Archives 2001

January 1, 2001 - HAPPY NEW YEAR!  (Insert fireworks here ...)  Last night was a lovely New Year's Eve!   We set off fireworks left over from the fourth of July.  The sparklers were all duds.  Apparently there is a shelf life on those things!  The bottle rockets and the others did quite well in the cold, leaving a low hanging sulfur smelling cloud that I am sure thrilled the neighbors.  There was even a falling star in the clear night sky to add to the event, showing us that only Mother Nature can produce the ultimate fireworks.  It inspired me to send out an email to friends telling them about the falling star, and wishing that all of them and YOU live life like a falling star - burn bright and long, and go out with a bang on re-entry.  My daughter and son made it to see the ball drop, and then some.  We enjoyed sparkling fruit juice and toasted the New Year. 

Duh!  Something just dawned on me ... last night my cousin David asked me "have you seen any monoliths?"  I did not 'get it' last night!  Hahahaha.  (David, I'm sorry to tell you that your genetic material possesses the evil "blonde" gene as I have proven day after day after ....)    Stanley K. is gonna bitch slap me if HAL doesn't' get me first! 

Up until today there have been no birdies at my bird feeder.  Suddenly today, there are tons of them.  So far there have been starlings, blue jays, and crows.  I made my daughter throw out popcorn in the driveway to bait the larger birds away from the main feeder.  At the main feeder just outside the window there have been a veritable barrage of cardinals, various finches, chickadees, titmouses, sparrows, juncos, and mourning doves.  Also on the trees further out there are woodpeckers and one brown squirrel and one black squirrel.  My daughter broke the main bird feeder, so I ordered myself two new ones on line but didn't rush the order, since no one had been eating all of December.   I am going to have to stop and get more feed tomorrow!  Last year they would go through 25 lbs. of bird food a week.  I was getting off easy this year, I just didn't realize it.  

We are now watching the Rose Bowl Parade and my daughter is in awe of the fact the percussion sections of the marching bands are all in sync.   "That is how it is supposed to be" she practically screams at no one in particular,  "unlike our class, who can't seem to understand that concept!"  I can't help but laugh at her.  By the sound of their last concert, that is a factual statement.  I am sure their love for music will eventually work out all the minor glitches in their band.  It makes me happy she is so excited over the marching bands, though.  Music is a wonderful thing, and we should all enjoy it when ever we can (even if your percussion sucks!) 

January 6, 2001 - ''Tis the wee hours of the morning, and I am up for the time being.  I don't know if I have mentioned it before, but I do have a tendency to get up to pee in the wee hours o-the-night/morning, and will then fall asleep against the wall next to the toilet and doze there until my rear falls asleep.  It can be very relaxing there due to the fact that the bathroom is on an outside wall, and the vent for the sewer system picks up sounds of rain and wind if it happens to be raining or winding outside.   Over the years I have even heard (via the vent) people talking as they walk down the road out front and train whistles from town.  This morning as I was numbing my hind quarters, I heard an odd sound.  At first I thought it was my stomach.  After all, it was 4:30 a.m. and no doubt my stomach was in dire need of nourishment, such as something containing mass amounts of fat!   I woke up enough to stretch and finish up on the toilet duties.  I heard the sound again.  (Here is my attempt to write the sound in letter form - Werrrgeeeeeeeeeeowlllllllcickthrweeerrrrwaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrlllllllllllerrrrrrrrr.)   I went to the front door to look out and saw nothing outside.  I went to the back door, and found my sound makers ... it was my cat Muffy and an intruder cat.   They were both just sitting there all puffed up, making odd cat noises at each other at a very loud volume.  The strange cat was twice the size of Muffy and a tabby cat.  The moon was quite bright, by the way, so it was easy to see the cat stand off.   I was still very drowsy,  so I proceeded to walk out in my bare feet and yell at the cat who was in Muffy's turf.  "Get the hell outta here and shut up!" I said with force, as I yawned.  They both looked at me, and went back to making threatening cat noises.  I bent over and picked up a snow blob with dog poop in it, and lobbed it at the 'bad' cat.  He jumped in the air, and Muffy took this opportunity to jump on the cat.  They rolled around for a while like a ball.   They rolled to the front of the house.   I came back in and went out the front door.  "Bad Kitty!  Bad Bad Kitty!  Go Home!" I yelled.   The strange cat started running down the driveway.  Muffy was in hot pursuit.   "Aw, Muffy, come 'ere!  Leave him alone!" I begged.  Muffy stopped half way down the driveway and took up a "I'll kick yer ass if you come back" puffed and prepped position.  The tough tabby stayed at the end of the driveway until a passing car made him run down the road.  I was very awake by then.   I went out and retrieved Muffy from the drive way and hauled him in the house.   He perched over my shoulder and kept the cat noises going all the way back to the house.  He is now sleeping like a rock in one of the living room easy chairs, on his back and all spread out.  He had a hard night of defending the house.  He deserves to rest.

