Trippin'

I just got back from a little Spring Break journey.
I will be paying for the journey until school gets out, I think.
Wasn't cheap.

My mom was moved to assisted living in January. 
It's an 8 hour drive from where I live to where she lives. 
I didn't want to go see her, really. 
I know I talked about it here.

What changed?  

I can't even really say. 
But Eric encouraged me to go and felt that I might be sorry later on if I didn't. I still say I'd have been okay with not seeing her, but I'm not sorry I went.

My physical stuff keeps me from being able to sit in a car for eight hours without a lot of discomfort, so I decided to fly. 

Eric insisted I fly first class for the extra leg space because of the issues with my knees and the amount of physical pain I'm in. 

I didn't actually argue about it. I had never flown first class. Because of the problems with my knees and never knowing if I'm going to be having a good day or not so good pain-wise, I also requested wheelchair service to the gate.

I never expected to have to use something like that, but I was glad I did. It was a long haul to my gate. Haha, I'd probably still be limping along to get there if I hadn't asked for assistance. 

Something I had not considered is that wheelchairs are allowed to jump the line. People with disabilities are just zipped right along.
That was nice, I did not have to stand for a long period of time. The lines weren't bad, though. And no ICE agents in the airport, either.

I flew to Boise, rented a car and immediately drove back to Oregon.
Sounds weird, but Mom is in a care home close to the border, so it made sense to do it that way.

The speed limit on I 84 from Boise to Ontario is 80MPH.
Yes, you read that right. And you know how the speed limit is 55 and people drive 70? Do the math. I was careful to keep it at 80 or a little below, and people were passing me constantly. Semi trucks are supposed to be going 70. Do they? Guess.
The facility where Mom is living is a lovely place, the people have been 'wonderful' to her, she says. I think people who do that work are angels, at least in this place.

Mom is mostly coherent, she does have some dementia, but the routine and the new friends she has made are helpful for her. She was not getting any kind of mental stimulation at home and was getting more and more confused every time we talked. Since the move she sounds better every time we speak. 

I am splitting the cost of a Memoryboard with my son. My brother will install it when he visits her again, supposedly it's easy to install, at least according to the website. The website exists to sell a product, though, so ::shrug::. I learned about the product from a person I work with. Her grandfather is in assisted living. She said that everyone in the family sends him photos and messages every day and that he just loves it.

Mom showed me a bunch of photos on her phone while I was visiting, and my brother got all her favorite framed photos and hung them in her room when they were moving her in. She loves to show them to people and talk about what was going on when the pictures were taken. I think she'll enjoy the memory board, a person can use the app and send pictures and words from anywhere.

The person who was caring for her while she was still at home kept her fed and clean, but had no idea how to deal with dementia. So she'd crassly say, "You already told that story five times today," or "No one wants to hear that one again!" 

Here's a link to some of what I had to say about Shiplap. Haha.
Guess she still doesn't approve of me, Mom called her to ask her to come visit so she could meet me, but she had to clip her toenails or wash her hair or some damn lame excuse I can't remember. 
Suits me fine, why the hell would I want to meet her?

Although Matt said after he met her back in December that he couldn't hate her, that she was just ignorant and seemed to really care about his Grandma.

So I wasn't completely alone, at least after I landed in Boise and drove to Ontario.
Matt and Amy made the drive and I stayed next door to them at the motel for the first two nights. We spent the day with Mom on Wednesday, and they left on Thursday. I spent the day with Mom again and drove back to Boise on Friday.

A few interesting things.

It was raining when I drove to the airport on Tuesday. The economy parking lot was packed, and they had people out there directing traffic. A person grabbed my little suitcase and put it on the shuttle bus for me. As I got into also-packed bus, a guy jumped up to give me his seat. I was ready to stand up, there are things to hold on to. I told him I'd be fine, he said, "No, I insist."

When it was time to get off the bus at the terminal, another man who was traveling with his wife insisted on lifting my suitcase down to the sidewalk, then offered his assistance to help me get down the steps. 

The person pushing the wheelchair was a very nice tiny little lady. 
She pushed my chair so fast I could feel a breeze.

The flight attendants to and from were great as well, one of them stowed my bag in the overhead bin (they're not supposed to be lifting bags, a thing I didn't know until later) and brought me some water to swallow my Excedrin with.

Not a fan of the tiny little airplane bathroom. I'm not exactly a small person. I mean, when you gotta go, you gotta go. But I'd prefer not to use airplane restrooms.

There were a few notable events. I almost took a nosedive down an escalator in Boise, I really don't know what happened but my suitcase and my feet missed one step and I frantically reached out my right hand to grab the handrail. Nearly missed it. That would have been a real treat, huh?

The event that stands out the most happened when I was waiting to go home.
You know how the PA system at the airport has a bunch of automated and live messages? 'Don't leave your suitcase unattended, flight 225 to Pullman now boarding at gate 23, arriving passenger Smith please meet your party at baggage claim 2'

Just messages. They're loud enough that if they apply to you, you'll hear them, but low enough that you can ignore them if you don't need to hear them.

I was sitting at the gate, waiting to board when this announcement came over the PA system. This is as close to word for word as I can remember it.

A (loud!!) deep male voice that sounded pissed as hell said, "Will the family with the blue flags on their suitcases please get your children off the escalator! I can't believe I have to say this, but the escalator is not a toy!"

At least a quarter of the people in the airport started laughing. 
I wished I was still in that half of the terminal so I could have seen what happened with the escalators.

Took a few pics.   

Enlarge this one and read the plaque.
Then ask yourself, "WHO IS THIS MESSAGE INTENDED FOR???"
I mean, usually signs like these happen because someone already did the thing.
Ugh.

This was the view as we circled around Mt. Hood.

This is Malheur Butte, an extinct little volcano in Eastern Oregon.
It's 500 feet tall.
My memory placed it on the opposite side of the highway.
I was surprised when I passed it.
We left that area in 1969.
Been awhile.

Mom's living room. 
I sat on that chair for two days.

My rental car had 426 miles on the odometer when I picked it up.
Practically new.
Nice to connect my phone via Bluetooth and have the car tell me where to drive. Car rental process is streamlined and professional. Made the reservations online, walked up to the counter, got my keys and was on my way in just a couple minutes.
Car return was really cool. Drive in, put the vehicle in the line, say hi to the attendant who gives you your total and drop the keys in the cup holder. 
15 seconds to turn it in.

This sprinkler was a couple inches below the 8 foot ceiling in my motel room.
Here's another one of those signs.
Again... when they have to make a warning sign, 
that means someone has already done the thing.

I'm glad to be home. I missed my husband, my shower, my bed, my little no-frills car.
A regular schedule, too. I was exhausted when I got home, didn't sleep well while I was gone.

But I went, saw my mom and got home safely.

Spring Break went awfully fast since I wasn't, you know, taking a break!

20

I started writing this blog 20 years ago. 
August 25th, 2005.

I didn't have any particular plan in mind. When I try to recall why I started writing here, I can't figure it out.

I've continued for a few reasons. I'd never been able to keep up with any sort of journal. Being able to look back now on the last 20 years, I'm sorry I didn't, because it would be fun to look waaaaay back.

