birthdays | The Scamp Abroad

The Scamp’s Last Day of her 33rd Year

Posted on March 6, 2021 by erranteditor

In two hours I will officially start my 34th year. This is the first quarantine birthday, and to be honest, I am not all that excited about it. Last year I was able to celebrate just before the whole world shutdown. This year I will be lucky to see a couple of friends and be out of my house for a few hours.

I shouldn’t complain though. On the 5th of March I received my first dose of the Covid19 vaccine. I feel like this is a promising start to end of a very difficult year. I got the Oxford AstraZenica dose, and I have to say, I am really disappointed that mine did not contain a Bill Gates’ microchip. I was really hoping that I was about to get a whole lot smarter. By 2am though, I thought that maybe I had been bitten by a radioactive spider and my life was about to change. I developed a fever, chills, a crazy headache and my whole body hurt. My arm is swollen and tender, but now, at 10 pm, the headache, chills and fever are gone, but my body still aches. I’m not sure if all of this is due to the vaccine, or if some of it is because I had to go off my pain meds to be able to get the jab. The achy body could be from that. All in all though, I am glad I was able to get vaccinated, and I am just hoping that the next dose is also on a Friday so I have the weekend to stay in bed and binge watch drag queens.

I’m not really sure why I am not more excited for my birthday. 33 had some good moments. I got my PhD. I got adopted. I got published as a first author, I paid down a nice chunk of my student loan, I reconnected with some old friends and made a few new ones. Those first two were really important to me. Finally being done with the PhD and not having that stress hanging over me has been nice. Having that PhD published as Davis and not Wilder is the ultimate cherry on top of that sundae. I finally got to ditch that name and the horrible people that I am unfortunately related to by blood.

I hope that this year means I finally get a chance to travel, to hug people, to do all the things I thought I was going to be able to do in my 33rd year. Whilst I am not super excited about tomorrow, I am hoping that there will be some good things to come. I have a lot of professional things in the works, some publications, professional development events, and some university wide trainings, and I am hoping that there will be some good personal things happening as well. This is the first time in almost 10 years that I haven’t gotten a tattoo for my birthday, but I remain hopeful that tattoo shops will be opened again and that the waitlist won’t a full year for my favorite artist. I also plan to visit at least three new countries. I will probably have to sneak in like some little gypsy souled ninja, but I am going to make it happen.

and maybe, just maybe, I’ll finally get my UK driving license.

The Scamp Remembers

Posted on March 19, 2018 by erranteditor

The woman in these photos is Frances Ann. Today is her 80th birthday.

Or, it would be if she believed in wearing her seatbelt. When I was in the third grade she died when she overcorrected her car on the highway. The car flipped and she went through the windshield. Her best friend was in the car with her and survived. Before the funeral, her friend insisted on telling the story of what happened. I remember the crazy curved couch that everyone was sitting on. She was sitting with her husband, my mom, aunt and grandpa sat and listened.

Sometimes I think it would be better for my mom if she hadn’t heard the story.

I can’t remember what her voice sounds like. I can’t remember the way she felt when I hugged her.

I can remember the way she smelled. Sometimes I go to the cosmetic counter at the shopping centre near my house and spray the sample of Red Door into the air just to trigger a memory.

I can remember where we stood when we spread her ashes in Indian Canyon. I’ve only been there one other time since then, and it was to spread my grandpa there after he died.

I can remember the horrible photo she drew of me when I had to go to the emergency room for an ear infection. The picture was me in a hospital gown with my butt exposed and a doctor with a very very large needle ready to give me a shot. In the butt. I have a few scarves that belonged to her with me now.

They smell like my mom.

When my mom smiles, she looks like my grandma….or at least how I remember my grandma in my head.

It is a smile that involves teeth. I know this because it is the same smile that I have (most people tell me they know I am Amercian because of my smile…all those teeth).

This is a hard day for my mom. She can’t call her mom and wish her a happy birthday. She can’t call her when one of her children (cough the oldest one cough) drives her crazy. It is a hard time for me because I have to think about the day when I won’t have my mom.

and that terrifies me.

A couple of weeks ago I had lunch with my great uncle who was in town on holiday. We haven’t seen each other in 10 years or so, but he knew exactly who I was when I met him for brunch. He gave me the best compliment that anyone could ever give me: he told me I look and act exactly like my mother.

2015-06-30 18.52.19 Since my mom sometimes looks and acts like my grammy, and I look and act a lot like my mommy, it must mean that I am a little like my grammy too.

I’d like to think that she would enjoy what I am doing with her smile.

