by an afternoon at the spa. But sitting down and relaxing, even after two hip replacements, are not activities my mother believes in.

When my family and I awoke to a perfect spring morning, I thought I just might be able to trick Mum into spending a leisurely day sunning ourselves in the garden. I baked orange-current scones, cooked-up Spanish-style fava beans, scrambled some farm-fresh eggs with cheese, and the three of us gathered outside under the umbrella to dine in the fresh air.

As she sipped her iced-tea she looked uncharacteristically at ease. “I think we should pull out the Adirondack chairs so we can sit and survey our ‘estate.'”

I was encouraged. Could it be possible that I’d get to spend the rest of the day reading David Sedaris and catching some sun while she sat peacefully and color-coded her calendar?

No.

My mother wanted a new lawn for Mother's Day & I was the landscape gardener of choice

We’d been kicking back not 5 minutes before she turned to me and said:

“By the way, your father and I went to Home Depot yesterday. We have everything we need to till and reseed the lawn. There’s a pile of dirt under the plastic over there.”

“Are you telling me that you want to spend Mother’s Day digging up the yard? Don’t you want to watch the DVD of our summer vacation I made for you?”

“No. I want to dig up the lawn. Ask dad for the shovel. Let’s get to work.”

I felt a gardening glove hit my shoulder. I knew it’d be a long time before I’d be allowed to sit down again.

Over the last 2 years, I may have cultivated a new interest in gardening, but let me tell you, digging up a lawn, hauling dirt up stairs in a wheelbarrow, and spreading peat moss over grass seed is not gardening — it’s back breaking work that should be left to professionals.

At the end of the day, after we had finished the lawn and I finished cooking dinner, my father, the dogs, and I collapsed into heaps on the couch.

“That was a great mother’s day! I got everything I wanted — a new lawn!”

Next year, forget the homemade, thoughtful gifts. I’m buying her a landscape gardener named Carlos so I can spend Mother’s Day at the spa.

Tilling and reseeding a lawn isn't gardening. It's back-breaking work. But Mum got what she wanted. And I got a bottle of Aleve.

Woes of the Newly-Minted Working Woman, No. 231

On By KathleenIn Bio Pics, Career, fashion3 Comments

“How are you adjusting to life as a  full-fledged working woman?” –> This is the question I’m most frequently asked by those that know me. Not “how’s the new job,” or “what’s your boss like,” but how are you coping with this foreign concept of a 9-5.

Standing in the locker room, in nothing but a towel, I realized I'd have to go to work braless. This wasn't an option.

Overall, I’d say I’ve adjusted pretty well. And then I have days like yesterday and I realize adapting to my new lifestyle is still a work in progress.

This time last year, I was a full-time athlete. My 9-5 involved wearing no make-up, traveling abroad, and working out twice a day.

Since I started my job as a gallery coordinator, my biggest challenge has been balancing the regimented fitness routine  I’m used to with the new demands of a workweek. Despite not being a morning person, I’ve committed to a morning gym schedule — a decision that reminds me why I try not to face the world until I’ve have my two cups of caffeine.

Yesterday, standing in the change room post spin class, wrapped in a towel, I assessed the contents of my locker:

  • Linen military jacket: check.
  • White, curve-hugging, scoop-neck top: check.
  • Printed linen ankle-length skirt: check.
  • Custom made cowboy boots and Navajo belt: check and check.
  • Outfit resembling costume for an extra in the movie of Custer’s Last Stand: assembled.

But wait… where’s my bra?

Had I gone bra-less, I would easily have been mistaken for another kind of working woman.

I held the skin-tight shirt in my hand and considered my options. Being small chested, I’ve frequently ventured out into the world sans support wear. But the elasticized and someone transparent material I was about to don made the decision for me.

Going bra-less would make me look like another kind of working woman.

It was settled: I’d wait for the Victoria’s Secret between my car-park and the gallery to open and buy a new bra. I’d be late for work, but at least I’d be setting the right example — only the day before I had lectured my assistants about “gallery-appropriate quantities of boob-age.”

I inherited 2 filing cabinets at work. One came filled with loan agreements and checklists from past exhibitions. As of today, the other is stocked with clean undergarments.

A working girl must always be prepared.

To avoid future post-gym forgotten underwear calamities, there's now a filing cabinet under my desk that looks like this.

April Showers Bring May Flowers, and Awkward Workplace/Romantic Encounters

On By KathleenIn Bio Pics, Career, Dating, insights/observationsLeave a comment

April showers reportedly bring May flowers. April, 2011’s spring rains were absolutely ones of renewal, bringing with them a new blossoming job and a budding new outlook on romance, the sum of which equated to countless new possibilities for awkward social encounters.

Apparently, there are mug theives in my office. Even personalized mugs aren't safe.