Yesterday was my son's birthday.  He was a hyper child all week, still 'high' from the Christmas thrill and anticipating his birthday.  I am very glad he's eight now and we can all move on with our lives.  We had cake and ice cream last night after his requested birthday dinner.  (He requested frozen pizza and french fries WITH NO ICKY VEGETABLES.  I forced him to eat a Pokemon vitamin in lieu of anything green, yellow, or red.)  His big brother was here for dinner and 'Mr. I'm Eight Now' was in his glory.  I marked his height on the bathroom door frame where the kid's height have been recorded since 1985.   He was very polite all night, which shocked me.  "Thank you for the present" he said to his brother.   "Thank you for the presents" he told me.  "Thank you for the card" he told his sister.  He didn't whine at all about not enough presents or if he didn't really like a present.  Quite a leap into maturity for my son.  My daughter explained to him that soon he will be stinking like a real human and have to use deodorant and start shaving now that he's getting so old.  "Well, I'm not usin' your girly deodorant, that's for sure!" he told her "but I'll use your razor!!"  We all laughed.  Before he went to bed last night, he came up and hugged me around the neck and said "thank you" again, then gave me a big kiss.   When he jumped off my lap to go upstairs to bed, he bent way over with his buttocks protruding.  "You forgot to SPANK me!" he giggled as he wagged his butt back and forth.  I grabbed him and did just that.   

Today we plan on seeing "The Emperor's New Groove" to celebrate the end of Christmas Break.  Back to school for the kids next Monday.  My daughter is more than ready to have another 'human' to talk to besides her brother.   (Apparently I do not count as 'human'!)  I am ready for them to go back, too.   They are getting to the "Mom, he/she keeps touching me!" stage.  It is time they go enrich their minds again at school and touch somebody else.

January 8, 2001 - We did go see the "Emperor's New Groove" on Saturday.  It was ok.  I have seen better Disney movies, but it was ok.  After we saw the movie, we went to Toys R Us which was right next to the movie theater.  We shopped around;  took our time looking at all the toys.  I told the kids they could each pick out one thing each within reason.   My son chose a "Digi-Vice" - a little hand held electronic game bordering on the likes of a giga-pet, but this one does more stuff and you can shake it to make the Digimon walk.  (At least my son will get some exercise in his right arm.)  My daughter is a bit too old to get toys, so she settled for a Playstation racing game that she could play with her brother.  Quite diplomatic of her, I think.  We then proceeded to drive around looking at things, and then eating at The Olive Garden.  My daughter thought it was very ritzy.  "I feel special here, Mom!" she said.   I did not realize I had sheltered my children so much!  After thinking about it a while, it did dawn on me that we had not gone to any type of restaurant that was totally sit down and order style.  There has been Ponderosa, but that is a buffet style.  There is Ryans, but that too is buffet style.  Country Buffet ... well, you get the general idea ... any type of dinning out either has involved a McMeal of some type or a trough-style buffet.  Sigh.  My poor kids did not have a clue that napkins could be MADE OUT OF CLOTH!!!  My daughter had to ask "what is this?" referring to the cloth napkin wrapped around her silverware.  My son unwrapped his silverware and practically yells at the top of his lungs, "Cripes, they messed up and gave me two forks!!!"  I have failed miserably as a mother.

Today they went back to school, and both of them came home with massive headaches.  Two weeks off from school is a bad thing.  My daughter said her eyes ached.  "My retinas are detaching or something" she whined.  I have her laying down now with a cold wash rag on her eyes.  My son claims "wearing my glasses today made my head hurt!"  I told him that it was because he didn't wear his glasses the two weeks he was off for Christmas break!  He's in a Lazyboy cuddled up in his blanket after taking some aspirin.  Sigh.  Real life is hard on a kid!

January 10, 2001 - On the way into work yesterday, I got to see the sunrise and it made me cry.  True, looking directly into the sun will cause your eyes to water profusely, but I mean 'cry' as in 'full of amazement at the beauty of it' cry.  It was a huge ball of florescent orange peeking over the trees with one wide orange ray shooting straight up into the sky.   All the frost on all the trees toward the horizon was illuminated with the color, and it was such a majestic sight.  It lasted only minutes, of course, but what minutes those were.  I was practically paralyzed by that view.  Sigh.  The statement "the best things in life are free" is true.   (Well, not if you haven't eaten in a week and you are broke, of course, or if your tooth impaled itself on a popcorn kernel and you don't have dental insurance ... )  Well, maybe there are some really wonderful things that DO cost money, but the little freebies make life worth living.

That new Fox show starts tonight and the only way I'd watch "Temptation Island" is if they did it right - you know, take a group of PMS'ing women from Jenny Craig or Weight Watchers to the fudge shops on Mackinaw!  Now that I'd watch!  There are some situations in life that T.V. just can't or shouldn't try to capture.  We are a nation of perverted peeping Toms.  There is a time and place for all things, even peeping, and that should be done in the privacy of someone else's backyard in the middle of the night, not on national T.V. 

