Our Kids Grow Up Too Dang Fast!

A Facebook post from a very teary-eyed day last week.

Dave and I married later in life which made our timing for a big family pretty nill. It's not to say we didn't try, but it was not in the cards for Mason to have siblings. That makes me a little sad as I think siblings teache us invaluable lessons about ourselves and life. Oh well, it was not meant to be. With that said, I've made it known since the day Mason was born, "I'm not missing it." Dave would say, "Missing what?" I would always reply, "Not a minute of any of it. Field trips, dances, holidays, birthdays, you name it...I'm not missing a minute of my mommy journey with Mason." I built my career around flexibility and I have not missed a moment, although I have had to share with Dave on occasion, if I couldn't be there, Dave has been. As Mason winds down his time in middle school, it's been emotional for me, and let me share with you, for him, too. 

In the last three years, Mason has grown easily 7 inches, he now has body hair, and his voice is completely different. He slid that voice thing in under the wire of the completion of his 8th-grade year. The cracks and squeaks when he talks are just too funny not to acknowledge. He's learned some valuable life lessons and blessed me with the honor of bouncing his ideas about these different situations off of me. I hope he always feels like he can talk to me, and even more so, that I have good insight into what life might be trying to teach him. So far, so good. 

It's just so hard to see him so close to going out on his own. We have four more years of school and then it's time to see him off to college. As of right now, he does not like the idea that Dave and I want to relocate to the eastern part of the United States, but I think as he gets closer to going off to college, his fears will subside, I hope they do. He's always been independent and had a wanderlust for life, but he also really loves our time together as a family. For now, we are surviving the perfect storm of puberty and menopause and hopefully, I can let him go enough through the next four years that he won't feel like he needs to break away. 

Now we are heading into the last week of middle school and looking forward to summertime! I am working on a movie the month of June and Mason has two cooking demos scheduled in July. Dave is doing the work he needs to finish his Bachelor's degree and prepare to retire after 33 years of military service, that happens officially in February 2019. You can rest assured we will be filling in all those other days with time on our boat at the lake, making more memories that will make my heart happy that I didn't miss a minute of being Mason's mom. 

Life's Not Fair!

Making decorations for the 8th-grade dance.

How many times have you told your kids, "Life is not fair." Mason is learning this, so do tell, what is one time you had to learn that truth?

One of mine was when I worked for an employment agency in San Francisco, I was the Northern California Regional Manager and one of my primary jobs was business development. I was visiting client locations most of the time and I would call my assistant when I had a job to fill and she would write up the paperwork and start looking through our database for candidates that fit the bill. I called her with an order for two positions that the client wanted to direct hire for (not temps this time, so they would just pay a hefty fee to hire them from us outright), so she did what she normally does, took the info from me, filled out the paperwork and off we went. People got hired and my payday came around and guess what? My assistant, who was relatively new to the working world, got paid BOTH of my commissions for those two hires! We are talking over $12,000. You can imagine our surprise when we opened our checks that Friday. I called the owners of the company and the bottom line was this, her name was on the orders that were submitted. Yes, it was, because I called the order into her to write up in the interest of great customer service. From that day forward, I didn't call another order in, they waited until I got back in the office the next day. Talk about not fair! But I will say, Karma came back around shortly after I left the company, the owners fled the country leaving their LA and SF offices hung out to dry because of tax fraud. 

Mason is also learning that people can be very kind, compassionate, and fair. A few weeks back Mason got in trouble at school. There were a number of factors to the situation but one piece of it was he ran up behind one of his friends and put his arm around his neck messing around like he was choking him. Well, he was choking him! It was forceful enough that his friend really couldn't breathe and got scared. In very swift actions the principal and vice principal called his mom and asked if she wanted the authorities called and in that instant, she said yes. We were all called to the school and as all the information came out it became clear that Mason did not intend to hurt his friend, he really was just playing and was being more aggressive than he realized. In the end, there were no charges pressed but Mason was suspended for two days and he was put on the list of kids that are not allowed to attend the end of year activities such as the 8th-grade dance and the water park field trip. Because this was his first offense, the school was allowing him to walk in the promotion ceremony. 

Not long after the dust settled on the incident, several of us moms were working on the 8th-grade dance decorations and the other mom approached me to say she thought Mason was being punished too harshly. He had written her, her son, and the school principal a formal apology and accepted his punishment. I let her know that I really appreciated that she see's Mason as I do, a good kid who made a bad decision, but I would not be asking for any special treatment or exceptions on Mason's behalf. It turned out that she and her son went to the administration and asked that Mason be allowed to go to the dance and the water park. They put their requests in writing, it was agreed that there was no malice, and all agreed Mason could participate. How about that? This is one of the times that life did turn out to be fair or at least kind. 

