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June 06 Happy Birthday, PopToday would have been Pop's 71st birthday.
I always had trouble keeping track of how old Mom & Pop are. I knew they were a year apart in age, but I could never remember, for some reason, if Pop was born in '38 and Mom in '39, or Pop in '37 and Mom in '38. Unfortunately I have the benchmark set, now - I just remember that Pop was 66 when he died in 2003, and whatever year anniversary of his death we're in (this year will be 5 years) I add that 66 to get his age. With Mom, I add then subtract 1. So, Mom will be 70 this year in December.
I hate the fact that this is how I remember how old my parents are, or would be.
I haven't had a Pop moment yet today. Usually I do on his birthday and special occasions -- some little thing that's probably ridiculous, but kind of says to me that he's still around. If the icemaker spit an ice cube at me instead of into my glass, that would be a Pop moment. Silly stuff. But as Pop got older (and after he got sick) he got a lot more relaxed and attained more of a sense of humor. At least I know where I got my oddball side from.
So, Happy Birthday, Pop. Rita's doesn't sell lime waterice anymore, otherwise I'd have one in your honor. Guess it'll just have to be a beer instead!
May 12 Too Busy to BlogBeen awhile since I've blogged ... hmmm ... last time was 3/31. Since then:
Nicky broke his wrist sliding down the bannister. He actually dislodged the growth plates that sit in his wrist, on top of the arm bones, before they connect to the hand bones. That was on 4/1/08. There's nothing like the sound of a triple crash into the foyer (hardwood floors) to get me running! Just his scream, before I saw him holding his rapidly swelling wrist, let me know that we were in for a night at the ER. Of course, it was his right, dominant wrist that he broke, so schoolwork was as much a chore for Nick & I as it was for Nicky -- we had to write his homework for him, for the most part, so it would be legible. 4 1/2 weeks later, the cast came off (as of 5/2/08) and although his arm still doesn't look entirely right to me, the doctors say it is healed.
Nicky made his First Communion on 4/27/08. His suit jacket hid most of his cast. He wasn't the only boy with a cast on his arm, so at least he didn't stand out for any other reason than he was the best looking kid there.
The kitchen has undergone a great transformation. In the fall, I took down the flowery border and we painted it. That alone was a vast improvement, especially with the beautiful lighting that Nick did last year for my birthday. We got a new refrigerator (CAN YOU SAY ICEMAKER??? YAY!!!) and a brand new floor so I don't have to try and keep that old, grungy, cheap, white, pockmarked, vinyl floor that the builder installed clean. Who puts a stark white floor in a kitchen? Maybe in a few years we'll do cabinets & countertops, but right now I'm pleased as punch - the room has an entirely different look & feel.
The kids went today to preview their new school. We have finally made a jump from the public schools & are sending them to Catholic school next year. The school is only 7 years old, the same age as the elementary school that the kids attended. It goes through 8th grade. The kids don't climb out windows. They don't cuss around adults. They know how to speak respectfully and I don't think they tell the staff, "You can't tell me what to do. You're not the boss of me." In general, it's a friendly atmosphere amid better technology and facilities than the public schools offer. I am sort of bummed at leaving some of the teachers at the elementary school, as some of them, particularly Band and Art, were really great. But I think the new school more than makes up for that.
So the school year is winding down, the kids & I are ready for summer, and all four of us are ready to hit the Outer Banks in July and just ... relax. Of course, we may have to sell a kidney each to fill the gas tank to get us there & back, but it's a well-known fact that humans need only one fully-functioning kidney to survive.
Homework calls. So does a messy house & a pile of laundry. I think I'll ignore the last two!
March 22 It hits you in the weirdest waysToday was much better than yesterday as far as Mama Pickles goes. Becky only cried a little bit, and she was much better at bedtime (last night she was sobbing for her cat, who should have been on the bed with her). Spending time at a friend's house definitely helped.
It was weird, though.
There were a few times today that I swore I heard purring.
When I was in the kitchen, making breakfast, I kept checking the floor at my feet to avoid getting tangled up in cat (Mama Pickles would usually sit at my feet in the mornings, patiently waiting for me to finish whatever I was doing to scratch her head or give her a bite of cheese).
When I was tucking Becky into bed, I started reaching for the spot where Mama Pickles usually camped out -- usually, I would have to pick her up while Becky slid under the covers, and hold her while I tucked Becky in, then put Mama Pickles back down to "find her spot" where she'd stay for awhile until Becky was asleep. Usually she'd stay with Becky for about an hour, then join me in my chair in the den for awhile, before going back up to Becky's bed to spend most of the night.
I was okay through all of that. It will just be a few days, & I won't be looking for her anymore.
