My nine-year-old daughter was all for it.  She wondered what we would read.  I suggested The Great Brain or The Phantom Tollbooth.  She said she hadn’t heard of either of them but that it will be “cool to know about new books!”  If you’re a reader, or spend any time with readers, you’ll now that hearing that from your child is one of the greatest things you can hear (it’s right up there with “I’ve decided to not drink until I’m 21.”, “I think it’s best to save sex for marriage.”, and “I think squabbling with a sibling is a very immature thing to do.”).

We decided on The Great Brain by John D. Fitzgerald.  I prefaced it by saying I had found out about the book from my childhood best friend, Jennie.  Jennie always used to call me “The Great Brain”.  Not because I was a mercenary little bugger (like the main character) but because she thought I was extremely smart.

The story begins with the installation of the very first flush toilet in the town.  The story continues with people getting into fights, someone losing his lower leg to gangrene, the subsequent suicide attempt of said legless boy, children lost in caves, and both racial and religious prejudice.  Hardly the delicious, carefree romp of my childhood, much less the childhoods my kids are experiencing.

But isn’t that the entire point of reading?  To learn from other people’s experiences so you don’t have to suffer a similar fate? I therefore chuckled when I read the following on a librarian friend’s Facebook status -

(someone) had a complaint about a book because—-wait for it———-the PARENTS got D-I-V-O-R-C-E-D in it!!!

I promptly weighed in that my kids were reading about gangrene, etc.  I mean, for crying out loud, people!  Life happens, and we read about it happening to other people so we can become somewhat inoculated if something similar happens to us.  Not that I would suggest my children frame a school teacher who had mistreated them, as The Great Brain does, but you got to give the kid props for being creative (not really, reputation is not something to be messed with).

My point is, The Great Brain, and a whole host of other kids’ books, are like the low-tech, old-fashioned version of Celebrity Rehab.  Part cautionary tale, part immersion in a life you’ll (hopefully) never know.  And we’re richer for the experience, I say.

(Stock image via Shutterstock and used with permission.)

On thy grave the rain shall fall from the eyes of a mighty nation!  ~Thomas William Parsons

Green sods are all their monuments; and yet it tells
A nobler history than pillared piles,
Or the eternal pyramids.
~James Gates Percival

For love of country they accepted death…  ~James A. Garfield (that may be my favorite)

They fell, but o’er their glorious grave
Floats free the banner of the cause they died to save.
~Francis Marion Crawford

The brave die never, though they sleep in dust:
Their courage nerves a thousand living men.
~Minot J. Savage

They are dead; but they live in each Patriot’s breast,
And their names are engraven on honor’s bright crest.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

But the freedom that they fought for, and the country grand they wrought for,
Is their monument to-day, and for aye.
~Thomas Dunn English

See what I mean??  There’s a ton of them.  I’m so thankful for the people who gave their lives, so that I might live freely.  Twenty-four hours doesn’t seem long enough to pay them homage.

I will be in sunny Hawaii this next week, so no Friday photo, and no April stats until I return.  If you need real estate help while I’m gone, call my voice mail and you can hear the names and numbers of the agents covering for me.  Or, wait until I get back and I’ll help you then!

Take care!!

So I began to talk in class.  I began to build a new persona – the fun, laughing, who-cares-about-math girl who excelled in her AP English and history classes and deemed that as “smart enough”.

To this day, I’m a communicator.  I laugh and talk and have a very expressive face.  I’d rather write a book on how I came to dislike math than solve for x.  I’d challenge you all day long to a grammar contest, before I’d spend one minute figuring out how much money one point difference in interest will save you over 30 years.

But something happened last week that changed that for me.  Thursday and Friday I attended a class in financial analysis.  I grumbled and griped all the way through the preceding week, learning how to use a financial calculator.  The second day of the class was my birthday and I basically demanded a cake of the office manager.  I said, “If I am going to spend eight hours of my birthday learning MATH, there better be a buttercream-frosted cake there for my trouble!”  There was, and it lulled me and several of my colleagues into a sugar coma for most of the afternoon.

Just before noon, though, on the first day, things began to click.  There were formulas, not at all difficult to master, that provided fascinating information.  I could help people with this stuff!  I had the stats to back up my general impression about how great the Tri-Cities Real Estate Market is.  If someone was deciding between buying a duplex or a condo or investing in stocks, I could counsel them about the best route to take.  I had the tools in my hands!

I felt smart again!  It had been almost thirty years since I’d felt confident and proficient in any mathematical equation, and I was here again!