Scene: 9:45AM, Day 2 at my New Job. I walk into the staff kitchen with my spill-proof, porcelain coffee mug with an intent to fill it. There’s a petite blond woman kneeling on the counter top, straddling the sink, blocking the coffee pot while she rummages through the cupboards.

“Have you seen my mug? It has my name on it.”

“No…”

“I ordered that mug especially with my name on it so no one would take it. You’d think that if someone saw someone else’s name on a mug they would think ‘this mug belongs to Kate, so I won’t take it.’ But no! Not here. People just take your mugs. Do you have your own mug?”

“Yes…”

“Let this be a lesson to you. Keep it with you always, otherwise someone will take it. Sometimes they even break it. The coffee is fresh, by the way.”

So much for my plans to get to work early

Scene: 8:30AM on the first real springy day in April. I’ve decided I want to leave work early, so I wake up extra early to get to the gym extra early so I can get to work extra early. Post workout, I’m standing in a Diane von Frustenberg skirt and Cole Haan loafers in the parking lot of the gym. The car doors are locked and my keys are staring at me from the front seat, laughing.

Thanks to the keys locked in the car incident, I arrive at work late, only to discover the artwork hanging in the window (the piece that was the lead for a NYTimes review of the exhibit) has come unhung. To rehang it, I have to mount an 100-year old radiator, in a skirt. The burn on the inside of my knee was, luckily, hardly noticeable.

Scene: Late night Saturday, there’s a monsoon raging outside and I’m inside a cozy restaurant on a date with a guy nearly 10 years my senior who might, arguably, be classified as a “player.” Being rather forward, he kissed me. A metallic object suddenly bashes against my front tooth with an audible clunk. Concerned about the integrity of my incisor, I pause.

I saw the scarf and thought Parisian, my boss saw the scarf and thought "She's hiding a hickey." Imagine if my date's tongue ring had chipped a tooth...

“Do you have a tongue ring?”

“Yes.”

“A warning would have been nice. These teeth aren’t straight but they were expensive…”

Scene: It’s the Tuesday after the monsoon-bathroom-tongue-ring debacle, and I’m wearing a white collared blouse and have a magenta silk scarf tied around my neck in a bow. There’s cake in the staff kitchen. My co-worker and I are stuffing our face. She turns and asks:

“Are you trying to hide a love bite? WhoisheWhat’shisNameWhatdoesHedoforworkIsHegoodenoughforyou?”

“Umm… No? It’s a rainy Tuesday in April. I’m just trying to cultivate my inner Parisian.”

Every William Needs a Kate, So Yes, I’m Waking up at 4AM on Friday to Watch the Royal Wedding

On By KathleenIn Dating, LoveLeave a comment
In case you haven't noticed, there's only one story in the news these days -- the British Family's Royal Wedding

In case you haven’t noticed, the presses have all stopped. Rising gas prices, NCAA Title IX infringements, and pending government shut-downs are no longer news. There is but one story to cover in the broad sheets and on the television: the Royal Wedding of Prince William to Catherine Middleton.

I can’t say that I’ve been following the pre-wedding press — I’m content to wait till the big day to see the dress. But as a girl who religiously reads the New York Times wedding announcements because she’d rather pass her Sunday morning indulging in happy people than tearing-up over explosions and tsunamis, it’s no surprise I’m somewhat thrilled that a wedding has become the focal point of World News Tonight.

Friday is a workday and the prospect of waking long, long before sunrise to watch the wedding ceremony live on television, when I could easily watch it repeated later, is not at all sensible. Nevertheless, I’ve decided to set my alarm for 4:00AM so I can watch the royal wedding unfold in real time. Why? Because, as my mother pointed out, it’s not every summer a future king gets married. It’s as much a historical event as it is an opulent party. 1 billion apparently tuned in to watch Prince Charles marry Diana. That many people don’t join together to watch something unless they feel there’s something important going on — not even the Olympics, the sporting event meant to unite the world in competition gets that kind of viewership.

Everyone is getting geared up for the Royal Wedding, in whatever way they know how

Weddings never fail to captivate. Between April and July, the air rings with the joy of nuptials. Besides the magazine stands buckling under the weight of 700-page wedding-themed publications (thank you Modern Bride and Martha Stewart Weddings), movie theaters are stocked with films telling terrible tales of bridezillas or “always the bride’s maid” woes.  Every so often, we’re lucky to have a real wedding worth tracking (last year, it was Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky).

And if ever there was a love story worth tracking, it’s the one between the future King of England and his Princess. Every William needs a Catherine, and at 4AM on Friday morning, with my scones, clotted cream, poached egg and breakfast tea, I’ll be rooting for their happily ever after.