Happy Mother's Day - Let's Keep it Real.

Sunday was Mother's Day, it was a pretty good day considering history shows that there seems to be some pressure that comes with holidays that invariably create angst for various members of our family. I'm sure this being the first mother's day without both of our moms, there was an undercurrent of sadness. With that said, I did have the best time teaching Mason (and my neighbor Jen joined in) to decorate cupcakes and he created a scavenger hunt for me. At the end of the clues, I found a shot of tequila and a handwritten letter from him that read: 

"Dear Mom, I love you, but let's talk about the word love. The word love, at least when I heard it, it made me think of Paris, the loveliest place on earth. And in Paris, people love art so they made an entire museum of art called the Louvre. The "Louvre" sounds a lot like loo, which is French for toilet. So when I say, "I love you," what I really mean is, "I toilet you." And since this is a love letter, it's actually toilet paper. Letters are written on paper and this letter is about love, so it's TP. Toilet, Your son Mason - PS I wrote this at the comedy club in my head, "The Mind." Where my shows sell out, all my jokes are funny, and I get to eat for free.

It's Monday so let's keep it real. Don't buy into the idea that all the exciting things you see on your friend's social media feeds are a blissful life, especially in light of Mother’s Day - it's likely just the “Kodak moments,” and the good news they want to share, but not the whole picture. Real life is messy houses, dirty cars, account balances that don't always meet the need, kids that drive their parents crazy and parents who don't always love being parents. We are all doing the best we can this minute, or maybe we are slacking and know we can do better, either way, it's all good. If no one else has told you lately, you are enough, in fact, you are awesome!

The California Honey Festival

Mason did a cooking demo at The California Honey Festival on Saturday and it was a dilly of a day! We had the usual prep to do to get out the door, but the night before we went out on the boat, so we needed to hose it off and clean it up before we left. What I am about to share was not funny, it was not funny at all, but as with most things, as time passes we can look back and see the humor in what could have been a REALLY bad scene. I sent Mason outside to take care of the boat clean up and he came back into the house to tell me the hose would not reach so I needed to move the boat closer to the driveway. I did and went back to the house to finish getting ready to leave. I was brushing my teeth when I heard my neighbor calling me in a voice that made me urgently run outside, not the normal, "Tell Mason just a minute, I'm brushing my teeth" response. I bolted out the door and saw Mason holding the boat trailer with two men behind it begging someone to bring the chocks to put behind the tires of the trailer. Our neighbor across the street was running out in her jammies carrying a rock bigger than she is, while I jammed the 4x4 pieces of wood behind the tires. The boat on the trailer had rolled down the whole length of our yard and our neighbors yard and the deck was just a few feet from resting in the metal bed of our neighbors truck! Now there were so many things running through my mind but as the adrenaline slowed and I realized that Mason was just trying to help by disconnecting the boat from my truck, he forgot to re-chock the tires from when I had just moved it. What impressed me the most and I can't quit thinking about it, is he didn't lose his cool, he held that boat and kept it from rolling downhill until our neighbors who heard him calling out, came to get behind it and hold it with him until I got there. How many kids would have panicked and just watched the boat roll into the neighbors truck? Yes, this could have been bad, but Mason made a mistake, he kept his cool, he got lucky, and hopefully, he learned a very valuable lesson. 

So right on the heels of all this excitement, we had to leave to get to the honey festival. We were late, meaning we arrived just as his demo was supposed to be starting and I kid you not, he walked on that stage, Mr. Marks was putting his mic on him as he started presenting his dish while he unpacked his grocery bags and did not miss a beat. I'm Mason's mom and I know what he is capable of, even more so than he is sometimes, but I have to say, he impressed me with his professionalism, his ability to keep his cool, and to step up and perform when many adults I now would have been the effect of all the things that had happened to him earlier in the day. My son is growing into quite an amazing young man.

After all that excitement, we slept in on Sunday and Mason and I had a sort of fun conversation...

Me - “You know Mason, Facebook memories showed me that we have a history of you misbehaving on Mother’s Day, and not being very nice.
Mason- “Really?”
Me - “Yeah, the least you could do outside of behaving, is make sure our house is always stocked with Jose Cuervo tequila. You know moms need tequila.”
Mason - “Mom, I’m 14, I can’t buy tequila.”
Me - ”Mason, you are a resourceful kid, find a way. It’s Mother’s Day.”