January 12, 2001 - It is Friday.  Friday was made for several reasons - to pave the way for a chain of restaurants based on the fact people are thanking the powers above that it is indeed Friday, but also as subject for several rock bands to sing about.  It was also meant to get me away from work.  I still work from home, but I'm not there, and if I'm on the computer working, people cannot call me to work.  A wonderful Catch 22 of sorts.  This was a very long week with undertones of slight emotions.  All corporations are rather unstable right now, including mine, so every Friday can be "whacking" day as of late.  Scaling back - reducing work force - you know all the standard phrases.  The weekend gets you geared up to deal with it all over again.   Actually, as of late, the emotion part of it is far removed and barely a problem for me.  Apparently therapy worked concerning my mental attachment to work!   Whatever will be will be as Doris used to sing.  We were all looking for jobs when we found the one we are at now, right?  Fridays,  nonetheless,  are still something to thank God about.

Today on the way to work I passed a half-semi going north as I was going south, and it made me laugh out loud.  The driver gave me an odd look for laughing.  The front view of the truck reminded me of dairy products, for some reason, and I am thinking that the grill made me think of cheese.  Then when I saw the writing on the side, I knew I was right about the dairy truck part.  The letters were big and done up in black and white "cow print" and the name of the business was "The Udder Guys."  Too funny.  I have never seen that before!   Almost as good as the moving company called "Three Men and A Truck."   It tickled me to no end. 

The milk truck reminded me of my youth, back before I started school.  We bought our milk from the local dairy and it was delivered by the milkman several times a week.  Our milkman was named Mr. Jones.  He would bring our milk all the way up the quarter mile driveway to the door.  Mr. Jones was an older man, and very kind.  He would chit chat with my Mom every time he came by.   He would also give me old egg cartons.  I had the whole basement done up in an egg carton castle utopia.  It was pretty cool.  Once I remember he even let me ride with him to the end of the driveway in that gigantic truck, sitting on a milk crate next to him!  (For a four year old, that quarter mile drive down in an 'official milk truck' with an 'official milkman' and the walk back to the house was a true adventure!!)     You know, we wouldn't let our kids do that today, even if we had a milkman!!  Would you let your child ride to the end of the driveway with the UPS man?   Not these days!!!   If I remember right, we stopped buying our milk from the dairy and went to the store bought version due to pricing issues.   

I got gas this morning and caught myself sniffing the fumes with pleasure!  (Don't get smart!  It was at a gas station!)  I remember back during the leaded fuel days, the smell of gas was a good smell.    I also remember when the country went with unleaded, that the "smell" was just not the same, so I stopped my pleasure sniffing.   (Apparently the batch I was pumping this morning was just a premo batch!)  It dawned on me as I was inhaling and enjoying the smell of this batch of gas that I used to sniff a lot of gas fumes in my teens when mowing or whatever, which probably explains a lot about my mental state through the years.  Sniffing liquid lead ... it explains a lot.

You know,  I was also thinking in bed the other night about "memories" we have from our past.  What is the earliest age you can remember back to?  I do believe one of the earliest memories I have was when Kennedy was shot and how people reacted.  I also remember my sister having a spaz fit when the Beatles performed on Ed Sullivan.  She buried her head in a pillow and screamed.  I can remember riding my tricycle in the house, around and around the hallway leading out of the kitchen, banking a hard turn to the left through the hallway to the living room and back to the kitchen.  I would ride around in circles for hours!   I also remember having several slight fender benders with the door casings, which eventually brought an end to my tricycle days in the house.  We always rented when I lived with my parents, so it was not acceptable to go smashing into things my Dad would have to replace when we moved.  Then there was the time I was playing in the rain outside with my boots on one summer day, and no doubt was in some fictional "Sandy as Gidget goes to Rome" adventure in my head when I got my rubber boot stuck in a mud puddle.  Actually, not a mud puddle - more of a deadly child sucking sink hole.   I fought with the boot which of course only wedged me in deeper and deeper.   Here is was raining cats and dogs by then, and I was hopelessly stuck in that mud hole and I would wave like a crazed lunatic to my Mom when she would 'check on me' through the kitchen window.  She was on the phone with my Aunt Jean at the time, and she would just wave back to me and go on talking and walking around.  She no doubt had faith in me, that I was smart enough to NOT end up getting sucked into the mud hole from hell while I was playing in the rain.  Boy, was she wrong!!  It took several window checks before she realized I was in dire need of assistance, and she hung up and came and saved me and my boot.  These memories were all before I started kindergarten.

I can also remember getting a new pair of saddle shoes just for school and Sunday School.  I took those new pair of shoes out for a walk down the quarter mile drive way after church one Sunday instead of taking them off and putting on my play shoes.  Seeing what I thought was a rain puddle gleaming in the road ahead of me,  I proceeded to jump with child like abandon into said rain puddle.  It was not a rain puddle.  It was a big old blotch of liquid tar!  (Must have been summer time for the tar not to have set up, I would think!)  Sigh.  I didn't get stuck, but I was an inch taller from the tar stuck to the bottom of my shoes and all the pebbles that got embedded into the tar as I walked back up the driveway.  My Mom was very upset.  She cried as she attempted to scrape the tar off my shoes with a butter knife and my Dad gave me the "you think we are made of money or somthin' that you can just ruin a new pair of shoes like money just grows on trees" speech.  Sigh.  