Kiss Me Baby On an Easter Sunday

On By KathleenIn Bio Pics, FamilyLeave a comment
You can call me Godless, but I'm going to have my Easter Bunny and all his friends. And that's that.

Lev accused me of being a Godless-Christian-Pagan who celebrated empty holidays and believed in nothing but Bloomingdales. If I didn’t know this was an attempt at flirtatious fighting, I would have thought attacking me, the Church of Couture, and the Easter Bunny was a terrible way to woo me.

“Do you even go to church on Easter?”

“No.”

He then launched into a history lesson about Catholicism  — how it usurped Pagan holidays and how modern society has commoditized formerly sacred festivities. I took a sip of wine and prepared myself for battle.

I confessed: I am a terrible Catholic — I dropped out of CCD, I can’t remember the last time I attended mass, and I don’t know the “Hail Mary.”

But I am an devout Easterer. I look forward to the pageantry of the holiday and the togetherness it inspires.

On Easter morning, I would awake to a cartoonishly large chocolate bunny I was never allowed to eat — it was too expensive to devour right away and too bad for my teeth to be eaten period. I still wonder why my mother didn’t just buy a plastic chocolate bunny she could use as a flower planter between Easters.

Hot Cross Buns. Ceramic egg trees. Symbols of spring. There's nothing I don't love about Eater.

Growing up, I enjoyed putting on my floral-print dress and running around the yard with friends on a hunt for eggs I had laboriously bejeweled and speckled the night before with the help of my parents.

Once I got older and the neighborhood kids moved away, I held a 50+ Easter egg hunt. I assembled the adults who had once been the designated “hiders” and turned them into “seekers.” It was a no-holds-barred kind of hunt where there was only one rule for me to follow — no eggs hidden below waist level. Bending/squatting to retrieve something they’d prefer to dress with mayo and serve in a sandwich seemed too hazardous an activity. I obliged.

At the end of the day, I think my family members were grateful for the chance to rekindle their inner-children — that is what Easter is largely about, isn’t it? Renewed life.

“Call me Godless, but I’m going to have my Easter Bunny,” I told him. “And my bonnet. And my tie-dyed eggs. And my Christmas tree. And that’s that.”

Lev popped in with a cheeky remark about behaving like a rabbit and how Easter was interfering. I rolled my eyes and handed him a Cadbury cream egg in my purse.

“Even a Scrooge deserves a little holiday love,” I said as I bid him good-night. It was Good Friday, and I had hot-cross buns to put in the oven 😉

A New Job. A New Desk. An Old Memento.

On By KathleenIn Bio Pics, Career2 Comments

Forty-eight hours after writing a post about the agony of post-job-interview waiting, I got a call:

Welcome to the Nook. Where schedules are made, emails sents, and galleries coordinated.

“So, when can you start?”

“When do you need me?”

“What’s today?”

“Friday.”

“Come in on Monday.”

My first day as the Exhibitions Coordinator for a large art not-for-profit passed in a flurry of paperwork, meetings, and how-tos. I was taken to “The Nook,” a u-shaped work station that I would share with my boss’s executive assistant. I looked at the desk that had been vacant for 5 months and was now mine. It had been turned into a storage shelf — boxes filled with leftover wall-hanging materials, stacks of postcards announcing opening receptions for exhibitions mounted 5 years ago, and a box of crocheting hooks.

Why do I have crochet hooks and "Blues Clues" temporary tattoos in my desk?

Before I could begin coordinating exhibitions, I needed to coordinate my desk. Clearing the rubble took the remainder of the afternoon, but left me with a blank workspace to decorate. I walked in the next day with an armload of items necessary to transform my half of  the Nook into a homey yet functional gallery-managing command center.

“Your corner has a personality!” Ali-Kat cried as she joined me at her station. “I dig it. Do you have Pandora? Because yours is the only computer with speakers. Let’s get the party started!”

I could tell we were going to be good Nook-mates.

Of all the things around my new desk, the photo in the corner of the bulletin board is the most meaningful

Of all the things adorning my command center, there’s one item that has particular symbolic meaning. In the upper right corner of my bulletin board I’ve placed a photo from my 2007 college graduation. Four of us stand arm in arm among thousands of undergraduates and graduates dressed in powder blue, all receiving our degrees. We look happy and tired, young and ready for battle.

The photo is there in part because the 3 guys standing with me are my dearest friends, mostly because that moment represents an entire journey from that day in May to this job, this desk, this future. We posed for the camera to remind ourselves that we had survived 4 years together. The next 4 years would be unpredictable — each followed paths entirely different from the ones routed for us as of May 2007.

Then we were 4 kids just starting out, uncertain of the purpose of our past and clueless about our futures. It’s hard to always know where you’re going, but the way I see it, it’s important to always know where you’ve been.