TeamReedBlog.2020

 My city friends often cock their heads and wonder (sometimes out loud) if my childhood stories - sometimes current stories - from home are real. Few of them grew up with shotguns parked in the corner of the dining room, transmissions in the living room or dinner hanging in the trees. Short of someone with Sheldon Cooper's eiditic memory, I doubt anyone can recall anything with 100 percent accuracy. My memories are shaded, of course, by my position in the family, ability to see/remember and the myriad influences that come with re-telling. But my sister Diane really did scratch her butt with a revolver while shooting rats at a dump and subsequently shot said butt because she still had her finger on the trigger. She was actually lucky to be alive to do that because decades earlier, she'd called my eldest sister, Donna, the "b-word." We were a Pentecostal household where you weren't even supposed to say "shoot" because it was just a  placeholder for the wor...

People say the teen years are designed to cause so much friction between children and parents that all parties are thrilled when the kid skips out to college or a new place where they can stay up all night, never make the bed and roll around in their filth at will. While Alison is no stranger to rolling around in her own filth - one of the things she most celebrates is not having to make her bed every day as decreed by the Captain and I don't want to know how infrequently she washes her sheets when she lives away from here - we never really had crazy friction. Which is great until it comes time to really separate. Those first days of day care, Kindergarten, summer camp, college are just prep work for the day when your kid moves out for a real job that means no more summer vacation. And its worse when that move-out is states away. But it's the right step. A necessary step. Did we cry. Sure, we cried. Some of more than others. But we also laughed and hugged and talked about how g...

 After closing out Alison's Lafayette apartment, we were in the car. Ali was driving. And cursing. Because when Ali drives, motorists who cut her off, drive too slow or, essentially, breathe in her direction tend to piss her off. It's like driving with Lynda Ruble: barely controlled road rage for sometimes inconsequential infractions by drivers, who contrary to what Lyn or Ali may think, are not out to get them. It's taken me awhile, but when I'm in a car with Ali, I tend to ignore most of her mutterings and shouts. Unless they're directed at me, which can sometimes happen. In this week's incident, I was letting her rage roll right off me but I did start musing about why it is that a certain Christian holy man's name is a common curse word but other holy men - say, Buddha or the Pope, L. Ron Hubbard - aren't taken in vain on the regular. It's my fault that Ali sometimes calls on J. Christ in moments of high emotion. I'm not proud of it. When she ...

The Captain sometimes complains that I cast him in a less-than-flattering light in these missives, so today, I share with you what happens when your sister-in-law abandons your plan to share craft Maine beer and leaves you to finish your "Lunch" all by yourself.  It's also possible that our coast-to-coast flying and walking the Maine countryside contributed, but mostly I blame Jen, who also took this picture and has been (justifiably) chortling about it ever since.  Suffice to say, we had our usual great time in Maine. We got to see everyone - including a slimmed down and dapper David Cowan. James brought Zeke down and I nearly let him escape to the wilds of Maine but Jen or James lured him back with doggie treats. That little beagle is a bullet, man. We got to visit with Mary and Rory, too, and we visited a new cidery and winery where Jen and I had wine slushies, the boys had cider and Ali, Jeff and Peter were in the b-roll of a Bangor TV news channel bit on the place. I...

Even in my head it sounds like I'm an old lady, but it's kind of awesome to me that we have experienced both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans in the past few days.  Before we set out on the cross-country trek, Jeff and I had spent the weekend outside Louisville with friends along the Bourbon Trail.  We came home, worked Monday, then collected Alison to go west before flying back east to Auntie Jen's lake house in Maine.  So, I was appropriately exhausted when we made it to the East Coast Friday, after ending a visit in Washington with Aunt Gudrun, Christina, Jesi, Andi, Eva and Elle. I was in Washington years ago, but Jeff and Ali had not been as a family. It's still amazing to an Indiana girl to see mountains everywhere you look, even in a foggy, overcast environment. While in Washington, we visited Bainbridge Island - birthplace of pickleball - but didn't play; shopped a bit and had great meals. We beach walked and caught up in between visits with Aunt Gudrun at th...

 Anyone who follows these missives understands that Alison Reed's current and future successes have/will occur largely in spite of her upbringing rather than because of it. I mean, we've tried to shape the little redhead, but we've been helped by a huge swath of humanity that hopefully will remediate the times we fell short. I was reminded of that this weekend when Debbie Beatty - Miss Debbie to anyone associated with Day Nursery - stepped out of her Uber and onto our driveway. She was the lead teacher in Ali and Jenna's two-year-old room at Day Nursery, where they and other lucky little tots spent their days while their parents toiled nearby in state offices.  The nursery was on the ground floor of Government Center North, so just across the street from me at the Statehouse in the early days and then downstairs until I left state service at the direct request of a Mitch Daniels henchman. (I'm not bitter.) You learn a lot from two-years-old to three-years-old.  Pott...

 Forgive the tardiness of this report, but it's been busy around here, and I couldn't get in the right head space to write about Alison's graduation from Purdue University, with honors, mind you. Where to begin? Thank you to Amy Tokash , who, if memory serves has yet to miss a milestone moment with the redhead. Amer and I were pregnant together, so our girls have never not known the sound of our voices or known the enormity of the love we have for them. Jenna graduated from USI this year and will be a kickass nurse.  Thank you, also, to the many people who've already said they'll drop by to celebrate her in June at our house, along with her father who doesn't quite understand the definition of retirement. And thanks to family who'll travel to be with us, as well. More on that to come in June. Ali's actual graduation was last Saturday, which was also the day set aside to celebrate my niece, Rachael Weir, on her graduation from Indiana University.  None o...