Kathryn Marie Wiens was born at 11:28 a.m. on April 8, 2013. She’s a lovely girl by all counts – 7 lbs., 12 oz. – and both mom and baby are doing great.
They will call her Kate.
That’s a good thing, too, since I had actually picked out The Who’s “It’s a Boy” on YouTube. A song from a crummy musical concept album is no way to begin your life.
Several new titles come bundled with this cute baby girl. Mom. Dad. Grandpa. Grandma. And uncle. I’ll be sharing that last honor with my brother Nick.
Finally, with my newsroom-addled mind on autopilot, I mistakenly scooped the competition (the new parents) by posting an early write-thru of this congratulations. You may have seen it disappear from this blog, Facebook and Twitter just before noon – but it was just a tardy attempt to swallow my excitement and let the subjects of this story make an announcement that comes by so rarely in a lifetime.
Rachel, Adam, Nick – circa Easter 1993 in Lawton, Okla.
Forgive me if I’m not asleep at 12:30 a.m. Monday. My sister Rachel is having a baby.
Not this very second, no. Or is she? I have my cell phone ringer cranked in the other room, just in case. Firm instructions were given to my family weeks ago: Call. Day or night.
You know what? I better put it on my nightstand. Man wasn’t intended to wake to the pleasant sounds of wind chimes or celestial bells. This calls for a lion’s roar.
The kiddo was due on Easter Sunday but, mimicking his or her soon-to-be-uncle, has decided to be fashionably late. My sister was told to report to the hospital at 6 p.m. one week later to be induced. Some sort of drug with innocent name is to be administered at 4 a.m. Monday in an attempt to coax the kid into The Real World. The gender is top-secret.
This is obviously a big moment for the Gerik family. I’m the oldest, still falling asleep regularly on my sofa with the lights ablaze in my apartment. And my brother is just a few years out of college, slave to the deadline as he follows in my footsteps.
Rachel? She’s a teacher. Her husband’s a firefighter. They own a house.
And so the middle becomes first.
Joel and the mom-to-be. (photo by Doris Gerik, mom of the mom)
After less than a week, I’m ready to return my girlfriend.
I already have five girlfriends in my single-person household, including all three previous generations of girlfriends. I thought the smaller girlfriend would fill a small niche in my needs, such as controlling my TiVo or Sonos system. So I bought the low-end girlfriend. I was wrong.
I like her so much that I’m going to return her and get a slightly bigger girlfriend. I expect she will become my primary girlfriend. I’ve had various girlfriends since the very first. I’ve spent a lot of time with Paddy, Nexi and Fire. Paddy is easily the best girlfriend ever. (I haven’t tried out Sandy, so I don’t have her as a basis of comparison.)
My love for the smaller girlfriend over Paddy comes down to one thing: size. She’s perfectly sized for every room in the house. She’s perfectly sized for travel, where every pound counts. My most frequent use is while I’m watching TV. I use her to control my TV, play Pandora on my house’s speaker system, check email, tweet, and update Facebook. She’s much lighter than the previous girlfriend I used to use for these tasks.
I do miss the old girlfriend’s display. Yes, her display is a step down, and I definitely notice it. But when I have the old girlfriend in my hand, I now notice how heavy she is more than I notice the crispness of her display.
My grandma is legendary for her insistence on saving everything. It’s been an epic struggle for my parents to consolidate and reduce her museum-style collection (amassed over 80+ years) as they prepared her home for the market. How do you decide what’s important? What’s merely junk? Strange things occasionally pop up. Rattlesnake rattles. Penmanship awards. And newspaper clippings from Wichita, Kan.
Come with me to 1964 – a time when the Vietnam War was raging, The Beatles were invading and the world was just simply a scary place.
It’s your typical blotter item, albeit one involving a series of attacks on Wichita women with a spray can of nitric acid. The name of a relative is redacted. But what my mom found next caused her to tear up laughing.
I’m a law-abiding man. I keep my nose clean. I wipe my feet on mats and look both ways before crossing the street. But I only heed “No Turn on Red” signs 99.999% of the time.
The corner is right by my apartment, a place I pass through each morning on the way to work. I sit at that red light with my blinker on, waiting sometimes a full two minutes before legally making the turn.
And by NOT honoring such a request, I buy myself a date in traffic court.
___
Unfortunately, that date was also the morning I played visiting professor at Bradley University. I give my spiel to the sleepy masses, lecturing on the ups and downs and sideways of Twitter and other new media, then awkwardly rush the whole presentation to a close 15 minutes earlier than scheduled. There’s no good way to say that you need to leave for court.