The Scamp’s Last Day of Her 20s

Posted on March 7, 2017 by erranteditor

Tomorrow I will enter the next decade of my life. I’m currently horribly ill complete with fever, cough, sore throat and snot.

But I’m happy. While I was unable to cross all 30 things off the list, I did manage to do 21 of the 30 adventures, and I am just going to keep going until I can cross them all off (I really want to make a good budget so I can pay off my student loans). Today, on the eve of my 30th, I am able to cross two more off the list.

The first one that is coming off the list is number 29: Stop holding grudges. This one was a really difficult one because I love holding grudges. For the last few years I have been holding some serious grudges. I decided to let them go. I was able to mend some friendships, and I was able to walk away from one and I no longer miss the friendship or hate her for being so selfish and stupid. Letting go of those grudges has allowed me to make room for some new and amazing friendships (I’m looking at you Flamingos) and allowed me to really focus on the friendships and the people around me that keep me out of the dark and twisty. I also feel a lot better about the way I handle most situations because I am not as angry as usual and not as consumed with my grudges and perceived personal slights.

The second thing I get to cross off the list is number 28: Fall in Love. Now, before you get too excited, no, I did not fall in love with a boy. When I added this to the list a year ago, I was hoping that I would fall in love with the boy and move into a different phase of my disastrous relationships. But alas, that was a dud. The person that I fell in love with is way more important though. I fell in love with me. I’ve spent the last year working hard in therapy to sort through all the weird things that go on in my head. I’m learning how to take care of myself, how to find the balance between work and fun, and how to manage my expectations (That is number 30 on the list, but I am nowhere near ready to cross that one off the list, so it is staying unchecked for the moment). There was a moment earlier in the week that I was a little sad about not completing the list before my birthday, but then I realized everything that I was able to do, and how far I came in the last year. Really starting to love myself is a big thing though, and I think it is one of the things that is going to help make my 30s be just as great as I have been picturing them in my mind. Because, as RuPaul says, “If you can’t love yourself, how the hell are you going to love somebody else?”

Can I get an amen?

~~Learn how to drive in the UK.~~
~~Present at an academic conference~~
~~Start a new tradition~~
~~Go back to therapy~~
~~Visit three new countries (Paris, Malta, Hungary)~~
Ride in a hot air balloon
~~Quit the tutoring centre~~
Volunteer for a literacy programme
~~Read a book that has more than 500 pages~~
~~Make my bed everyday for at least three months~~
~~Have a solid draft of my thesis completed~~
Master scorpion pose
~~Attend the symphony~~
Learn a rap song from start to finish
~~Host a dinner party~~
Create a budget so I can pay down my student loans
~~Create something original~~
~~Create a solid workout regime~~
Go on a long hike (6 miles or more)
Learn to dance
~~Eat an exotic meal~~
~~Learn to cook a fancy meal~~
~~Yell at a football match~~
Go horseback riding
~~Master British spelling and punctuation~~
~~Create a good sleep schedule~~
~~See my favorite group in concert~~
~~Fall in love~~
~~Stop holding grudges~~
Let go of my expectations

The Scamp and the Writing Challenge: Week 9

Posted on March 6, 2017 by erranteditor

Greeting from California!

The writing challenge for this week is to make a playlist of five songs to describe my week. I like this. I like music, and I often create a soundtrack for my life. I’m just warning you now that there is going to be more than five songs because I’m just having way too much fun with this. I’m going to start with Tuesday. Up first, a little 2pac

Every time I come to visit my heart space I hear this song in my head. I know that my travel day is going to be busy, but I usually get excited and can’t sleep the night before, and I never sleep on the plane, but by the time I land I have my third wind and swear I can smell real Mexican food, which makes it all worth it. I was very very very lucky and had two really easy flights with no one sitting in the seat next to me.

Song two: Estelle: American Boy

I sing this song when I land in London. It’s catchy and it makes me laugh.

Song three, Wednesday: The 1975: Chocolate

Hi my name is Kim and I am addicted to chocolate. I wasn’t as tired as I thought I would be and there was sunshine, so I was able to sit in the backyard and enjoy some vitamin D. I also went shopping with my mom and resisted the urge to buy all things chocolate. It worked…until I walked outside the store and the Girl Scouts got me with the cookies (and I already ate them while I checked my mail and had a Skype session).

Song four, Thursday: Best Friend

I spent Thursday hanging out with the little muffin and had some adventures in the neighborhood. He chats a lot more than the last time I was here, and we had a great day in the sunshine.

Song five, Friday: The Working Song

Friday was another day with the Muffin running errands and getting ready for a mega birthday bash. I picked up one of the best from the airport, another drove 5 hours to be here and I had myself a nice little reunion with the boys from Merced. I was surprised that they would come down for the party. I had a lot of fun with the Muffin going shopping for food, drinks, and party decorations. He is a good partner in crime.