But when I was in the kitchen, thinking about getting the Easter baskets from the basement to fix them up for the kids, it hit me hard. "I don't have to leave the cellar door open for her anymore." The cellar is where the litter box is, and so the door always had to be open, so that Mama Pickles could get down there when the need arose.
Of all the things to set me to tears, that was it. It felt very weird, closing the door.
March 21 Sleep Tight, Mama PicklesNot much time for an entry right now, but I had to put this up.
Early this morning, around 4:30, Nick & I heard a weird noise. I thought it was Nicky crying in his sleep. Nick, who was a bit more awake than I was, said it was our cat, Mama Pickles. We ran downstairs, and found her in the foyer. Apparently she had a seizure, stroke or heart attack, and within a few minutes of us getting down there, she died.
No real warning. She was showing signs of age -- walking slower, dry skin, generally not as spry as she once was, but was she was still eating & drinking as late as 10:30 last night when I heard her crunching away at her food dish. She was still making it up the steps to sleep with Kid1, too - in fact, she spent a good portion of the night on Becky's bed last night.
As we were sitting in the foyer with her, Becky woke up crying. When I went upstairs, she told me she had a dream that Mama Pickles had died. Since she was already awake & upset, we let her come downstairs to say goodbye - Pickles had died just a minute or two before.
So even though today is Becky's birthday, it's a rather sad day in our house today. But at least I know that Mama Pickles didn't suffer, and didn't have a prolonged sickness to deal with, and we didn't have any tough decisions to make -- it was almost like she went to sleep & didn't get up.
So sleep tight, Mama Pickles kitty. We miss you. February 11 Wii would like to play ...It's official. We're truly starting to join the gaming craze on behalf of our kids.
Of course, we have PC's and many games that go along with them.
We have a PS2, and again, the kids have a bunch of games that they can play.
Yesterday, after waiting in line for over an hour, Nick scored a Wii for the kids. So we are now the owners of a game that is currently officially "cool" to have. Or bad, or sweet, or whatever the jargon is nowadays.
I've tried it out. It's a lot of fun. Boxing & bowling are my favorites on Wii Sports, and if I ever figure out what the heck I'm supposed to do on "Legend of Zelda", I'm sure I'll love that too. I'm at the very beginning of the game, and I think I'm supposed to herd goats into a stable, but if that's my task, I'm failing miserably at it. I tried it for a little while last night, and I missed a few of the conversations by overzealous button pushing (sped through & then couldn't go back.) I didn't save (since there wasn't much accomplished to save) but I'll probably put it on tonight after the kids go to bed.
After watching my kids play, part of me wonders if this isn't akin to the Riddler's invention in the Batman movie - the one that sat on TV's and sucked brain energy from TV viewers & sent it back to the Riddler & the other bad guy (Two Face? I just remember he was played by Tommy Lee Jones, with Jim Carrey as the Riddler).
It really is a cool game system. While the PS2 didn't have much that interested me, I know I'm going to enjoy the Wii ... February 10 'TatedThat's what my son would say when he was bent out of shape about something a few years ago ... "Mommy, I'm 'tated!" It was a stand-in for "irritated", much like his combo word "irrinoyed" (irritated +annoyed) or "annoytated" (annoyed + irritated). But 'Tated pretty much it ... Today, when we came out of church and walked to my Jeep, I paused about 10 feet away. From that far away, I could tell that someone had hit the rear passenger door on the driver's side. Obviously, it was hit with a vehicle door, because of the straight-ish line damage on the door, and obviously by an SUV much higher than my average size Jeep Liberty. Above the strip that runs along the center of the vehicle doors front to back, there's a white streak. The strip itself, which is almost an inch thick at its thickest point, is gouged, and there's a hefty dent under that, where the bottom of the offending vehicle's door slammed into my Jeep's door. In short, this isn't a little ding. It's definitely over $100 worth of damage, possibly $200. While that's not a huge amount of money, this is from a door being smashed into my car -- most likely, given the gusty winds today, someone's car door got pulled by the wind. Nick said it looks like they had to yank to get the door pulled away from the Jeep (where it sank deep into the strip that runs along the side panel) so it wasn't like they didn't realize they had done damage. I look at my windshield. No note left under the wiper. I'm trying to be charitable & think - okay, it's a windy day. Maybe the person left a note & it blew away. But the general direction of the wind would have held a note down to my windshield if left under the wiper - I was parked pretty much head into the prevailing winds. Okay, maybe it was a kid, and the door they opened got away from them, and they didn't realize ... but wrenching their door out of the side of my car shoud've alerted the adult driver that some damage was done. If nothing else, there will be damage to their vehicle, too -- at the very least, a goodish amount of Patriot Blue paint on their door. Maybe it's silly to be irritated by this, but I am. I like my Jeep; while I was okay with my previous car, I really enjoy driving around in my little Liberty, and while I've had to deal with a door ding or two, this is actual damage. Once again we'll (or our insurance, depending on how high the estimate is in relation to our deductible) be footing a repair bill for something that wasn't our fault. And I guess it really irks me that it happened at church of all places -- couldn't the person have waited for us to come out, to 'fess up to the damage??? November 09 LMAO!!!!Today, after cardio-kickboxing, I stopped in the grocery store to pick up a few things. One of my fellow "kickers" was there, and we chatted for a little while. We were in the deli section, which also has a counter that sells Boston Market prepared foods, including rotisserie chickens. Behind the counter is the oven where the chickens are cooked, spinning on their nice rotisseries -- 4 rows of succulent chickens. My friend has a daughter who is about 3 years old. She was sitting in the cart, looking at the case of chickens. As her mom walked by it, she asked, "Mommy? Are those babies in there on those metal poles?" Is it sick that we were laughing our asses off at this? All I could think of was Eddie Izzard in his "Dress to Kill" comedy routine, talking about how you can do anything in America if you're willing to work hard enough ... even "put babies on spikes", complete with a squeaky sound as he mimes putting something on a spike. It's a good thing it wasn't one of my kids - I probably would have told them something totally scarring like, "Oh, they're not babies ... those are the bad kids that were running around the grocery store. That's what happens if you don't behave." Not really. When my kids misbehave, I just regale them with stories of my elementary school experiences with nuns, and threaten to send them to Catholic school. My daughter is convinced that nuns are the scariest beings on the planet, and is considering dressing up as one for next Halloween ... October 02 UGH!I've always thought I was a passable housekeeper. I mean, "Housekeeper" is not a title I like to use to define myself, but as keeping the house clean goes, I thought I did okay. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the cleanliness that my Aunt Annie kept her house with (you really could eat off her floors, no 10 second rule required - she even cleaned her dogs butts with cleaner to make sure nothing nasty got into the house), 8 being the level that was my mom's minimal comfort level, and 1-2 being the general state of affairs at the home of my childhood friend Mary, I figured I was somewhere about a 7. My house is clean, if not always tidy -- occasionally you might want to avoid the dust bunnies in case they'd lived long enough to develop personalities & become territortial, but in general, nothing in my house is going to make you sick.
Then I started dismantling the kitchen to get it prepped for painting. I was okay until I started taking stuff from the tops of the cabinets. I have two sets of hanging cabinets -- one set that goes over/next to the 'fridge, and one set that hangs over the stove/cooking area.
The one over the fridge was dusty.
The one over the stove - UUUGGGHHHH!!
I never paid much attention to it up there because it is, in fact, up there. Because my cabinets have about 18" or more of wall above them (gotta love 9 foot ceilings!) there is ample room for dust to collect. Dust, and a grimy funk caused by cooking.
After scrubbing at this muck for about 10 minutes on the top of one cabinet, I had managed to ruin my nylon sponge and create really cool swirl patterns in the gunk. Some of it came off, but not much. Because the cabinets are builder grade (CHEAP!) the edges aren't as tight around as they should be, meaning that if I want to use a heavy duty cleaner, like TOP JOB, I have to empty out those cabinets, or have industrial strength cleaner leaking into the cabinets where my dishes, spices, cooking oils, and OTC meds are stored. I really hadn't planned on cleaning out those cabinets until I could no longer physically shove stuff into them to store, but I guess I'll have to change my plans. I guess I'll also have to pencil in "Clean tops of cabinets" on my calendar once in awhile. We've lived here for 8 years, so I guess I'm due again in say, what, 2015????
September 19 Pass the WD40, Please ...So I'm at Cardio Kickboxing this morning, and we start doing our warmups. Nothing horrendous -- stretches in different directions/angles, to get our bodies in action.
Except instead of the music I'm hearing creak. Grooooaaaaan. Crackle. And, even more disturbing:Snap, Crackle, POP!
I sounded like the Tinman the day after a rainstorm. Need a little WD40 to loosen up those joints!
But once I got them moving, it was fun.
Except for the On/off pushups. I don't know how women with big boobs do pushups. I've got hardly anything & they feel like they weigh a ton when I'm trying to defy gravity. And doing them on, and then off, stacked matts is not very much fun.
Kicking targets, however, is. September 17 I'm Ravenous !!!!Your Score: Ravenous BrainYour brains craves 62 % Exploration, 80 % Affiliation, 72 % Recreation and 91 % Sensation Congratulations for attaining such a rare score!
