The Most Fun Kat Ever Had on a Plane (With Bill Murray)

By Kat McDaniel, Principal at MEDiAHEAD

Kat on a Plane with Bill MurrayEveryone asks themselves – what’s up with all those Bill Murray stories? There is even a new documentary, The Bill Murray Stories: Life Lessons from a Mythical Man that tracks down all the witnesses.

Several years ago, I was flying from Kansas City to NYC. I was late, almost missed the flight and cranky. I was shoving my bag in the overhead when a man, who was in the aisle seat, asked me if he could buy me dinner (which of course was free on Midwest Airlines). After I crawled over him and flopped into the window seat, I turned to him and realized who he was. With shock I said, “OMFG. You’re Bill Murray!”

I knew that this was going to be a really fun flight.

Bill purchased almost the entire liquor cart for us and I laughed so much that my face started hurting halfway through the flight. Bill is such a flirt with everyone! But, he also got a bit serious and talked about his kids and his love for Frank Lloyd Wright. He had recently taken them to see Falling Water in Mill Run in Pennsylvania.

At one point he wanted me to listen to his favorite band, Roxy Music. His headphones were out of juice, but he ran down the aisle of the plane asking people if they had any AA batteries. I’m sure someone took them out of their device, so he could have them.

When we were walking through La Guardia, I asked him how he deals with all the people staring and taking photos of him. Fifty years into his career he said he likes surprising people and doing whatever he likes, because he can.

By now, many people have Bill stories. He has turned being famous into performance art.

StewardessThere is the story of a stewardess, Bill called her over and asked her for one of her shoes. He poured his peas in her shoe and proceeded to eat them. He said that he thought her shoe would give the airplane peas some better flavor. He also walked around, picking up everyone’s trash.

He has bartended, crashed weddings and bachelor parties, picked fries off of stranger’s plates and walked up to people from behind, covering their eyes saying, “guess who.” He’s been spotted riding a child’s bike through Walmart, doing people’s wash at parties and trying to persuade a barista at Starbucks to slip some whiskey into his eggnog latte.

Murray often offers a famous parting shot to the stranger(s) he’s surprised: “and no one will ever believe you!”

That guy you see in the movies? That’s him in real life. I hope you get to meet him someday!

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Kat’s Gardening Adventures

Kathryn McDanielMost of you who know me, know how much I loved living in a no maintenance loft in the Crossroads for years. When I got married to John 2 years ago, I moved to Westwood Hills. Anyone who has driven through this beautiful little city knows that residents are obsessed with their landscaping. Everything is perfect – mowed, clipped, pruned and planted.

Now I’m obsessed with gardening.

Honestly, I had never planted anything and always scoffed when friends talked about spending all weekend in their yards. Now I’m texting John… “STAND BY!!! multiple plants, bushes and trees arriving in 30 minutes, need to be unloaded.”

I’m constantly driving around town with my SUV loaded with something new and fun. I too, have become obsessed with gardening.

Kat's Gardening Obsession Kat's Gardening Obsession

The other thing I am obsessed with are pests.

I always thought those bunnies were so cute. Now I want to kill them all. They eat everything and multiply like… rabbits – ha! I recently planted several drift roses and within a week they had eaten half of them. Now I’m the crazy lady with chicken wire in my front yard.

I’ve started buying flowers and plants that rabbits hate: sweet alyssum, lantana, marigolds and geraniums – not my favorite flowers, but they will survive the buffet line.

Caterpillars, mites, bagworms, Japanese beetles (the worst), moths, aphids, ants and snakes have arrived. I don’t like to use a pesticide because of my bee friends, so I’ve been using Neem oil and dishwashing liquid. I don’t know if it’s because of all the rain, but they’re feasting on everything – some plants look like the leaves are made of lace.

Kat's Gardening Obsession Kat's Gardening Obsession

We built a beautiful patio with a stone wall last summer – now it’s home to numerous chipmunks who have burrowed tunnels everywhere. So cute, and so destructive.

Last year, I had a huge vegetable garden with my daughter Amy because of the pandemic – I had a chicken wire fence completely around it, but the squirrels would climb in and take one bite out of a perfect tomato or pepper and leave the rest to rot. Not attempting that again this year because it’s so easy to go to the Farmer’s Market every weekend.

Even though I may sound like I’m complaining  – I am LOVING every minute of it!

Kat's Gardening Obsession

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Hello. Is it Spring Yet?

Michele StillwellBy Michele Stillwell, Director of Marketing and Accounting at MEDiAHEAD

Holy cow, can you believe this weather?!? Well, at least Spring is just around the corner. March 20th is the official first day of Spring in 2021. Let’s close our eyes and picture green grass, flowers popping up, birds singing, kids laughing and playing outside. How about sitting outside to eat again and being able to breathe in all that fresh air? Oh my gosh, I can’t wait.

Spring Checklist

GardeningI love Spring! It’s time to start planting now, get your hands dirty and buy those little starter planters. You know the ones. Get your seeds for your flowers or veggies, or you can just grow some herbs if you like. (They will take that pan seared chicken to a new level.) Start now and it will give you something to look forward to.

Spring cleaning… not something I look forward to, but nice to have completed. Discard those unnecessary items that have piled up over the winter. Clean out the closets, basement, attic or just a corner of the house. Donate to a local shelter all your unwanted items. They would love to have them!

