art lesson

Well Kacie has taught me a lesson on art today. I have been looking at things and memories of Kacie and some of them I don't know where they came from or what the story is behind them. For example, she had some images up on the computer, some of you may have saw them before. The one in particular that I did not know the story behind where it came from was the image you are seeing above, this goofy life of constant mourning. Kacie loved art and poetry and music... was always collecting images and knick knacks. I googled the saying "this goofy life of constant mourning" i thought it was ironic she had this. I found out that the artist of this image's name is Jim Dine... and well apparently hes pretty famous. This particular piece is the cover of a book he did with artwork and a poem that weaves through the whole book of art. I am going to find it at a book store and check it out. I have to say I was pretty embarassed that after my whole 4 years of art school I did not know this artist's name. After I saw some of his other paintings I did recognize his work. In fact he was quite famous for artwork with hearts... lots of pop art. But ALL Hearts... I found this also kind of cool because hearts has been a strong symbol we referenced a lot in our friendship. We always called each other "lover" it was just a little word in our language together... her other friends shared this as well with her. we also would always call each other "true lover" or "true homies" "true thugs" these were all little sarcastic nicknames we had for each other. Kacie and I also had a ongoing inside joke for years that because we spent so much time together that people probably thought we were lesbians. When we went to ocean city together we stayed at the dunes manor hotel in febuary the only people there were old people i mean ancient. then there was me and kacie young, we had kind of a more "artsy" look... and got quite a few dirty looks from some of the other patrons at the hotel. We stayed together for a weekend, dined together at the nice resturaunt below and treated ourself to wine and a fancy dinner among all the geriatrics... we thought it was a riot that these old people probably thought we were crazy lesbians. We called our experience at the hotel the "lesbian seagull package" It was awesume. So the heart that we drew in the sand was not only about the famous symbol for being best friends but it also was partly a joke poking fun at our fake "relationship" that weekend. Years after that trip to OC we still would joke about it. Many times we joked that we should get a tattoo of a heart with out two initials in it. We spent many bored evenings trying to draw the design... they were all horrible. We would wake the next morning look at what we drew and were like.... ummm what were we thinking? In honor of Kacie and these memories I did get a small heart tattoo of her and I's first initial in it. It is a silly tattoo but Kacie would have liked it.

The last picture I took of her...

This is the last pic I took of Kacie. It is in Mimi's hallway. She is making a gang sign as I was about to leave. This was her way of joking around. Saying "Peace out yo" The picture was taken sometime in February of 2008 less then a few weeks before she passed away. The strange thing about this night was that night her and I decided to just hang out at Mimi's house get a bottle of wine and play dress up. She always loved when i would do her make up and then I would take pics of her and myself modeling. We liked doing girly things :) Anyway... her and I had not hung out doing things like this in a quite some time because we both had been busy with other things in our life. So I called her up and I was like lets just hang out like old times get some wine and do our makeup all crazy and take some pics. She was ecstatic and loved the idea. We also called Vince to hang out with us. When Kacie and I lived in Meadow Lane on Wilkens Avenue we would hang out with Vince all the time. It was always us 3 together and was for a long time even after we both left Meadow Lane. They had dated for a couple years and even after they broke up remained good friends. Of all the millions of times the 3 of us had hung out we had never taken any pictures all 3 of us together... on this night we must have took over 50 pictures of us or so on my camera. Kacie and I have plenty of pics together but we never really had any of us and Vince too. We were just acting like goofballs taking funny pics the whole time. We had a great time. I just think it was really special that we were able to do that before she left this life. Just like Kacie's parents (living so far away) were able to come up and visit a few weekends before as well. There were a lot of little things that happened up to the point that everyone else went through too. I have always been confused about my own spiritual beliefs... and what happens and why does it happen... experiencing the loss of Kacie has definetly lead me to believe that there is some sort of higher being.. I don't know who and I doubt I ever will but I do believe in energy and I often question if things do happen for a reason as the famous saying goes. But I just can't understand why something so tragic would be meant to happen. I am so grateful for the time I had with Kacie it is just very hard to accept the lack of her physical existance. Most of the time when I go about my days, weeks and months... I try to stay busy and I think my mind sometimes just processes things as Kacie is just busy, away on vacation or moved somewhere far away. But then things come back into focus time to time throughout the day and it is very upsetting and it feels as if I am coming to a realization for the first time all over again. I know this is a very long process that we all are going through and it will take lots and lots of time to get better. I am trying to get through day by day the best that I can. This blog has really helped me more then I ever thought. It has been such a great thing to share stories with everyone, friends and family... to be able to share stories of all the years of Kacie's life from an infant to teen to young adult. It keeps Kacie's spirit alive.... and everyone has shared so many memories with Kacie that it would take forever between all of us to ever tell all of them. So I look forward to continue reading everyone elses memories and being able to share my own. I also look forward to comparing all of our dreams and seeing if we are having any common messages from Kacie. This was a long blog... but I just started typing and it all had to come out. On a lighter note here are some of the goofy shots we had took that night...

The Truth About Chloe The Chinchilla

That quiet little chinchilla that everyone seems to be interested in was a real troublemaker. It used to bite me on a regular basis but never attacked Kacie. Believe it or not, it had a great craving for cork. I found this out when I felt sorry for it being locked up in a cage and gave it the free run of our garage. Unfortunately, fishing rods have cork handles and it actually ate large areas of my favorite fishing rods. But the strangest thing about Chloe was her ability to jump straight up in the air. I'm not talking about a running leap, but she could actually jump straight up from a seated position and hit me on the chest.