September 16 DispiritedI finally got some pics up from the week that Becky was in NYSP, in the Washington/Baltimore album.
I noticed when I was titling my pics, there's one of Marie Antoinette's Earrings at the Smithsonian. The geniuses who manage the gem collection spelled "Antoinette" wrong -- they have it as "Antionette" - the "i" & the "o" should be reversed.
But anyway - as to why I'm dispirited, as my title proclaims.
I'm tired. It's Sunday. The weekend has passed and, other than posting pictures in my blog and making dinner yesterday, I didn't get a freaking thing accomplished. I have a ton of laundry waiting to be done, and a house to clean, and dishes, and more stuff to clean. I got zilch accomplished. I'm also down because this school year just feels harder. I really, really dislike the atmosphere at the elementary school where Kid2 is. The middle school for Kid1 is actually better than I thought, but again - it just seems like it me having a hard time adjusting. Since it's my job to try & get the school stuff running smoothly, I just feel like I'm behind the mark on this one.
Also, I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. While I love being here for the kids, I need to find something to do. I hate to sound materialistic & shallow, but I'd love to actually earn a few bucks. Trouble is, I don't want to sacrifice the family time we have at night, I don't want to quit Cardio Kickboxing, and that pretty much leaves limited hours of availability, so who would want to hire me?
When I look at my complaints logically, I just look to myself like a selfish bitch, which also contributes to the down factor.
Plus, I'm suffering from a string of bad hair days. I need a haircut but just don't know what to get it cut into. Something that will hide the wrinkles on my forehead, and maybe soften up my face a little. Just - something. I'm sick of looking in the mirror and seeing ugly. I know, selfish bitch again.
Oh, and I seem to have lost one of Becky's school papers - I could have sworn I gave it to Nick, but he said he doesn't have it. It's details for building a rocket from a soda bottle, using water and air pressure to launch. I'm not sure when this is due, and it seems like I"m to blame for losing the packet - Kid1 gave the papers to me, and they have since disappeared.
<sigh> It's 11:35 & the friggin' laundry still isn't done. Hope everyone has clean jeans for tomorrow ... September 14 Disappearing checks, Fried hard drives,Flaming SteaksYesterday was pure hell.
Actually, the morning was good. I took a walk over to a friend's house & hung out for awhile, having coffee & chatting with the friend and 4 other moms who were there (3 of whom I hadn't met before). They're all from our neighborhood, and all interested in things other than housework and laundry, neither of which I happen to be any good at. It was a fun morning.
The day started going downhill when I opened the mailbox after picking Kid1 up from school. I find, inside, a notice from the music store that we bought Kid1's flute from that the account is past due and will soon be charged fees. Interesting, since we had mailed the payoff for that instrument about a month ago. I call the store & find out (1) that the nitwit I spoke to there the month before should never have told me to send the payment to the store and (2) apparently the payment has been lost. Immediately it was "lost in the mail" and I should write a new check for the $120+ to cover the payoff.
Now, I have a problem with blaming the missing payment on the post office. While I don't suspect many postal workers of adhering proudly & religiously to the "neither rain nor wind nor sleet nor snow" creed that used to be popular, the US Postal System is, in general, fairly competent. In 20 years of mailing things & paying bills, I haven't had anything go awry yet. Since I was informed that the person at the music store shouldn't have had me mail the payment to the store, I have to suspect that someone in the store misplaced the payment and that's why the check hasn't cleared.
So I'm irritated by the blase' way that the store personnel say,'Well, just write a new check." Well, okay, but that means that I should probably put a stop payment on the old check, and stop pays cost money. Since I'm not at fault for the check going missing, I don't think I should have the cover that. And - I got no apology - zero, none, nada, zip - for their rep giving me erroneous information in the first place. So I'm pissed.
A little later, I am surfing the 'net trying to get back to a happy place in my mind, when the power blinks. Literally -- in less than the time it took to blink an eye, the power blinked off & came back on. Kid1 & I are on our respective computers, both of which are on surge protectors, and both of which shut down with the brief outage. Hers comes back up immediately. I get a sick feeling in my stomach as I'm introduced to a screen I've never seen before -- not the usual blue screen error message, which cheerfully tells you that you might have to do some work but it is possible that you can be on intimate terms with the information on your hard drive again, but a black screen with white lettering, advising me that the shit has hit the fan & I'm probably not going to like the spray pattern that results. The restart normally option doesn't work. The Restart from last restore point doesn't work. Starting in Safe Mode doesn't work. Nope!!! Don't like this at all!!! I call Nick & leave a message for him to HELP ME with the friggin' computer as I'm not as technologically adept as I once was (actually I just wanted to know if shutting it off would do any more damage, if more damage was possible, as the thing was insistently running through a loop of trying to restart every 30 seconds.