Think about the extra hours of sunlight. Oh yeah! The longer days means there is more time to spend outside, on nature walks, bird watching, walking the dog(s), sitting on the deck, going to the park and spending time with your family.

(I really hope you are visualizing this with me. I’m trying to picture all of this in my mind as the temperature outside is a whopping 9 degrees.)

Spring Bird WatchingOk let’s keep going. Oh, how about the lilacs blooming and all the wonderful smells? Yes, driving down the road with the windows down… and what great smells you get of all the blooming trees and bushes.  The dogwoods, Redbud, Magnolia and sweet Mimosa.

Dining out again! Do you remember those days? Great weather means dining out! Yes, we get to be with our friends and family and sit outside and enjoy eating, barbecuing and just having fun.

So, I say we need to look ahead and focus on all the good that’s coming. Nice spring days, warmer weather (really soon) and getting to be outside and enjoying time with our family and friends once again.

SPRING!!! It really is just around the corner.

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Frazzled much? We’re all going to walk into 2021 really slow. Be good. Be quiet. Don’t touch anything.

By Kat McDaniel, Principal at MEDiAHEAD

Kathryn McDanielFrazzled much? We’re all going to walk in really slow. Be good. Be quiet. Don’t touch anything.

Now that I’ve lived through an actual plague, I totally understand why Italian Renaissance paintings are full of naked, food-stuffed people laying on couches. The only difference is that we have Netflix and they didn’t.

I’ve just accepted that I’m not going to even try to accomplish much while it’s zero degrees out there, and we’re still in the middle of a pandemic. I think people are finding it harder and harder to get things done and to stay motivated.

The internet wants you to believe that you aren’t doing enough with all that extra time you have now. I won’t write my response to that in case any children are reading this. In the midst of a global pandemic I’m just trying to be OK with just being.

Can we also accept that yoga and sweatpants are here to stay for work? I don’t think I could actually fit into a pair of my jeans from a year ago, and I think comfort and occasionally working at home will continue after the pandemic.

No bra? No problem.

No bra? No problem.I had a Zoom call with a client this morning and she warned me that she wasn’t going to be wearing a bra – what? I haven’t had an actual bra on for a year. Our standards for humor are steadily decreasing during the pandemic – I thought it was hilarious that a boss accidentally turned on a potato filter during a Zoom call and the lawyer that couldn’t turn off the cat filter. I literally laughed uncontrollably for 10 minutes.

Humor is healthy for you – that’s why we need it now. It’s an important coping mechanism and an important part of mental health. The laughter it inspires, is our built in mechanism for managing stress.

This year I won’t be baking sourdough or planting a huge garden like last year. But as soon as it’s warm enough I’ll hopefully be patio drinking with friends… lots of friends.

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Do you like to bird watch? Let me tell you about the Wren my mother sent.

By Michele Stillwell, Director of Marketing and Accounting at MEDiAHEAD

Michele StillwellI absolutely love bird watching and feed the birds all year round. It’s really cool to see what kinds of birds come in the winter vs. the summer. My favorite bird is the hummingbird. Do you know that hummingbirds travel 4,000 miles and actually spend the winter in southern Mexico? Amazing birds… and they just fascinate me.

Birds spend most of the fall migrating, and several species travel from one state to another, North to South, even from the North Pole to the South Pole!

My husband and I spend lots of time putting out seed, peanuts and suet for all the birds in our area, especially this time of year when it’s so cold and food is scarce. On any given day in the winter, we have Cardinals, Blue Jays, Flicker, Red Belly, Downy, Hairy, Junko, Carolina Wren, Finches, Tufted Titmouse, Nuthatch, Sparrows, Chickadees and so many more.

In the summer, we feed the Baltimore Oriole, and of course the little Hummingbirds. We get such a variety of birds in the summer as well.

Bird WatchingWe also have a Kestrel that likes to sit in our neighbor’s tree, and hunt’s for some of our birds occasionally. This Kestrel will sometimes land right on top of our bird feeder and just sit there. They are so beautiful. It’s really weird because the other birds seem to know he’s around, and they all just disappear when he is near.

I love to take trips to go bird watching.

My family usually goes with me, we take the binoculars and our Missouri bird book. We’ve identified several birds that are just so cool. It really depends on where you go, and you really have to look pretty hard to find them. When you do find a rare bird, it’s fun to write them down and see how many you’ve identified. Another form of hide and seek.

Just last week, my husband and I went to Smithville lake on Saturday and watched about 20 to 30 Bald Eagles fly over the lake. It was amazing! Eagles are the most majestic bird ever. I had no idea there were so many at Smithville. Just incredible! I could have sat there all day long.

I had the most incredible conversation with my mother before she passed away.

The Wren my mother sent.I actually had several conversations with her, but the one that stays in my heart is that I asked her to send me a sign when I’m sad and thinking of her. She asked me what kind of sign I wanted. I said, “send me a little bird to make me smile and be happy.”

My mom had birds all the time at her house and she also had lots of bird houses. She had a little Carolina Wren build a nest inside one of her bird houses and they would have babies every year. I’ve never had a Wren show up at my house. I don’t have a bird house, I just have bird feeders.

Ever since my mom has passed, I’ve had a little Carolina Wren that shows up and sits on my deck. Occasionally she will eat out of my feeder, but she just seems to show up when I need her the most. Hi mom.

Birds are amazing and a wonderful gift from above.

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