It just got to the point when Chloe had to go. Kacie willingly gave her to a very wealthly friend of hers and we later heard that Chloe was given to a pet shop. She had been gone from us for about a year and I visited our local pet shop and there she was with a different name.

Some Things Never Change

Here's one of our favorite pictures of Kacie. As you can see, she has always been messy.

Some of Kacie's Critters

two short memories...

   Did anyone else ever have the pleasure of watching Kacie wash a sink full of dishes? I have seen Kacie wash quite a few dishes in all her different apartments... most didn't have dishwashers. By the time Kacie was done washing dishes she would have to change her clothes because she would be soaking wet for being such a sloppy dishwasher. Whenever I would come over her sykesville apartment I would sit in her window seat while she washed dishes or made us fried egg beaters or ground turkey or tofu. God, what I would do just to sit there one more time with her.

   This also is kinda a funny memory... but I will say it anyway... Does anyone else remember how many times a day Kacie had to pee? She always had to pee. I use to call her "camel" because I didn't know where she was storing all that liquid. haha

Shoes, Coat,and Scarf Dream

Last night I dreamed that I was walking down the hallway of an apartment building. My destination was a bar or nightclub at the end of this hallway. To my left, I noticed a tan door that was closed and there were items in front of it. There were several pairs of shoes, a coat, a scarf, and something wrapped in plain brown fabric. I picked up the wrapped item and removed the fabric. Inside there was a pair of shoes with short spiked heals. I realized that this was Kacie's room and these were her clothes. The coat was reddish plaid and was unusually long- it came down well below my knees. A person standing behind me told me that it looked good and that the people in the bar would like it. I then picked up the plain brown scarf and put it around my neck. I was disappointed that it looked so plain and it was so small that it barely went around my neck. I started walking down the hallway and woke up.

Python Problems

Here's a Kacie pet story that we'll never forget.

Kacie was about ten years old and we were living in our house in Woodbine, Md. Kacie called it the castle because it was so much larger than our first house- 4 bedrooms. In the spare bedroom upstairs, we had a large aquarium that housed a four feet long python. Most pythons make great pets and seldom bite, but this one was really nasty. When you walked near the aquarium it would lunge at you and strike the glass. I would hold it by the head while Kacie played with it because it tried to bite us at every opportunity. Kacie and I liked to put white mice in the aquarium and watch the snake sneak up on them and strike. The speed of the strike often startled me but Kacie took it all in stride. Nancy was terrified and avoided the room.

One evening, I went into the room to check on the snake and was shocked to see that the top of the aquarium had been left open and the snake had escaped. I don't want to mention any names but I think I know who was responsible. I panicked as usual and searched the whole house. It was very difficult for me to tell Nancy that this creature was loose in the house and could attack at any time or place. She didn't take it very well and Kacie seemed amused.

We literally watched every step that we took in the house and sleeping was rather difficult. This went on for about a month and then I began to feel rather comfortable that the snake must have died. My complacency soon ended when we found a shed snake skin in our living room one afternoon and had planned to have friends over for a party that evening. Nancy and I thought of cancelling the party but went ahead with it. This was exciting for Kacie but we had visions of a guest being attacked and the inevitable lawsuit. As our friends arrived, I told them the complete story and they all stayed. It put a damper on the evening but we got through it without an attack.

Several days later, we found the snake in a closet in the same room where it had escaped. I soon gave it to a pet store.

A Kacie Inspired Dream?

Three nights ago, I had the following dream. Kacie was not in it but I'm sure her memory inspired it.

I was sitting in a small boat tied to the end of a pier. There was a small boy sitting in the boat with me. There were a lot of boats cruising past us and we waved and talked to the people on board as they went by. A boat full of young people in their twenties, around Kacie's age, was approaching us and I told the boy that the people in that boat would not be able to see or speak to us because they were dead. The boat passed closely by us and the young people on board were laughing and smiling but they did not notice us. After the boat passed by, the boy's mother ran to the end of pier and told me that I had given her son very good advice about life.

Pet, pets, pets!

Kacie LOVED animals. She had so many of them throughout her lifetime. Above is a picture of the puppy, Boris, kacie and Jeff got in Texas. The photoshop hearts and text was put on there by Kacie. Then there is a photo of Royal sleeping on Kacie's laptop. 

I remember when Kacie first moved back to Maryland she had a pet fish that she said Gary had bought for her. I think its name was Charlie... I am not sure. It was a white fish.

Then she had Margo (who now lives with Vince). She got Margo as a little kitten. I know there are some pictures of her somewhere. One famous one was a polaroid and it says Baby Margo on it I believe. When she moved to Chatham Gardens in Ellicott City she wasn't allowed to have cats but me and her tryed to devise a way to hide Margo in her apartment. We went out and bought Tint for the windows and we also bought all kinds of wood to make a shelf that would go on the back patio. The shelf would block anyone from seeing her in the sliding glass window.  After all of our hard work... it didn't pay off. Someone spotted Margo somehow so Kacie had to give him to Vince. Then Kacie was really sad and lonely. She would talk about how hard it was to not be able to live with another living thing. So one day as impulsive as Kacie was ... I get a phone call at like 12 noon on saturday or sunday. Kacie is laughing hysterically and telling me she just bought a ferret... I was like what?? Yes she bought the ferret. A little girl ferrett that she ended up naming Olivia. Then someone saw the ferrett haha. So she had to get rid of the ferrett. The lady she gave the ferrett to is a whole other long story I will share again soon.