So, I move on to prepping dinner. I had thawed out some lovely sirloin steaks and seasoned them, and they were waiting patiently for me to put them on the grill. Which I did, after heating said grill & cleaning it up a bit. Less than 5 minutes into their cook time (7 minutes a side, as they were quite thick), the steaks go up in flames. I mean, the whole grill top is flaming. While I managed to cook the steaks to medium rare inside, the outsides are for the most part charred -- well, charred on one side, reasonably cooked on the other.
*^)(*$%^)*(&()*&^!!!! IS ANYTHING GOING TO GO RIGHT?????
Nick comes home somewhere in the middle of me giving CPR to the steaks to try & salvage dinner. He spends some time upstairs with the computer. The hard drive is shot. Specifically, the partitioning of the hard drive is damaged. It can find the 5.7 gigs that aren't full of our data; it's the other 54.3 gigs of stuff that we've stored on there over the past 4 years it's having difficulty locating.
On a positive note, I had recently backed up all but one of my word documents ( the one that I hadn't backed up was short, the beginning of a story which I'll probably never get the chance to finish anyway, but could easily be re-created) and backed up about 95% of my photos. I lost music -- some of it stuff by artists that I like that I found online but isn't available for purchase, so that's a bummer. But most of my info is salvageable from CD's. Nick's, however ...
March 09 Holy Flaming Dishwashers, Batman!Recently, there was a recall on Maytag dishwashers purchased (loosely) between 1999 and 2004 or 2005.
We have a Maytag dishwasher.
One morning, while running the dishwasher. I heard a series of loud banging noises. I didn't connect this to the dishwasher, since it tends to run quietly. When I went downstairs to figure out what the noise was (I actually thought someone was trying to break into the house, via our sliding glass door) I couldn't figure out what the noise was, or why the downstairs seemed ... misty. As I stood in the ktichen, perplexed, a piece of soot floated gently past my nose. Then another. Then another. I went over to the dishwasher. As I approached, I was hit with the smells of ozone and singed plastic. Sure enough, the top of the dishwasher was blackened -- the wiring in the instrument panel had sizzled, apparently during the rinse cycle. Probably why the downstairs was so ... misty.
(I have not told my mother this story. She would freak out. I don't intend to share this with her. Ever.)
I actually found it sort of funny, after I got over the initial shock of "Oh my Gosh! My dishwasher caught fire!"
So, we contacted Maytag. Turns out, our dishwasher was definitely one of the ones for recall. They sent out a service tech to assess the damage & try to fix it. He took the cover off the instrument panel, noted all the soot and blackened plastic, and promptly pronounced, "You need a new dishwasher." (We figured that.)
He called the service line - which, incidentally, is the same 800# I had to call to get the ball rolling, and explained the problem to the service rep. That's customer service rep, not technical service rep.
"Can the dishwasher still be run?" the service rep asked.
"Can the dishwasher still be run? It's burnt up! The instrument panel is fried! The wires are toasted!! Do you think it could be run? NO!!!!" the tech tells the service rep.
So, the nice people at Maytag are replacing our dishwasher. It's due in on March 13th. So, we've been doing dishes by hand since mid February. Because they are backordered on replacements, it was going to take 10 business days from the time it was ordered -- which was several days after Maytag was assured that the dishwasher couldn't be salvaged.
Needless to say, we've been eating primarily from paper plates. Even still, I have at least two sinkloads of dishes to do, daily, from cups, glasses, coffee pots, silverware. (I don't like drinking beverages from disposable cups for some reason, and feel the same way about using plastic utensils on a regular basis.)
Holy Flaming Dishwashers, I have DISHPAN HANDS!!!!
I think Maytag owes me a year's supply of Neutrogena Hand Cream and a few manicures for my pain & suffering ...
February 01 Globulous Mucousities and Gobby GunkiesPost Nasal Drip is not a fun state of affairs.
Ever since early yesterday evening, my sinuses have been in an uproar. Although I'm not quite sure why, it seems like anything liquid in my body has taken the semi-congealed form of headsnot, and has begun the slow, laborious trek down from my lower sinus to the back of my throat, where it persists in hanging, chokingly, in the way of swallowing & breathing.
I have named this muck "Globulous Mucousity", and the pitiful outlanders that I manage to hack into sink or tissue the Gobby Gunkies.
To top all of this off, I seem to have a blocked tear duct in my left eye, which in turn is making my left eye feel weepy and my left sinus like it's about to explode. There's a persistent throbbing in the corner of my eye where the tear duct is, and it even seems slightly larger than the tear duct in my right eye. One of my friends noticed that my eye seemed somewhat swollen.