Okay, I don't really expect him to buy me tequila, at least not until he is 21, but it was funny nonetheless. 

He's Driving!

"Success does not come to those who merely have great ideas. Success comes to those who have great ideas and who follow through on them. Your carefully crafted plans bring value only when you put them into action. The best of intentions are useful only when combined with doing the work needed to get you where you want to go." Kathy Partak

Mason is full of good ideas, some he's even excited about and will take action like the school kitchen project back in 2015, and preparing to compete on Chopped Junior. I hope he makes the connection that when he takes the action and does the work, the rewards come. 

Dave and I work really hard to be able to travel and vacation, we do the work, make the plans and pay as we go so hopefully the only money we need when it's time to go is for food and fun. This discussion came up because guess who got his first driving lesson? Yep! Mason is learning to drive and what will he need next year when he gets his license? Laughing! Of course, it's a car, but before he gets a car, he needs to keep his grades up and continue to show us that he can be responsible and make good choices. 

A personal note to my son, "Mason, stay the course. Do the work and keep your eye on the prize, not the fun that is happening at the moment. You will have so much more fun when you achieve your goals, so certainly enjoy life, but don't get so sidetracked, that you stop moving forward."

Verbal Shock & Awe

This morning while I was waking up and listening to the radio, the story was that Shania Twain was asked who she voted for in the presidential election. Unlike so many people, she simply answered, that she can't vote as she's not American, but she would have voted for President Trump. Of course, you know this lead to a barrage of hateful social media posts to and about her. The radio personality was noting that as a country we have become too sensitive, and need to worry less about who feels what and learn to agree to disagree. This took me on a mental adventure of thoughts ranging from, is it that we are too sensitive? or is it something more? 

Through the generations, our world is continually changing, advancing and in an effort to make things easier, we have instead complicated them. The internet and social media platforms have made this world very small, smaller than it's ever been. The general public seems less concerned about etiquette and good manners and more concerned with tossing their two-cents in the many global conversations happening all at once. A sense of self-importance has replaced caring about the impact of our words on others, it just seems that people don't care who they hurt, they only care that they were able to speak out and say their piece. And to what end? As a younger woman, I was one to say things that would make others blush or take notice, call it verbal shock & awe. I saw this as things simply being what they are and why should we be afraid or ashamed to talk about them. I still believe that, and today as an older (and I hope wiser) woman, there is a time and place to discuss certain things. Again, good manners, using a little forethought and taking responsibility for the energy I bring to the room and how that energy will impact the people I'm with.

Mason and I were discussing this on the way to school and he asked me how he would know when the right time and place are to speak up. I'm so glad he asked!! And therein lies the answer - has someone asked for your opinion? If they have not and you feel you have something constructive to offer, ask yourself, why do I want to chime in with this information? Will it help make things better or do I just want to say it to make myself feel something? If it will make the person I am communicating with feel bad or there is nothing they can do about this situation right now, maybe it is better to discuss it at a later date when they can take some kind of action moving forward.  Is this best handled privately and not on the public stage? And the answer to that last question will almost always be, "Yes!"

Ultimately, careful conversations and thoughtful communication are always going to be the best course of action. One of my dearest friends reminds me not to presume others want to hear what I think or feel about their lives - and she's so very right! Even in our most intimate relationships, we do not know all of the bits and pieces that make up who and how people are, what has influenced their decisions or more simply stated, we have not walked even two steps in their shoes. If we are asked to share our insight, what a compliment that is! And with that message that someone else thinks enough of you to want your opinion or advice, well then isn't that something special? I think so!

It's Been 22 Years

Disclaimer; This is my version of how we met, written in 2005. Dave has also written one, it's 1/4 the length of mine (go figure!) and not exactly the same recall. #YouSayTomato

It was just another day at work in April 1996. I had only been in the bay area for 6 months and most of that time I was working very long hours on a new job. I had reached a point that I was ready to start getting to know people and making friends. I was listening to the radio when JD the afternoon DJ made the announcement that he had a man on the phone who was looking for a date for the upcoming Vince Gill concert. “I have Dave, he is dateless, he is desperate.” He said that if there was a woman who was available and wanted to go to the concert, to call in. I didn’t hesitate and called the radio station. When JD answered the phone he asked me my name I thought “this should be fun…” The next thing I knew, JD had Dave and I on the phone doing an interview, “So, what do you think?….and what about you?  Do you want to go to the concert?” He even went as far as to ask what do you look like, and who do people say you look like…..it was really fun. We swapped numbers off the air and Dave called me. After talking for just a few minutes I got the strong sense that he was looking for a relationship and I knew I was still just breaking up with a man in LA. I made my feelings known and Dave was great, he said he didn’t have any expectations and just thought we should go to the concert and have fun. 

