That’s the city’s new motto. I’ve been trying for hours to figure it out.

Does that mean that Chicago isn’t in Chicago? Can’t possibly be. Chicago is in Chicago, not in Gary, Oak Brook or Waukegan.

After due consideration and Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s goofy explanation, I guess it means that there are a whole lot of things that aren’t in Chicago that originated in Chicago. Like the Ferris Wheel.

So what?

But not like the “Chicago Way,” which is exclusively Chicago’s, pity the place.

The Chicago Tribune’s editorial board tried to plumb deeper: “Chicago’s terrible new slogan sounds designed to keep everyone away.“

Just one more reason.

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Nikki where have you been?

Gone are the days when I was a lonely and frustrated parent who needed space to understand why it was so hard to not to lose myself in the temporary space of parenting young children.

Every generation wants to do better than the last, to do right by our kids and give them ALL THE THINGS and skills they need to make it in the world, but what does that even mean today?

It means something different to everyone, but the internet is like, “LET’S FIGHT,” so I quit sharing writing. I’m a lover, not a fighter. And I had the fight of my life going on at home.

I was acting as a health advocate and care partner for my mom for many years as she struggled with complicated grief, dementia, and emphysema. After she died, I was exhausted and full of PTSD due to the ongoing stress and sadness that came with the isolation and relationship estrangements that are often a large part of the care partner experience.

Keeping an adult human safe from themselves and emotional and financial predators is fucking exhausting. And satisfying because I loved her and honored the fierceness that she brought to loving me.

I dropped the “pen” so to speak, and picked up the pace of parenting and getting back on track with my professional life. Writing seemed like a fool’s errand and I also didn’t know what the fuck to say because something was definitely afoot at the circle Knepper and I didn’t know how to write lies.

The truth was not something I wanted or knew how to share. I can bullshit, but I couldn’t write around the weird and still be genuine.

What was afoot is that my husband and I were at a crossroads in our marriage. What was once easy and comfortable and safe space in my life became scary and confusing. It was FIGHT ME all the time. We couldn’t figure it out. We worked so hard as individuals and together, yet things just kept getting harder.

It was confusing. So why the hell would I subject myself to internet bullies and next level stupid when I could have that at home without being frustrated by the grammar police and opportunistic fuckwits who just wanted me to MAKE THEM MONEY but not compensate me for my time and talent.

Can’t think of a reason? Me either. Because I’m smart. Having an learning disability doesn’t impact my ability to know how to use my 3 T’s wisely.

If you followed my blog back in the day or read my book, you know that I have a son and a daughter. My son will be 22 this year and is graduating college. My daughter will be 18 and is graduating high school and will go off to college as well. They are good humans, trying to find their way in the world and I respect their privacy, so I will not be writing about them in any detail. They can tell their own stories if they so choose.

I had never shared much about my marriage as I found it a difficult space to find boundaries and genuineness due to our declining ability to communicate and collaborate coincided with the start of my blogging. It was likely one of the reasons I started sharing in the first place.

Big space for big feelings is what the blog space was for me. It provided space that was once something my partner provided. My grief was big.

Relationships worth a damn are always infused with some grief because there is always, ALWAYS the potential for loss. This is something I have always known.

My book subtitle – not my idea – “Loving My Kids While Losing My Mind,” should have been, “Loving my kids without losing myself while watching the love of my life disappear and trying NOT to lose my mind but failing miserably because WHAT THE FUCK?” But who would buy that shit?

When I was 11, my aunt and uncle died within a few months of each other, leaving behind 4 young daughters. My parents absorbed a lot of responsibility for the management of the estate, but the elephant that was always in the room was figuring out how they would raise my brother and I while constantly holding the reality that it could have just as easily been them to both get cancer and die and it could be at any future moment.

My husband is 51 years old and he’s dying from a degenerative brain disease the that’s robbed him of his everything.

Secrets are heavy. He knew something was wrong. I knew it too. We didn’t know what it was but we kept fighting for us. When he stopped fighting for himself, I gave up justifying it and myself as radical self care and setting of boundaries. Someday I might tell the story because if I can help one person get a diagnosis before things get dicey, it will add to the dignity of my life dash.

Who was this guy because with each passing day he resembled himself less and less. Did I make him up? Did I imagine the ease and flow we shared in our first two decades together?

