Bet You Didn’t Know

Published on by Lisa Category: Bet You Didn't Know, FYI and Random Factoids, Growing Old, Notes From Home Plate

Factoid Numero Dos
(that’s #2 for you non-Spanish speakers)

I bet you didn’t know that May 19 is quite a day for me.

Back at Central Catholic Highschool in 1996 (oh my, that sounds really ancient), when I was a junior in highschool, my group of friends and I were a bit of hellraisers. Back in ’96, May 19th started out like any other day…

We first went to a party where we didn’t drink alcohol, but I drank 8 cans of Surge, a short-lived soda that doubled the amount of caffeine in Mountain Dew, and sent my heart pounding for days.

After the party, we head back to a friend’s house for more partying.

We get dressed up and decide to TP all of the houses of guys we had crushes on in hopes they’d ask us to the next homecoming dance (because, you know, TPing someone’s house is the way to communicate desire when you are 16)…

So, I am wearing a long dress and heels. We’re ALL ridiculously dressed up with an ungodly amount of toilet paper in the car. We squeeze seven into my friend Meg’s huge Buick and take off, laughing about how COOL and AWESOME our idea is. Then we have another brilliant idea: let’s throw rotten apples on the lawn and make signs on paper plates.

Then geeky me who is scared of breaking laws stutters, “Isn’t that vandalism?”

Of course everyone ignores and moves on with the rotten apples and paper plates plan.

While we make signs that say ASK TRICIA TO PROM. ASK JEN TO HOMECOMING. I silently hope that I would get thrown out of the car so I can run home.

We stop at the first house. I am shaking my head. It’s May 19 and only 9pm which means THERE IS STILL A LOT OF LIGHT IN THE SKY AND PEOPLE CAN SEE US.

I duck while my friends litter this poor guy’s house. And then this poor guy walks out of his house with his girlfriend and we take off down the road, speeding 90mph down a cul-de-sac. Ugh.

House number 2.
We decide to TP the house, no apples or paper plates for this guy. Relieved, I get out of the car in my heels and, this being my first TP experience throw the TP in all kinds of directions. As the TP bundle lands at my feet, I bend down to pick it up and the wind blows right up my fanny and the long skirt I had been wearing flies over the back of my head and veils me from behind.

As I am flailing my arms because I can’t see, my rear end exposed for the world to see with the TP in my hand, one of the neighbors comes out and turns on her light, “Um, girls, what are you doing?”

Blinded by a long skirt, I start running in the direction of where I think the big Buick is and finally free myself from my skirt and dive into the backseat…when we think everyone’s in the car I scream, “GO MEG!”

She slams on the accelerator and takes off… and I didn’t see that one of the doors was still open and poor Kara is hanging onto the open door for dear life screaming, “NO MEG!”

Which sounds a lot like my scream, “GO MEG!”

And Kara nearly got dragged by the car.

Fortunately, we pulled her in and we were all safe. Ridiculous, but safe.

It was only 10pm.

WHAT REBELS we were.

That night concluded with another party, probably more Surge for me, and talking about how we would always be best friends. We always said that if we could survive that night, we could survive anything.

Isn’t it funny how we measure life’s obstacles when we’re 16?

I still keep in touch with some of those friends. They are still ridiculous and hilarious, but we’ve been through more serious things as friends. Some of them have children, some have had divorce, some have had illnesses.

But, we always email each other a greeting on May 19 that we dubbed “our day,” to remember how great it was to be in high school, have your license, freedom, and especially friends.

Happy May 19 to Tricia (“Trick”), Jen (“Jenny-D”), Kara (“Deeters”), Meg (“Smeg”), Tara (“TLM”), Heather (“HK”)…from Lisa (“Slee”)

Wedding Season 2009

Published on by Lisa Category: Marriage and Weddings, Notes From Home Plate, Roadtrips and Travels, Shoutouts

It has been back to back weekends that we’ve hit the ROOSH, aka, Russia, Ohio…the undeniably tiny but lovable town of Raider pride.

