2016 - The Year in Review

Remember 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014?

Somehow there IS NO "2015 - Year in Review" post. 2015 was a blur. I got botox for the first time, bought my house, renovated it, met a boyfriend, fell in love, GOT ENGAGED, and my mom got breast cancer and moved in with me for 6 months to get surgery then radiation and chemotherapy treatments...then Hanna moved in...like I said. Blur.

2016 was WEIRD. For one thing, I didn't leave the country. (For the first time since 1998). Do you count Montreal, Canada? I guess I did leave the country. It didn't feel like it counted because it was just for the day and I didn't get a stamp and I drove there by myself when I was visiting Zach in Vermont. 

Oh yeah, Zach. I forgot to die alone and instead I got married! 

Photo by nylonsaddle

During 2016, Zach and I went to 27 states together (and Puerto Rico).

I became a stepmom.


We joined a kickball team:

We weren't number 1.

My mom got lung cancer (again) and this time it had moved to her leg (surgery to remove) and her brain (radiation to zap). I was all ready for her and my dad and Rowdy to move in with me and Zach and the kids into this 900 square foot house, but as it turned out she was only in the city for a month. While they were here they celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary.

2016. 

A great year. 

A tough year. 

The last year of me NOT being 40. 

Hawaii

Hawaii

Zach-isms, Vol. 2

"You have a very large arm. That arm should win a competition for something."

"I really feel that I'm 100% mentally there I'm just not audibly there and I mean that in a really sincere way."

"You have like a bowling ball head."

"Don't you dare face that on postagram."

"Let's try to do something that'll make our farts come out."

The Worst Kind of Turd is an Honest One, Volume: Step Mom

One of the first bike rides we went on as a step-family happened to be a 68-mile round trip from our house to Wisconsin and back. Which of course took hours. And made for a nice opportunity for conversation. 

The 14-year-old and I were riding side-by-side at one point, and he said to me: "Out of all the girls in my life I've ever met you're the only one who doesn't complain about her weight."

<Insert AWWWWWWWWWWWW here>

My heart got so warm. My head got so big it almost exploded. Every feminist bone in my body shone brightly --- finally! Somebody noticed and appreciated my "realness". I thanked him for noticing and responded by saying that it's important to be healthy and riding bikes is one way that I try to stay healthy, and blah blah blah....but then my mind retraced his comment..."complain about her weight" 

I asked, "wait. are you saying that it's surprising because I'm also like the one girl in your life who's not skinny?"

"Well. Yah," he said, "you're actually kind of fat."

Gonna be a long ride.

Squinch

I normally go to my Pilates class after work but today I wasn’t able to --- and so I hit the noon class. I was ten minutes late, of course (as I am ten minutes late for literally everything else in my life). I ran into the class, jumped on my machine and tried not to interrupt much.

The first move is called Beach Ball Twist. This is where you are on your knees, straight back, and take the handle of the Fit Former in front of you with “I Dream of Genie” arms and you twist at the waist. From 10:00 to 2:00, back and forth. It works best if you squinch your butt cheeks as hard as you can. So they say. So I squinched. And squinched. And twisted and turned from 2:00 to 10:00 to 2:00 and back.

The next move is Shot Put. This is where you take the same handle in your right hand and make an “L” – or half a football goal post. Then you TWIST and squinch your butt some more and then give yourself a “High 5” in the mirror. As I returned back to the half football goal post “L”  I happened to look over my shoulder at the person behind me.

Male Co-Worker.

Thanks, Dad

My dad gets very offended, or maybe not offended, but definitely offput if you ask him for something extra he has. 

For example, my mom makes him a giant bowl of popcorn almost every night. So, naturally, when I'm visiting, I want some of that popcorn too. I have tried so many times in vain to go up to the giant bowl in my dad's lap with a tiny cereal bowl to get a small portion of his bounty. He looks at me like I'm asking him for a kidney, and my mom ends up making more popcorn so I can have some. He will not share. 

And then, when it's time to go home, I ask if I can take a couple pounds of venison. (Their deep freeze has enough venison to feed a family of four every night for a year.) You can't believe his shocked face. 

Anyway, when my sisters and I took him and my mom out for their 50th Anniversary dinner, we encouraged him to order the most expensive steak on the menu, and he did. It was pretty big, and I was drinking, so I asked him if I could have a tiny bite, to taste the yumminess. Just a bite. He shook his head yes. I couldn't believe it!

Then he slowly and deliberately, lovingly almost, cut me a piece and sent it down the table, passing it between four people to get it down to me. 

Below is the bite he let me have. He was staring at me receiving it with the most sarcastic sh*t-eating grin you have ever seen. 