Please share your Kacie animal stories with all of us :)

Kacie's Mom's first dream

Last night, I had my first dream of Kacie. I didn't sleep well, was tossing and turning, and kept looking at the clock.

I never saw Kacie, but I can remember being at Mimi's house and having to move my car for Kacie to get out. Then we both decided that we would meet somewhere nearby.

I started driving and thought it would just take a few minutes to get where we were supposed to meet and I made a wrong turn. Anyway, somehow I ended up near the Bay Bridge going to Ocean City???? I was so upset that I couldn't reach our meeting place that I just woke up.

(When I think about it, the dream is kind of sad but i was so excited to finally have my first dream of her).

how to comment

I have been telling others about the page and a lot of people have been confused on how to leave a comment. By clicking on the bottom of a posting there is a comment button. It says "0 comments" or "1 comment" Click that. You can type in your comment then. You do not have to have a google account or anything else to leave a comment. There is an option that just says name/url. You can simply click that option and type in your name there and leave a comment. Let me know if you have any other problems or questions :)

-Natalie

Balderdash

As I was falling asleep last night, I was feeling really sad about Kacie...and wishing I had more things to remember her by....

suddenly I remembered that I had the board game, Balderdash in my car. Anyone who's seen my car knows that it's a giant trash heap, and stuff just accumulates in there. I was pretty certain that the last time I played that game, I was with Kacie. It was late at night, and I told myself that first thing in the morning I'd go get the game out of the car, and hoped that there might be some little Kacie memories inside.

Well, as you can probably tell from the above pictures, I found some. Unfortunately, these were all I found. For anyone who doesn't know, Balderdash was (I think) Kacie's favorite game. Basically, everyone is given a word (or in certain versions a wacky law, or a name or date), and then everyone has to come up with a definition for the word; only one person knows the real definition. You have to be pretty creative to play the game, because it's all about bluffing and fooling other people. Kacie was really good. 

The answers above kind of lose their humor when you don't know what word or name (or whatever) they're referring to....but they're scrawled in that familiar chicken-scratch, and it's nice to see. 

perhaps a visit from kacie?

Last night I was out with some friends at a bar in Federal Hill. We had four glasses of beer on the table but there were only 3 of us at the table. We had ordered an extra beer so we wouldnt have to wait a long line at the bar to get another one. I ordered a personal pizza. I was eating my pizza and the other beer miraculously fell over and spilled all over the seat next to me. I looked at the two other people sitting next to me on the other side and said "How did that just happen? Did you see that?" They were like "I don't know." I didn't think anything of it. I just was like maybe the table jumped?? Then later that night as I was laying in bed trying to go to sleep, I was thinking about Kacie (as I normally do before I go to sleep) and then I put the pieces together of all the numerous stories Gary had told me about Kacie spilling her drink. I don't know if that was her but I can only hope it was.

Mimi's First Dream

I just spoke with Mimi and she gave me the following account of her first dream of Kacie from a couple of nights ago. She said that she could see and hear Kacie just like in real life.

Mimi was sitting alone in her little room at Paradise Assisted Living and it was around 9:00pm. She was just about to get up and lock the door when Kacie walked in. As usual, Kacie walked directly to the bed and stretched out. Mimi asked her where she had been and Kacie told her that she had been shopping and bought a few things. She then went on to say that she was thinking about leaving her job. Mimi got upset with her because she had just bought a new car and job hopping wouldn't look good on her record. They then talked for a while about unimportant things and Kacie got cokes that they drank together. Later as Kacie was leaving the room she told Mimi not to worry because she could work things out.

Mimi is really looking forward to having more dreams of Kacie so that she can particate in our website. I will be reading various postings to her.

Kacie And The Legend Of Blueberry Hill

Here's another strange tale (just like Gravity Hill) that was circulating around Baltimore in the summer of 1967. Kacie loved this story and we often visited Blueberry Hill together. After Kacie died, I took Jeff to this special place and told the tale once again.

First of all, here are some quick directions. From Randallstown, go west on Liberty Rd. and cross over the reservoir. At the top of the hill, take a right on Oakland Mills Rd., go about three or four miles and take a right on Oakland Rd. Follow it until it dead ends at the water filtration plant. Next to the plant, there is a small concrete road going up the hill next to it. Take it to the top of the hill and you're there. Here you will have the most beautiful view of Liberty Lake possible. When we lived in Eldersburg, we visited here numerous times and have home movies to prove it.