But for the last 20, I've written about my children, my Girl Scout troop, homeschooling, my work (helping raise other people's children). I have dumped photos here, philosophized (nothing new or life-changing) tie dye, art, friends. It's a chronicle of my life in general, my enjoyment of the young humans I'm entrusted with after school and a place to rant if I need to.

There still is no all-around purpose unless you consider that maybe there shouldn't BE a purpose or underlying goal, in which case I've succeeded magnificently.

I searched a bit and found some things that amused me/made me think/made me feel competent as a writer over 20 years.

Whiskers (mine!!), 
dog butt in our holiday photos,

 the progress of technology and Boob Costas.  

From that post: The man is a dumb ass. Inane comments, (thinking back to the Athens Olympics here and recalling his remark as the team from Djibouti entered the stadium, 'you bet Djibouti'... and the man still kept his job!!) annoying smirk... the worst part is, he takes himself seriously.


The story of a heartbreaking loss of a friend who left behind five children. 

Pie crusts, a new roof on the house, "Dr." Phil (he was an asshole way back when, too) and why we homeschooled. The reasons for continuing had little to do with why we started that particular journey.

From that post:

Open house was the first indication that school was not a lovely experience for Matt. I talked with his teacher (or rather, she talked at me) while Eric toured the classroom with his boy. When I asked her how things were going for him, she started into a recitation of what a pain in the ass he was, although she didn’t use that particular phrase.

With a tight-lipped, tense smile on her face, she said, "Well, I don’t know about Matthew. He has a real problem sitting still. AND! He’s been reversing a few letters! I wonder if we don’t have a little attention deficit on our hands, here. He thinks it’s funny to play with the light switches! He talks in the hall! He chases girls on the playground!"

Imagine how horrified I was to hear that he was behaving like a normal child! Wow, had I done a shitty job as a parent or what!? Chasing girls? OH MY GOD!!!


Camping trips with just the two of us. Dental work. Early Lyssa art.
People who wear too much perfume. 
They tore up my beautiful honeysuckle hedges to put in a sidewalk. They were mostly pigs disguised as men. 

Lyssa made a pink dragon costume.


Look under the cat.

Interesting neighborhood decorations. 
This is a pic of the Jolly Old Elf and his Bighead Alien Baby.
That same neighbor has some interesting ideas about decorating her yard.

Bumper stickers, my brother got my aging parents a Jack Russell terrier puppy ("Jesus Steve, why didn't you just get them a Tasmanian Devil?") Lyssa tried high school and lasted four days, I stepped down from leading a Girl Scout troop, our neighbor Cletus and his crop of half-brights, wildflowers that somehow accidentally magically got transplanted to our yard.

This post about Reese still remains one of my favorite things that I've ever written. I loved that kid so much. He's 24 or 25 years old now. I think of him often and hope he's doing well.

We're all proctologists.

Stories about shoulder surgery. (91 nights in a recliner.) Knee surgeries. Work comp and working for Champions, a division of Kindercare where children most definitely do not come first. Or second. Or third. Not sure they enter into the equation at all at corporate level. Toxic fucking place to work, and no, not just because of work comp. Assholes. I sent a letter to the boss of the bosses of the bosses after I left there. Still took them 10 years to get rid of that whoreible (whoreiffic?) individual. If I ever see her again, I would like to kick her in the taco. I've been blacklisted by Champions, which, while hilarious considering some of the incompetent fucking potatoes they hire as managers, doesn't matter. No way in hell would I ever work for those shitbags again. Eric said that letter was the best 'fuck you' without the use of profanity that he's ever seen. I don't know about that, but it was strangely satisfying and I don't regret it.

I learned to paint during the pandemic.
This is the first one I did from a tutorial online.

I have so many things I've written that we'd be here the next 20 years if I were to try and talk about them and I don't want to do that.

A great deal of this blog has been about the antics and trials and fun of working in after school. I am working on putting things in some sort of coherent form and writing a book.
Every time I go for training and some doofus or doofette talks about how they control their children it makes me crazy. It's always about control, too. Not teaching the kids self-control, but training them to follow adult control.

Meanwhile, regular life happens, too. It's hotter than the first four layers of Hell out there this weekend. The drains are backed up, I was running a load of laundry today and there was a bunch of BLURP BLURP BLURP noise from the bathroom and water had come up in the tub and was blurping in the throne as well.

Eric dumped a bunch of chemical shit down the drain, but he has to go tomorrow morning and rent a piece of equipment to fix the issue.

Dammit.


Okay.
4,622 posts.
4,457 comments. (y'all need to step up your game)
1 kabillion times I have written something down or laughed at kid antics or learned something interesting and said, "I have to put that on my blog!"

20 years.

Huh.

Cleaning and Transient Synovitis

When Matt was just a little guy, probably about a 15 months old, he had a cold.
Stuffy nose, little fever, bit of a rash.

He was never terribly ill, and after three or four days, seemed to be recovering fine.

But as we were hanging out about 7 one evening after he seemed all better and Matt was chugging around holding a stuffed bunny in one hand and a plastic hammer in the other, he suddenly started crying and, hm, lurching across the room, very obviously limping on one leg.

I freaked out, of course. It was a Wednesday night, which was the night of extended hours at the clinic, so I called them immediately. They asked about fever and other symptoms, and told me that if he didn't get worse or have something else happen, to bring him in the morning.

I took him to see Dr. Eastman (still one of my favorite doctors EVER) the next morning. Matt was walking better by then, although he had a little pain when his little leg was manipulated it was much improved.

We discussed his recent illness and the doctor explained that often, after a viral infection the hip joint could become inflamed and that it usually worked itself out in a day or two. He called it Toxic Synovitis, but it seems the preferred term is Transient according to my exhaustive research here at the computer. 

He was correct.

So when it happened to me a few years later, I didn't worry a lot, and in a couple days it worked itself out.

I've had it happen twice more over the 29 years or so since I first learned about it, although a cursory consultation with Teh Google tells me it's probably not transient synovitis but possibly septic arthritis since the former isn't usually found in adults.

Don't know, either way it hurts.

I have some anti-inflammatory pills that I've never taken before, I finally got sick of limping and lurching around this afternoon and took one. It didn't seem to help my hip much but it sure did a number on my stomach. Been burping up acid for 7 hours or so now. Blech.

But I'm proud to say that I managed to do some cleaning today even though I'm limping around like a granny. I even broke out the cane from the 2010 knee surgery. 

About a month into the whole lockdown/shutdown of the entire damn universe, I read "I always used to say that if I had uninterrupted time, I'd get ____ and ____ done. Turns out, that wasn't the problem."

Yep.

I've been mostly home since March 13th and although I have accomplished some things, there are many more crying out for my attention.

I never get caught up on the laundry, I guess no one really does if we have to be honest.

So I have this list of things that need to be done. It's not a physical list, it's all in my head as so many interesting things have been and always will be, sometimes for my own protection.

I read a couple weeks ago that one should either type or write up a list of things that need to be done and then the person should cut the list into tasks and toss them in a container and pull one out as needed. A task might take two hours or four hours or eleven days... doesn't matter, just pull one out when you get one done.

The idea has its attractions, but I find that making a list is just another task  I really don't want to bother with.
::sigh:::

But I do have plans for tomorrow. I have to run to the grocery store and to the craft store for three paint colors.

I found two more paintings I really want to do and who knew one would need so much yellow ochre?