I also remember the time that our power was going to get turned off by the electric company because my parents did not (could not?) pay the bill.   Back in 'the old days' they came to the house and announced this intention in person.  A nice young man came to the door, saying what he would have to do if Mom didn't pay.  (Now mind you, during the first five years or so of my life, my Mom was full fledged overdrive into her menopause cycle.  This was all attempted without drugs on her part to ease the craziness of it all,  if they even existed back then.   You didn't spill milk around my Mom, for she would fall into a heap on the floor, crying.  It was pretty scary in my house for a long time.)   Now here was this nice young man just doing his job, being very polite as I remember.  I was hiding behind my Mom's skirt as she began to scream at this man.  His poor face dropped to the steps as she screeched "oh, I can write you a check, but it will bounce higher than a rubber ball,  it will ... " That's really all I remember about the actual twenty minutes she was screaming and reaming this poor guy a new hole, although I do believe I wondered why Mom was holding out on rubber balls, since I would enjoy playing with one.  She did give the man a check eventually and we kept our power on, but CRIPES!  It has suddenly dawned on me there might be reasons we block out memories from our youth after all ... 

January 13, 2001 - I watched "Terms of Endearment" tonight, and couldn't stop crying.  It dawned on me, as I was sobbing for nothing after the movie was over, that I have not allowed myself any "real" emotional outbursts lately.  I have not allowed my thoughts to delve into emotional highs or lows.  I have been at a fairly even keel (for me.)  The outburst of tears (which I didn't attempt to stop) came as a shock to me and my poor eye balls.  They are now swollen and extremely red.  Nobody looks good after a hard cry.  There is no way a female nor male can look calm, cool and collected after a severe bought of sobbing.  You usually end up looking like you are having an allergic reaction to anything and everything all at once, plus you get that W.C. Fields nose look going.   It isn't pretty.   Unidentifiable fluids start coming out all every hole in your head at a high rate of speed and you are forced to stop them with your shirt before you can get to the Kleenex box.   I believe it is good that we have crying binges.  We all should from time to time.   Due to the intensity of the emotional release, I think it has to be good for you, as well as the mainstay for the tissue industry.  Since it took so long for me to recover from this fit of tears over a movie I've seen six times already, I think I shall have to try to allow myself a bit more emotion from time to time from now on.    Don't want to be caught off guard by an old episode of Lassie and collapse from a nervous breakdown.

January 17, 2001 - I was figuring up my bank statement the other night when my son came up and stared for a while with a look of awe on his face before he said, "Man, how can you type in the numbers so fast?  How do you know which numbers you are hitting?"  "I just know, I guess ..." I said.  It did make me think, though, of all the things we take for granted that we have learned.  Now it's stored up in a cell or two in our brains, and we just "do it" without even thinking.  If you think about it sometime, you can be using the calculator at the at the same time you make a phone call.   The number pad on the the calculator is opposite of the phone pad, but do you have trouble dialing or calculating?  (Sure, maybe after a sleepless night or a hard night-o-drinking, perhaps!)  We do so many things without thinking about it.   You have thousand and thousand of song lyrics stored in your head somewhere.   You couldn't just spew them out, but if you hear the song again, they flow out like water.  You can drive home in a semi-coma and make it home alive most nights after work due to the memories and sub-conscience acts behind the scenes in your brain.  We take our brain and it's power for granted I do believe.  I am amazed at myself sometimes when I do "the right thing" or make a proper choice.  I am amazed, but in reality my brain probably did all the pro/con calculations on it's own, and handed my frontal lobe a slip of paper saying, "don't run with those scissors!   Poor Choice!  POOR CHOICE!!"  I would take a few moments today, if I were you, (maybe on the toilet or just somewhere quiet) and thank your brain for all it does.  Take your brain out for a treat and go to the library and check out a book.   Ponder something it enjoys pondering.  Let your brain know how cool you think it is.  Then say a bit of a prayer to the higher power of your choice to thank that higher power for your brain, and in the future, when you come across someone who has problems processing all the things your brain takes for granted, why don't you just lend a hand (or cell?)

Since I am in a reflective mood from all my brain thanking, I will list some of the things that I realized I take for granted on an every day basis:

January 22, 2001 - -  Since I am in such a panicked tizzy, I will calm myself down by taking a few minutes type about my adventures today at the dentist.   I bit the assistants finger for one.  The poor woman!  Sigh.  Ever since that stupid root canal several years ago, I cannot stay calm in the dentist chair.   After all my advances in conquering "spaz" fits over the years, this remains my one major problem (besides the compulsive eating disorder and my addiction to nicotine and my tendency to be bipolar, but I digress ... )   I have a wonderful dentist and the whole crew there are angels.  I know I am alright when I'm in the chair ... why can't I convince my MIND that I'm ok?  Geez.  I will not try to hide this 'fear' from anyone.  As a matter of fact I will tell anyone who will tolerate me acting the whole scenario out.  I believe confessing to your fears is the first step toward  ... um ... not biting innocent bystanders and having novocaine induced spaz fits.