Years ago, when Kid2 was a newborn, he had a blocked tear duct. The doctor advised me to "milk" the duct by applying some pressure to the duct & pushing upward. For about 2 weeks, my lovely child had a greenish yellow sludge at the corner of his eye which only increased when I milked it -- making the sludge almost squirt out.
Could make for fun sport when I'm out & about running errands .... hmmmm .... January 22 Snowy & GraySo it's Monday morning, the kids are at school, and instead of tackling the mountains of things that I need to do, I'm online with my blog.
Today is the first real snowfall of the season for us in Delaware. A snow flurry passed by last week, but not enough to do more than powder-sugar a few branches. Today, we actually have some slush on the road, and a bit of powder on the grass. Not enough to keep the kids out of school, or even get them a late start. Oh well.
I have an all-or-nothing attitude about snow. If it's going to snow, I like lots of it - enough to keep everyone home, so we can get to the good stuff in life - doing puzzles, playing games, baking cookies, watching movies, and just generally hanging out together. Kind of like a day of Christmas vacation in the middle of winter long after Christmas itself has passed. One heavy snow that can close the schools for a day or two is a good thing, I think.
Of course, I do envy my sister, who is currently on vacation in Puerto Rico. I wouldn't say no to some warm sun and sand right about now. Instead, I'm off to a day of cleaning & organizing. Ugh.
But at least the snow looks kind of pretty outside. I'll have to dash out with my camera & see if I can find any pictures worth taking ... January 14 Stomach VirusOur 3 day weekend has been pretty much decimated by the stomach virus that's been going around.
Kid2 got sick at school on Wednesday, and even though he was fine within 2 hours, had to stay home on Thursday. Thursday night, Nick came down with the stomach virus. He was up the entire night sick, and for only the 2nd time since I've known him, called out from work on Friday and slept the entire day - from 7:30am to about 5pm.
I started feeling like it was coming on Friday morning, and got it full force late Friday afternoon. Luckily Nick was feeling well enough to piece together some dinner for the kids. Even though I was extremely tired, I couldn't do much more than doze off occasionally.
Kid1 woke up at about 3am with it, and continued through most of Saturday. I stayed in bed with her, because even though the spasms had stopped, my entire body felt like it had been drop kicked by someone wearing steel tip boots. We watched "The Little Mermaid", "Aladdin", "Mary Poppins", "Twister", and "Lilo & Stitch".
We thought we were in the recovery stages today, just feeling really beat and out of sorts from having been sick, but Kid2 had a bout of diarrhea this morning. Even though he's dancing around and playing like nothing's wrong, we've still got a watch on him.
I've determined that the human body can survive on Ritz crackers and ginger ale for a very long time. Certainly longer than I'd ever want to try & survive on it!!! January 06 Wrapping Up The HolidaysIt's about that time, when I have to finish undecorating the house & find homes for all the new stuff the kids have acquired through the generosity of Santa Claus, their grandparents, and aunts & uncles.
The house is almost done -- the only things left to put away inside are the tree lights and the angel topper. I can't do that yet, since they're still on the tree -- I left them for Nick to do, and am confident they will be taken care of soon.
Outside, I have the garland on the front porch to remove, and Nick has Bethlehem - our nativity scene. And the lights highlighting the decorations. I'm hoping that's done today, too.
In an effort to remember one of the funnier moments of Christmas 2006, I figured I'd better blog about it, because my sieve like mind probably won't hold onto it for very long.
Christmas Eve, as usual, was spent with Nick's family. After an early dinner, we went to 6:00 Christmas Eve Mass at our church. Because there is a growing Hispanic population in our church, and because our pastor knows Spanish, a bi-lingual Mass is offered so that the non-English speaking portion of our congregation doesn't feel left out. This is the Mass that we went to.
Normally, there isn't even standing room at Christmas Eve Mass, because so many people crowd the church. For this particular Mass, if the church was 1/3 full, I'd be surprised.
So the Mass progresses. In addition to the organist/pianist, there is a man playing the Spanish guitar. I can safely say that this is the first time I've heard "Silent Night" with a mariachi feel. Not making fun of it, but for my ears it certainly was different.
Each portion of the Mass - prayers, readings, etc. was said first in English, then in Spanish. Same with the hymns - first a verse in English, then a verse in Spanish. I'm game - I play along because Mass is moving so quickly and there's so few people in the church.
Until we sit down for the homily.
I have to preface this by saying that Nick & I were up very late the night before with Christmas preparations, as I did not want to have to spend Christmas Eve up until the wee hours of the morning. So, we were both pretty tired. When Father launches into the homily, in English, we're there with him, listening along and nodding at the appropriate moments.