One more pitch here... try it.
It's easy and fun and don't you need a new hobby?
I mean, go watch this video. Looks easy, doesn't it?

So I'm going to bed. It's after eleven here, and I'm usually asleep or close to it by now. I'm hoping not to whine every time I turn over tonight and that tomorrow I won't be doing the whole limping and ouch-ing thing.

How are YOU doing? It's been a week since I checked in.

Snew

Haha, "what's snew?"

Nothing. What's new with you?

The Snow Fairy has arrived in Portland. A smartass of my (intimate) acquaintance told me to expect a little over six inches. "And," he added, "it might snow, too."

What could be worse than a man who thinks he's funny?

So things have been interesting at work, as they always are. I've told myself at least a dozen times that I will need to write about something, and then I get home and I'm cold and I'm tired and hungry and get busy watching something on the Momcave television and before I know it, it's 9 and time for bed. Getting up at 5 is just too damn early for me. I will always hate it. Most days I nap between shifts, but if I could have stayed in bed another hour or hour and a half, I wouldn't need to. The idea of going to bed at 7:30 or 8 is usually just too crazy even for me. But sometimes I wonder if that would work. Sleep by 7:45, get up and 5 and NOT feel like a zombie.

Sad, but the idea has its attraction.

So one of my kids (not mentioning names, even though I never use the real name of child here) has an absent father. My understanding is that it's a pattern with this guy, who has an ex wife and two kids in another state, an ex wife and two kids in THIS state and a girlfriend and her two kids that he's living with in still another state.

This young person was picked up from my program after school a little over a week ago to go take a vacation with his dad and the latest woman. You'd think a dad who only sees his kid every six months or so would just accept the kid as he is, however he looks. Whatever choice he makes about his hair. But nope. As they left the room,the first words out of Dad's mouth were, "That hair. I don't know."

Because the kid is growing his hair out so he can have what he calls 'a man bun'. I think it looks funny but it's not my hair.

It's more of a whatever for me.

::shrug:::

I'm always curious about what makes people dye their hair blue or pierce their nose or get 20 tattoos, but I don't care about it, I just wonder. I'd never offend anyone by asking, because of course it would sound like I'm judging.

I do judge people now and then, I think we all do.
But not based on something like appearance.

This guy growing his hair out is just self expression.

While I was writing that, I remembered the time Lyssa asked me to help her dye her hair. My mom was scandalized, a leftover from the dark ages way of thinking, but I wasn't offended.

I understand why she thought that way, even though I didn't agree with her and we did the dye thing. That 'mild' foamy hair coloring preparation wasn't mild at all. Lyssa's hair was chemically shredded for awhile, but it grew out. She still looked awfully cute, though. :)

I applaud this guy's mom for just letting him do whatever he wants with his hair. But I'm sure he heard more than once over the vacation that he should get it cut.
When he returned from his trip, he had a horrible, horrible cough. One of the worst ones I've ever heard. Dry and constant. When I came back to school on Thursday afternoon, he was in the office getting some medical attention. They notified me that he'd had to use his inhaler more than once that day.

He ended up on his knees on the floor during snack time, coughing so hard he retched. I called his mom and let her know that he was having difficulties. She came to get him as early as she could, and they were heading to the urgent care for some real cough syrup as soon as they left.

I wasn't surprised on Friday morning when she called and let me know that he wouldn't be in school at all on Friday.

And now it looks like none of us will be in school for most of the week. We have about four inches of snow now, and more is expected. Although it seems crazy to the rest of the world, this area shuts down when we have this kind of weather.

The problem is that much of our snow turns to ice.
We get freezing rain over the top of it and it's simply ludicrous to have school buses and kids out in it. It's nothing like the snow we had when we lived in Colorado. I hate not being at work for the week, but I'm glad we're mostly safe here at home. And that my kids are, too.

So the next post I'm working on contains (cue scary music here)
GIRL DRAMA!!

::sigh::

Never a dull moment, as they say.

INservice

So much going on. Nothing terribly exciting, though.
Just life in general.

One thing that happened this last week (Friday) was a statewide teacher inservice day. I don't know why they call it that. And the emphasis is on the first syllable, INservice. When I was a kid, and my dad was a teacher, I heard it said that way for the first time and thought it was weird. Obviously I've heard it many times since. And it still sounds strange.

Ostensibly the purpose of an inservice day is a training day for teachers, but quite often ends up being a catch up day for them. Instead of going to a bunch of training sessions, they show up at school and do the jobs/paperwork/organization that isn't possible to get done while they're busy with the kids.

I'm glad I'm not a classroom teacher. I'm pretty sure you couldn't pay me enough to be one. My kids learn stuff all the time while we hang out together, but I have too much respect for them to think that subjecting them to constant 'teaching' is good for them.

The longer I work inside schools, the more I see the (sometimes) unwitting damage we're inflicting on our children. The subjugation of self, the presentation of bits of knowledge and rote learning that really aren't connected to life in any way... well, it's all been said by lots of people. Many of them better writers than I am.

My way to deal with an inservice day, hanging out with assorted kids, is to make sure they have a lot of things to do. Fun stuff. The more they have to do, the less difficult my job is.

My district has traditionally not allowed the company to hold full day programming in our school, so I was working in Sandy for the day. The site director of that site had a family emergency, so I drew the lucky token... had to open site and be there until 3:30. To get there on time to open at 6:15, I needed to leave the house at 5:45. I got up at 4:30 and did the usual shower and stuff. Arrived on time, too. Go, me.

I brought a big tote full of things to do. Not a reflection on the site director or her program, either. I don't know where things are in her cabinets, I don't know what she has or doesn't have on site, and if I bring everything I need, I'm not depleting her supplies.

Nothing worse than someone working your site and then a couple months later, you go to get something for a project and it's all gone. What a pain in the ass.

So I brought Model magic. A big bag full. Had five kids there, nine were signed up... good thing they didn't all show, I ran out of modeling material about 20 minutes before it was time for me to leave.

I brought ping pong. I have a little net that fits in the center of a cafeteria table, some paddles and ping pong balls.

I brought a ton of pool noodles, most of them are sliced lengthwise. Combine that with masking tape and marbles and you can make giant marble runs. I also saved some black plastic shipping guards that popped off the legs of our chairs in our little room. The custodian said to discard them, so I did. Right into a two gallon ziplock bag which I then brought home. They're trough shaped with open ends, about 10 inches long, and perfect for adding to the marble runs.

If you're wondering if I save trash, the answer is yes, of course I do.
Doesn't everyone? 2 liter soda bottles, paper towel rolls, lids from various containers, little spray bottles from the spray on stuff I use on my hair, CDs, cardboard... well, you get the idea.

I have quite a bit stashed (neatly, thanks to some help from my son and daughter in law over the last couple months) in the momcave. Lots of plastic boxes with different items in them. I could open a day care center tomorrow with only the things I have here at home. Forget the tons of stuff I have at my site.
Of course I'm not quite crazy enough to run a daycare from my home. Although there are days...

So we made the marble runs. I have done this activity with various groups and in different programs. Sometimes it's a huge hit, sometimes it's a 'meh' reaction. Hard to predict. I always have at least two other activities in reserve, though.

