The Modern Mixtape

A road trip can test even the best relationship.

I have to admit I was nervous about driving across the state with just my teenage daughter. I mean, I wasn’t sure what I was going to get. With teenage girls you just don’t know who is going to show up each day. There are mood swings and attitude adjustments that often accompany the sweet exterior. 

The opportunity to head out east to visit friends came up so suddenly that I didn’t have time to think about what it meant. It was supposed to be a family of 5 trip but even early on my daughter suggested, “Hey, let’s go, just the two of us!”

“Oh, no,” I said. “We can’t do that. We’re all going.” This was not because I didn’t want to travel with my daughter but the sheer decadence of traveling, just the two of us, I couldn’t quite justify.

But then as details were becoming clearer, the boys started dropping like flies. My husband had to work. My oldest had to work. My youngest had a baseball game. I wanted to find another weekend so we all could make the journey to the Philadelphia area but with everything the kids have going on, it became evident that probably wouldn’t happen any time soon.

I realized it was a do or die chance and we ran with it. 

It would be a whirlwind trip, leave late Friday and return early Sunday. There was a lot of driving to do and to be honest after the busy week I had, I wasn’t sure if I was up for five hours on the Turnpike, in the rain.

But we packed up the van, waved goodbye, said a prayer and we were off. 

I needed time to ease into the trip so I told her to hold off on the playlist she created for us to listen to. We got a later start than I had planned which made me a little nervous but once we got to the Somerset area, I was feeling more relaxed. 

For years my daughter and I have been in opposite music camps. She is a country girl and me, well, I’m either stuck in the 60s or in an alternative 90s world. When she asked if she could put together some tunes for us to listen to, I wasn’t sure what I was going to get but she did say she would keep me in mind. That would prove to be an understatement. 

The country music she chose were songs I played when I worked overnights at a station in Virginia Beach in the late 90s. There was plenty of alternative music and even some great 60s tunes. I asked her, “Where is your music? This seems to be all my stuff.”

She explained that the world of Tik Tok, which I am only slightly familiar with, has helped broaden her music horizons. I remember a few months ago, she played a song for me she had just heard in a Tik Tok video that she really liked. It was by The Smiths, an English rock band from the 80s. I was shocked. She genuinely seemed to like the unique vocal stylings of the band’s lead singer and it took me back to when I was her age and had been turned on to the same band and the same songs. 

On the road, it was fun to have a song end and anticipate what was coming next. It appears our taste in music is more similar than I realized and it really made the drive just fly by.

As we got closer to our destination the weather took a turn for the worst. By this time, it was dark, the rain was no longer just moderate and there was a lot of road construction. That is when she switched to the soundtrack of the musical Hamilton. “I think we need this now,” she said. I couldn’t have agreed more. I was not throwing away my shot at completing our voyage.

Music has been such an important part of my life since my earliest days. It is so fulfilling to share this love with my children and experience what they appreciate and how I subtly played a role in shaping their musical palette.

After listening to her playlist, I did feel a little guilty that she left off a genre really important to her right now - K Pop, which is Korean popular music. She knows I am not a big fan but there are a few songs I can tolerate. So, from Breezewood to Irwin, with an hour and a half left, it was all Korean radio. But honestly, it wasn't that bad. It gave her a chance to try to win me over to the BTS (her favorite K-pop band) club. She even tried comparing them to the Beatles!!

Do I understand my daughter’s Korean music fascination? No. 

But maybe that will be something her daughter will figure out.

Put Me In Coach, Not

 The boys of summer are back. 

Ok, maybe it is not quite summer, with up and down temps, but you get my drift. Little league baseball is almost mid-season and oh what a season it is. 

My youngest plays on a 10 and under team and they have had some pretty exciting games. It has been a fun time for us to be back on the diamond after having no season last year. It seems like the kiddos are happy to be back too as I've noticed a little more spring in their steps. 

My husband and I weren’t sure our son was going to play this year either. It seems absurd that this kid with so much love for all sports would consider sitting out but that is where we were. The season before the pandemic was a rough one. There were a couple of incidents of being hit by the ball, once in the head and another in the foot, that left a lasting impression on this little baller. 

Things got so bad that we actually had to bribe our kid to go to his last game and even then, he ended up watching the final few innings in the stands with us. The fear was real. 

Apparently, you can’t just tell a kid that has been hit in the head to get back out there. (He was up to bat and did have a helmet on when the pitch took aim for his noggin.) It was a good thing this happened as the season was winding down because it would have made for a very long couple of months. The final two games were painful and a lesson in patience and empathy for us parents.