Back to the story. In '67, the Baltimore Sun and the number one radio station in Baltimore, WCAO-AM 60, did stories on reports of a monster of sorts that had been seen in the vicinity of Blueberry Hill. There were several reports of farm animals that had been slaughtered by this creature. Supposedly there were caves in the hill and the monster took shelter there. WCAO actually had a reporter camp out one night on Blueberry Hill and he made live broadcasts but saw nothing. My friends and I just had to spend a night on the hill. Four of us arrived there late one summer evening and sat on the shoreline at the base of the hill. We waited and waited until it was very late and heard something coming down the side of the hill toward us. As it got closer and closer it sounded bigger and bigger. When it got within a stone's throw, we actually heard a tree fall in its path. We screamed, scattered, and ran through the woods in total darkness to the car. Like the reporter we didn't see a thing, but we sure heard something huge. Maybe it was just someone playing a prank. We'll never know. The monster stories fizzled out later that summer and never returned.

From the time that she could just barely walk until she was a teenager, Kacie and I would often walk to the top of the hill and I would share this story with her. She was always fascinated but never frightened. I plan to return to Blueberry Hill many times in the years ahead to relive my monster night, but mostly to relive my long walks up the hill with Kacie.

Kacie Speaks

Last night I had a dream about Kacie and she spoke to me for the first time.

I was in a neighbors house in Eldersburg, Md. and Kacie and another young teenage girl walked into the room with their heads wrapped in towels. Apparently they had just washed their hair. Kacie came up to me and said "did I scare you?" I said "no, but the girl behind you did." They then disappeared and I yelled "Kacie, Kacie" and then woke up.

Kacie And The Legend Of Gravity Hill

Kacie absolutely loved the following story from my youth. I'll never forget how her face lit up when she first heard it and I knew that one day she would be drawn to Gravity Hill to see it for herself. It's just a simple little tale but let me give you some background information to make it a little more interesting.

Without a doubt, 1967 was the most exciting year of my life. I was 17, the world was in a complete state of turmoil, the hippie movement had reached it's peak, and the Beatles ruled the world. Teenagers lived for the now because there might not be a tomorrow. It was a time of experimentation and questioning of everything that our parents and authorites had taught us. Nothing captures the flavor of the times like the music of the sixties and especially the music of the summer of '67 which is referred to today by music historians as the "summer of love." John and Paul were gods. No other living person had as much influence on the thinking and actions of young people as they did. The Beatles personified the sixties. When Kacie was very young I exposed her to as much music of the sixties as possible with the hope of steering her away from the popular "music" of her day and I believe I had some influence.

The story begins. In early '67 an amazing story began cirulating around Woodlawn Senior High. It had to do with a stretch of road near Liberty Lake that defied the law of gravity. Like I said, life was exciting and anything seemed possible but I felt that this was just another school prank. But then, as more and more friends and classmates claimed to have been eye witnesses of this phenomenon, I just had to investigate. Most of the stories dealth with cars that were put in neutral and cruised up a hill. I heard several stories of people putting balls on the road and watching them roll up a hill. Let me stop here and give you directions to the spot. Travel west on Liberty Road just past Randallstown and take a right on Deer Park Rd. Go about four or five miles and take a left on Wards Chapel Rd. Wards Chapel twists and turns down a hill and bottoms out at a large flat area with parking on the right side. The stretch of road known as Gravity Hill begins just as the road ends its descent and flattens out. This is where I witnessed the impossible in the summer of '67. My friend stopped his car, put it in neutral and the car drifted up the hill. I took many people there that summer and everyone was shocked. Many times on hot summer evenings I would go there with friends and we would drink beer and watch our cars violate the law of gravity. It was great entertainment and there was aparently no logical explanation.

One year later, in the following summer, myself and two friends visited Gravity Hill with instruments and did a "scientific" investigation. We discovered a logical explanation but I wish we hadn't. It took away the magic. Last September, when we visited Kacie in Baltimore, I made a trip to Gravity Hill and was happy to see that it is totally unchanged from the time that I first visited there.

Kacie had me make her a detailed map so that she and Jeff could see it for themselves. It's not difficult to find but for some reason they couldn't locate it. When I visit the Hill in the future, I'll enjoy it even more because I have a Kacie memory attached to it.

My Second Dream

I had a dream about two weeks ago that I told Natalie about and I have been so busy with my new job that I haven't had the ability to share it with all of you. In my dream I was laying in bed in my new house that I am now in in Annapolis. And Kacie was there at the foot of it talking to me. She then started pulling out an outfit for me to wear and laid it on my bed. We were talking and laughing and all the sudden she started walking to the door to go downstairs. She looked at me and said "Mommies gonna go downstairs and use that bathroom because she needs to make a stinky stink" and I started to laugh because, it was just so typical of her to do that. The next thing I knew I woke up in my bed in my room and I was staring at the ceiling, as I rolled over I realized there were clothes on my bed and I notice it was the outfit Kacie had pulled out for me. I got up and went down the hall to my roommate, Jen's room and asked her if she had heard me talking to any one. She said yes and that I was apparently sleep walking. I thought that that was so weird and got back in to bed. As I rolled over again I woke up once more. I was dreaming inside of a dream, which is quite a weird occurrence. But, once I realized there were no clothes on my bed, because of course that was the first thing I looked for, I was happy that I got to see Kacie once again and that she was being her normal disgustingly, hilarious self!

Kacie's Favorite Ghost Story

In our bedroom, there's a little ceramic handmade cottage. It really brings back memories because when Kacie was a little girl we would each hold it just before bedtime and make up stories about the old man and little girl that we pretended lived there. I did this with her so that she would become a good storyteller and I saw that she had a great imagination. She loved to hear my stories but her favorite was a real life ghost story that I told her when she was an adult. Here it is and it's absolutely true!