This time it was huge. The kids loved it. Every single one of them participated. They incorporated laundry baskets from the stack of them over in the corner (the kids put their backpacks, jackets and assorted other things into them while they're in program) and some books to get the height of various spots just right. The activity kept them occupied for over two hours. A new record. Of course I wasn't together enough at 4:45 AM to have remembered my camera, so I have zero photos.

The model magic was an all day activity. They did a bit, wandered off to do other things, came back, made more critters.

The weather was beautiful, so we spent quite a bit of time outdoors, too.
We talked before we went out. There were two kids there that aren't a part of my regular crowd, so I wanted to make sure we were all thinking the same way with regards to playground safety rules.

Every school I've ever worked in has had a no tag rule for their play structures. Some allow tag out in the grassy areas, some don't. But it's always the same on the structures. Safety, of course.

So we discussed it.
And Luke, who's 8 years old and thinks he's pretty sneaky, said, "Even though we can't play tag, can we play hot lava monster?"
I smiled. "Hot lava monster is a tag game, Buddy."
"No!" he insisted. "Hot lava monster isn't tag!"
"When you are playing the game, is someone 'it'?"
"Well yeah!" he told me.
"If someone's it, and they're chasing other people, it's tag."

He looked sheepish.
His brother Logan elbowed him in the side.
"You know that never works. Why'd you even try?"

::snort::

So I worked from 6:15 to 11:45, took an hour for lunch, then was back at it until 3:30. During my lunch break, I went to Goodwill. Found a 40 dollar set of colored pencils for 4 bucks. Prismacolor, which happens to be what I use. Yay. One was missing from the set, but the rest of them look like they've hardly been used at all.

I mentioned above that the district I work in has always said no to the request to hold program in our school on this inservice day. I don't know why, we are allowed to be there for most other school closure days, but not this one.

So there were supposed to be nine kids on Friday, three from the site in Sandy and six from my site. One from another site that's closer to Sandy. We didn't get everyone who'd planned to be there, but there were still more kids from my site than the one where we held program. So I asked my program manager why we were driving all the way to Sandy, which is a long trip out of the way for my people. She said that since the district had always said no in the past that she didn't even ask this year.

I've advised all my families to talk to the principal personally, either via email or in person to ask that we be allowed to have our program at our home site. I'm pretty sure that if we get him on board, we'll be using our school for the next one.

So there's really not a whole lot of exciting stuff going on here, which is why I haven't had a lot to say lately.

This week, though, I will have three full days of programming to deal with.
I'm confident that I can keep kids busy, but sadly my breaks will be staffed by the twit who formerly worked at my site. She's nice enough, but I'll expect carnage when I return from my breaks.

And how are YOU doing???

It Snow Shit.

Last week it was 60 degrees and the kids were playing outside after school without coats on.

Today I am sitting over my heater in the kitchen, looking out the window at four or five inches of snow. It started snowing yesterday morning at about 7:45 as I was leaving work, and didn't stop until about 10 last night.

I called the school about 9:30 in the morning because I had a feeling (I friggin' knew it!!) that school was going to be let out early and to let Cathy know that Colin was supposed to be picked up by his grandfather yesterday afternoon as his mom had headed out of town on business in the early morning. And that his booster seat was in my program area in the staff lounge. She said, "I appreciate you so much! You're always on top of things." She went on to tell me that it was great that I'd called during a slow time, as she had a feeling that she was about to make over 400 phone calls to have kids picked up.

We were right about school being let out early due to weather.
School was dismissed at noon.
All evening activities, including my program, were canceled.

Apparently snow isn't a normal weather condition here. Even though there is snow and ice and snow and ice and ice and snow EVERY winter at least once.

You'd *think* it would be thought of as normal, considering where we are geographically. And of course we get some almost every year, but from the way they handle talking about it, it's always a huge surprise to the weather guys and the media.

On-air snowgasms all around.
Off air, too. The news websites have snow, ice, snow, kids in snow, school canceled because it snowed, here comes the snow, do you think it will snow again tonight and gee, the roads are slick oooooooh it's scary out there!

In places where snow is expected in winter, they are great about plowing and maintaining roads. Sand. Gravel. Salt. Whatever it takes. And here's an evidently well-kept secret... they go BACK over and over to maintain the roads! Yes, they may have plowed and sanded a couple times, but as long as it's needed, they do it again.

But here in manic, pass-the-granola Portland, snow is always a surprise.
It shouldn't be, but it always, always is.

The big task of maintaining city roads for winter driving falls to a bunch of crotch-digging-earth-muffiny-granola-munching-hairbags, aka PBOT or Portland Bureau of Transportation.

Their spokesman, Dylan Rivera, says really dumb things on occasion. My personal favorite was last year after we were blanketed in snow and ice. People were stranded on the (unplowed, unsalted, unsanded) freeways about town. There were reports of taking four hours to travel a mile or two. Tracy Barry, from Channel 8 interviewed ol' Dylan. He seemed surprised by the number of people stranded.

From Portland Business Journal 12/15/2016,

"If you were lucky enough to be parked in front of a TV instead of parked on U.S. 26 with abandoned cars around you, it had to be KGW's Tracy Barry asking Portland Bureau of Transportation spokesman Dylan Rivera why such upheaval happens over and over whenever even the slightest bit of snow lands within the city.

When Rivera pointed out that his department had warned residents to prepare for extreme conditions, Barry interrupted to point out that while that was true, it didn't really help those who were stranded on the roads.
Rivera responded that anyone stranded should call 911."

Oh sure. What a buffoon. 
As if people chose to get stuck on the UNPLOWED and UNSANDED and UNTREATED roads. We pay gigantic taxes here in Oregon, and an assload more for the 'privilege' of living in Multnomah County. And our public services often just suck. Potholes and shitty roads. We, the taxpayers, paid for and built a huge jail. It never opened because we 'couldn't afford' to staff it.

We can afford multi-million dollar "art" projects like this one... referred to as 'Rockwood Sunrise' by the people who foisted it on us, 'The Syringes at Rockwood' by the people who really understand art.

So we have plenty of MY GODDAMN money for cultural shit, but can't lock up the shitbags.

Don't get me started, I'll go off on a tangent again and we'll never get out of here.

Predictably, 911 was utterly swamped with calls from the poor schmucks who were stalled out and/or stuck on our local shitty roads after Dylan's famous quote.

I remember hearing on the radio and seeing on TV after Dylan's brilliant 'solution' .... "DO NOT call 911 unless it's an emergency."

So after the debacle of last year, the city reluctantly made the decision to get road salt and actually, you know, treat the roads. Well, some of them. It still took us 2.5 hours to make a 20 minute drive home on Christmas Eve. Highway 26 received NO salt. No plowing. No sand/gravel.

Trimet buses were passing us and the rest of the traffic like complete fucking idiots. I guess they thought their tire chains made them invincible.

That's why shit like this happens every time it snows.

This is Highway 26 on Tuesday evening. That's a Trimet bus. And funny, same place one wrecked on Christmas Eve after passing us like a bat outa hell. Fucking morons.

We're all nuts.

Lots of stairs at my school.
The new one will be 100% accessible, which I am looking forward to.

But of course right now we're still in the (91 year) old building.

I have to go in the front door even though there's a lower door with fewer stairs directly into the cafeteria. Can't use my card key down there.