Our son wanted us to buy a face guard and a shin guard to help him feel less vulnerable on the field. I wanted to say, “Why don’t we just invest in a bubble? Does that sound good?”

Patience is a virtue and to be honest now that we are going through this parenting thing for the third time, I am running a little bit low. I don’t want to say I’m giving up but my tolerance is not where it once was, like when I was young and less gray.

You walk a fine line between babying a kid and getting them to toughen up. At the time, my son was eight-years-old.  The kids had just graduated from coach pitch to kid pitch. As any baseball parent knows, this is the hardest transition for kid players. You go from having nice concentrated throws over the plate by an adult to wild errant pitches by kids. It is hard to find a groove for these little ones and sometimes there is the ball to the head. 

It was scary for me to watch especially when there is an older, taller kid who has a pretty good arm already. One day I showed up to a game and asked my husband, “What is this, the World Series?” I was aghast. The pitches, it seemed to me, were at least 90 mph and my little guy was just standing at the plate, inches away from another fast ball to the brain.

With that being said, we really didn’t think our kid would play baseball again. This was very upsetting since baseball is the one sport, I know the most about and one that has a long family history. And to make matters worse, he was not only hit with a ball while batting, but he was also hit while fielding. There was no safe place for him to be. 

Luckily, the pandemic year off actually worked in our favor because cancelled seasons and months off made the memories of being hit fade just a little.  For months, there were no outside activities for our son to participate in and he really missed having these opportunities. When it came time to sign up this year for baseball, he did not put up a fight when we brought it up. 

Personally, I think the chance to be with his friends again, in a setting that wasn’t a virtual classroom, outweighed any chance of injury. Also, a year is a lot of time to grow and mature. The kids are a little bigger and even our son has grown a few inches which makes him less of a target for a crazy pitch.

Fast forward to our son’s fourth game of the season this past Saturday, his team was losing 6-2 and it was the final inning. It didn't look good for the team but starting off with our son, hits helped load up the bases. I can still hear the crack of the bat by a player I’ll call “Spanky” that sent multiple runs around the bases to home plate. 

Our kids ended up winning the game by one run and the celebrations and chants of “Spanky saved our lives!” will live on in my memory. Watching the team have fun and play their hearts out after a year off is something I don’t take for granted. Seeing them progress in their skills is fulfilling and the wins here and there, make it just a bit sweeter. 

I Can See Clearly Now..

Karma comes around pretty quickly for some. 

It sure did for me. You see, last year my husband got his first pair of progressive lenses.

If you are not in the 40+ crowd, a progressive lens is like a bifocal but better. It provides multi lens support; distance, intermediate and near all in one pair of glasses. Even better - there are no lines to alert people you are getting old and you can’t see so good up close. 

Even though my husband is younger than me, only a year younger than me, so you can put the cougar jokes away, he made the downhill vision slide before me. He was a little beat up about it so I did the only thing a loving wife should do. I hit the ground running with old man jokes and started calling him Ben Franklin. 

All the ribbing was done with love, really. I find the best way through hard times is with laughter and I did make him smile. I was a little worried about him getting used to the glasses because they tell you to be aware of possible headaches or balance issues. The doctor said the change would be so slight, my husband would hardly notice. To this day, he claims the lab messed up his glasses because he never really noticed any change in his lenses and never had anything to adjust to. 

Personally, I think it’s male self preservation thing and he didn’t want to admit his glasses improved his vision. I don’t think he is ready to admit he needs them and that is ok. 

But me on the other hand, days after my 100th Ben Franklin joke, I noticed I was reading food labels a little bit closer. I was reading the medicine bottles a little bit closer. One of my favorite insomniac hobbies, reading newspaper articles on my phone in bed, was becoming a challenge. 

I went through weeks of thinking my glasses were dirty or my phone screen was dirty or damaged. It didn’t occur to me from the start that I needed the progressives as well. But the reading at night was really bothering me and I wanted to fix the problem. The more I thought about it, the more I realized what was happening. For a minute, I wished I had been a little bit nicer to my hubby but deep down I knew this middle-age right of passage was coming for me no matter what.

It took months before I could get an appointment. Because of the pandemic, all five of us were behind on both dental and eye check-ups. By the time it was my turn, I learned it had been four years since my last pair of glasses. (When making multiple appointments for people I sometimes forget to make one for myself.)  No wonder I couldn’t see very well.

But my doctor was very sympathetic and explained to me that while my up close vision was worse, my far away vision had gotten a little better and in fact my new prescription would not be as strong. 