No. I’m a LOT, it I’m not delusional.

So am I back writing consistently? Maybe. Maybe I’ll die before him? Maybe I’ll bite it tomorrow. I don’t know. I’m writing today, right?

One day at a fucking time.

Fuck.

I love this photo of my cousin, Richard Kahen. It captures the bright and sunny energy he exuded. And the adoration he had for his grandsons, Blake, on the left, Corey on the right.

Most people knew him as Rick. To me, he was always Ricky. He died about a year and half ago, but his birthday is coming up soon, which has put me in a I-miss-Ricky kind of mood, even more than usual.

Ricky was 71-years-old when he passed away. Not young, but, certainly, not ancient.

Thanks to COVID and the fact that he died when I was in the hospital, I didn’t get a chance to attend his funeral or fully grieve.

But a day doesn’t go by that thoughts of Ricky don’t cross my mind. He was my oldest living relative on my mother’s side (a role that I fill now), someone I could count on to verify or remember obscure family lore.

Ricky didn’t have an easy childhood. Nor the easiest of lives, for that matter. His younger sister Kathy was 4 when she was hit by a car. Afterwards, she was never the same mentally.

Ricky was 8 when his father abandoned Ricky’s family. Ricky’s mother, my Aunt Virginia, went to work, leaving Ricky to pretty much raise himself. He was surely a latchkey kid, however, my mother didn’t work so Ricky at lunch with my brother Donny and I every school day in the kitchen of our first floor apartment at 77th and Essex Avenue in South Shore. I was happy to have a chance to spend more time with him.

I don’t think Ricky knew it, but I idolized him (no, not in a creepy sort of way). He was my cousin, sure. But he was also my friend, my confidant, my teacher (in the ways of social interactions), my protector and sometimes my savior.

Ricky and I were were both placed in Mrs. Schmiddle’s kindergarten class at Bradwell elementary school. Unlike Ricky, I was shy and awkward, and when it was time to put on our coats and go home on the first day of school, I freaked. I didn’t know where my locker was or how to zip up my jacket or even put it on by myself. I became totally discombobulated. I bawled like a baby in the hallway until Ricky came over, found my jacket and zipped it up for me.

Even though Ricky struggled with his weight, and continued to struggle with it throughout his life, he was always popular. He was a good talker with no pretensions, and more importantly, a good listener. He was fun, funny and smart.

Later during my high school years, I pledged a sorority (don’t ask) in which one of my sorority sisters assigned me the task to write a poem about Paul McCartney of the Beatles.

I had no idea what to write that wouldn’t make me sound like an idiot. I whined about it to Ricky, and what did he do? He wrote a bunch of clever, rhyming verses about the famous Paul for me, which I happily plagiarized (the first and only time I did so).

The poem was a hit when I read it in front of the girls at the next sorority meeting. They clapped and laughed with me, not at me. (They liked it so much they wanted me to write another one about George Harrison, but thankfully, they forgot about it.)

After Ricky graduated from college, he opened a shop on Devon Avenue in West Rogers Park called The Funny Farm, which sold gag gifts–squirting flowers, whoopie cushions, fake dog-doo, rubber chickens and snakes. The store had a small, curtained-off, adults-only area in back for the more risque merchandise.

It wasn’t long before life dealt him a horrific blow. At the tender age of 23, he developed bone cancer. His left leg was amputated above the knee.

Afterwards, he would tell me a bit about how he was feeling– but only if I asked. He had phantom pains where his leg used to be and would trudge up three flight of stairs on crutches to the third floor apartment he shared with his friend, Butchie Harrison. Ricky rarely complained, at least to me. Instead, he directed the conversation to how you were doing.

One of the highlights of his life was marrying his beloved Candi Graff (thus from here on in was Candi Kahen–pronounced “candy cane”). Later, Ricky became a proud father to his daughter Allison, and, eventually, an adoring and adored grandfather to Corey and Blake.

Throughout the decades, Ricky and I stayed in touch by phone and saw each other at holiday gatherings. We talked about once a month– always phoning each other on our birthdays, gabbing about family gossip, politics and, well, life.

He was a loyal reader of Opinionated Woman, emailing me when a piece particularly resonated with him. He was an avid reader of books and newspapers, a U.S. history buff with a special interest in Abraham Lincoln, a lifelong White Sox fan. He called me “Jude” as in the song “Hey Jude.”