I think my former therapist is right about each individual cell in each individual muscle having it's own individual memory when it comes to experiences in your life.  Every cell in the general vicinity of my neck and mouth remembers "the root canal from hell."  Each cell in my mouth and neck decides that when the novocaine kicks in, that they must all start bitching and complaining to their neighbor cells about the sudden loss of feeling, the economy, and life in general -  hence causing a whole herd of cells to be in an uproar over nothing, really.  This imaginary 'fear message'  is then sent by nerve synapses express courier to the muscles in my face and throat, which get pissed off as well, and everything goes down hill from there.  My mouth wants to shut when it can't, and I have a sudden dire need to swallow  Sigh.  I am pretty sure that any major dental work in the future will require an elephant tranquilizer gun with high doses of Valium shot directly into my neck.  I will be blacklisted at all dentist offices across the greater tri-state area.  How does one stop this madness? 

January 29, 2001 -  It was an icy morning for driving in Michigan.  School was delayed two hours, and  I could see why as I slid/drove my son to Kids Klub at his school!  Yee Haw!  The side roads were a treat, for sure.  It was one of those mornings where you start slowing down for all corners before you leave your driveway.  After dropping my son at school and on my way to work via the back roads, I had to come to a complete stop for deer as they crossed the road.  The car had slid to face the swamp a bit when I came to the stop.  I watched the momma deer and young deer scamper across the road.  I was just thinking how wonderful it was that I was blessed to witness this "natural moment" in time as I turned my head toward the swamp and there out in the middle in plain sight of God and me and anyone driving around that corner were two deer "doing it."  (What would be the proper term here?   Two deer mating?  Two deer doing the nasty?  Two deer going at it like dogs?  Two deer making venison?)   I didn't stare and gawk but continued on my trek to work, however I did note that they must have been pretty well almost done, or at least he was, because the deer on top (and assuming it was a he) was just sort of hanging there looking content.  All in all, it made my day.  At work in the afternoon, though, Jean topped it by telling her story of taking her children to the zoo last summer, and the huge sea turtles they keep there were "doing it" right there out front in their cage.  Apparently the male was moaning to beat the band.   I didn't know turtles moaned!  Pretty cool.  Now here are all these parents sort of giggling and trying to keep a straight face when all the little kids are either crying because the one turtle is hurting the other or asking "Mommy, what are they doing?  MOMMY!"  Jean said all the parents put up a united front and explained that the turtles were wrestling and hurried the kids on to the next exhibit.   You know those commercials they have out lately that have some hot young guy saying "Parents, if you don't tell your daughter about sex, I will ..."  Heck, they could have saved those actors salaries and substituted wild life for free!  The wrestling ruse only works for so long.  Smile

My daughter was very full of the need to talk tonight.  She talked all through dinner - as she chewed, as she swallowed, and as she drank.  She talked all through washing dishes - she would come out and go on and on about something between each piece of dishware.  She talked as we worked on her homework.  It was only after she was a half hour into explaining every tiny minute detail of her Zelda video game that I cried, "STOP!"  (My son was covering his ears by now and was curled into a fetal position on a chair saying over and over again "make her shut up ... make her shut up!)  I tried to explain to her that since I did not play Zelda I did not need to hear every little detail, but rather the over all Reader's Digest version of the game would be fine.  I made an example by telling her about the first hour at work for this morning.  (I left out the deer story!)  I told her in excruciating detail every little thing I do and think in the first hour I am at work, making sure I went off on tangents to explain about every possible software package I might have even considered ever using and the difference between an AS400 as opposed to, let's say, a Hewlett Packard server.  I went on and on and on until I almost fell out of my chair from lack of oxygen to my brain.    After the spots cleared from my eyes and I was able to focus again, she said, "OK, I get your point" but she was near tears.  "Did you want to hear about all of that?" I asked her.  "Well, no, not all of it" she said and sniffed a tear.  "I love to hear about your day, honey" I explained "and I love the details about school and your friends, because I have met your friends and I went to school where you go to school.  But when it comes to Zelda, let's say, you can just give me the over all gist of it, ok?  I don't play Zelda, and I don't think I will be on a game show anytime soon where the winning question will involve me needing to know about Zelda in detail.  Does that makes sense?  I don't want you to think I hate to listen to you, but after several hours of it, love - well, the Zelda thing was just too much!"  We sort of laughed together and she seemed to understand and was ok with my explanation for in no time at all she proceeded to launch into a half hour overview of gym class today, as my son fashioned a noose out of the tie from his house coat and I slipped into a coma. 