This did make me feel better. You see, I’ve been wearing my glasses since the second grade and it seems like my vision has only gotten worse with each check up. But when you space out appointments over four years, it makes it easier to deal with the bad news. Obviously, that wasn’t why I wasn’t more regular with my appointments and I’ve gotten used to having very poor vision but hearing about some slight improvement - that was nice.

I had to pick out new frames which is hard for someone like me. When you can’t see to begin with and you have to put frames on with no lens power you cannot really see what you look like.

It is a frustrating experience and I have to hold up my regular glasses over the potential new frames to get a slight inkling of what I'm working with. I feel like I never have a great idea if something will work for me so I end up just picking something and hoping for the best. 

I went with a purple leopard print frame which seemed to be calling out to me probably because my eyes were diluted. It took two weeks for them to arrive and to be honest I was excited to get them. Four years with the same glasses is way too long and I needed a change. 

When I arrived at the doctor’s office to pick up my frames, I announced to the staff, “I’m here to pick up my old people glasses.”

I was met with words of encouragement. “Awe, no Kristen. Your new frames are sexy. You are gonna look great.” 

I haven’t collected any new phone numbers lately but I can read better in bed and that is as sexy as it gets. 

My Museum Is Closed

Have you fallen into this trap?

Thinking you have a secure storage area only to find out sentimental items have disappeared, broke or were donated?

Ok. I admit it was naive of me to think my childhood bedroom would remain a shrine for life. To be honest, I should have done more to protect any items I had any attachment to. 

In my defense, I moved into my first apartment not long after I graduated from college. It was a studio apartment and there wasn’t a lot of room for my bed let alone mementos of years gone by.

The first thing to go was my snow globe collection. This was an accident. A mirror toppled over in my “former” bedroom breaking a few of my treasured items. At this point I don’t even remember what existed before the destruction so this isn’t that big of a deal. I have accumulated a pretty nice collection since then, mostly holiday related, alongside my wedding cake topper that has soothed the loss of any snow globes that came before. 

My prom dress - that was a big one. I am not sure how that ended up finding its way into a Goodwill donation bag but I continue to look for it when I go thrifting.

I think I had this notion that the Kristen Museum would be there forever to house the items that tell the story of my life. That is so not the case. Keep in mind I have two other siblings that probably feel the same way about their things. And a side note...all three of us spent many years living out of state. I am sure my parents wanted to de-clutter their house and create their empty nest love shack. 

(I look around my own house after 18-years of child raising - I have redecorating dreams too.)

I recently told the story of my piano, in a state of disrepair,  that I gave the green light to have removed. While my father was working on taking it apart, my husband mentioned (unbeknownst to me) that he would like the bench. He thought I would appreciate having a memento of my childhood piano and he planned on refinishing it to make it look like new. The bench held 8 years' worth of instructional books and sheet music I had accumulated. 

When anyone other than me would open the bench, it probably looked like a lot of clutter and random papers. But among the books and papers, a treasure was hidden. 

When I first started taking piano lessons, back in the early 80's, my dad’s father went to the music store and bought me a book of old standards, some of his favorites, including "Goodnight Irene" and "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" plus he picked up the sheet music for "The Sound of Music". 

For a kiddo just starting out on the keys, these songs were challenging. It would be a while before I could ever attempt them. To be honest, the songs always remained challenging. I wasn’t that good at reading music. But I held out hope that one day, I would be able to play them for him. My grandfather passed away before that day came.

This has been a regret I carry with me but again I have always had hope for a future recital. That hope came to a crashing halt when my husband and I went to pick up the piano bench from my parents’ garage. The first thing I did was lift the lid and I almost lost my breath. It was empty. 

“Hey, Dad,” I nervously called out. “Where's all the stuff?” 

I began to look around the garage frantically. There was no sign of a catalog worth of piano books. My dad promised he did not throw anything away, but I had my doubts. He did not understand the relationship I had with those items or the future concert I was planning on performing. 

A few days later, my mom took pity on me, probably because of the prom dress debacle, and let me know when they would not be home. I was able to go over when the house was empty and look for my books. Luckily, it didn’t take long for me to discover the very items I thought were gone forever. They were in the garage, in a tote, underneath a bunch of photo albums and knickknacks. 

Those items mean more to me now than they ever did when I was younger. My grandfather died when I was 12 and I really don’t have much to remember him by. This music was such a personal gift and it offers insight into a complicated man who I really never got to know. 

I believe I inherited his love of music and the two of us probably had more in common than we had the opportunity to realize. Maybe that is the true gift?

Finding Your Happy

365 days….

It seems much longer than 365 days. It seems like years - decades.