The weekend of May 9th, we headed out there for Lindsey Grogean’s wedding. As a wedding photographer and technology geek, I always pay close attention to innocuous details that I am certain no one in the free world would care about — like what camera the photographer is using, or how well-edited the slideshow was done. While every wedding is different, this one stuck out to me in particular for a few reasons. One of them was how genuinely happy the bride and groom looked at the altar. I know that many folks are uncomfortable with a zillion people staring at you, but IT’S YOUR WEDDING DAY! Not the time to be pulling a shy act.

And this couple just looked so peaceful and joyful, I was already tearing up when they took their seats at the beginning of mass. Hands down, this was the most smiley groom I’ve ever seen in my life, possibly even surpassing Nick when he told me, “I Do” four years ago. (That’s A LOT of smiling.)

The second thing was their slideshow. It was terrific because at the end of it, there was a lovely montage edited snippets of family and friends talking to the camera and sending their well-wishes, something I tried to pull off for Kelly Borchers now Kelly Norris, but when I proposed the idea to Nick and his brothers, all of them agreed with three words, “TOO MUCH WORK.” Not for me, but to get everyone to submit something on camera, on time, and with creativity. Too bad for Kelly, it would’ve been awesome.

Anyway, these two lovebirds have some real characters in their life because each person was so unique with their well-wishes, it was hard not to be captivated by their humor. One person was doing a sock puppet show, another was by the railroad tracks, another had a gigantic stuffed animal he kept kissing…it was hilarious and heart-warming to see how beloved two people can be.

I love weddings.

And this particular wedding kicked off the wedding season for Nick and I. And what a terrific start it was…

A Letter for Joey

Published on by Lisa Category: Birthdays, Notes From Home Plate, Shoutouts

Dear Joey,

Someday I hope you can forgive your Uncle Nick and I for forgetting your first birthday, which was yesterday, May 14th. Given how nuts I am about birthdays, it is with great shame that I admit, as your Tita/Auntie, to have forgotten to call you and listen to you babble into the phone.

When you are older, I hope you can understand that the human brain’s capacity to remember dates, even significant ones, does not accurately reflect the priorities in our lives and we are so sorry to have moved on throughout May 14th as if it were just another day.

You are a joy to watch. You have an older sister and two older brothers and I, being the youngest of four with the same ratio as you, can empathize with all the impending torture you will endure from your siblings. Already, you are being wrestled and jumped on, stepped on and stepped over by your brothers who sometimes treat you like a pillow or a bouncy mattress to cushion their falls. You always just smile and giggle like you are being tickled. Never mind that I start wailing like your neck is broken, you just smile at me and gurgle in delight that you are being used as a punching bag.

Your nickname by your siblings is Doe-Doe, I’m assuming because Jesse can’t say JOEY and Doe-Doe sounds better. Your other names are POOG and POOGIE…where those come from, I have no idea. I just call you Joe-Joe and carry you around when I can, whispering little messages into your ear, hoping the firing neurons in your brain will record in your memory how much you are loved and how you are adored by your family.

And with that, little angel, I sign off and wish you the best first belated birthday ever. One down, 99 to go, my dear nephew.

With all our love,
Tita Lisa and Uncle Nick

Bet You Didn’t Know

Published on by Lisa Category: Bet You Didn't Know, Notes From Home Plate, Random, This is Us

A new series I’m starting on the blog — small factoids that I think are trivial and therefore entertaining about Nick and I….

I bet you didn’t know that I can’t stand those lion statues that some people place in front of their houses. I think they’re pretentious and weird. What if I just started putting sculptures of rhinos on my lawn?

Lions? Lions.

Nick says, “Oh, I love ’em! I think they’re great. But they need to be big lions, not those pissy small ones in front of a small house. If the house is big, the lions need to be big, too.”

What do you think?