About one year after Nancy and I got married, we were living in a small apartment in Randallstown, Md. One Sunday morning, Nancy saw a house for rent in Manchester, Md. We were tired of the city life so we drove to Manchester that afternoon, saw the house, and signed the lease. It was an old brick rancher out in the country on a quiet little street. It only had one bedroom and was located at the corner of New Street and Wertz Ave.

Things were going well for several weeks and nothing out of the ordinary occured until one evening when I got home from work and walked into the dining room. Out of the corner of my eye I could see a tall figure with long white hair and dressed in a white gown. When I turned to look directly at it, it suddenly disappeared. After this first incident, I assumed that my imagination had gotten the best of me. But I continued to have this same experience on a reular basis. It appeared in different corners of the dining room and always vanished when I tried to look directly at it. I didn't want to scare Nancy, so I didn't reveal my experience to her. In fact, I waited about twenty years before saying anything to her.

I was frightened. I felt that I could deal with the situation but things took a turn for the worse. I had to stay home from work one day because of a bad cold and Nancy went to work. Later that morning I was about to get out of bed for breakfast but something pinned me to the bed by my shoulders. I had to struggle to stand up and really had a difficult time walking to the bedroom door. It's difficult to describe, but it was like trying to walk under water. There was pressure coming at me from all directions and I had to push my way through it. I was sick but so frightened that I sat outside in the wintertime until Nancy got home. From that day on, I could never stay in the house alone.

It got worse. Nancy and I visited some good friends in the area one evening and got home rather late. I did a few things in the kitchen and walked down the hallway to the bedroom. As I approached the bathroom I could hear Nancy laughing very loudly behind the door which was partly open. I asked her what was so funny but she didn't answer. So I opened the door and was shocked to see that she wasn't there. I immediately looked out of the bathroom window and I saw her walkining our dog about one hundred yards behind our house.

After this final incident, I could no longer deal with this house and began to tell Nancy that I was tired of the area and wanted to move. It gets even better. Just before we moved, I was talking to my father and he asked me for directions to get to our house. When I told him that we lived at the intersection of New Street and Wertz Avenue, he seemed rather stunned. He then proceeded to tell me that my great grandfather, Mr. New, had married a woman named Wertz from the town of Manchester where we lived.

That was enough for me. I broke the lease and we moved back to Randallstown.

Kacie loved this story and I'll never forget how big her eyes got when I first told her.

Happy Father's Day Gary

Dear Gary,

We all know how much Kacie loved you. She told all of us some great stories about you with haunted houses, running on the beach, drilling boyfriends you met of hers and many more. Like you, Kacie was a great story teller and had a way with people. People liked her. I am glad we have all been able to remain close in this difficult time and try to form as much of a "family" as we can. No one can ever replace Kacie as your daughter but if you ever need anything we are all here for you. :)

Love,

Natalie

Re: Kacie Learns to Drive

The first photo courteousy of Amanda's Flickr page: 

www.flickr.com/groups/kaciebean

This is a picture of Kacie in her first car. The corolla. 

The second two are more recent pics tooken in the Prizm. These were pictures kacie took of herself making funny faces on her cell phone camera. She sent me tons of pictures like this all the time to my cell phone. I wish I still had them all. These were the most recent ones I had.

Kacie, Jerry and Frankie at Wolftrap

When Kacie was about 5 or 6, in the late eighties, we took her with us to a Frankie Valli concert at Wolftrap in Vienna, Virginia. To really give you a feel for what I experienced prior to the show, I can only refer you to the scene in The Excorist where Linda Blair vomits the green pea soup but the following incident was much more frightening than that.

It was a beautiful summer evening and we were on our way to Wolftrap. I had gotten my tickets to see Frankie several months in advance and we had front row center seats! We were about ten minutes from the pavillion and Nancy was in the front seat with Kacie in back. As a little girl, Kacie had quite a history with car sickness. Even as a little girl she had an amazing appetite and could just about eat her weight in food. We had a good dinner that night before our one hour trip. Life was great, we were only ten minutes away and car sickness was the last thing on my mind. Then without warning, Kacie leaned over my shoulder and vomited with force and mass that was unbelievable! I was drenched from my shoulders to my shoes (and in my shoes). My first impulse was to turn around and head home but we had front row center seats. When we got to Wolftrap, I somehow endured and so did the people seated around me.

Before the show began, a local dj introduced the opening act. I remember him saying "Tonight we have a brand new comedian for you, so please welcome Jerry Seinfeld". It was apparently one of his first professional appearances. Jerry walked onto the stage and looked like a skinny little boy. I've never laughed so hard. How could an unknown comedian be so funny? I remember telling Kacie and Nancy that one day that boy would be the world's greatest comedian.

Then Frankie gave one of his greatest performances. So, it was an unforgettable evening of endurance and pleasure.

Beach Music Memories

When Kacie was about ten years old, she met the king of rock and roll (not Elvis) on the beach at Ocean City, Md. It was a really big deal for me but she just took it in stride.

A little background. My favorite entertainer of all time is Frankie Valli. I don't even have a close second. I've been to over seventy of his concerts and have collected everything that he has even published. He and the Four Seasons have had more charted hits (50) then any other American rock group. He's a real superstar and is finally getting the recognition that he deserves with the Jersey Boys phenomena.