February 5, 2001 - The weekend was exciting.  I felt bad on Saturday morning, but did manage to get my son's hairs cut and eat breakfast at a local restaurant.  On the way home I knew I was coming down with something for sure.  Saturday afternoon was spent in bed and having bouts of fever.  I got up and soaked in the bathtub more than once to ease the pain in my joints.  Whenever I feel bad and achy like that, soaking in a boiling hot bath tub makes me feel comforted.  So does hot tea.  On Saturday I was thinking that it was the flu because of that "achy all over" feeling.   My cousin David had to rub in the fact I did not have a flu shot.  (Once you past the age of 40, it is required you say "I told you so" at least once a year.)  Sunday I was able to get a load or two done of laundry before feeling like a truck had run me over.  I knew last night it wasn't just the flu when I woke up with a fever and hardly able to walk to the bathroom.  It felt like strep throat to me by then.  Strep throat and I do not get along, and never have.  I know when it is hitting me and I don't like it.  I used to get a bout of it every year as a teen and up until my thirties, actually.  One year when I was in high school, I had strep throat when my family was moving.  I was so sick with it that they just moved me and the couch all in one fell swoop.  I rode to our new house in the back of a pickup on a couch in the middle of summer.  No such luck today.  I just went to the doctor in a car and the doctor said "you have strep throat."  I told her I thought so, but wanted to be sure and get medicine before it had me delirious.  "I knew it wasn't the flu" I told her.  "Oh, your are much too sick for it to be the flu" she told me.  (There, take that, Dave!  Smile)  I barely had the strength to wait for the pharmacy to fill my script.  I felt terrible.  I can only hope that dying doesn't come anywhere close to how I feel when I get strep.   Sigh.  I came home, took a pill, and let my boss know I was dying before I passed out in bed.   When I woke up tonight, my daughter said, "Mom, you don't look so horrible as you did!"  Considering my lips are cracked from fever and peeling and my hair is sticking straight up, I took that as a wonderful compliment.

My Mom's real Mom died from strep throat.   That was back in 1928.  My Mom was six years old when her Mom died.  My Grandmother was 26 years old.  She had three little kids when she passed away.   Obviously she was very ill with strep throat which led to other complications.   No antibiotics either for her.  We are truly blessed in our age and time to have things like antibiotics, insurance, and indoor plumbing.  

February 10, 2001 -  Ah, the weekend.  Thank goodness.  My daughter went to an all night birthday party last night.  My son had a friend over for a while today to play.  I got some cleaning done and am baking a hot fudge cake as we type.   Today was very relaxing.  I took out all of my old Magic Eye 3-D books and sat for an hour looking at the hidden pictures.  I am still astounded how crisp and clear those pictures are once your eyes adapt to seeing them.  Too cool.  I believe I've fully recovered from my brush with strep except for the occasional random act of snot. 

I cleaned out my son's bookshelf in the living room and came across the book "Tikki Tikki Tembo" which a hoot to read.   I love that book.  I will read it to him tonight.  I know I used to amaze my oldest son when he was a child with it as well as my daughter.  I can't remember ever dazzling my youngest with it yet.  It is fun to see how fast you can say the first son's name from the book,  which is "Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo" without spitting on everything in a four foot radius.   I was looking for the book called "Follow Me" about a bunch of lost fowl because that book, too, is fun to read but I am just as happy with "Tikki Tikki Tembo."

My son and I made out our Valentine cards last night.  I do not know why I like Valentine's Day so much, but I do.  Maybe it's all the cool colors of reds this time of year?  The chocolate?  Who knows.   I just think it's fun to pass out Valentine's like we did in school.  Have you seen that new commercial for Visa Check Cards?  I have been singing the song "Love Is In The Air" all day, and I'm pretty sure it's from that commercial.   The multiplying rabbits was a very funny idea.  Do you ever kick yourself when you see something  incredibly cool, and say to yourself, "Damn, I wish I had come up with that!!"

My son is sitting in the Lazy Boy chair, making it flop rapidly as he cheers the Battle Bots on T.V.  Must be something genetic in males that they get so excited over seeing machinery demolish more machinery.  

My Mom would have been 79 years old today.   I still have bad dreams about her being mean/cruel in a crazy way, but they don't haunt me the next day like they were there for a while.  I know when I was so sick on Monday, I wanted to tell her I was sick in the worst way.  Telling your "mommy" you hurt all over sometimes makes you feel better.  I was overcome with that feeling in the car after the doctor visit.  Sigh.  Happy Birthday, Mom.

February 16, 2001 -   My son was singing that ditty from the Taco Bell commercial where the men are eating as they whomp their elbows on the table to the beat of   "We Will Rock You."  I made my daughter and son sit down and listen as I played Queen's version of "We Will Rock You."  They liked it a lot.   My daughter, who is heavy into music of the orchestrated kind was thrilled when I played a few other of Queen's songs.  "They rock, don't they - in a symphonic sort of way ..."  I asked.  My son has requested the Queen C.D. several times since.  My daughter has started to take one of my C.D.s up to her room a night to listen to.  "You have good music!"  she said the other morning.   "I know I do" I replied,  but was thinking she hasn't gotten to the Barry Manilow ones yet ... so we'll see what she says then.  (Ah, memories ... I was going to run away from home when I was 13 to see Barry Manilow in concert with my friend, Lisa, because my Mom and Dad wouldn't let me take a bus down to see Lisa legally.   Ah, those were the days!)

Tomorrow I get my first mammogram and am looking forward to it with much anticipation after all the recent jokes and pictures concerning mammograms.  As painful/uncomfortable as it might be, it is still good we have that technology.  (I am saying that now, so tomorrow when I come home and my boobs have been deflated and look like peach fruit roll-ups I will not have missed pointing out that important fact.)  Since my breasts are good sized to begin with, I have had them caught and smashed in things before, so that feeling will be nothing new.   The kids, when small, used my breasts as a hoist to pull themselves up to my shoulder when they wanted a hug.  My breasts also served as trampolines for the kids, as a portable T.V. tray, and a carrying case for all sorts of things.  Hopefully tomorrow will not be too traumatic for me. 