At the end of the class, the instructor asked us what new thing we had learned that we felt would make the most difference for us.  He didn’t ask me, and I’m glad he didn’t.  At that time, I had about a thousand thoughts rolling around in my mind.  Over the weekend they’ve crystallized.  The number one thing I’ve learned wasn’t new at all.  It was more of a rediscovery.  Now that I have it back, it’s not going away.  I can talk the talk and I can also walk the walk.  I can do the math.  I AM smart.  I always have been, but I lost my confidence in that fact.  That was the best birthday present I’ve received in a very long time.

I was such a mom last night.  My oldest child is having trouble sleeping.  He asked for advice yesterday and I told him some things I thought might help, some habits he could change.  “I was wondering if I should do that, too!” he contributed.  I told him it was common for kids hitting puberty to have trouble sleeping because the hormones which regulate sleep, like all the other hormones in his body, are going nuts and changing up the way they do things.  He nodded and said, “I thought it might be something like that.”

Then my nine-year-old daughter beckoned to me from the bathroom -”Mom!  Could you come here?”  She was naked, ready for her bath, but she wanted me to stand by the door for the duration of her bath time.  “Why, honey?” I asked, puzzled. My girl is an independent soul, and usually spends her shower time singing “Marry You” and dancing a little clumsily.  After all, it’s difficult to really pull out the moves that song requires while on a slippery surface.

Anyway, when I asked for more info, a torrent of tears appeared.  For all her dramatic gestures, my girl is not a crier, so I knew something must have really upset her.  Apparently, at school that day she’d overheard some classmates relating the Bloody Mary legend (if you don’t know the story, please click on the link).  Tara was petrified that Bloody Mary was going to come from behind the bathroom door and kill her (which is why she wanted me to stand by the door).

I held her and told her that the story wasn’t true, of course.  I went on to recount an incident from a childhood slumber party wherein my friend Shelly had dragged me into the pitch-black bathroom, said the requisite words, and no Bloody Mary had appeared.  My daughter was extremely relieved.  She said later, “When I heard about it, I knew it couldn’t be true, but then I got so scared, and I started to wonder.”

In addition, my older brother is going through a difficult time.  He texted me yesterday to let me know he really wished he could talk to our dad.  Our dad passed away almost three years ago.  In the months following his death, and periodically to this day, I simply wish I could talk to him.  Even though I know exactly what he would say, and how he would say it, I want to talk to him.

My son, my daughter, my brother, and I – we all know the right answers.  My son had figured out some techniques on his own, but wanted to hear from me what I thought.  My daughter thought the story couldn’t be true, but she needed to double-check with me to make sure.  My brother and I know the right thing to do.  We know what to think and do and say that will lead us to happy, productive lives.  But we only want to hear our dad tell us these things, even just one more time.

Parenting is about countless things.  It’s about being embarrassed when your son calls mom’s male co-worker, “Dada”.  It’s about reminding your daughter to wiggle that loose tooth so it’ll come out and the dentist won’t have to go in an get it, while your son is cheerfully volunteering, “I’ll pull it out for her!” It’s about braiding your daughter’s fine hair into french braids while her brothers make her laugh so hard that you can’t get a hold of her hair to complete the style.

But I think the most important part of parenting may be the assurance that you’ve been there before.  I had trouble sleeping when I was a teen.  I was told the Bloody Mary story at a slumber party.  I was the little girl with the fine hair in the story above.  When you’re a parent, and you tell your child, “You’re on the right track.  I’ve seen this path before – heck, I went down it once or twice,” that might be all the child needs to hear.

I have two older bothers; Jon and Jim.  Jon was born six years before I was, Jim was born sixteen months after Jon.  When Jim was four-years-old, he contracted bacterial meningitis.  A nightmare ensued.

His fever was very high.  My parents brought him to the pediatrician’s office.  The doctor told my dad to get Jim to the hospital.  Dad paused to dress my brother and the doctor told him, “No, Ned.  There’s not enough time for that.  Just go!”

Jim’s fever continued to climb.  Mom says it was horrible to watch her desperately ill child grow more and more feverish.  His small body was fighting with everything it had to overcome the infection.

Back in the neighborhood, everyone who could have come in contact with Jim had to take sulfa drugs, in order to make sure the disease wouldn’t spread.  Other parents, Jim’s playmates, Jon’s playmates, and of course my Mom, Dad and Jon took the medication that would hopefully keep them safe.

Jim’s condition was monitored.  His fever climbed and the only thing my parents wanted was Jim healthy again.

The neighborhood held its collective breath and wondered– would Jim be ok?  Would anyone else come down with it?  Was this the beginning of an epidemic?

Days passed.  Jim came through it, no one else in the neighborhood contracted it, and it became a McGann family legend.

Fast forward thirty years…I had a child and he went in for some vaccines.  I was surprised to hear that the same disease that Jim almost died from, my son would be vaccinated against.  In one generation, the terror that had gripped my brother, my family, my neighborhood, had been eradicated.  Amazing.

