Kiss Me Kate: July 2005

Down Home -- And What a Sweet Home It Is.

Grandaddy, Emma and Kate. Kate had a wonderful time in Alabama.

Aunt Natalie, Emma, and Kate.

Kate's Great Great Aunt Ruby with Kate.

Granny, Kate and Emma.

Granny Nell with Kate or "Katie" as she likes to call her.

Emma playing with Hailey after Emma and Jackson's birthday party.

Kate smiling at Emma..

Emma holding Kate with Jackson looking on --

Emma finally holding Kate -- they love each other very much already.

Jackson and Kate.

Kate loves her hands.

Kate, Emma, Jackson, and Emma and Jackson's cousin Matthew.

Kate at the pool -- cousins swimming -- Kate can't wait to be in there with them.

Kate laying out at Grandaddy's in Alabama. Warren, Carolyn, and Aunt Karol talking in the background. Notice the humidity steam of the picture.

Aunt Natalie with Kate and Emma and Jackson at Grandaddy's.

Jackson going under.

Grandaddy with Emma and Jackson in the new pool. Kate will be there with them next year.

Emma tending to Kate. Kate loves her cousin very much.

Emma and Kate -- at home in Alabama.

A trip to 17th Street in the 95 degree heat.

Ron and Mary met us at Peppers.

Before our trip to Alabama, we all went to brunch with Ron and Mary on 17th Street in DC.

Desperate and Kateless

Today marks the fourth day since Candace and Kate went down to Alabama to visit family. It's a strange feeling. Right now, this resembles my life as I lived it for most of my existence: Days at work, evenings with long blocks of time with nothing to do. I should be grateful for the peace, the freedom, and most of all, the sleep. Instead, I feel listless and restless. My heart clearly isn't here -- it's down South, with my family. We're a freshly minted unit, the three of us. But it feels as natural as daylight. And its absence is a troubling thing.

Oh well. Off to Hooters.

(It's a joke, people!)

Kate's First Fourth

Today was a big day for Katharine. Her crowing achievement came almost right out of the chute, when she turned two months old. It's impossible to believe that Kate came into our lives just a few weeks ago, but it's a fact. She's growing larger and more aware by the day -- and sometimes it seems, by the hour.

We thought Kate might be ready for her first baseball game. Candace pushed me to get tickets to the streaking Nationals. When I protested that there would be no good seats left, she said that that would be better; Kate would be in the shade instead of the sun. Who can argue with logic like that? A few mouse clicks later and some prized seven-dollar seats in Section 545 were ours. We loaded up our diaper bag and journeyed to Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in the District, home of the first-place Nats. (Washington came into the game having swept my brother's Cubs in Chicago and riding a six game winning streak. Guess who's attendance would bring that to an end?)

After a multi-hour ascent(Sherpa not included), we found our seats and congratulated ourselves on our ingenuity and frugality. Let the cake-eaters fry in the 85-degree heat in their fancy seats while we sat, breeze-aided, in the shadows of RFK's mammoth upper deck. All seemed well until we realized we were directly adjacent to the one lonely loudspeaker installed, apparently, to provide sound to the entire Section 500. A few dozen stanzas of "Thunderstruck" anyone? If Kate turns out to be a guitarist, we'll know why.

The heat was bearable, the Coors Light went down fine, and the Nats held their own. Then the 10 or so Tattooed People showed up to sit in front of us. Normally, I have no trouble with my tattooed and pierced brethren -- and had I not been preprogrammed in a suburban, overchieving, polo shirt-wearing environment, I might have joined their lot at one point in my life. But did they, among all in Section 500, have to pick this moment to spontaneously initiate a N-A-T-S! cheer? Over and over again? Okay, it was kind of fun the first five times. Then Kate got squirmy. Which meant, ultimately, the show was over for Baby Goes to the Ballgame. (That and, of course, the dreaded Wave, brought out of retirement to rule again in the kind of multipurpose concrete oval in which it was born in the 1980s. One of those came around and Kate got Shark Attack eyes that she didn't lose until the Beltway.)

We made it to the top of the seventh, which I counted as a victory. But, sadly, it was the only one of the day, as the Nats fell to the hated Mets 5-2, snapping their six-game winning streak and giving me a new franchise I can adorn with my cursed luck.

Kate, we hope, had a good time, even if she'll never remember it. We'd like it to be the first game of many.

POSTSCRIPT: We came home and watched the Indians play Detroit. The announcers said that the game was broadcast on the Armed Forces Network. It featured video messages from family members to military all over the world. So we want to take a moment to say hello to our friend in the Marines, Randy, who checks out our trivial little blog and who is stationed in Iraq. Come home safe, Randy. Happy Fourth of July.