JERK

Sunday Favorites: Elevators

New to A Lady Reveals Nothing? You've missed SO MUCH. Not to worry. Every Sunday, I dig through the archives to re-post an old favorite. Mostly because I'm too lazy to come up with new content every single day. Enjoy! This story originally appeared on May 1, 2014:

In my office tower, I have deduced that there must be some kind of old people eye doctor on the third floor. This makes for lots of awkward elevator conversations. (Remember when I worked in the same building as that hair restoration company?)

So how do I know about this old people eye clinic on third floor? My main clue is the droves of old people getting on the elevator and taking their sweet sweet time to locate and then push the number 3. The second clue is that when they go back down the elevator they always have an eye patch on. Anyway, remember I'm always late, so I can't tolerate this inability to locate the number 3 in a series of numbers from L-14. This drives me to near insanity. I've taken to just pushing it for them in most cases and then they look at me like, "are you some kind of a magician?" "how'd you know?" and then I'm like, "I'M IN MENSA." 

Yesterday a little old lady was on the elevator already when I ran for the door and barely made it on. She was staring at the numbers and so I pushed 10 for me and 3 for her. She looked at me SO CONFUSED and she said, "I couldn't see the numbers" (um...how the HECK did she DRIVE to my building then???) and so I said,

"Maybe you should tell that to the eye doctor."

Happy 50th Anniversary, Mom and Dad!

Stop ruining my moment, KASEY!

My parents celebrate their 50th Anniversary on October 15, 2016.

50 YEARS!!

It's hard to believe that only 50 years ago my mom was a 17-year-old blushing bride, holding her bouquet of flowers in front of her middle to hide my sister Kim, living inside. Back in the day when a man was expected to make good on a mistake. And more mistakes they would make, yessirreeee, 6 more to be exact, one of them being me!

I asked them both what they love about each other, after all this time. Their faces looked not unlike Hillary's and Donald's when asked to say "one positive" thing about the other.

They thought about it for a while and here were their responses:

MOM:

He takes care of everything that needs taking care of

He keeps the wolves away

He jiggles the toilet handle

He gets the spiders out of the bathrub

He changes the light bulbs

He went to work every day

DAD:

(...and he had to think about this for a long, long time)

After a snowstorm and I shoveled us all out, she'd make me a hot drink

I LOVE YOU GUYS --- CONGRATULATIONS!

Sunday Favorites: Dad

New to A Lady Reveals Nothing? You've missed SO MUCH. Not to worry. Every Sunday, I dig through the archives to re-post an old favorite. Mostly because I'm too lazy to come up with new content every single day. Enjoy! This story originally appeared on October 25, 2013:

Sometimes my dad calls me and counsels criticizes me, or whatever. It's not on purpose. Mostly he just disagrees with every decision I've ever made. (Can you blame him?) He just likes to continue to mold me, even now that I'm all growed up. I don't mind it at all, I tell you what, I'm just happy he calls. 

Anyway, the other day I told him, "It's OK dad. I already know you love me because you called. You don't have to say anything nice."

Oh how we laughed.

"You have to come now, or be one of them dummies. One of them city people. Look at your cement blocks. Look at your empty cans of beer. The money. And go clubbing. And don't worry about the Lady's Slippers. Why worry about it? Right?"

Please Respect My Privacy During this Difficult Time

The Wooden Part

I had a friend who was begging her Little Turd of a daughter to rub her feet. And then the Little Turd said, "OK. But only the top part. Not the wooden part."



This led to a years-long joke about the wooden part of a person's feet - you know the calloused part that the lady at the pedicure place has to SCRAPE and SCRAPE and you get really embarrassed?

Fast forward to my new life of living in my one room home with my lovely husband his two teenage boys. It's not ideal. If anybody farts the whole house hears it. And smells it too. The place is an open floor plan loft-style home. See what I mean?

(I designed it while I was planning to die alone.)

ANYWAY, Zach has been growing quite a nasty wooden part of his own on his heel all summer from working. He's OBSESSED with it and makes me touch it all the time. 

Well: the other night at bedtime Zach and I were getting ready to fall asleep, whispering and snuggling and otherwise falling in love, the usual. He grabbed my hand and made me touch his nasty wooden heel. I laughed and said, too loud, (in baby talk I might add): 

"ARE YOU MAKING ME TOUCH THE WOODEN PART AGAIN?"

His face dropped.

I gasped.

We died, while hoping beyond hope the kids were already sleeping.

