The sun broke through a thick fog yesterday morning as we made our way to Milwaukee to celebrate my sister Kathy's last day of chemo. After 20 weeks of treatment, Kathy deserved much more than a bouquet of flowers, a care package and a trio of surprise visitors to mark the happy milestone. Still, our [...]
Category: kostelnik
Surprise! Happy birthday Kathy, my most gullible sister
Under the cover of 10,000 hogs, we pulled off the perfect surprise birthday party Saturday afternoon in Milwaukee. Planned with military precision by a three-generational task force -- the indomitable Grandma Peggy, Katherine and Erin -- the party required coded messages on cellphones and layer cakes, thirteen helium balloons and a tiny human carrier just [...]
Redheads have souls
Last week, during downtime in her freshman CA class, Molly engaged in a vigorous defense of her eternal essence. The instigators of this deep, philosophical debate were Trey Parker, Matt Stone and Molly's mischievous pal who said, "If your mother's a ginger, you don't have a soul." South Park references aside, I'm here to defend [...]
Chicago is our kind of town
"Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning." - Carl Sandburg We tasted Chicago this weekend and enjoyed 24 hours of wind-blown, gnocchi-flavored, irreverent fun. We celebrated life in all of its delicious, silly, competitive, tasty, warm, witty glory so that, by [...]
These are the women who raised us
My grandmother climbed mountains in her bare feet, raised hell and three hearty children on the edge of a small Pennsylvania mining town. Oldest child of the indomitable Baba Melnyk, who hitched a ride to America all by herself when she was just 13-years old, my grandmother earned her matriarch status with a sharp tongue, [...]