Tag Archives: Unimportant Ramblings

Night Mail

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You want to hear a story? Oh good.

So, the husband and I attended a university where guys and girls still live in separate dorms across campus from each other. You can call it old-fashioned but having separate dorms led to something rather adorable in my book: Night Mail. You see, the guys and girls each had a wooden box rigged up on wheels with a rope on the front to pull it around. In these boxes the students would leave letters and packages addressed to each other and at night, after we were all back in our rooms for curfew, a couple of guys or girls (depending on who’s turn it was) would grab the wooden box and roll it across campus through the dark laughing and giggling about all the love letters and cologne drenched envelopes being sent from one heart to another. Once to the other side of campus, the boxes were exchanged and the letters dropped off in stacks at each of the dormitories. Then a couple more students would take the stacks of letters and slide them under Romeo or Juliet’s door. It was a hoot…and quite romantic, really. I remember how exciting it was when a letter with my name came sliding under the door. I would snatch it up, hop in bed, and pour over the words of the man who would later become my husband. Darren and I now have boxes of letters from our dating days. So much of our relationship is scripted out in the words we wrote back and forth as we came to know and love each other. Darren the artist filled his letters with drawings and illustrations that still make me smile when I come across them. My favorite picture he drew was of me calling him:

The little guy jumping in the air–gets me every time :]

Between night mail and all the time we spent living across the country from each other, written letters became a staple in our relationship–and we still write each other letters today. Sometimes old fashion is the best fashion of all, kids ;]

Telegrams Rock -(Stop)-

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I have this very cool friend, Ashley, that just gets me. She’s the kind of girl who peeks into your soul and takes a piece of your heart with her. Okay, that was a little bit dramatic but you know what I’m sayin’. She gets my stupid sense of humor and my love for random weirdness and there are just very, very few people in the world I have more fun with.

Ashley and I write each other hand-written letters all the time because we are awesome like that. Ashley taps hers out on an old vintage typewriter (named Watson, because it only makes sense to name your typewriter?) and I write mine on my very-special-occasion fancy pants stationery used only for the people I love best of all. Every letter from Ashley is a riot. I have thought about starting a place on this blog just to share her letters because they are just too funny and wonderful to keep all to myself.

ANYWAY

The other day I went to the mailbox and found a big yellow envelope with Telegram written across the top of it. I first squealed then ran to the house to open it up. When I opened it I found an old-fashioned looking note that read:

DEAR KARI  -(STOP)-  EPIC ADVENTURE AHEAD  -(STOP)-  POSSIBLE JAIL TIME  -(STOP)-  MOVING TO LAND OF VERY LARGE COWS  -(STOP)-  TEXAS  -(STOP)-  THEY FRY FOLKS DOWN THERE  -(STOP)-  BOSTON IN AUG  -(STOP)-  HAVEN’T DONE ANYTHING ILLEGAL IN AGES  -(STOP)-  CAN’T WAIT TO SEE YOU  -(STOP)-  AM SECRETLY TERRIFIED OF SAID VERY LARGE COWS  -(STOP)-  LOVE ASHLEY B  -(STOP)-

After reading this, I danced around the kitchen for a solid five minutes squealing about how this is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I get excited about real mail–but a freaking telegram on vintage paper in a big yellow envelope? Well kids, it doesn’t get any better than that.

Check the website out at Telegramstop to join in on the awesomeness. Or just be friends with someone really awesome who knows how to make you dance around the kitchen for five minutes.

A Very Bad Idea

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Just rockin’ the 90s with my little brothers Chris (left) & Brad (right)

Today I am going to tell you a true story. I have a little brother named Chris. I have five stupid brothers but Chris is my favorite (don’t tell the others). Chris and I have one of those questionable love/hate relationships. We almost never talk but when we finally do, we talk for hours. Earlier this week we were reminiscing about childhood and surviving childhood with said love/hate relationship. We laughed about the time Chris chased me and Brad across the yard with a machete–I think we could call this a hate moment.

a) Why did we own and freely play with a machete?

b) What could Brad and I possibly have done to invoke being hacked up in the front yard by a machete?

c) None of this is the true story I’m going to tell you (I mean, it is true, he really did chase us with a machete–but that’s for another day).

