Month: September 2009

My brother Mark has a fabulous memory for detail. He’s becoming legendary for his ability to recall the minutia of our shared lives, mostly events from our childhoods.

His ability in this regard was put to the test yesterday, and his reliability is absolutely unquestioned.

A few weeks ago my mom and I were discussing our recent trip to New York. We didn’t do anything so mundane as talk about the Empire State Building or, say, the gasping fish of Chinatown. No, this day it was flying, which meandered into ruminations upon the trip our family took to Washington, D.C., when I was 15 and a high-school sophomore.

I know.

Anyway, at issue: whether our hopscotch flight back from DC took us to Lexington, Louisville or Cincinnati. I maintained Cincinnati. Mom said Lexington. Pshaw, I rejoined. Then Mom had an idea. “Ask Mark! He’ll know!”

So yesterday sometime during lunch Mom turns to me and says, “what were we going to ask Mark?”

“Hm. I don’t know. It was something interesting.”

“Hm.”

“Hm. I do remember we were sitting in my breakfast nook when we were wondering about it though.”

Several minutes pass and suddenly there’s Mom: “Hey! Our trip to Washington!”

Mark promptly responds, without knowing the question was in regards to flights, or what: “1979.”

Yeah, yeah right I remembered WHEN. So after it’s explained to him, he recites all the takeoffs and landings, both ways, and finally hits on the crucial information: “We considered renting a car in Cincinnati, driving home to Carrollton, and then picking up our car the next day in Louisville and leaving the rental car there.”

CASE CLOSED!

Of course the best thing about this story was that I Was Right, which isn’t often in heated battles such as this with my mother. I remembered the whole thing vividly because of the unusual nature of the circumstances: our hopscotching took us to Cincinnati, which is just about the same distance from Carrollton as Louisville is — in fact, it lies right between the two. But, we’d flown out of Louisville, and that’s where our car was. We had a four-hour layover in Cincy to take a 30-minute flight. Hence, the consideration of the car rental.

(From her perspective, it was a victory because she remembered exactly what it was we wanted to ask Mark. OK, touche. A draw.)

In the end, as of course Mark remembered, we sweated it out in the Cincinnati International Airport, which as everyone knows, is located in Northern Kentucky, landed in the Ville and drove home to Carrollton at 3 in the morning. We kids didn’t care (much); we were on vacation and just being in an airport is fairly exciting.

I find it amusing that he’s become such an oracle for these family memories. Let not the little piddling things in life fade into the past! ‘Tis the piddling that’s the glue that holds family together.

I spent today in Louisville, having a picnic lunch with a goodly chunk of my family. The occasion: a Kentucky-drop by my sister Cara, who currently feathers her nest in Washington, D.C., but at any given day in the calendar month, might be found in any number of states on the Eastern Seaboard. And sometimes Chicago, for that is where she attended culinary school and gathered up an indeterminate amount of friends.

But today, the occasion for her arrival was a friend’s wedding, for which she served as a J.Crew-clad bridesmaid, held yesterday at the Presbyterian Seminary. Reception was at a former meat-packing, or meat-something, factory, comment upon I will now reserve.

So, Cara’s in town and her twin, Leah, newly housed, gathers up the rest of the bunch and we sally forth into Germantown.

Most everyone was there; mostly lacking was my family, Trassie and I being the sole representatives. Tras stayed home, still nursing his nearly month-long bout of Illness, to which Trassie and I both succumbed but beat in shorter order than Dad. Claire and Christopher spent the weekend with their father so were unavailable for the festivities.

And it was pretty festive.

I possess many, many fond memories of the year 2003; it was a painful first and glorious year second. Many of you, my friends, know what happened — the most insignificant, shall we, mention first: I turned 40. Let us focus on the joyous: this was the year Tras and I noticed one another and I, being free to pursue  romance, grabbed it with both hands and wound up where I am today: happier than it probably ought to be legal to be.

But the reason I bring up 2003 is this: my mother, for a while there (and she may still in the future) hosted Annual Birthday Parties.We all came. Each of our birthdays was celebrated simultaneously, and it was Fun. But in the year 2003, I saw our family fun for the first time through someone else’s eyes, and realized what a ridiculously happy family I possessed. We Enjoyed each other’s company,with a capital E.

That other person, of course, was Tras, and the location of our frivolity was the quirky Boca Di Beppo, Pope Head and all.

I came away with a rush of appreciation for the unique flavor of our family,and the enjoyment we effortless have with one another.

Even the dampness of the day — for it rained,incessantly, couldn’t dampen our spirits.

Today, like the day we gathered about the pope head, was another one of those days. I love you, my brothers and sisters (all three!) … my mom, nieces and nephews, all.