On March 13th, 2020, I left the school where, only three months prior, I had been hired. The students would not return until 10 months later. No one saw that coming.

I am still trying to make sense of a year that had so many ups and downs. I am sure we all can agree, our lives will never be the same. 

Ten months later, we still walk around wearing masks at work, at the store, in church. I keep my distance from people when speaking to them and I refrain from any hugging or touching - for the most part. Occasionally, my mom will come in for the sneak attack hug. She has the philosophy that if it's her time it's her time. But as a rule, I only hug my immediate family. 

At my school, the students started coming back a few weeks ago. The return was staggered to allow students and staff to get adjusted to the new social-distanced learning. Two weeks ago, marked the return of the students I worked with before the world stopped. These kids are now 1st graders and while not all of them have chosen to come back in person there are quite a few familiar faces. 

I had only worked with them for a few months so for the most part these kids see me now and while there is a slight glimmer of recognition we didn’t have a lot of time to build a relationship. There were a few kids I worked with on a regular basis and those I have not yet seen. But last week, when I walked into the cafeteria for my assigned lunch duty I was spotted by someone who was genuinely happy to see me. 

I think we saw each other at the same time. But it was her arms waving frantically in the air that really got my attention. I was so happy to see this little girl  again and I immediately went over to say hello. This kid is one of those people who smiles with her whole face and since it was lunchtime, when the kids can take their masks off, I got the full experience.

Her joy is contagious and I missed that. With all the gloom and sadness of the past year, it was nice to see someone genuinely HAPPY. Happy to be in school. Happy to be at lunch. Happy to be with her friends. Just a whole bunch of happy!

After we caught up, I realized I recognized a few of her classmates. I said hello and they were more guarded than “Little Miss Sunshine'' but that was ok too. One little boy said, “I know you” then gobbled up another bite of lunch. 

I went back to my corner of the cafeteria. My eyes kept finding their way over to her table. Seeing her made me realize just how different things are this year. A table, which used to seat nine kiddos, now accommodates only two. There are stickers on the seats, spaced six feet apart, where kids can sit and there is a lot of leaning in order to communicate with fellow classmates.

The once chaotic environment is much more subdued and the kids are encouraged to stay in their seats after getting their meal. The garbage cans are brought to them once their meals are finished. 

At the end of this school day, a day that is two hours shorter than last year, I was standing in the hall as dismissal began. I watched as the first graders came down to board their buses. And once again, there was Little Miss Sunshine. This time she was all bundled up with a furry hood framing her face. Her electric smile was concealed by a mask but her eyes said it all. 

Her “happy” made me happy and for that I was truly grateful. We, as adults, can get bogged down with the weight of it all but we have to find our “happy”. Things are so different from how they once were but there are plenty of reasons to be happy and sometimes we just need a little reminder to smile.

Thank You For The Music

I didn’t think it would hit me this hard. 

I haven’t sat down and played it for decades. But earlier this week, I gave my dad the green light to part with it. I just didn’t think the process would happen so quickly.

When I was around 9-years-old, I started taking piano lessons. I don’t remember what initiated this other than my mom wanting me to do it. I was happy to start this adventure as I already had a deep love of music early on. 

My parents were cautious. It is one thing to start lessons and pay the $12 a week for instruction but it is another to invest hundreds of dollars into an instrument, as big as a piece of furniture, which could end up gathering dust in the corner once the novelty of the lessons wore off. 

I started off with an electric organ. It had about half of the keys of a piano but to start it got the job done. Eventually though, as my lessons progressed, my piano teacher told my mom it was time to upgrade or I couldn’t advance.

My parents didn’t have a lot of spare cash at the time and the expense of a new piano was not in the budget. My mom has always had a frugal nature and so she immediately started looking into other options. She saw an ad in the paper for an auction at a home in North Versailles and a piano was on the docket. Upon arriving at the event, she learned that the 100 year old piano had been used in the home for teaching private lessons.

She had never been to an auction before and probably could have gotten the piano for a cheaper price had she not been paddle happy but with a pound of the gavel, “Sold” to the lady in the back for $300 - a price my grandmother offered to pay. 

I vaguely remember the piano arriving. It was on wheels but still a challenge to maneuver this heavy box into our game room - a room it would occupy for nearly 40 years. Not long after the piano arrived, a tuner came to our house to get the century year old instrument in tip top shape. This past week when my father began taking the piano apart, we found the tuner’s name and date written behind the upper panel - February 1, 1984.

I took lessons through my freshman year of high school. Once I set my sights on participating in marching band, I moved to the clarinet. It was an easy transition due to my piano experience. (With the piano, your hands are doing two different things. On the clarinet, your hands are working together.) But the piano remained, and, from time to time, I would get my old lesson books out and play. 

