This week, Busy wasn’t sure she was ready to return to the podcast, but she showed up to remember her friend Kate. Then, Broadway’s Bonnie Milligan talks about how the recent loss of her father affected her Tony Award-winning performance in “Kimberly Akimbo.” Trigger Warning: Discussion of death and dying. LISTEN HERE!
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Hi--coming in late again, but in my defense, I've started this several times. Busy, I'm so sorry that your friend Kate passed away. I didn't know her, but from the love I hear in your voice and the pictures you've shared, she was a great friend. From my experience, Caissie, got this right. When someone important to you dies, it sucks. No two ways about it. And it's just tough. And you're going to grieve. And I'll tell you from my experience from when my mom died, 13 years ago, it still sucks. But you learn how to manage it. And your friends help you. So eventually, you celebrate your memories. Some days, you'll smile when a memory comes to the surface that reminds you of the good times. But sometimes, something will happen, something that may seem unrelated, but whatever it is, will cause a memory to flood up and you'll just need to stop and cry for a while. But bottom line, we're lucky to have people in our lives that are important, and when they pass on, all we can do is the best that we can and go on.
I was also distressed to see that the covid virus raised up and grabbed you. I know that you keep up with your inoculations (old people like me still use this word) and from the stories you share on Instagram, it looks like it's a mild case and you're recovering. But I am glad to see you did the right stuff. Too many people have fallen back into the "it's not to bad, so I can still go out and do stuff" mentality and that's just going to make it worse.
I was also glad to hear that you got Birdie off to school in Sweden successfully. I generally follow when the "move in days" for the universities here in Pittsburgh are, mostly to know when to avoid certain areas around the universities due to traffic and I have to say that it amazes me just how much stuff kids need these days when they go to school. It's been a long time, but i don't remember taking near as much stuff, but then, I went to university when we didn't carry computers around with us, mostly because you needed a big air conditioned building for them. It's a lot and I can't imagine that organizing the logistics of transporting that stuff to a continent halfway around the world makes it easier. Even if you buy stuff there, you could end up having to do a lot of assembly and that can be a lot of work. I just finished putting a metal storage cabinet for stuff in my garage together and I do have to say is what I did my best at this week was keeping my frustration in check. I hate that we no longer get instructions we can read, just pictures that kind of show us what we're going to do. This cabinet had a video you could watch, but the time I took to get it built seemed to be much longer than the 8 minutes the guy in the video took, even with editing. And his stuff went together well, I always seem to be fighting to get things in place and then to hold them there while I try and get the screws in place. But this morning, I got the shelves in and the doors on and we're off to the next phase of the bringing order to all my stuff phase. Caissie, I thought of your sons as I struggled with the assembly of this cabinet. They both look like they are patient and from what I remember they have a lot of tools and if they had been around, I would have just paid them a nice fee to do it for me.
Anyway, getting back to the amount of stuff kids need to go to school these days, one thing I would suggest is that parents check with the school to see if the school sponsors some kind of thrift store. I remember reading an article in one of our local newspapers within the last couple of years that while kids bring a lot of stuff to school with them, they often don't take a lot of it with them when they leave. And so to avoid just filling the local land fills with this stuff, the university started going through it and putting the gently used stuff out for sale at a thrift shop for low, low prices. I seem to remember they used the proceeds to fund a food bank or something.
Well, that's about it. As I struggled to assemble the cabinet this week, I thought a lot about the instructions we get in life. One of the most useful instruction, I've run across is the one that says "plate will be hot, leave in microwave for a minute before bringing it out". That is useful and as sensitive as my finger tips have become to heat, is one I wish I'd followed much, much sooner. An example of something that is not as useful is when I run across an item that has the words "easy open package" on it. I've found that is mostly a lie.
Take care everyone. Be kind to each other. Do your best when you can.
Great episode and I was lucky enough to see Bonnie in KIMBERLY AKIMBO in July. Love y’all! 💜