It was when Father re-did the homily in Spanish that we ran into trouble.
Three or four sentences into the Spanish version, I notice that Nick's eyes are closed. As we sat in the front row, I'm sure Father could've seen that, too, whenever he glanced to our side of the church. No matter - he could be meditating.
The problem came when I heard a snore from Nick. Not extremely loud, mind you -- I'm betting that many people didn't hear it. But I fell apart laughing. As we're sitting in the front row, this isn't a good thing. I jabbed Nick with my elbow, who looked a little irritated. "What?" he asked. "I've already heard it in English!"
I'm convinced that there's a spot in Hell for me, and now my name is probably engraved in the seat, rather than just tagged. Not only could I not stop laughing -- to the point that I almost had to leave my seat, go outside and just laugh out loud, hysterically, to get it out of my system -- but also because my mind started adding little barbs to the context of the Mass. It didn't help that my mother in law was humming "I'm the Fritos Bandito" during the offertory song. But when I saw the communion wine being poured and re-named it tequila & the communion margheritas -- I think I felt a little poke from a pitchfork in warning. I swear I never would have thought of this if it hadn't been for Nick falling asleep during the bilingual homily. It was all downhill from there.
Now, off to finish putting away Christmas for another year. I'm considering putting a note on my computer's calendar to check the Christmas Eve Masses in November of next year, and plan NOT to attend the bilingual one. Just to redeem myself a bit. December 27 Time to Clean UpWell, Christmas is 2 days past.
Christmas night, when I was putting the kids to bed, Kid1 started to cry. She was sad because Christmas was over - the gifts were opened, the family came to celebrate & had gone home, and now she felt that it was done. It made her sad, and it made her miss Salsa, our cat who died in October.
I noticed on Christmas night that our neighbors across the street who do minimal Christmas decorating (candles in the window with alternating red & green bulbs, and a light up candy cane in their big front window) did not have their lights on. I looked out to the back of the neighborhood, and noticed that many others had left their lights off, too. They weren't on last night, either.
Is that really it? Is it really one day for so many people? I realize that everyone has to go back to work, has to go back to reality, but does it have to mean Christmas is over in one short day?
I still feel Christmasy. While I don't miss running around, trying to buy gifts and get the house decorated and plan Christmas dinners, I still want to enjoy Christmas. I love to see the Christmas tree lights at night, and while I'm probably not going to bake anymore goodies, I'm having fun eating what's left!!
So, even though it's December 27th, Merry Christmas!!! It'll be Christmas until at least New Years' around here.
December 20 Thank God for Sweatpants and Lip GlossIt's beginning to look a lot like Christmas
The tree is on the floor
My son's in the bathroom, sick -
The toilet is full of ick -
His fever's climbing up to a hundred and four ....
It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas
The baking isn't done --
The presents have yet to be wrapped --
I'm having a heart attack --
The house is a mess and nothing's getting done ....
It's beginning to look alot like Christmas
Soon the race will start
I'm exhausted and yes, I'm sad
But in a way I'm kind of glad
That it's almost here ...
Yes, it's Christmas, this year!
So, it's five days before Christmas. The tree fell over on Monday night, and we spent Monday night cleaning it up, then I spent part of yesterday still cleaning more stuff up, and it got re-decorated last night. Sort of. We lost quite a few ornaments, and even though I pulled about a dozen out, we wound up with far less on the tree than when it was decorated on Sunday night. I see some blank spots, but I'm beyond caring. Actually, it's not that I'm beyond caring - it's just that there is so much to do, that I can't focus on the tree and how well decorated it is. I just want to be able to say, "It's done!"
I commented to my friend Karen yesterday, after a rough two days, "Thank God for sweatpants. I'd never survive the holidays if I had to run around in dress pants or skirts the way our moms sometimes did!!"
I've amended it to Thank God for Sweatpants and Lip Gloss. At least with the lip gloss, I don't look quite as ghostly pale from lack of sleep. Which is a good thing, because we were up late last night with Kid2 - who spiked a fever with a headache & sore throat.
This morning, he almost yakked on Kid 1 as she prepared to leave for school. He made it to the bathroom - sort of. He threw up again when we were at the doctor's, waiting to be seen. He's now resting, which if you know Kid2 is highly unusual. Normally he runs around like a test rat for the caffeine patch, which I really hope is perfected SOON. He has strep throat, and hopefully doesn't have a stomach virus to boot. Keeping our fingers crossed ...
But, the events of the past few days have inspired me to write updated lyrics to "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas". It really sort of wrote itself. But, since Christmas isn't Christmas at my house without SOMEBODY being sick, I'm actually in a holiday mood.
Now I'm going to go wrap some presents, while I pray that Kid1 doesn't get sick, too. Like she did last year.