Even if you are not a musician, a piano is a nice compliment to any home. Even though no one was playing mine on a regular basis, it was a wonderful compliment to “Grammy and Pappy’s” and, over the years, each grandkid had their chance to tickle the ivories. A couple non-published works were composed by a few of the kids even though there were a few keys missing and the instrument was badly out of tune.

This past October, my parents ordered new carpeting and furniture for their game room. My piano was moved into the garage in order for the work to be completed. It never found its way back. 

Looking at it the other day, taking up so much space that my parents are unable to put their car in the garage, I knew it was time to say goodbye. A large investment of time and money would be needed to return this piano to play-worthy condition - more money than was spent on purchasing it 36 years ago. Surprisingly, when I brought the subject up to my mother, there was no push back. She knew it was time too. 

A few years back, a neighbor generously gifted my family her piano when she moved to California. Because of that, I knew I couldn’t attempt to make room for my ol’ upright.  I looked up ways to repurpose a piano but the outdoor fountain/ garden/ wine bar was out of our wheelhouse. I had to let it go. In the shape the instrument is in and because of its age, I knew no local agency would take it as a donation either. 

My dad who loves to tinker in his garage and was waiting years to say goodbye to the piano wasted no time taking it apart. Yes, for me, this has been very sad and I cried seeing it in pieces the other day but I know it is what needed to be done. The ol’ gal gave us her best and for the sound of music that emanated from her hammers and strings, I’ll always be grateful.

“Life is like a piano, the white keys are happy days, and the black keys are sad ones. Just remember that you need both to make music.” 

- anonymous

Finisher 2020

It is an impressive piece of hardware.

Not just because you could probably knock someone out with it but to me, the most striking part is what it says -

Finisher 2020

During the summer, my husband enrolled in the virtual Richard S. Caliguiri City of Pittsburgh Great Race. I almost forgot I was part of the original plan to participate in the event. The idea came to us after my uncle passed away back on January 1. I wanted to honor his memory by competing in the Great Race as he did some 30 years ago. 

There was a photo on my grandparents’ television of my uncle crossing the finish line. I was always so proud of this photo and, as a kid, I would look at it in awe. That photo remains etched in my mind now that I completely comprehend how much preparation it took for him to be ready for the 6.21 miles. 

To be honest, I knew I had a lot of work to do to get ready for an event of this magnitude. My longest run had only been a 5k and that took everything I could give. But when you make a plan in January for something that would take place eight months later, you figure you have plenty of time to prepare.

No one knew what would happen just three months after the ball dropped on 2019. 

When I look back on our original Great Race plan it seems like decades ago. I had completely planned on getting myself in running shape and proudly crossing the finish line wearing a tee shirt showcasing the bib number from my uncle’s race. 

So as with most things that were planned for 2020 - the Great Race became a virtual event. That sealed the deal for me in terms of participation. I didn’t want to honor my uncle virtually. It was back in May when organizers decided to make it a more pandemic friendly event and by that time, I had already made the switch to cycling. (My family and I started taking frequent bike rides to pass the time when we were in lockdown.)

My husband decided to still go through with the race. I was proud of him for entering his 10K time of 50 minutes and 14 seconds which he earned running around the former Eastland Mall site. Once he submitted his information, he was mailed the typical race swag - event t-shirt and medal. 

Again, the medal is an impressive piece of hardware, with the event name and date on it framed by the city skyline and autumn leaves. But I particularly like the way the word “finisher” and the year “2020” come together in the left-hand corner. Looking at the medal, really examining it, I thought we all deserve a medal for getting through this year. God knows it wasn’t easy. 

These past 360 days seem more like 1,080 days and even looking back to this past January seems like a completely different year. We’ve all had obstacles and disappointments to overcome but we’ve made it. We all deserve a pat on the back and definitely a medal!

Yes, I realize that moving from December 31, 2020 to January 1, 2021 won’t make a big difference. There is no magic fairy that is coming down to “poof” all the bad away, but putting the past 365 days in the rear-view mirror and looking ahead to a fresh clean slate does add a little spring to my step. 

There are so many things to look forward to in the year ahead - covid-19 cases decreasing, restrictions being lifted, socially UN-distant family gatherings, please add your wishes and desires to the list. 

I would like to thank each of you for being a part of my 2020 therapy. Writing these blogs and often getting feedback has been one of my comforts during these past 12 months. I hope we continue to stick together through the upcoming year ahead. I wish everyone a hopeful and healthy 2021.