So I go up ten steps. Wave my badge in front of the electric window and through what they want us to believe is the miracle of modern technology (it's magic*, I know it is) the door clicks, the light turns green and I step in and drag my feet across the long rug runner to wipe off the stray leaves and assorted slugs/mud/glop I've picked up on the way in.

*You do believe in magic, right?

I visualize a wizened little gnome sitting in there pushing buttons. I see him as the school tech version of the Walmart greeter... too old to be running around arranging merchandise but not too old to smile, be cheerful and judge check you at the door.

Like many Walmart greeters, he has leathery brown skin, white ear hairs, scraggly eyebrows and a long, beaky nose. He's not constrained by the dress code, though.
Happily wearing loose gray gnome-sized sweatpants, green crocs and a blue and white striped tank top, he sits in his own little swivel chair, spinning around giddily when there's no one at the door.

He has a lot of wrinkles and can't skip around the way he used to, but has definitely not outlived his usefulness.
He smells like cinnamon sugar.
Apparently I've given this an inordinate amount of thought.
Aren't you glad you stopped by?

So I got through the front hall, then down two flights of stairs to the cafeteria where the first damn thing I noticed was that one of the doors to the outside were open and goddammit, I could have skipped the front stairs and the judgy gnome.

The doors were open because our substitute custodian, wearing all black (no whimsy there!!) and carrying a big-assed broom was trying to drive a 300 lb squirrel out of the building. I stopped at the bottom of the stairs, my sleepy brain trying to make sense of what was going on. The custodian, waving the broom, was chasing this scampering creature. Said creature didn't want anything to do with the open door, so he headed right toward me. I waved my arms at him, but he dodged around me and went upstairs.

The custodian flung up his hands, dropping his broom in the process, and with a heavy sigh, went to the doors and opened the other one. As it slammed open, the lighted exit sign fell off the wall in a shower of sparks and a puff of ozone. He was damned lucky it didn't fall on him and electrocute him.
Our school is seriously falling apart.

So I moved a couple tables to block the area where the sign had fallen so that no kids would walk near it as they came in. The hapless custodian was still chasing the squirrel, but finally cornered it in the restroom at the top of the stairs.

He stopped by my program to let me know that the, "Pest guys and electric guys are on their way, the squirrel is up there in the urinal." And he gestured with his head. Rolled his eyes. It really was sort of funny.

I spent my short morning program listening to various adults jumping and screaming in the upper hallway because the squirrel hadn't stayed in the urinal (would you??) and was roaming around.

I'm sure the squirrel was having the time of his life.
Thinking the world is full of nuts.
What the hell is wrong with all the humans? Haven't they ever seen a squirrel before? Why don't they just let me out instead of chasing me with a stick?
Haha.

How are things in your world? 

More Fools

I got a big kick out of the April Fool's joke started by this story.

It's amazing how many people fell for it, although with the stupid shit done by people-in-charge-who-oughta-know-better-but-common-sense-ain't-that-common, it's not that big a surprise.

Reading through the story doesn't ring true, some of the statements are just a teeny bit outrageous, but it was well done.
"With a successful introduction of kangaroos into Wyoming’s ecosystem, WMI will review other opportunities for the state to be home to other marsupial species. A short-list for future proposed introductions include the koala, wallaby and the endangered Tasmanian Devil."
I missed the opportunity to send it to my mom before they added the April Fools thing to the end of the story. The predations of wolf packs that have been re introduced into certain areas are a hot issue with my family, living in a farming community as they do. The kangaroo story would have really gotten her going.

Ah well.

In other news, they aren't going to fix the furnace in my little area. Since they're going to tear the building down anyway and it's getting warmer out. Still 62 in my little room, though. So they brought me a space heater. When the custodian told me that's what they were going to do, I envisioned a little space heater like the one we have in the living room.

Nope. This thing is the size of an endtable. It has one of the big, heavy duty cords. And yes, it heats up the whole room. Doesn't even take that long to do so.
Pretty amazing.

Hope you're all staying warm and safe and not being affected by the crazy spring storms that are all over the news.

Time to go take care of MY kangaroos. :)

In the News

I sat here reading the news this morning. One of the stories was about a cat hoarder who was 'running a cat rescue' but locked up the house and left the state.

There were some photos of the house in question, if you've ever watched Hoarders, you know what it looked like.

After a list of the physical ailments of these poor animals was this, "We could hear some of them wheezing, that's how we knew where they were. They may have respiratory problems."

Ya think?

"Some will be adopted, others may not be friendly enough and will have to go to feral colony."

That line caught my eye.
I know it only applies to cats in this context, but can you imagine?
There are days on end that I'm not friendly enough. Months, even.
I would like a one way ticket to 'feral colony', please.

I can give sidelong glances and growl menacingly at my fellow curmudgeons.
I can shout at them. I can lock myself in my room and ignore them or go out among them and start kicking shins. What's not to like?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This story, too.
I'm glad the shitbag has (finally) been "handed" a serious sentence. (omg I crack myself up)
But why was he allowed to offend and re-offend and re-offend?

While our "representatives" sit around trying to think up more ways to raise taxes, this stuff is going on all the time. I have given up expecting any of our elected officials to do anything of benefit to the people they're supposed to be serving.

And I understand under the law that a defense attorney is to try to get the person freed or just get them a minimum sentence, but reading what the defense attorney said makes me sick.

He makes it sound like the guy was a victim instead of a sick pervert who should be locked up for the safety of the general public.
Poor guy couldn't avoid being "triggered" on the MAX.
So he was "discreetly" whipping his weasel.
He held his coat up to hide it, what more do you want?

Okay, so if he's out in public and can't help stroking the squirrel then he needs to NOT BE IN PUBLIC. How is that so difficult to understand???
Lock the monkey spankin' son of a bitch UP.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And this, too.
Daylight Saving Time
What a complete, slopping over crock of shit.

Our "representatives" can't even manage to take care of the switching the clock back and forth issue. How can we expect them to do anything of use? More useless people stealing my money.

There is no reason to continue with the utter stupidity of changing the clock twice a year. If getting rid of the time change were put on a ballot in every state, I'd be willing to bet money that it would pass by huge margins.
Hell, if a presidential candidate had promised to do away with it, he or she would have been elected, no problem.
Leave the fucking time alone.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Where would you expect to find a town named Kaukauna?
My first thought would be Hawaii, and if that wasn't it, I'd think Alaska next.
Makes sense, right? But no. Wisconsin.

Where you can turn in your exotic pets, no questions asked.
Okay, I am all for turning them in if you can't care for them properly, but I have a lot of questions and I don't really think it's fair that I can't ask them.

Also, it makes me laugh that the guy is quoted as saying, "The Wisconsin weather is probably not the most convenient for a tropical animal, but if it were to become established, it could have all sorts of ecological implications."

'Not the most convenient' indeed.
::snort::

The turn in event will be followed by a fish auction, where you can purchase the fish that were surrendered.

Someone has not thought this through.
First, aquariums aren't difficult, but it can take some serious time to establish the biological filter action in one. And fish are prone to diseases. And every single damn fish disease is contagious to the other fish. So if you purchase a fish at the auction, it's probably a good idea to quarantine that fish for a minimum of two weeks.

If that fish turns out to be grumpy, perhaps he or she can transfer to the feral colony.

Pizza

The kids have read 20 minutes a day for 60 days.
It adds up to approximately 18,000 minutes of reading if you combine everyone's total for each day.