Song six, Saturday: LMFAO: Party Rock Anthem

40 people later. We partied. I got overwhelmed, got to see a lot of people that I have not seen in years, and missed out on having some tasty cake.

If I had a song for today it would be one of those sound machine recording of soothing sleep sounds. This week has worn me out. I’m almost out of the waiting room of my 20s. Who knows what will happen? I’m sad to say that I am not going to complete my list of 30 things to do before I am 30. I’m not sure how I feel about it. I really wanted to complete that list. It looks like it is now going to be 30 things to do before I’m 30 and a half.

The Scamp and Jazzonia

Posted on February 1, 2015 by erranteditor

In honor of Langston Hughes’ 113th birthday, enjoy a little Jazzonia

Oh, silver tree!
Oh, shining rivers of the soul!

In a Harlem cabaret
Six long-headed jazzers play.
A dancing girl whose eyes are bold
Lifts high a dress of silken gold.

Oh, singing tree!
Oh, shining rivers of the soul!

Were Eve’s eyes
In the first garden
Just a bit too bold?
Was Cleopatra gorgeous
In a gown of gold?

Oh, shining tree!
Oh, silver rivers of the soul!

In a whirling cabaret
Six long-headed jazzers play.

The Scamp and a Repost

Posted on March 19, 2014 by erranteditor

This is a post that I wrote a year ago to the day. It still holds true, and it was written at a critical moment in my life, so rather than try to recreate the words, I am just going to share them again.

Today my grammy would have turned 75. I say would because she was killed in a car accident in 1996. She would never start her car until all of us had our seat belts on, but she herself refused to wear one. That choice ultimately cost her life.

While she battled many demons (drugs, weight and addictions) I was too young to know any of that, so to me, she was just my grammy. She was fun, told the best stories and had zebra print carpet in her TV room.

Frances Ann was only 20 when my mom was born. I’m not sure if it was hard for her or not, doing the single mom thing before she married my grandpa, but pictures like this make me think she did the best she knew how.

That adorable little creature is me circa 1988. It is clear that she loved being a grandma. Some of my favorite memories as a child involve swimming in her pool in Palm Springs or having milkshakes at Hamburger Hamlet. She was a horrible secret keeper and she used to ask Kelly (who is also a horrible secret keeper) to trade secrets about Christmas gifts with her (it usually worked).

I think this picture best sums up how I remember her. She never took that necklace off, she was always wearing big glasses, and she always smelled like Red Door. For awhile my mom had a garment bag that belonged to my grandma. I used to open it up because every time I did, it smelled like her. My mom finally got rid it when it stopped smelling of her.

One of my favorite memories of her was one weekend we spent in Palm Springs I got a horrible ear infection. While we were waiting in the emergency room, she drew a picture of me getting a shot in the butt with a very large needle. She had my brother and sister rolling, and had me in tears scared to death. I don’t know what happened to that picture, but I wish I still had it.

On the 15th anniversary of her death I got a showgirl tattooed on my back with her initials. My grammy loved Vegas, and loved to gamble, but the tattoo had to be a showgirl. One of my favorite pictures was one that she took on a weekend trip. It is a picture of her head superimposed on a showgirl’s body. She loved that photo and used to joke with people that that was her in a former life.

I spent the day eating a club sandwich, drinking a Coke and watching Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. It is a tradition that my family shares every year on this date. It is a tradition that I take comfort in, no matter where I am or how I am feeling. She may not have been perfect, but she was my grammy and I love her.

This day is hard for my mommy. Those of you that know her, give her a hug, or send her a text reminding her how amazing she is and how proud her mom would be of her.

The Scamp’s 27th Year: A Visual Journey

Posted on March 7, 2014 by erranteditor

A week old and already a charmer

1! I’m the cute one

Thing one and thing two!

4. Preschool photo shoot

5. I was a little bit of a mess

I lost my two front teeth before picture day

Lucky 7!

9. Less of a mess

Double digits! Perfect 10

15. My love of tanning is evident

Sweet 16!

17. on a beach in Italy

Who says you have to act like an adult at 18?

No longer a teen

22!

23 was spent with Sailor Jerry

24 and already a knight

25 came with a cake that looked like me

26 with a sheep from Scotland

26 songs in Scotland

27 twins

The Scamp’s Last Day of Her 26th Year

Posted on March 7, 2014 by erranteditor

I did a post last year to mark the end of my 25th year. It was a lot of fun to write, and I was in a good place when I wrote it.