My son had that vaccine at the same time the reports and rumors “proving” a link between the MMR vaccine and regressive autism started to circulate.  I heard about them, thought and prayed, then decided to vaccinate my child anyway.

Twelve years later, the study was disproved.  In the meantime, after deciding to not vaccinate their children due to this published report, how many parents experienced the hell my parents faced?  But with a different outcome?  How many people have the family legend “The Time Our Child Died of Measles”?  “The Time Our Child Died of Mumps”? “The Time Our Child Died of German Measles”?

It didn’t have to be that way.  It has been reported that one sick moron of an individual (okay, the story doesn’t call him a sick moron, that’s my own term for him) created links that weren’t there, for profit; so that a case could be won.

Therefore, legends were created.  But they were the wrong kind of legends. They won’t be different a generation from now. They cannot be re-written.  They aren’t innocuous, funny stories about human foibles.  They are stories of death, and they are stories of inconceivable sorrow.  They cannot change.  The shame of it is nauseating.  There is useless, needless pain so someone could connect dots that were not there.  It is horribly, legendarily sad.



I gained seven pounds over the holidays.  That is not a typo – I meant to write seven (7)!

So now I have to lose it again.  Or do I?

Here’s the trouble – when I gain this particular group of pounds (and believe me, I’ve seen this seven number stretch a few times), my face looks better.  It seem that this chub settles in my face and erases fine lines and wrinkle.  The apples on my cheeks round out and I look fresh and youthful.

However, my pants don’t zip.

Now, if I were a newscaster or a nose model (always thought I could be that, I do love my nose), then perhaps keeping the weight on would be the best option.  But I am not.  People see all of me.  So, I guess I need to lose that seven pounds AGAIN.

When I was a kid, I wanted to write my own column, like Jack Smith in the LA Times.  My best friend and her mom enjoyed what I wrote so much they said I could be the next Erma Bombeck.  I posted a note on Facebook almost two years ago as part of a meme – 25 Random Things About Me, which was really well received.  When blogging took off it occurred to me that each blogger had his or her own column.  Hmmmm…

It finally hit me, I’d rather write what I like to write about, and if people find my blog, and like what they read, then maybe they’ll want to work with me in a real estate transaction.  Usually people work with me because they like me, anyway, not because I’ve been spouting off real estate info on my blog every day.

So now what you’ll find when you come to my blog, is my writings about life and living…here in the Tri-Cities.  Real estate will be included, because it is part of a my life.  I’m involved with it almost every day, and often for more than eight of those hours in the day.  But it will not be the sole focus of the blog, despite its name.

The Walk Score is supposed to indicate the desirability of a city or a neighborhood.  The higher a walk score, the less likely a person is to use his or her car to run errands, which helps the environment.  More walking equals a trimmer you (they claim that people who live in more walkable neighborhoods weigh seven pounds less than those who live amidst suburban sprawl). In addition, if you’re out walking around your community, the more apt you are to be involved IN that community, making it a place where you have a vested interest in keeping it clean and wholesome.

The scores in each of the major cities of the Tri-Cities, are pretty poor, I’m sorry to report; with 100 being the top score …Kennewick – 45, Richland – 43, and Pasco – 45.  Richland is the only one which really surprises me because the city was originally designed to BE eminently walkable.  When the U.S. government took over ownership of the city and designed the streets and built the homes and created the commercial areas, the city was laid out so any person without a car could easily run their daily errands.  However, the city has long outgrown its original “downtown” area and now stretches throughout almost thirty-eight square miles!

Kennewick and Pasco both began as small towns, begun as most American small towns are – with a railroad serving as the city’s commercial center, and shops and residences lining a nearby main street (and a 1st, and a 2nd, etc.).  If both of those cities had spiraled out from that center location and continued on a grid pattern with shops and houses scattered throughout, they’d both have higher Walk Scores.  But Kennewick now covers 24.3 square miles, and Pasco covers 30.2 square miles.  It’s pretty difficult to keep up a grid pattern over that amount of space, over years of construction and trends in demographics.

All the cities have neighborhoods within each city, which will boast a higher or lower score.  My personal residence rates a 17 (is THAT why I’m still overweight??), but the office here in Kennewick is rated as “Somewhat Walkable” at 68.  You can type in the address you’re curious about and get a very specific rating.

Over on Facebook, sometimes I like to use quotes as my status update.  I found this one this morning -

If you want to turn your life around, try thankfulness.  It will change your life mightily.  ~Gerald Good

My life is pretty great as it is, but if I wanted it to be even better, I believe that is the way to get it there.

Whether you’re having turkey, tofurkey or turducken, enjoy your meal.  Hopefully you’re with friends or family or both today!