This means pizza.

And prizes.

And excitement.

I didn't find out until it was too late for me to get to work early that I wasn't going to have my second person on site today. So it was a little hectic around there this afternoon.

But everyone had a good time. We got outside to play, and spent half an hour running off energy before going back in to continue the party. About five minutes after we got back into our little cafeteria, it started to rain. Good timing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tomorrow it's two weeks since the raccoon incident. Still no car. I emailed the claims office and my own agent today, saying that I felt the 10 days since they picked up my car was at least enough time to get an idea of the damages. I wondered why I hadn't heard from anyone.

My phone blinked at me about 4:15. It was the auto body place calling. Since I was working and working alone and working in a loud place with great busy-ness, I did not answer.

The guy left a message. No information, just 'call me'.

I hate when they do that.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


In other news, IGNORE (the timeshare people) called me this evening, too. Thanks to the IGNORE that flashes when they call, I ignored them. And I'll continue doing so. They have my email address. If they really want to communicate, they can do that. They don't want to, though. They want to sell me something. Nope.

I had another call today, too. An odd number. 314 322 9999. Just looking at it, I knew it wasn't anything I wanted to hear.

I looked it up. It's been in several scams. They didn't leave a message.

Gee, I wonder why.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Last, there's a new policy in the school district. A child can have LIVE LICE crawling in their hair... and will not be excluded from attendance. Wouldn't want to 'deprive a child of their educational experiences'.

I will have to talk to my manager to see if we have to follow district policy... since we're governed by state licensing laws regarding child care, and I believe our policy is nit-free.

Ugh.

Hangin' out...

10 minutes in society and a person will notice we're all different.

Skin, hair, eye color, body shape.

We actually had a discussion about it the other day when one of the kids was talking about a classmate who was 'very brown'. Another boy gasped and said, "That's racist!!!"

Of course it's not racist to describe a person's color, especially when there aren't very many children in our school who are black. Easier to narrow it down.

Bill* was just trying to tell the other boys about someone in his class and couldn't think of a way to say it.

There's a big buzz being generated right now by this article. Go read. It's about what's available for girl children to wear vs what's out there for boys. I ran into issues with it when Lyssa was small, too. I ended up buying boy's t shirts, jeans and shorts for her for quite awhile. I did some sewing for her, too. She wasn't much of a princess type, and didn't like the sparkly and pink, pink, pink.

The girls I have in my program are all shapes and sizes. One of them really dresses like an old lady, but the clothing she wears is all her choice, her parents are quite willing to buy her what she's happy wearing.

A couple of them wear a ton of glittery, shimmery shirts and leggings.

Boots and sparkly sandals are a big thing right now, too.

When we're out on the playground, the girls who prefer athletic shoes and comfortable clothing are the ones out running on the field. The sparkly girls are the ones in the swings or sitting on the play structure chatting. It's actually really interesting to watch.

A couple of my girls are very round. They're active and run and jump rope and play all day long, but there's a great deal that can be blamed on heredity. They're round, and so are their parents.

Doesn't matter, of course. They all need the same care.

But I can't figure out what moms are thinking when they dress the round kid in stuff that's too small. Obviously you don't want to dress your kid in a sack, but when their skin is hanging over their waistband and they are showing a whole lot of buttcrack when they sit down, I think maybe you should re-evaluate what you're sending them to school in.

This year I don't have any kids who've made an issue of it, but in the past I've had children who aren't very nice about it. Saying things like, "Vanessa, your fat is hanging out." Insensitive, and I work hard to sit and talk with kids who say things like that to try and help them understand why it's not nice or appropriate to just blurt it out.

But as a mom myself, I would want to make sure my child isn't wearing something that would get him/her laughed at.

There really isn't a huge point to this, I would certainly never allow anyone to tease another kid about what they're wearing or what's showing. And the parents of the children in my program are very nice people. All of them. They love and value their children, take good care of them, and obviously want to do what's best for them.

It was just what was on my mind this afternoon after watching one of my smaller girls continually tugging her shirt down and pants up. She was wearing skin tight leggings and a shirt that was about three sizes small and trying to be active. Her clothing was hindering her from freedom in motion and choices of activities.

Is it a big deal? I know that kids can be awfully mean. I recall quite a lot of it from my own school days, too. Had some chubby friends and heard all the jokes.

I don't know. Just rambling.

What are your thoughts?

I love the internet

Sometimes I forget how spoiled we are to have the technology available to us today.

Remember when you used shoot a roll of 24 or 36 exposures, take the roll of film to the local drugstore, wait a week and then get maybe one or two pictures from the whole roll that didn't suck?

Did your dinner get cold while you were looking at and ordering your photos online? 
Stick it in the microwave for a minute or two. Hot dinner again. About the time you're finished with your dinner, your email will let you know your prints are ready at the local store.

Telephones. Let's talk about telephones.
When I worked at a little ceramic company in California in 1984, one of the ladies I worked with had a hubby who was some kind of high priced corporate guy. I don't know what he did for a living. He made a lot of money and he wasn't a very nice guy. Maybe he was a crooked lawyer. Ha.

Anyway, one lunchtime, I sat in the car with Wanda. And there was a TELEPHONE in the car!! In the center console was a regular black telephone. With a boingity cord connecting the handset to the phone.

There were also two large antennas on the roof of the car. I was soooo impressed with that telephone. I couldn't believe a person could be driving down the road and talking on the phone. She said that it was expensive, but yes, a person could make important calls. That it wasn't there so she could call and tell him to bring home a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk.

Now you can pull a phone out of your pocket and argue with people on the internet all day long... or of course ask your wife to bring home some milk. Or beer.
  Computers make it easy to find out almost anything. In the past month or so, I have learned many new things. I encourage the kids at work to come in and tell me what they've learned every day. Sometimes, they come in and tell me things they've found on the internet, sometimes from books or from parents or their teachers. I'm trying to get them to ponder the many ways a person can learn, and to figure out that learning isn't confined to a building between the hours of 8 and 3, Monday through Friday.

Hm. In no particular order, here are some of the things I've googled (funny how that's now a universally recognized verb, but my spell check, on a computer that's full of google, doesn't like the word) and/or looked at in the last month.

A few movie plots. I don't really love watching movies, although I will sit with Eric and watch whatever offering we have from Netflix for the weekend. I bring my computer and my zentangly stuff and we sit in the same room. Sometimes the movie's a little slow and I want to find out what's going to happen.

I looked up different plants. Flower photos. Tangle patterns. The cost of wedding flowers made commercially. It's like 40 bucks for a corsage with just a couple roses and a sprig of baby's breath!! I didn't figure out how much money we saved by my work on making the wedding flowers, but I spent about a hundred bucks for everything. Ribbons and flowers and wires and floral tape and the bouquet holder. 

I looked up some legal information, too. I was reading something interesting and looked up libel. 

Did you know that when you're a public figure (politician, lawyer, actor, university professor) the rules are a little different than for your average Joe. Or Jill. To prove libel, the ostensibly injured party would have to show both intent and substantial damage to his or her reputation and/or livelihood. It's a threat often bandied about to make people stop talking, but it's usually a bunch of wind.
Most of the time, people who want to safeguard their reputations don't go around doing questionable things and hurting other people.
Most of the time. :)

I looked up the rewards program for our credit card. We've never used any of our points, so there were a bunch of them accumulating. I chose a fifty dollar Amazon card and a fifty dollar card for a meal at Red Lobster. It's certainly not free money, but getting those gift cards required the internet.

