A Life Extra Ordinary - Chapter 2, Page 9

Kathryn turned fifty-nine yesterday, and it doesn't seem to have instigated any third-stage of life crises. She actually seems to have weathered this pre-sixty bench-mark very well. She kept very busy during the barbecue Sunday, which may have been her way to avoid the issue, but she did insist everyone sing happy birthday to her so it wasn't a complete day of denial.

Charlie smoked ribs all day and barbecued chicken with his newest secret recipe barbecue sauce, which was a smashing success along with grilled corn on a cob, parsley potatoes, corn and shrimp salad, fruit salad, coleslaw, guacamole and chips, pesto and fresh bread, potato salad, grilled steaks (ala Corey), brownies and mint chocolate chip ice cream.

And of course, libations... New Castle, Corona, Special Export, Pacifico, Miller Chills, Goose Island, Miller High Life, 3Floyds, Dogfish Head, Modus Hoperandi, soda pop and water.

Great fun was had by all... music, bag toss, a dozen conversations going on all at once, a diverse group of friends, family and new faces. And surprisingly, Kathryn mingled all day not disappearing once to her computer and the solace of her writing.

It's very important that Kathryn maintain a positive and upbeat outlook because times are going to get very hard with severance ending on her birthday... and job opportunities not presenting themselves.

The challenges will be tougher and the outlook bleaker, Kathryn will need all the inner courage she can muster not to cave to the pressures.

Don't believe anything she says, she can't be trusted. We had an understanding and she's not keeping her part of the bargain... I'm not the least bit schizophrenic. And I hate doing laundry. She says stuff like that all the time.

I take my meds and only sometimes forget, she makes a great big deal out of it like I'm doing it on purpose to get attention... like I said, don't pay any attention to her.

I did have a big-potato dream, that's what we always called it. I was about nine or ten, we had people over for dinner and my mom, who always worries about having enough food for everybody, told us to each eat half a baked potato to make sure we had enough for the company... so we did.

That night I dreamed we had lost one of the potatoes and didn't have enough for everybody... I think I had a fever and was getting sick with something. All of a sudden, I woke up, sort of... my sister was sleeping next to me and I scared her half to death.

“It's on me,” I whispered loudly.

“What's on you?” she asked staring at me in the dark, she said my eyes were as big as saucers and I looked crazy.

“The big potato...” I whispered, so it wouldn't hear me.

I was staring at something that she couldn't see and like I said, I scared her to death. She jumped over me and ran out of the room, up the stairs to where my other three sister's were sleeping leaving me alone with the big potato.

I was almost too scared to move, but I jumped out of bed and followed her up stairs, but no one wanted me up there.

“There's no room, go downstairs,” they shoved me out of the bed. I tried to climb into the other bed, but they kicked me out too.

“I'm scared, I don't want to be alone,” I whimpered trying to fit at the end of one of the beds.

“Go tell mom and dad,” they said kicking at me... so, I did.

I scrambled back down the fifteen stairs that went to the attic bedroom, spiraling in an excellent curve for riding pillows down, also good for huckle-buckle bean stalk, and went to my parents room.

“Mom, dad, I found the potato...”

“What?” my father's groggy voice asked in the darkness, he couldn't even tell which of his five daughters I was.

“I found the potato and I'm scared to sleep in the room by myself,” I answered as though I were fully awake.

“Go to bed,” my mother growled, she hated being woken up.

“Go up stairs and sleep with your sisters,” my father offered, thinking it was a good compromise. He hated conflict.

“They won't let me!”

I don't remember how the night ended, or where I slept, but I know it wasn't in the room all by myself.

Kathryn, what is this?

“I don't know.”

I thought we agreed, I would write the story.

“Well, you aren't telling it right!”

The readers will be confused with two voices trying to tell the same story. That's why we agreed, I would write the story.

Kathryn? Please don't sulk, it's not very mature. So now, you aren't speaking to me? Very well, I will continue without you, although I don't know what to do with the big potato story. It's out there and I can't take it back now.

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Kathryn can be very stubborn and erratic at times, which is why we agreed that I would write the story. She agreed completely with this arrangement and now she has gone and interjected some of her own story-telling, for which I apologize.

Although, the big potato dream is very funny even after hearing it dozens of times.

It goes right along with the sleep-walking stories...

She would walk down the spiral stairs in the middle of the night and stand at the end of the couch and talk to her parents in gibberish. They would listen intently, laugh and send her back to bed.

One night, she walked right out the front door, down the steps and across the front yard, and if they hadn't caught her, she would have landed right in the middle of a busy street.

Her fathered hollered out the door chasing after her, “Where are you going?”

“To church,” she answered, as he steered her back toward the house.

“Not tonight, you aren't.”

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So much of who Kathryn is today will be better understood with the telling of the childhood sagas . It's important to get them written down while the memories are still available, although long-term memory loss does not seem to be the bigger problem.

Kathryn doesn't want to talk about her short-term memory loss, but the boys are noticing it more and more... and while she won't admit it scares her... I know that it does.