Don’t be deceived by how nice he looks

I grew up in the country on a farm with three big red barns. Up in the biggest barn the farthest from the house was a hayloft. The hayloft was the fortress and playground of my youth–my hideaway and favorite place in the world. One day right before I left for college, Chris and I decide it would just be the coolest thing in the world to sleep in the hayloft. And if we’re going to sleep in the hayloft well, dang it, we need entertainment. Thus began the plan to hook the TV up in the loft. No biggie, the barn is only like 20 yards miles from the house–we should have extension cords enough for that. Then was the part about actually hoisting the TV up into the loft–I believe this was done using a combination of ladders and my incredible upper arm strength. Regardless, we somehow got it up there with extension cords strung from the loft, through the puddles, up the hill, over the drive, through the yard, and into the house. Ah yes, but if you are going to sleep in the hayloft watching TV all night, well, you are going to need a good solid horror movie to make it worth your while. So, off to the movie store we go to make our selections. We returned home with a large pizza and the movie “Hide n’ Seek.” We built a proper nest on the floor and thus began the night of terror and stupidity.

“Hide n’ Seek” really isn’t that scary a movie…unless of course, you’re watching it in a barn out in a field in the middle of the night. You wouldn’t believe how timid a once machete-wielding kid can be until you lock him up in a barn with a horror movie–I’ve never seen Chris snuggle so close or act as though he liked me so much. We were both completely freaked out and kept talking about how maybe this wasn’t such a good idea and maybe we should go back to the house..huh huh, huh huh <8[

We were ready to pack up and run for it until we heard a scratching noise coming from the room under the loft. It was probably just a cat, but in that moment we were both fairly certain Freddie freakin’ Kruger was scratching his way through the floor boards intending to have us for dinner. You know that feeling of sheer terror that rises up in you sometimes and you’re just too scared to move or breathe? Ya, that was pretty much how we spent the whole night in the barn. We didn’t sleep a wink and as soon as the sun started to rise and there was just enough light to see the house again, we ran for it. If I remember right, we got to the front porch only to realize our Parents of the Year had locked us out so back to the loft we went.

It was one of the dumbest things we’ve ever done and one of the best memories we ever made.

Our current brilliant idea is to buy a pink van branded Kris and Kari’s Krazy Good BBQ out of which we will sell pulled pork to the masses. We are after all, from Kansas City (BBQ mecca) and Chris is the manager of a fantastic BBQ joint in KC, so we’re bound to be a success, right? Not to mention people in KC will eat BBQ any time of the day from any vendor imaginable–pink creepo van pulled up to the corner selling unidentifiable meat drenched in KC Masterpiece? Heck yes. The future is bright kids :]

All grown up–Brad center, Chris to his right, me to his left

Life In My Slippers

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Well kids, it’s been a busy week and I’m glad to finally have time to sit and write again. We’ve been preparing for our big annual audit at work and I feel like all I’ve done for the last two weeks is sit behind a desk filling out paper work. When it would all get to be too much, I would walk over to the big window in the office and just take in the changing spring-kissed landscape. We’ve been in a dance with the weather here lately–one day is a warm breeze and a cobalt sky, the next is rain drops and jackets. Every time I’m certain spring has finally settled in for good, I wake up to another cold day and bare branches not brave enough to put out leaves. It reminds of me of Robert Frost’s words about this time of year here in New England:

“The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You’re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you’re two months back in the middle of March.”
From the poem Two Tramps in Mud Time

Yesterday was the final day before the audit and everyone at work was rushing around trying to tie things up. One of the girls I work with needed a break from the bustle and went outside for a bit then came back with the cutest little stem of white bell-shaped flowers. She walked around work showing it off like a brand new baby and had everyone smell how fragrant it was for such a tiny thing. Then she got a tiny little cup filled with water and left it on her work table–I think we all enjoyed having a little piece of nature inside with us, especially on such a beautiful day when we all wanted to be outdoors. Actually, my boss wanted to be outside so much that he just took the day off and spent it out on his boat. He came in to work after 9:30 last night in shorts and flip-flops looking like a new man–it’s amazing what a little time outdoors on the water does for the soul.

The husband had to get up early this morning for the audit (I get to stay home and avoid the mess since I just work in the office, hehe). When I came down to the kitchen this morning, I was greeted by a cute little pink flower in a tiny little vase sitting on the windowsill…Husband picked it for me and put it there before he left–he’s a keeper, that one.

Now that I finally have a day out of the office, I’m faced with a mountain of laundry, dishes, grocery shopping, etc. Oh well, I would rather face the laundry than another mountain of paper work. Besides, I get to beat around the house in my slippers sipping coffee and rocking out to OneRepublic and Adele–all is well at the Andrews’ joint 8]

Well, I apologize if my ramblings about everything and nothing bore you–I’m just too fried to talk about anything important today…next week, I promise.

Enjoy your weekend and get outside if you can!