Room 121 looks like a Monday morning, a multitude of transgressors looking for absolution. I check in with the bailiff, take a seat in a crowded pew (yes, the symbolism!) and await judgment. This won’t be quick.
Since cell phones are off limits, one is left with classic time diversions – like eavesdropping. The cases are divided between those with suspended licenses and the petty thieves. The capital offenders are given face time with an honest-to-God judge, while I’m delegated to an assistant state’s attorney. My pew-mates are a ragged bunch, bit characters from Little Shop of Horror’s Skid Row. They’ve been here before, but avoid holding my hand.
After 90 minutes, my name is announced formally and clearly. I enter through the swinging doors and am presented with 3 options:
1. I have the right to a trial.
2. I can pay a $200 fine, but the offense will be added to my driving record.
3. But wait, that’s not all! For two Jacksons more, I can skip my way out of here with no lasting effects.
Ready as I am to fight the power, the promise of immediate freedom forces my hand. They have me where they want me, wallet open and willing.
While the rest of the world enjoys a romantic night out, my parents will be together on another quiet evening in their Wichita home.
Valentine’s Day has double meaning for them, you see. This High Holy Day of Love is also their wedding anniversary.
I’ve never asked them why. This feels odd as I sit in the newsroom, a place where answers are gathered as daily routine.
Some might go through great effort to plan such a coincidence, but I doubt my parents are the type. So on their 31st anniversary, I decide to finally do a little reporting. My dad picks up the phone. I wish him a happy anniversary and start interrogating. Why today?
“We didn’t set out to get married on Valentine’s Day,” he says.
“We were trying to do it before Lent,” my mom yells from the background. She’s been tipped off, somehow.
“It was by default,” my dad confirms.
This was merely a day when marriage would work, a time and place that wouldn’t conflict with the schedules and cares of the world.
February 14, 1981.
My dad notes that no red hearts were present at the ceremony or reception.
Wichita, 1981
___
I’m sure that my parents consider going out for dinner, but most years they jointly agree to avoid the crowds. They’d be competing with the Hallmarks and American Greetings of the world.
“We could do an early bird special with all the other old people,” my mom jokes. They do actually like to eat early, for the record.
Instead, this happened: She woke up this morning, walked into the bathroom and found a pile of candy. She went to the kitchen after that, and again, discovered another pile of candy.
My dad doesn’t think much of this small act.
“I was always kind of a slug,” he says. “Don’t be like me, son.”
But my dad is mistaken, even absolutely incorrect. He realizes that love can’t be adequately measured in chalky hearts, or anything else for that matter. It’s the other 364 days that prove it true.
This title shouldn’t be possible. I mean it; those letters shouldn’t spell out the words in that order.
Last week, I met a coworker for sushi. It had been a rough week at the paragraph factory, some sort of unrelenting, multi-headed hydra – and I really hate snakes.
Soon after we begin eating, my friend Ashley and her boyfriend arrive and take a table next to us. I say hi, accidentally talk too much about matters of media, then concentrate on avoiding leftovers. Meanwhile, in Florida, election databases are being populated at a rate that won’t allow me time for desert.
A group of young women on the other side of us finish their meal, but before leaving, start toward Ashley. I should mention that she’s a TV reporter/anchor. They meekly interrupt her, say something forgettable and fawning, and I expect them to leave.
Peoria-Bloomington is the 116th largest television market in the U.S., according to Wikipedia.
But they’re hungry. For a photo.
Ashley is mortified, or very close to it. But she’s also gracious.
Their camera doesn’t work the first time.
More fumbling with the dumb camera, her boyfriend sitting patiently like some sort of decorative centerpiece.
A bite of sushi remains between her chopsticks.
They will get that photo. One on each side of her, obsessed sentries.
Well, it could be her name. There’s a small chance. And an even tinier chance that she’s thought of me.
$2.20 for a few late DVDs and a book. This happens constantly; I’m just doing my part to support the Peoria Public Library system. She wouldn’t take my money, but she did laugh at my desperate questioning and pointed me to a machine that wouldn’t smile back. I paid $5 and the hunk of steel called it even.
She’s a regular, this girl. I’m usually jamming on a keyboard, scowling. Her? An expert at shelving. A Dewey Decimal damsel.
There are days that this is all that keeps you going: straight dark hair midway down the back, a multicolor horizontally-striped shirt, brown cords, shoes and socks.