Here's the story. Each year when Kacie was growing up, we went to the fall festival held in Ocean City in September. A large tent was set up on the beach near the inlet and several groups would perform but usually there were only 1 or 2 big names. I'm guessing that it was 1993 and Frankie Valli was scheduled to perform on a Saturday evening. The show was a sellout and the crowd (not just me) was blown away by his performance. After the show, a big crowd formed on the parking lot where Valli's car was waiting. There was little chance that we would get to meet him in a crowd that size so Kacie and I hung out on the beach behind the tent for a glimpse of him. As he was leaving the tent and about to walk into the crowd, I yelled out "hi Frankie" and for some strange reason he looked over at us, smiled and came to us. I had my camera with me and got a great shot of Frankie and Kacie together on the beach. The picture is in our bedroom and above it we have the hat that Kacie was wearing that night. Over the years, I had met Frankie many times and have numerous pictures of he and I together but my dream was to get a picture of my daughter with him and it came true that night.

Music

Did you and Kacie have a "song" together? 

Any moment/ memory you shared together having to do with music?

Kacie Learns To Drive

In her later years, Kacie became an excellent driver. Mimi was always complimenting her on her driving skills and criticizing me for the way that I drove. But Kacie wasn't always a good driver.

When she was fifteen we let her get her permit. I wanted to teach her to drive and the driver's ed. program at school was booked up anyway. I'll never forget our first time out together. It was about seven in the morning and I drove to a secluded area not far from Hilton Head's airport. Kacie took over and was doing pretty well until she failed to stop at a stop sign. I calmly told her what she had done and we went on our way. She soon went through another one and another one and another one until I believe she must have run six or so stop signs. My patience was wearing thin and there wasn't much traffic on Rt. 278, the main highway coming onto the island. So she pulled onto the highway and headed toward the mainland. It was a beautiful morning and she was doing great as we drove across the bridge connecting the island to the mainland. She was probably doing about fifty miles per hour when we came off of the bridge and suddenly saw the traffic stopped in front of us. I screamed at the top of my lungs and dug my fingernails into the dashboard. Kacie hit the brakes. The car probably skidded about fifty yards before coming to a stop just short of the traffic. The smell of burning rubber and smoke filled the car. When I regained my senses, I looked over at Kacie and she was just as calm as if she had just gone on a pleasant Sunday drive.

She got her license and soon had her first accident. She failed to yield the right of way to another student on the school parking lot and they collided. Our insurance covered that one. The second accident occured on Mathew's Drive when she again failed to yield the right of way to an elderly woman and they collided. Kacie paid for that one- $800.00. After that, we had a heart to heart talk and I made it clear that I would tear up her license if she had another accident. From that day on, she was a good driver.

I thought it might stir up some memories to ask a question and then everyone can leave their answer in comments if they want.

to keep going with the zuchinni dinner theme...

* What was your favorite (or one of your favorite) dining experiences with Kacie ? *

Just felt like putting these up...

Kacie's secret apartment and painting

I had a very unusual dream about Kacie last night. Although she was not in it. In the dream it was a couple months after Kacie had passed... like now... I was going back to her old apartment to see if there was anything she had left behind. However, this apartment I was going to never existed in real life. It was a three level apartment ... very large, practically a house. All of her friends only thought she had a two level apartment. The first two levels were a typical apartment, The first level was a unfinished basement. The second was where Kacie had lived.... however there was a secret third floor that she never told anyone about. I went to the third floor and it was a huge absolutely stunning loft apartment with never ending high ceilings and beautiful rich hardwood floors. It was completely empty except for a painting in the corner. I was in shock as to why Kacie had not made her living quarters up here or shown anyone. The painting in the corner was square. it did not looked finished. It was a brightly colored outline of kacies face crying. Just the outline though and the outline was all different bright colors switching from yellow to red to pink etc. It almost looked like a clown.... but sad. It was a painting Kacie had made.

Then at some point later I was taking a bath in a clawfoot tub in her basement (I dont know why) I was really scared and kept getting spooked by some spirit or ghost. At one point I got so scared that somehow the tub knocked over and all the water spilled everywhere. I turned around and saw a little girl looking through the window and then she immediately ran away. 

That is all I really remember...

There are a couple things that this dream makes me think about symbolically. The whole beautiful apartment upstairs with the sad painting that Kacie never showed anyone I think was about how Kacie hid a lot of her feelings from people. No matter how sad she was about something it was extremely rare she ever let anyone know it or let alone see her cry. She always made things out as a joke to make some light of it.... but deep down she was hurting a lot. You could read about some of those feelings in her writing but in person she was very outgoing, always joking around, trying to make others laugh... she was the life of the party.

This also reminded me of the paintings Kacie made a long time ago... when she was maybe 18 or 19 years old. They were all silhouettes of trees and roots. She had one that I think she gave to Jeff? Maybe. She had one hanging in her first apartment she got with Shannon when she first moved back to Maryland... I think.  I don't know what happened to these paintings... there were a few of them. Does anyone know?

I have no idea what the part about being in the bath tub in the basement was about... I do know that Kacie always took "tubbys" (baths) ... she was not a huge shower person. She was always scared of ghosts in basements exspecially Mimi's basement. And as Gary has told me she always spilled her drinks as a little girl... maybe I am stretching things out here... I dont know.