When you think about it at length, the human body is truly a wonder!  I've had three eight pound kids fall out of my uterus, hemorrhoids the size of New Jersey fall out of my ass, kidney stones the size of BB's fall out of my bladder, and when you factor in the normal snot, ear wax, tears, flaky dry skin, and blood to all of that - one can only surmise that the female human body is nothing short of a walking factory of gross byproducts.  Sigh.

February 17, 2001 -   It dawned on me today at work that I could sit at my desk and work non stop for three weeks before I got caught up.  Sigh.  This is good, in a way.  I won't get bored anytime soon.  Yet it leaves that pressure feeling around the edges if one lets it bother one's self.  Oh well.  If I don't do it, someone else will eventually.  So for tonight, I let it go ... if it loves me, I'll be back to work on Monday morning. 

My mammogram went fast and ok.  It didn't hurt and the squishing wasn't any worse than the "car door" incident of '86.  I think I have an advantage by having larger breasts because no doubt that spreads out the nerve endings more, so it wouldn't hurt as much for me.  The radiologist who was tossing around my boobs said that some people freak out and some people handle mammograms just fine.  She compared it to going to the dentist.   Some people freak out (hmmmm...like me!) and other people can recite the Constitution without novocaine and juggle, too, while having a root canal. 

February 18, 2001 -   It is six thirty in the morning, and I have been sitting here just getting my wits about me - rubbing the goop out of my eyes and stretching and trying to remember what day it really is.  I also have been staring at my one spider plant that is right here in the living room.  It's been hanging in the same spot since 1988 or so when my Mom gave it to me as a Mother's Day present.  It was my first spider plant.  That plant has pooped out many babies over the years, and I have given away tons of starts to spider plants.  It has dawned on me as I sit here that I have never changed the plant's soil nor repotted her, and I believe such a majestic matriarch deserves to have a re-rooting and new dirt.  So do her offspring in the other room as well as the surviving plants that I received from my youngest child's birth.   Today, I am going to make a mess!  When it comes to plants, I am not known to be Ms. Green Thumb.  I can kill plants in short order.  I am especially hard on African Violets.  The only plants I can keep alive are those who don't need much attention such as philadendrums and spider plants.  When I was nine years old and had my tonsils out, I received a planter with a philodendron in it from the church.  The planter was of a southern style women in lime green lacy hoop dress and the dress part was the planter (so to visualize, she had a four foot growth coming out of her butt.)  As I grew up, it kept growing and growing.  By the time I was a senior in high school it was wrapped around the roof of my room several times and it still protruded proudly out of the no longer lime green but more of a pasty off-green hoop skirt of the southern lady with now broken nose and fingers.  I have received plants over the years from loved ones and friends for the birth of my kids or holidays and the like.   If they were not a near relative of a philodendron, spider plant, or plastic they only had a short life span in my hands.  I do, however, still have two plants from 1993 when my youngest was born.  How they have lived is a mystery.  Well, maybe not so much a mystery as accidental chance.  They sit out on the breakfront in my laundry room with two of the offspring from my first spider plant.  They have both been knocked over more times than I can count by cats.  I find them periodically strewn about the laundry room floor clinging to life by a clump of soil, their leaves chewed and rearranged by the felines who found it necessary to make the plants walk the plank.  The plant is then reloaded into it's original pot, now missing some soil and leaves, and placed back up on the breakfront.  These hardy plants have survived for eight years like this.  I will repot them today, too.  They are veterans of war in a way, and deserve it as much as the root bound spider plant that hangs in my living room.   

My son was invited to a birthday party yesterday.  He wanted to go, but it was at a skating rink and he doesn't skate.   I told him he didn't have to go, but he said there would be another friend there that didn't skate, so he wanted to go anyway and they would play Legos while the other kids skated.  Last time he went to a skating party, his sister stayed with him and helped him out.  I don't skate, and it had never occurred to me over the years to take the kids.  (I am a bad Mom when it comes to skating training.)  My son went to the party.  I helped him lace his skates and I left him as he was playing scoot-crab in the little rink, making the other kids laugh as they joined him scooting around on their butts like crabs.  A half hour later, the phone call came.  He wanted to come home.  He was curled up on the bench away from everyone when I got there.  You could tell he was sadder than sad - bluer than blue.  (Hey, wasn't that a song?)  He left the rink with his head practically sucked into his coat.   I tried to get him to talk.  "I can't skate" was all he said on the way home.  Apparently his friend that told him he couldn't skate could in fact skate pretty well.   So there was my son, all alone and not skating.  He also whomped his head by falling down as he was inching around the little rink.  That was when he decided to throw in the towel and curl up into a fetal position on the bench.   Later last night, he announced to me that even though he was a lousy skater, it was my fault.  I agreed that I didn't ever take him skating, but he couldn't blame the whole thing on me.  There were "helpers' at the party that he could have asked for help.  "I didn't get cake, you know" he lamented, almost in tears.   It was then it dawned on me he didn't feel good in general.  He has had a virus and coughing and the like, and I could see the 'sick' in his eyes.  I hugged him and said "You know, sometimes, honey - we fall down and bonk our heads.  Not much we can do about that except get up and try again ..."  "... and take Tylenol" he chimed in.  "Yes, and take Tylenol" I laughed.