Sunday Favorites: Twitter Fail

New to A Lady Reveals Nothing? You've missed SO MUCH. Not to worry. Every Sunday, I dig through the archives to re-post an old favorite. Mostly because I'm too lazy to come up with new content every single day. Enjoy! This story originally appeared on March 26, 2014:



Here's another in a new series I like to call "Tweets I wrote that should have been retweeted a million times but weren't because I don't think I'm doing Twitter right and not because they weren't wildly hilarious".

Follow my tweets here. 

Bathroom Break

My entire career I've been known as the girl who says "I have to go pee", while doing the peepee dance and never going pee. I wait for hours and hours and hours because my office is SO far away from the bathroom and I'm very busy and important. 

I'm kind of afraid that something bad is going to happen to my bladder when I'm older from all that holding it. 

So can somebody tell me then, why: when my home office is literally IN MY BATHROOM (thanks to this 900 square foot 1-person loft I built for myself and not a husband and two teenage stepsons because remember I was going to die alone), I say "I have to go pee", while doing the peepee dance and never go pee. I wait for hours and hours and hours.

WHY??????? 

New Orleans

Summer made a video of a trip that we took with Beata to New Orleans a few years back -- twerking was all the rage at the time. It'll make sense in a minute...

guh i love that city........

What Makes Us Girls from Summer Grimes on Vimeo.

My Coat

We had been having some yo-yo weather in Minnesota and one day I grabbed a wool jacket to wear to work. Of course it warmed up mid-afternoon and so I forgot the jacket in the conference room (I had a very important business lady meeting there and I was running fashionably late so I didn't stop by my office prior to). 

The next day I asked the receptionist if anybody saw my jacket. Nope.

"Oh well, it will turn up."

Several days and maybe even a couple weeks went by. My friend Tara came into my office to tell me the story of how "somebody" had dropped a coat off in my other friend Alayet's cube. She was excited that somebody was giving her an article of clothing. She went on to tell Tara, though, that the coat had hairs on it and therefore was "dirty and disgusting" and "why would somebody give me this filthy coat?" Turns out somebody assumed since it was an XS that it was Alayet's (which is a compliment to me since she weighs about 87 pounds).

I told Tara that I forgot the jacket in the conference room and we laughed for 27 minutes.

I mean, "filthy"?

"Dirty"?

"Disgusting"?

Look how she drowns in it.

Hal-isms, Vol. 65

A Voicemail from Hal:

"Kady I know it's hard for you to believe that I can tell about people like Prince and I can...just know everything...I know you think it's not true but we went to a wedding anniversary today and they had a jar fulla candy and you were supposed to pick the number...I guessed two hundred and twelve and hit it RIGHT ON THE MONEY. I know it's bragging and it isn't meant to be and mom's starting to call me Rain Man. Bye."

Zach-isms, Vol. 1

Meet my husband, Zach. He's the sweetest and handsomest fellow in all the land and someday I will tell you all about how we met and fell in love, but for now -- the first installment of Zach-isms:

Sometimes he says them when he's still sleeping:

"Is there really M&M's for sale?"

...and sometimes when he's still awake:

"After being married for a few months I now know that women's poops don't not smell."

"Which chin should I kiss?" 

"I saw my friend Brian the baker. His name is Brian and he's a baker."

...and sometimes I get really excited when Nora McInerny Purmort retweets a picture of my uglyface review of her book to her 10,000 Twitter followers:

"Why do you want 10,000 people to see your ugly cry face?" 

Sunday Favorites: Pure Poetry

New to A Lady Reveals Nothing? You've missed SO MUCH. Not to worry. Every Sunday, I dig through the archives to re-post an old favorite. Mostly because I'm too lazy to come up with new content every single day. Enjoy! This story originally appeared on August 6, 2013:

My brother sent me this text tonight -- a photo of a poem I wrote to him when I was younger:

If you can't read it, here's a transcript:

ODE TO PETE

My love for you Pete

stretches from here to Crete

it will outlast time

and unlike a mime

it proclaims loud and clear

that I hold you so dear

your picture I hold close to my heart

even though in the past in my face you would fart

hold me down on the floor

from your butt the juice would pour

I could not withstand

the force of your hands

holding me down

in your stench I would drown

the air would turn grey

but...I love you anyway

BONUS JOKE:

How do we know Jeffrey Dahmer was a careless smoker?

He left BUTTS behind the couch.*

*#1: The Jeffrey Dahmer reference dates this poem to approximately 1992, or me at 15. #2: I'm so sorry. That joke is terribly insensitive and I would slap my 15-year-old self up if I had a time machine. Who am I kidding? If I had a time machine I would slap my 15-year-old self up for perming my short hair:

My apologies to the victims' families.