The photo above was a picture Kacie made on playing around on photoshop of herself. This is similar to how the painting looked in my dream only it was a different picture of her.

 

Kacie jargon, ectcetera

Do you remember The Kacie New Dictionary?

Scoobie snack.

Hey black girl!

Do you have any hand lotion?

South Kakalaki (South carolina)

Mama New, Daddy poo, Mims, Baby Gus
Jeffrey Bean, Kacie Bean (not sure of all her friends nicknames)

Free sample, free sample (Nordstrom's customers)

Meadow Getto

Tee tee

nappy poo


And . . . .

Pam Spray

Tofu.

Dunkin donuts coffee

Panera Bread (one opening here soon, can't wait)

Im sure the list goes on and on, but that's what i can remember.
Feel free to add to the list.

Mama New

Bye

I had this very brief dream last night but maybe it's worth saving.

It was years ago and I was working for a furniture dealer in Baltimore and tried to reach Nancy on the phone for some reason. Kacie answered the phone at our house and I asked her if mom was home and I can't remember her short reply but she ended the conversation with "bye" in that high pitched silly voice that she used to do.

Hi from Kacie's Mom

Gary and I really get a kick out of checking out the site and reading all of your

memories and dreams!!

Thanks and keep on dreaming.

Nancy

Follow Up To Jeff's Zuchini Dream

When the smoke detector went off, I ran downstairs and saw a fireball in the kitchen with black smoke rising to the ceiling. Jeff and Kacie were just standing there in some sort of a trance. I grabbed the pan and took it to the back porch. My question is, where was our dog Sam? Gus was in the upstairs bedroom under the bed but what happened to Sam? Sam is no longer with us, but to this day Gus runs whenever we grill or fry food.

Fried Zuchini

Within the last week, it feels like I have been dreaming about Kacie every night. Some good, some bad. Most forgotten the minute I wake up. One I can't forget is on the night of June 1st, I remember seeing Kacie and I immediately hugged her and swung her around in a circle because I was so glad to see her. I then told her she looked really good. That is all I remember from that dream. I remember how good it felt when I woke up because it was like I really saw her and felt her in my arms. In my dream, she had past away but we were still spending time together. Most of my dreams involve meaningless stories that don't really make sense but this dream left me feeling like I was able to spend just a few more living seconds with her. It felt amazing.

The next night was not so great. I remember seeing Kacie again and we were driving around in a car with someone I work with. Kacie and I were laughing at the other persons bad taste in music. This was pretty much all I remember but I remember having this feeling in my dream that Kacie really did go to the hospital but all of it was over and she was going to be all right. Then I woke up. This might have been the worst I have felt since it all happened. I have been pretty good with coming to the realization of what happened and dealing with it from there but I truly believed nothing was wrong with her for a brief moment. Waking up was really difficult because the first thing I realized was the horrible reality.

So now that I have gotten through the sad part, I feel like I should share some funny experiences Kacie and I had together.

I will never forget Kacie trying to make me fried zuchini in her house in Hilton Head. I had told Kacie how much I liked the zuchini from the Japanese resteraunt there. She was determined to make me some fried zuchini so she filled up a cooking pot with cooking oil and turned the stove on high. All I remember is kacie yelling and walking into the kitchen and seeing a flame five feet high (afterwards there was a large smoke marking on the ceiling). Gary was upstairs and I think Nancy was at work. The fire alarm started going off and I panicked. Gary rushed downstairs and grabbed the extremely hot pan, put a lid on it, and rushed it outside. It was kind of scary, we could have burned the house down. The other thing that was scary is we couldn't find Gus anywhere and thought he ran outside after hearing the alarm. Kacie, Gary, and I searched all over the neighborhood for him. At some point, we realized he was so terrified that he was hiding under the bed upstairs. Kind of frightening at the time but hilarious when I look back on it.

There are so many funny memories that I have written down but I will try and spread them out over time. Sometimes I feel like I am going to forget things I did with Kacie but she influenced me so much I feel like I will never forget. Anything I do such as listening to music, eating good food, or laughing at something funny, I think about how it relates to Kacie. She introduced me to so many good things in life. The most important thing I remember about her is her personality. She had such a funny way of looking at the world and her sense of humor had me in tears. She had these funny character voices and I don't really know how to describe them. Anyone that knows her knows what I mean. It was like she was living in her own little cartoon world.

One Funny and One Sad Dream

Last night before falling asleep, I watched the Conan O'Brien Show and that explains my first dream. I was in a crowded house and there apparently was a party going on. Conan was there and he was following Kacie around the house. Kacie was not an adult but a young teenager. After a while, I couldn't find either one of them and I happened to walk into a back room and there was Kacie. There were many people seated in the room and Kacie was standing up front and talking to them. At first, I thought that she was conducting some sort of prayer service but then as I listened I realized that she was telling everyone how to get in touch with her and then I woke up.