Checked into, "What happens when you get a rock chip in the windshield of the car you rented?" Found out that yes, my own car insurance would cover it, but who knows what would happen to our deductible? I was advised to take a photo of the rock chip next to a dime or quarter to show the size of the damaged spot, as on occasion a rental car company will come back and try to bill your credit card for a full windshield replacement.  I took the photo without realizing there was no card in my good camera. So we have no photographic evidence anyway.

But they didn't bill us for a full windshield. It cost us an extra seventeen bucks on top of the one week rental, but that wasn't too bad. We saved something like 150 bucks by renting the car for a week. Eric, Lyssa and Bob drove up to Kennewick and saw Eric's sister over Labor Day weekend.

Eric hadn't seen her in the more than 35 years since we met, Bob in at least 25. Long story, and not mine to tell. But they were able to talk and spend some time together. I needed a car to get around while they were gone, and they needed something a little larger than the car we ordinarily drive, so we rented a Camry.

I perused the news websites. They're often fun to look at. KATU has the worst written website of the ones I read. Full of grammatical and factual errors. I swear they get a monkey with a typewriter to do their headlines. Case in point:

Family of Rainier Police Chief killed frustrated suspect trial date not set yet
One of the people who commented on that story wanted to know if punctuation had gone up in price.

I read a lot of blogs.

I am on Facebook, but I don't put a lot of information out there.
There are a lot of FB links in my history, too.
Amazon.
Netflix.
Gmail.
Verizon and other places who provide services for me are paid online.
Medical stuff and a few local bills are paid by my credit union with computer-generated checks. I go online and send money.

Recipes.

Work email. I often order my snacks and supplies while I'm sitting here at home. No, I don't get paid for the time I spend doing it. That's my choice. I'd rather spend the time at home and order while I'm doing other things (eating dinner, chatting online with friends, drawing tangly stuff) instead of taking time away from the kids while I'm trying to work. I don't want to stay late, either. When the last kid leaves for the evening, I am out the door as soon as I can be. I love being there, but I love being home more. :)

And then there's blogging, too. Lots of links to me answering comments on my blog and commenting on others. I've been writing here since 2005. It's been a journal more than anything else. I still like doing it, or I'd stop. I wonder if the next generation in the nursing homes will be writing blogs and playing video games and/or D&D.

I also write a work blog (no, you wouldn't be interested in the link) for the people I work with. It's a way for us to exchange ideas and solutions, although it's more of a monologue and I've mostly stopped writing there. It was a volunteer thing and just hasn't caught on.

I am up at 1 AM with some interesting heartburn. We ate kinda late. But I've been up long enough to finish writing this, hit post and go back to sleep. Busy day planned.
Hope you're having a good day.
Zzzz you later.


 
  



 

:::tap tap tap::: is this thing on??

I have a bunch of stuff to tell you, but not enough time to tell it all in one sitting.

I can see myself being back to daily blogging in a week or so, though.

The last two weeks have been just nuts. I took the week of August 18th-22nd off work to do some cleaning/dehoarding of the domicile. We rented a drop box so we could dispose of a ton of things that have been sitting out back... old furniture etc.

I never really thought about it, we've never had furniture to dispose of before. But last fall about this time, my cousin Kathy moved out of her great big house and into an RV full time. She sold or gave away a great deal of what she had. We were the recipients of a sofa, two end tables, a big comfortable recliner and a rolling TV stand thing. That's currently in the spare bedroom with the printer inside and the modem etc on top.

So anyway, we had this big-assed sectional. Totally worn out, dirty with dog grease up the back (Maggie rubbed on it constantly and left a big black streak.)
You can't very well cram the sofa and various parts into the garbage can to haul away. We don't own a truck to haul it to the dump, either.

So it sat. A bunch of other things sat, too. When Matt moved out, he left things that also needed to be thrown away.

So the dumpster was a necessary thing. I ordered it on a Thursday, it showed up on Friday morning at 7:25 AM because why the hell should I be allowed to sleep in? And the guy picked it up the following Friday, also a little after 7... because again, why the hell should I be allowed to sleep in? Gahhh. Beeeeeeeeeeeep beeeeeeeeeeeeeep beeeeeeeeeeep beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep while he backed up. Then SLAM and CRASH and SLAM and beeeeeeeeeeeeep beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep... I guess if I'd gone out in my t shirt and gummy hair and yelled at him I'd be the one who looked bad, which strikes me as unfair because HE was the noisy asshole... but whatever.

So we had a ton of stuff hauled away.

Then on Friday the 22nd we picked Bob up at the airport. Matt called me at a little after 9 as we were on the way there to ask me to make Amy's bouquet.

She specified 'predominantly yellow and white with some blue'. Okay. Any idea how many colors of blue there are in the ribbon section of Michael's? Holy crap. I just chose one and hoped for the best. Since you've seen the wedding photos already, you know I picked the right stuff.

And because I felt like I couldn't just leave it at a bouquet, I sat here at the table and spent nine hours on Saturday the 23rd doing flowers for the wedding. I spent about a hundred dollars on flowers, wires, floral tape, ribbons etc... Amy said that they'd priced flowers and just one corsage was 40 dollars. I was glad that Matt asked me to do something I understood. :)

I did the bouquet, a boutonniere for Matt and for the best man (who was a girl) and for the officiant who is Matt's best male friend. Three months ago, Matt was his best man, actually. I did corsages for the matron of honor, Amy's mom, my mom and my daughter. Then, when Matt and Amy were over for dinner I asked Amy if there was anyone else she wanted me to make a corsage for. I ended up making one for her grandmother, too.

Here's a box of flowers for you to see...

tools of the trade... I haven't forgotten how to do this even though it's been a long time

The ribbon for the bridal bouquet and behind that, the little newsletter thing from my cousin's daughter's wedding on July 5th. THEY did the whole schmear. Little newsletters, can cozies, formal wear...

For the matron of honor

I want to tell you about the wedding, too. It was really sweet and designed by them FOR them. I am pretty sure the lack of religious ceremony bothered a few people, but I think the ceremony and the little extras were just perfect. They seem so happy and make such a sweet couple.

Saturday morning (two days ago) Matt and Amy came over at 5:30 AM and I drove them to the airport to catch a plane. They're currently honeymooning in Orlando. I hope they're having a wonderful time.

It's pretty crowded in our driveway. My car, Matt's car, the car we rented for Eric, Bob and Lyssa to visit Eric's sister (that's a whole 'nother story.. one that will take ages to write down) and Eric's work truck.

Busy busy.

I got my site set up for Tuesday morning's school opening.
I managed to get out there last week and meet our new principal. He seems like a nice guy. He has a child in a before/after school program. He asked me something I've never been asked by a principal before... "What can I do to help you grow your program?" Which bodes well for the future, I think.

Anyway, I am done rambling for tonight. Shower, bed. Ikea in the morning, Eric and Bob are going out hot dog roasting tomorrow. BORRRRRING but I will probably go, too.

So I had a disagreement with some fish...