Merry Christmas!
Just a note: Kid2 started feeling a little better on Thurs. 12/21. Kid1 started feeling headachey with a sore throat on Thurs. night 12/21 and had a mild fever on 12/22. Luckily, Nick was home both 12/21 and 12/22. I called the doctor on 12/22, and didn't have to take Kid1 in -- the office concurred that it was probably strep, and called in an antibiotic for her. So, although she started to get sick, she never got it as bad as Kid2, so by Christmas Eve, everyone was feeling really merry. (1/14/07 - as we all recover from the stomach virus!)
November 01 The Project Has Been Turned InYes, Becky's ecosystem project, "The Pond", has been turned in. I actually managed to get the kids out of the door a few minutes early this morning so we stood a chance of getting a decent parking space at school.
Oh, wait. Parking at school and dropping the kids off. There's a side story here.
Yesterday morning, I drive to school to drop the kids off, as I do every day. Their school parking lot has a fairly simple layout. The main entrance to the school is centered on the building. There is a center lane that runs up between two parking lot sections. You drive up the center lane if you're not parking (just dropping off), go to the right and follow the lane around to the left to the fire lane that runs in front of the school. You pull over in the fire lane, drop your kids off - meaning, they get out of the car and walk to the school. You stay at the car and drive off, following the lane around in a loop back to the center road so you can exit. There is handicapped parking and a few visitors' spots on the left hand side of this lane that runs closest to the school. The fire lane. You know, the Tow-Away zone. Anyway, as I drove up to the drop off point, I see that the fire lane is blocked off by traffic cones, meaning, you can't pull up to the sidewalk at the main entrance to drop your kids off. I see the principal standing outside the entrance, watching as cars drive up and are forced to turn around, either into the parking lot, or back along the one way road (going the wrong way, of course) to drop the kids off where traffic is coming up to the school.
I park the car & walk the kids up so they don't have to navigate the insanity going on by themselves. After I send them in, I approach the principal, questioning the traffic cones. "We've had a lot of problems with people parking in the fire lane", he says cheerily, "so I'm closing the fire lane at drop off and pick up so that people can't park there."
"There's a problem with that," I point out. "The kids have to walk further through a bunch of confused adults who can no longer follow the traffic pattern. And I know there's a problem with parking in the fire lane, as I called the school last week to complain about 9 - yes NINE - parents who had parked their cars in the fire lane, in the drop off area, when I brought my kids to school."
"Well, I wanted to get people's attention," the prinicipal responded. and, "I'm doing this for you."
"I'm glad you're finally addressing it," I respond, "but you're not doing this for me, because I don't park in the fire lane. However, I am being punished for something that I don't do - the problem needs to be addressed with the people who are actually parking in the fire lane, not the parents who are following the rules."
What it comes down to is, the principal doesn't want to confront anyone directly. While we're talking, a parent approaches with her daughter to discuss the lane closure. "I have a handicapped tag for a reason," she says, "And the way you have this set up, I no longer have access to the handicapped parking."
The principal points out to the lady, who has trekked across the large parking lot after she legally parked her car (there were too many illegally parked cars stacked up in the lower section of the loop for her to get a spot there) that the exit portion of the fire lane hasn't been closed off, so when she comes to school, she can come up, ignore the "do not enter - one way" signs and approach the fire lane from the left instead of the right, and still access handicapped parking.
So today, I take the kids to school. When we get there, the fire lane is still blocked. So, I go the wrong way, up to the parking area next to the fire lane, and get a Visitor's spot so we don't have to manage the huge project across the parking lot with people who are now forced to go the wrong way to drop their kids off at school. I noticed some evil looks from parents who weren't smart or creative enough to make their way to the upper parking area, but that's not my problem. Having a Jeep, I could have driven up over the sidewalk, straight up to the entrance, and parked pretty much where I damn well pleased if I'd have been moved to, but I didn't.
What a feeling of relief once the project was deposited in the classroom. I had a hard time not dancing my way out of the school, I was so happy that it was finally done! So, after I got home and spent some time on the computer, I ignored the pigsty that is my downstairs and took a well deserved walk around the neighborhood.
Fall never sounded or smelled so good. I could smell pumpkins, mums and fallen leaves. The sky was clear, azure blue without a trace of clouds. There were dogs barking, leaves crunching and birds twittering. Occasionally I could hear a nail gun as someone in the neighborhood worked on the deck they are building. What a beautiful, beautiful day.
Thought for today:
"I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day." Frank Sinatra
I feel that way, particularly about people who don't drink coffee. Most people that I know who don't drink coffee should acquire the habit as a morning ritual. Not all, but most. I'd probably like them better if they did.
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