After Ricky lost his leg, for the rest of his life, he walked supported by a cane. Anyone could see that he didn’t have it easy, but again, he didn’t bitch about it. He worked a full-time job (not at The Funny Farm. A few years after he lost his leg, he closed the store up. The space turned into an Indian restaurant.)

Ricky became an advocate for disability rights. For 26 years, he served on the Buffalo Grove Commission for Residents with Disabilities. For 20 of those years, he was chairman. He was so integral to the agency, it was renamed posthumously the “Rick Kahen Commission for Residents with Disabilities.” 

Ricky continued to be plagued by health issues, and in his 60s, he had a massive heart attack. But with a zest for life (I know that’s a cliche, but he was that rare person for whom it was the God’s honest truth), he vowed to continue to live. His goal: to attend his grandson Corey’s bar mitzvah.

During this time, I went through a deep depression–not about Ricky so much, more about my own issues. Ricky was there for me, giving me advice. He told me to allow myself a day or two to feel sorry for myself, then snap out of it.

This from a guy who found himself too often in the back of an ambulance, headed to Northwest Community Hospital. The advice seemed to work for him. Not so much for me.

About a year and a half before he died, he was diagnosed with kidney cancer. He was in the dialysis center when he had another heart attack, this time fatal.

Ricky was positive, supportive, generous, caring, kind, and inspiring in the way he lived his life. As one of his friends wrote on legacy.com, “He was the mensch of all mensches.”

There are so many times when I want to reach the phone to tell Ricky something. Then I realize no, he’s not there.

Although, not a celebrity nor as young as Marilyn Monroe and Princess Diana when they passed away, like them, he was a bright light to those who knew him, a candle that burned out too soon.

He never made it to Corey’s bar mitzvah.

Let’s follow the science. I offer the following without comment. My previous comments on the efficacy of lockdowns were trashed here and elsewhere.

Lockdowns in the U.S. and Europe had little or no impact in reducing deaths from COVID-19, according to a new analysis by researchers at Johns Hopkins University.

The lockdowns during the early phase of the pandemic in 2020 reduced COVID-19 mortality by about 0.2%, said the broad review of multiple scientific studies.

“We find no evidence that lockdowns, school closures, border closures, and limiting gatherings have had a noticeable effect on COVID-19 mortality,” the researchers wrote.

In addition, the report also states:

But the research paper said lockdowns did have “devastating effects” on the economy and contributed to numerous social ills.

“They have contributed to reducing economic activity, raising unemployment, reducing schooling, causing political unrest, contributing to domestic violence, and undermining liberal democracy,” the report said.

Every brand wants what Disney had at that moment. First me, then another man, looking over the backstage wall to see their Willy Wonka ways.

My son, wife and I were standing in line for the Skyliner, a gondola system that connects several parks and resorts at Walt Disney World. As we did, I noticed something.

At one point in the queue, I could actually see “backstage” over a nearby fence!

Why was I excited enough to just use an exclamation point?

Because, at Disney parks, they are VERY careful about not letting guests see “behind the scenes” into the inner workings of an attraction, show, etc. (unless it’s a special tour). In fact, at the Magic Kingdom, they actually built a tunnel system on the ground floor, then built the entire park above that — again, in large part to not ruin the illusion, and keep disbelief well suspended.

So, when I saw the backstage area, I excitedly got up on my tiptoes to take a look. As I did, I realized that I felt like Charlie Bucket looking at Willy Wonka’s factory, mesmerized by what could possibly be happening inside.

What did I see? Well, pretty much what you’d expect. Roads. Some trucks and cars. A few people. Oh, and dumpsters. Of course, all very clean.

Amused at my own reaction, and having to move forward with the line, I then noticed something I will never forget.

Another grown man, obviously seeing what I had seen, had scrambled back to stand up on a curb and peek over the fence. And, for that moment, he was Charlie, too.

Afterwards, I thought about our reactions. And I realized that those two reactions were an ultimate goal of any organization, any brand.

To have people so in awe of what you do that they are excited to see behind the scenes, hoping to glimpse how you make your own magic.

That, right there, is the key.

To grab a mind is one thing.

To grab a heart… well, that, my friend, is the real Golden Ticket.

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Contact me at [email protected] and learn more at jameswarda.com.

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