Even the Candadians Have Them!

Four-...and sometimes five-leafed clovers!

As seen in Montreal, Quebec

Hal-isms, Vol. 64

"I rest my case."

"We have to take your mother to her posthumous cancer appointment."

"I see in the news that Butterboy didn't do so well but who knows what the lies are?"

Kady: "Dad - sometimes in life all you have is your family."

Hal: "Oh, BS. I got my dog and my guns."

Some Favorites From my Garden

World's Tallest Filing Cabinet

Somewhere in Burlington Vermont in the middle of a field lies the World's Tallest Filing Cabinet. It's in the Guinness Book of World Records and everything!

I had to see it. Had to! Especially with these ringing endorsements from all of these exciting people on Trip Advisor:

Best day of my life.

Kasey 'n' Kids

My sister Kasey has been driving the same crappy van for about 27 years. She loads up her three kids and all their crap and drives them around and it keeps on running and so she keeps on driving it. She found some letter stickers and instead of saying Ford Van or Chevy Van or whatever it is, now it says:

 "KASEY             'N'                 KIDS"

Kasey's not the best driver. She got her license later than most small-town teens, and then only out of necessity because I moved out of the house. 

Anyway -- the other day I met up with her for dinner and the two of us ended the night at our other sister Kelly's condo in a downtown St. Paul neighborhood, whose scant parking leaves visitors only a few options, one of which is using the assigned parking garage: an insanely difficult to navigate web of tight turns and concrete pillars.

I was following Kasey in my car. When it was her turn to enter the garage, I and another stranger in a different car watched in horror as Kasey's van jammed itself inexplicably into the wall to the right-hand side of the garage opening. 

...and we continued watching as Kasey simply shrugged her shoulders, punched and held the gas, forcing the van ever further into the garage -- taking the entire side of her van with it.

...leaving this beautiful heart-shaped mark. 

Sunday Favorites: Treat Yo'Self

New to A Lady Reveals Nothing? You've missed SO MUCH. Not to worry. Every Sunday, I dig through the archives to re-post an old favorite. Mostly because I'm too lazy to come up with new content every single day. Enjoy! This story originally appeared when I was a man working in Arizona back on November 16, 2011:

We get a lot of looks.

Everybody stares at the water meter installers in the neighborhood. Some come up to ask what we're doing, but they all do a huge double-take when they realize we are women.

If we go into any kind of store we get lots of attention in these crazy getups.

I think it's just a little unexpected to see girls in any sort of stereotypical male job. It's been a very interesting social experiment actually. And of course it only makes me feel super tough and strong.  I like to do things like swing my pick ax or throw heavy things when people are watching.

Another thing I like to do when kids are getting on or off the school bus is to say, "Stay in school kids!" with a shrug of my shoulders, even though I KNOW they are thinking what a cool job I have.  And it is cool. Really cool. Part of what we have to do is collect a bunch of the metal pit lids from in front of people's homes and deliver them to have holes drilled in them. Then we bring them back with the holes. I think we would be drilling the holes except I broke two drill bits on one hole. (The holes hold the radios that we install and program.) Anyway, for this part of our job, one of us drives and the other one of us rides in the back of the SUV with the hatch open. Our code word is "hop pop" when we're ready for the driver to drive to the next one.  I use my pick ax to pry the lids up and this part of our job looks really cool, trust me. I always tell the kiddies that the holes are for putting quarters in.  (I'm hoping I can get a secondary source of income.) Today I got a little girl to dig an entire hole for me. It took forever but hey, I needed the break.

I digress.  The point of this post is to discuss gender disparity amongst manual labor workers.

Not really.  Anyway, I've discussed before how I always feel like a dude because I look like this at work:

And we work. We work ten to twelve hours a day. I never wear makeup and I never get dressed up. When I get home I shower and put on my new pajama sweater dress I bought at Old Navy for $5.97 and fall asleep in a chair in front of reruns of 30 Rock at 8:45pm:

And Summer takes photos.

Today we decided we needed to do treat ourselves...and got Pedicures next door to the FedEx office we frequent for paperwork shipments back to Minnesota. All the ladies at the shop stared and double-taked just as much as the neighbors when we're elbow-deep in their water meter pits.

We're pariahs. We don't fit in the man's world of basic plumbing and we don't fit in the woman's world of Asian pedicure shops.  

Oh Well and Oh Man it felt good to look feel like a woman for 45 minutes.

Treat Yo'self!

Photo Special: Montreal

HUH? Wait. WHAT?

I hate it when people bust me taking their photo. OOPS. I had to pretend I was just "taking pictures of other things".