Me and My Pops

Published on by Lisa Category: Notes From Home Plate, Uncategorized


Today is my Pop’s 67th birthday.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

These are the just some of the reasons why I love my Dad so much and why he’s a terrific father…

– when he picks up the phone, he rarely says hello, he automatically goes into medical mode (that’s his profession, after all…) to determine my senses are healthy: WHERE ARE YOU? HAVE YOU EATEN? YOU’RE NOT DRIVING ARE YOU? and don’t think he doesn’t worry about Nick, too. Somewhere in there he demands, WHAT IS NICK EATING FOR DINNER TONIGHT? IS HE GETTING ENOUGH NUTRITION?

Yes, Dad, Nick and I are fine and we aren’t planning on flying anywhere anytime soon because I know how much you hate when we are in the air.

– whenever I go home, less than an hour after being home, Dad will disappear from sight. After looking for him, I’ll find him in the driveway, cleaning out my car.

– my Pops still gives me high fives with a very gusty ALRIGHT, LIZ! (That’s what he calls me…)

– Dad is the first one to say, “Don’t work too hard,” “Don’t stress out,” “Sleep if you need to…” Then when I admit that I am tired, he pronounces, “We’re getting off the phone, then! Go sleep…”

– Dad loves the color red, the number 13, has a very intuitive gut he follows, and loves to laugh – possibly even more than me (now THAT is a lot…)

Just a handful of reasons why my Pops is so great.

Love you, Dad.

ps – now that you have an email account, you’ll start regularly checking this blog :)

Return of the Lion

Published on by Lisa Category: Notes From Home Plate, Uncategorized

Nick returned home last night at 11:30pm and I flew down 480W to go pick him up.

Joyous reunion! No traffic cop could dampen my soaring spirits who were telling me to “move it along” in the terminal lane.

There’s a sense of overwhelmingly relief when your spouse finally in the same country as you.

Mhm, this was just after five days.

Now, I can’t imagine how Nick and I were separated for 9 weeks when I was in the Philippines.

He’s back! He’s back!

Corny jokes galore! He’s back!

The Concept of "Work"

Published on by Lisa Category: Under the Surface Ruminating, Work

Anytime I talk about “work” (work being defined as a series of assigned tasks for which you are regularly paid), I’m always met with misunderstanding. Work, clearly, is one of those deep and layered topics that convey class and privilege. I know that.

I know that the things I am about to write clash in a country beset with a recession, with terrible stories of loss and hardship.

That’s not the context of work I am talking about today. I’m not talking about work as a means of survival, a means of providing life and nutrition and basic needs. I’m talking about work as an avenue of creative force; a garden of possibility to grow and till our ideas and tender seeds of maybe.

Work, the way the US has exposed it to me, sucks.

That’s all. That’s pretty much my point.

Across sectors – academic, corporate, private, public, government – and across disciplines – mental health, social justice, physical therapy, spiritual and religious, legal, blue collar and white collar…

Work tends to suck all the energy and creative forces from me. The paid, 40-hr work week frankly depresses any bank of creativity I had. Even jobs that boast the ability to be creative don’t really want new ideas, they want new ways of being successful, but not necessarily new or philosophies.

By no means a research study, but I often ask my friends and acquaintences how they feel about their life in terms of their job. A lot of them say, “it’s ok,” and divide what they do professionally with their personal life. That’s understandable. Not everyone has the privilege of fusing the two in a pleasing relationship.

So, what’s wrong with me? Is anyone else out there that feels like an office is an eerily similar shape and size to a cell?

Or when you look at children, your joy fades when you envision them growing up to sit in front of a computer screen?

As I continue on an aggressive path of carving out a career, I am consistently coming back to these questions of division. Why do I have to do this? Why have I not yet learned to just suck it up when everyone else has?

In the pit of my stomach, I feel a pretense when I say what I do for a living. An ideal life to me is brimming with work that brings me joy…a life where I met with challenges and daunting prospects that bring me closer to community, the world, and myself.

“That’s what everyone wants,” is what I’m told.

Than what do we need to do to make that happen?

Forget funding the revolution, how about funding our own existence, starting with being happy with our jobs, our lives!

Are you happy in your work? Do you separate work and Work?

Since I can’t ask when, I’ll ask this: HOW do you find what you love to do?