This year is a little bit different. I am feeling extremely stressed under the weight of three jobs, I have been staring at a paper for three hours and have barely managed to write two pages, and the only thing that I want to do tomorrow is sleep all day so I no longer feel bone dead tired.

Last year I felt good about where I was. I was in Scotland navigating the city, enjoying the adventure that came with living overseas, and built a very solid amazing group of friends. I was planning a day full of Mexican food with one of my favorite people, Skype chats with my friends and family at home, and a night full of karaoke at my favorite pub. A relationship I thought would last the next 70 years failed, but I was in therapy and focused on making myself a better person.

I was excited for 26, and excited for what that meant for me as one year older, and one year much much wiser.

This year I am looking forward to the end of my 26th year for a very different reason.

I’m not sure if 26 was a good year for me. There were a lot of good moments, I traveled around Scotland, wrote the best piece of writing in of my academic career, and graduated, started a doctoral degree and managed to get a teaching job, but for all of the good things that I accomplished, I made some missteps and had some hiccups. I left Scotland feeling really good about myself. I learned how to reach out for help when I needed it, reconnected with old friends and strengthened my bond with new friends, and I had a plan. I had a plan for how I was going to readjust to life in the US. I was going to take my great new attitude and be Kim 2.0, a newer, stronger, better version of the girl who packed all her stuff into four suitcases and spent almost a year living in my own created version of paradise.

I came home and threw all of that out the window. I buried myself in my dissertation and did not reach out to the people here who extended a branch of friendship, I had a hard time finding a job, and I quickly dwindled my savings. I let myself fall back into old Kim habits of negativity and insecurity, and I spent way way too much time in the negative. I have let my dedication to school slide, have not tried to find the good in each of my three jobs, and often let old insecurities cloud my new relationship. I still don’t have insurance, and while I have access to therapists through the school, so far, none of them seem like a good fit.

Basically, I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain I made with myself before I left the land of kilts and haggis.

27 is my chance to start over. Tomorrow I get a clean slate. Tomorrow, I get to start over one year older, and maybe not obviously wiser, but having learned a lot about what it means to make mistakes, admit you don’t know everything, and start working on going back to being the Kim 2.0 that I started to become in Scotland.

The best part of tomorrow is that I get to spend it with my family, and it is not over Skype. I still have a mountain of work to do and two jobs to go to, but at the end of all of that, I get to have dinner with my family, and have a few drinks with some of my friends. Even my students, who more often than not drive me crazy, made me a card, brought me balloons and chocolate, and did their best to respect me today.

My mom just brought me a bowl of ice cream and cookies in my favorite bunny bowl.

This may not have been how I pictured I would spend my last day as 26, but let me tell you, that ice cream went a long way to making it better. I have hours and hours before I sleep, and have 50 years of educational legislation to sort through, but I have a belly full of cookie dough ice cream, so suddenly it doesn’t seem so bad.

As promised, tomorrow will be a fun post full of pictures of the last 26 years of birthdays….I’ve seen the pictures, trust me, they will make you laugh.

A lot.

The Scamp and a Present

Posted on October 18, 2013 by erranteditor

I like giving presents.

Well, that’s not true. I like giving meaningful presents. I love finding the perfect gift for someone and seeing their face when they open it.

Then there was this boy. I found two presents I thought he would like, and after I bought them, he told me that he is hard to buy presents for, and I shouldn’t get my hopes up. He had me worried. I talked to my mom, my sister, and my best friend about to make sure what I got him wasn’t stupid or cheesy. It is not like me to second guess my choices, but when he told em he wouldn’t like it, I was really thought there was a chance that he wouldn’t.

These are the presents:

This one is pretty self explanatory. He is a scientist, and he has worked his way into my heart, so I thought this would be a fitting piece of art for the wall in his room.

This picture is different. It made me laugh. We have exactly one picture together:

and while it is a great picture (I mean, come on, look at the windows in his living room!), the picture of the two skeletons speak to us as a couple. I am always threatening to punch him in the face, and he is always trying to get in my pants. The picture makes me giggle, and I was hoping that every time he looked at it, he would giggle too.

Score one for me though. He loved the pictures. I got a real smile, a very nice kiss, and a “well done” (which is the same thing he said to me when I told him about the A on my dissertation. It is not so much the words, but the tone of voice…..like the guy in Babe, when he says, “That’ll do pig.” and Babe knows he succeeded).

This just reaffirms my love for giving meaningful gifts, and it gives me some hope that even after heartstompapoloza, I can be a part of a functional human relationship.

Should anyone be interested in the artwork, the lovely artist can be found here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/frenchprints?ref=l2-shopheader-name. There are almost 700 prints to choose from, all of them beautiful.