When we went to the store yesterday afternoon, I wanted to eat something different. I looked at some frozen fish (lightly breaded with a thin crunchy layer) and thought it sounded good.

When it came out of the oven, I put it on paper towels and squished it to get the oil out, since oil and I do not get along very well.

Fast forward to about 2 hours later.

Eric and I were watching The Hunger Games, I was playing with some zentangle and chatting with my imaginary friend Portia when I started getting a headache. So I paused it all and got a migraine pill.

It didn't help, I started getting very nauseated. I realized that every time I looked at the computer, it was getting worse, so I signed off abruptly and closed up the lid. I didn't even consider trying to write something for my blog.

Then I started feeling a bunch of acid coming up. Bubbling and roiling and sloshing.

So I took a heartburn pill. And ate some celery.

And it got worse.

The movie wasn't bad, it was sort of dark and sad. I haven't read the books, but enough people I am acquainted with have read them, and I was familiar with the subject and approach. The acting was good and the characters believable, I was able to hate the bad guys and root for the good ones. In between trying to suppress the nausea and trips to the bathroom because 'this time I know for sure I'm gonna hurl.'

Thank goodness I never did. I know I'd be minus some important parts today if all that acid had come up.

We ended up going to bed around midnight when I finally thought I might be able to lie down without barfing or having the horrible acid come up and burn off the top four layers of flesh in my throat, all the enamel on my teeth, the end of my tongue and my lips.

Eric dug out some alka seltzer for me, which helped slightly, but I think the thing that helped the most was celery. Lots of celery.

Eric went to sleep within 30 seconds of his head hitting the pillow. I sat up longer, falling asleep three or four times and starting to list sideways, then catching myself and waking back up.

Finally was able to lie down and not be afraid of the burn about 1. Then we were up and down and up and down and up and down. Eric is taking prednisone and indomethacin for the gout, and has a middle of the night dose he takes and then has to sit up for awhile after.

Anyway, not a good night. So I slept in. And checked in on Facebook, posted about the argument I had with my dinner, and generally vegged. Now it's off to the shower and try to salvage what remains of the weekend. Not much.

But it's a four day work week, followed by a three day, possibly four day weekend. That can only be a good thing, right? I don't know yet if I will be working on Monday, but Friday is a school district budget reduction day, which means all buildings are closed and we will not be holding program.

And I did bring Leopold home to photograph, and will try to get those photos for you for tomorrow's post. I know that looking at a plastic skeleton is only one of the major reasons you read here, and I can understand that.

Skeletons and bouts of heartburn. What else is there?

:)

What a difference a couple months makes..

Remember in November (that rhymes!) when I stayed late at work for whatever children needed care during the PTC meeting? And no one showed up?

Well, tonight I had two kids. One stayed very briefly, the other stayed from 6:30 until 8. He was a neat kid, fun to talk to. I got out some of the hands on stuff I keep in the back room and we talked about this and that while he manipulated all my little puzzles and mazes and the rainstick.

Working with kids can be noisy.

This afternoon, there was an impromptu kitchen band, they were pounding on the plastic bins with rhythm sticks, singing and dancing around. Sort of funny. I had to ask them a few times to tone it down just a little, telling them that when my eardrums were fluttering, it was too loud. :)

Anyway, got home late, don't have time to write a ton, so this will have to do.

Happy hump day. On Wednesday mornings our school starts an hour late, so we have time during morning program to do fuse beads. That takes awhile and makes the kids happy and keeps their little hands busy. Win/Win/Win... until I have to get out the iron and iron all those little projects. The smell of warm plastic just makes me smile.

Okay. Off.

What's *not* on my mind?

I've had a lot of 'alone time' today.

Eric and Matt took a hike and left me alone in the house from 7 am to about 2:30 Saturday afternoon.

I woke up at 5:30 in horrendous pain, though.

Of course. Because it was Saturday morning and the weekend and a migraine that makes one want to simultaneously toss cookies, cry, and crap is just the absolute best way to start a weekend, after all.

But that's why migraine pills exist.

If I get another headache this week, now that the hormone cascade SHOULD be over, I guess it's back to Dr. Dirtball to find out what the hell... 'cause there have been an awful lot of headaches lately. They're no different than my usual migraines in intensity or symptoms, the only thing that's unusual is the frequency.

I think it's because of hormonal activity, there are other things going on with me physically that lead me to believe the big M is approaching... so that's my hope.

So I took the medication and went back to bed until 9:30, and woke up with no headache. :) I also woke up and found that I'd drooled in my hair, my face was all smooshed up on the right side, and my left arm was completely numb. It was like a piece of wood. I was certain that I'd never be able to use it again. I had to pick it up with my right arm to move it. I massaged it until it started to tingle with the wakie uppies, then grimaced and swore at it for a few minutes until I had to get up or wet my pants.

I was dreaming about taking care of kids at a day camp just before that. One doesn't have to look too far to figure out why I so frequently dream about taking care of kids, huh? But I had an idea while I was dreaming that I thought might be a good one, so I may pursue it. If it pans out, I'll share.

I sat in front of my computer owlishly for awhile, reading the news headlines. As always a mixed bag of lies, half truths and complete fabrications. And that's just the sports stories. Ha.

'Oprah to interview Romneys', 'Long-dead Dog receives voter registration' 'Man takes lawn chair balloon flight', 'surfing goats', 'Bonnie and Clyde's guns to be auctioned', 'Olympic uniforms for US team made in China'... all of those stories made me glance at the clock to make sure I was correct about the time...and I was... half past give a shit.

But then, Tami stopped by with a lifetime supply of paper goods. She does that now and then, and I put it to use at work. The stuff I can't use goes to other people I work with or to Goodwill. I can't believe all the stuff she's brought over here to me. (Yes, she delivers, too.)

We visited a few minutes, talked about the plants growing in the front yard, I patted the dog and said hello to Mr. Tami. Always nice to see my friends.

Then I took Eric's paycheck to the credit union and deposited it.

Wandered to Craft Warehouse where I spent an hour or so looking at jewelry findings, beads, cording, and ideas for the future.

I spent money, too, which means that I must actually make something out of all the stuff I bought to justify spending it.

Like I don't have enough things to do that I'm not keeping up with.

During all this, I was by myself. My mind went in all directions, randomly. I thought about a million different things, came to no satisfactory conclusions about anything huge, and came home to an empty house.

Weird to be alone. Two years ago my family went to Looseyanna without me and I was mostly alone for 10 days. Novel and not really all that much fun for more than a day or so. The days were easier, but once it was dark outside and I was alone, not so enjoyable.

Eric and Matt came home from their hike and Matt went to bed. (He had worked all night.)

Eric and I did our weekly date to the grocery store. Fun. I was starving, though, so ended up buying things that looked good. Everything looked good.

I bought a pair of earrings, too. Pierced earrings. Something I don't wear because I've never found a pair that didn't make my earlobes swell up. But I thought it's been so long since I tried them that a miracle may have happened and they might work for me.

We'll see.

Talked to Lyssa this evening, too. We talk every night. She's still having a lot of fun with her friend, but is coming home at the end of the month, and I'm planning to take the day off so I can hang out with her on her first day back. Maybe even take off two days in a row, which would give me a four day weekend.

Unheard of.

Pretty soon I'm heading for bed and hoping that my mind will turn off, because it has been all over the place today.

I may be weird.