I met Dave at the Game Gallery where he worked and I will never forget the moment I walked through the door. Dave was walking toward me, full western look with this long hair with these beautiful blonde ringlet curls under a western hat. The look on his face the first time he saw me was priceless. There was not a doubt in my find that he found me attractive and was smitten. I tease him today that he loved me the moment he laid his eyes on me, but he denies it. We went to the concert together and had such an easy time talking, but I still had concerns that he had expectations. I remember talking about meeting on the radio and Dave saying he thought JD was going to arrange a dating game scenario. I had to laugh and said, “Well, it looks like you didn’t get to pick, you just got me.” He went on to tell me the questions he had arranged to ask the women he never got to interview. We only got through 2 of the 3 questions but they told me so much about him. The first question was “I am learning to country dance if you were to teach me, what dance would you teach me and why?” I think I answered him that I would teach him to cha-cha. I answered that way because I think the country couples dances are so romantic and the cha-cha is so pretty to watch. The next question was “What song would you say describes you or how you feel right now?” I was stumped, feeling on the spot, my mind went blank. Dave piped in that his song was Someone Else’s Star by Bryan White. We got to the concert and had a good time. Afterward, he took me back to my car and I offered my hand, for shaking. I awkwardly brought up the point about me not being in a place to start a relationship but I would love to be friends. He was a total gentleman, smiled and told me to drive home safely.

The next day at work a deliveryman arrived with a huge bouquet of flowers. I told him that he must be mistaken, the flowers were so big I thought they belonged in the lobby of the hi-rise I worked in. He said, are you Kathleen Patrick? I said yes and he told me they were for me. I saw the card and they were from Dave. I was livid mad!! I couldn’t contain my emotion and the people in my office were in shock. Here I was holding flowers so big you couldn’t even see me, but you could hear that I was not happy. When I finally was able to express myself I said, “Now I have to have this talk with him all over again! Didn’t he hear me say just friends?” I immediately called and thanked him for the flowers but before he could even respond, I started right in on him, “I thought you understood that I just want to be friends, I thought you got that I am not looking for a relationship…blah, blah, blah”  Poor Dave, I don’t even know why it is that we are the great friends that we are except to say that we have always been true to ourselves and each other. We have never had to pretend to be anyone we are not.

The next time Dave called he invited me to go to a George Strait concert. I said no and again, he got real and said, “Come on Kathy, I know where you stand and how you feel, let’s just go, it will be fun.” I agreed to go only if he would let me buy my own ticket and while he agreed, he would not take my money. While we were at the concert, he introduced me to a friend of his, Barry. Oh no!!  Sparks flew between the two of us and needless to say, this created some tension.  Barry and I ended up talking on the phone and where I didn’t make time to meet Dave and go dancing, I was now meeting Barry for a drink and a dance. As fate would have it, Dave was there as well and was not happy and frankly, his feelings were hurt. The next day Dave called me at work and let me know that I had hurt his feelings. I sat down and wrote Dave a very sincere letter letting him know that the time was not right for us.The thing with Barry was simply that, a thing. I didn’t’ see a future with Barry but I saw him in my life forever. With that fax  (Yes! I faxed him the letter!) our friendship and our life began.

So here we are, Flower and me. Oh, yeah, I call Dave Flower. I know, it is a bit unconventional but it wasn’t picked, it was just was meant to be. You see, when Dave sent me the flowers and I became so angry, that made quite an impact on my family and friends. They thought I was crazy because I was probably the only woman in this lifetime to get angry with a man for giving her flowers, this became a defining moment in my life. My friends didn’t know any of the new people in my life so I always had to explain who I was doing things with. Since Dave and I were dancing and talking often I started to refer to him as “Dave, you know, Dave, the guy who sent me the flowers.” This went to just Flower Dave and then simply to Flower. Initially, this was not something Dave knew about and I didn’t really intend for him to know and how could I know it would stick? The next thing I knew, Flower came to the Grand Poobah and while I was attempting to set him up with my best friend Jules (because I thought they would be great together!) she blurted out, “Oh! You’re Flower Dave!”  So now he knew that his nickname was Flower, and he was not interested in Julie, nor was she interested in him. We all know how this worked out, as it was supposed to be. That was 22 years ago and we've been blissfully married for almost 17 of those years.