My second dream wasn't as pleasant. Nancy and I had hoped to meet Kacie at my mother's house but Kacie didn't show up. So Nancy and I went to a large hospital complex to meet her there. We entered the main building and searched the hallways and rooms but she was not to be found. Nancy was notified the Kacie was being held in a jail cell somewhere on the hospital grounds in a building called Prisoner Review. I was extremely angry and extremely sad when I ran out of the hospital to find her. I ran as fast as I could from person to person asking them for directions but couldn't find anyone that had heard of the building. I continued to run past buildings looking at the signs out front for one that read Prisoner Review. There was a woman outside of one of the buildings and she was talking on a pay phone. I grabbed the phone from her and could hear a good friend of mine, Howard Goldman, making sounds to make me laugh. I became enraged, yelled into the phone, and through it to the ground. I continued running until I saw a group of doctors leaving one of the buildings. None of them could tell me where she was imprisoned and then I woke up.

Ten Years In Woodbine

We lived in a big country style house on three acres at the top of a hill in Woodbine, Md. for ten years, 1988-1998. The following are some of our best memories.

Kacie started kindergarten at Lisbon Elementary when we first moved there and finised elementary school there. Then she went on to Glenwood Middle School and one year at Glenelg High School.

She was involved with the West Howard Swim Team, the Patriots softball team, gymnastics, and we had a trampoline in the back yard that she really enjoyed.

She had quite an elaborate beauty parlor in our basement and kept her friends looking good. Her speciality was doing nails.

Kacie called her dogs Barney Beaver and Sammy Dewdrop. She had a green snake named Wrappie (that wrapped around her arm) a chinchilla named Chloe, and a rabbit named Thumper.

I often observed Kacie doing strange poses on our front lawn. She would stand erect, raise her arms and remain motionless in this position for several minutes. When I finally questioned her about it, she said that she was imitating a tree to fool the cars going past our house. Thereafter, I posed with her many times when we were in the field out front and saw a car coming.

She loved to put on concerts on our front porch for us. She actually started kareoke before it got popular.

The fishing was great. The stream at the bottom of our hill was full of minnows. We used little cheese balls to catch them. Most of them ran about 1 or 2 inches but one day we walked down to the Patapsco River and Kacie caught a monster about 6 inches long near the Woodbine Inn.

We often went to the Enchanted Forest on Rt. 40. We have numerous home movies of Kacie there.

Just about every year, on the evening before starting a new grade, I interviewed and filmed Kacie. I tried to ask her the same questions each time. All of these interviews are collected on one tape so that we can watch her grow up from year to year in about 30 minutes.

And finally, Kacie loved Columbia Mall. We often made the half hour trip because she loved shopping there . She was crazy about stuffed animals and dolls and usually got one each time we shopped.

Those were really good years!

photo art dream

I had a strange dream about Kacie last night. I woke up around 8 am and forced myself to immediately write everything down so I would remember it all. Well here is what I wrote... "I was running through a cafeteria full of people to find Kacie. I found her sitting at a long table. She was sitting at the end all by herself with her hair up in a scrunchie. She never wore these. Maybe only as a kid. She also was dressed in very plain clothes like she was in scrubs from a hospital. In the dream she had become really sick with cancer or some deadly illness. We were sitting there talking about how we hadn't seen each other in a long time.We looked to one side of the cafeteria and there were these huge blown up pictures of her and I in OC. Only these were pics I have never seen before. They were more like artistic portraits. But they were not pictures of us together. There was one large framed picture of Kacie at O.C. and one large framed picture of me in O.C. We startedto walk over to these photos and Kacie lifted the bottom of her shirt and showed me a bump on her hip that looked like a blister or something. I asked her if it was a tumor. She said she wasnt sure. We got over to in front of the pictures and were pointing at them and laughing when we pointed at the one of me it almost fell off the wall. The glass was loose and the photo swung around as if it was going to come unhinged. I remember I was trying to fix and steady the frame. I noticed there were all these fingerprints on the right hand side of the photo. Kacie and I then joked about how we had done such a crappy job framing them. The photo of Kacie was a simply shot of her standing in front of the beach but it was kind of a blur. The picture of me was very dark. It was all black except for small highlights of blue on my face and body. Almost like the beach at night or something. It had my body 3 times in the photo. As if the photographer had taken a really long exposure. the motions my body made were blurred on one side. Then on the other side there was another one of me in the photo (if that makes sense) I was kneeling down looking out to the viewer ...looking very scared like a deer in the headlights. After we had attempted to fix the frames we started walking abck to our seat. We joked about how it had taken us so long (a couple years) to develop the photos from our ocean city trip (that is a true story) Then all of a sudden we were at a gas station (weird gary dreamt of the gas station) and Kacie was telling me a story about how once she got held up at a gas station.(this never happened to her in real life) As she was telling the story it started playing its self out. As if people at the gas station were acting the story out. I could see the guy that robbed her and her pumping gas and then (this is where the dream got funny) it turned into a rap song music video.Kacie was no longer in the video it was just the guy who robbed her started doing a rap video. then I woke up... it was strange.

But at one point when we were talking about how long it had taken us to make the pictures from ocean city. In the dream I thought in my head how I had found pictures of me in O.C. in Kacie's huge piles of pics her parents let me go through at Mimis house. This was because when Kacie and I went to O.C. we bought 2 disposable cameras. She took pics of me and I took pics of her. We took pics of us doing the same exact things and the same exact poses. In the dream I thought about that in my head and was about to tell Kacie about how I looked through those photos after the hospital. It was at that point in the dream where I had a realization that I was in a dream and Kacie was actually gone. But I kept going with the dream and that is when she started telling the story of how she got robbed. ..... I  dont know!! it was a crazy long dream....