It's a sad day when a parent realizes that they cannot fix all things for their child.  The parent laments this more than the child I do believe.  If you remember back to your childhood, there were some things in life that went wrong that you didn't want your parents fixing, even if they could.   The growing up process involves many things that a parent cannot prevent, although we'd gladly do it if we could.  A child is going to bonk their head, get their ego bruised, and not be the best at everything they try.  All you can do is stand down and watch it happen.  Every time you see your child going through a new lesson in life, you feel as if you are being kicked in the uterus.  We want to 'take the bullet' for our kids if we could all the time ... but we can't.  Huge Sigh.  This doesn't stop when they are five or ten or eighteen, now does it?   Were we not all told by our parents "... you just wait until you have kids ..." as if it were a curse upon us?  I think now that it was more of a warning, not a curse.  One more way that our parents were trying to take the sting out of another inevitable boo-boo we would eventually receive. 

After reading the front page in the paper yesterday, where Bush is quoted as saying that the strike against Baghdad on Friday was "a routine strike" I have finally put it together why our mailboxes get smashed out in the country like they do - simply routine strikes.  Got to keep those mailboxes in their place!  It's all too clear to me now.

February 22, 2001- I repotted my plants on Sunday, and now have four more pots of spider plants.  My poor plants were so root bound that there was no dirt in with the roots,   so the only thing keeping my plants alive must have been the sheer will to grow opposable thumbs so they could choke me to death.  I had two - twenty pounds bags of potting soil, and I ended up using them both.  Those poor things.  Each plant's roots were just packed into the pot and when I pulled them out of their pots, the only things that were "loose' were the small rocks in the bottom to help with drainage.   I had to literally hack the roots with scissors to separate the individual plants.   I ended up with a full grocery bag of excess roots.  Sigh.  What kind of woman am I? ... My children had no idea what a salad fork was and my plants had no idea what soil was!  I need two weeks of Martha Stewart's Boot Camp in a dire way. 

I went to an Automotive Users group meeting for the software we use.  It was in Detroit on Tuesday.  After driving for two hours I was ready to use the bathroom when I got to the building.  I ran into the building and flew to the nearest universal symbol indicating "potty" but the door was protected by a punch keypad style lock.  I pondered this high security device in crossed legged desperation for a bit.  Then it dawned on me that three numbers on the key pad were nearly worn off.  My bladder was thrilled at this discovery, and urged me to press those three numbers.  Ta-Dah!  It worked.  I peed.  I am hoping for the sake of that company that the people they are trying to keep out of the bathrooms are extremely stupid or have very good bladder control where they wouldn't be staring at the security keypad in a sheer attempt to just "will it open" with their minds long enough to notice the worn off numbers.

February 27, 2001 - Tomorrow I get to go back to work!  Woo Hoo.  My son has been home sick with fever in excess of 100 for two days.  The doctor said today it's just viral, and will not treat him with any antibiotics.  Sigh.  When he was sick and coughing back when I had strep throat they said the same thing.  This is one long drawn out virus.  I am ready to take him to my doctor.  He has not been so overdosed with antibiotics in his lifetime that he would become immune to their effects with a dose of them now!  Sigh.  But what does a Mom know?  He will stay home again tomorrow with his father, unless his fever breaks.  You know your kid is sick when they willingly take naps.  He did both Monday and today.  "Mom, ready for a nap?" he said as he crawled into my bed.  Now that is SICK!  I watched him sleep.  I will miss him when he's grown up and off and not needing me anymore.  He is such an angel when he's sick and sleeping.  Such a small freckled face.  I stared at him for an hour trying to suck up the memory of how he looks now.   I did this with the other two as well when they were little and sick, trying to take a mental picture of them.   

My daughter has a cold as well.  Her ears and throat hurt, and she is snotting all over the place.  At least she uses a hanky, where as my son just projects goo all over when he's this sick.  I had her soak in a hot tub tonight with bubble bath stuff.  She said she fell asleep twice, so she got out and went to bed.  I told her a hot bath always makes me feel better when I'm not feeling well - at least I got that right!   She is still full of life even when full of snot, that's for sure.  She is into teen overdrive.  Sigh.   Were we all like this?  I don't think so, at least not at home.  My sister mentioned something the other night that is very true ... most of us grew up with parents that wouldn't discuss sex or life in general.  The generations were very clearly separated by mind set between us and our parents.  Not only by thought process but by our music and clothes and everything.  Our parent's parents forced set patterns of thought down our parents throats as it were.  They rarely if ever explored other options concerning religion or race or independent mental concepts in general.  We on the other hand are (mostly) more open minded when it comes to life.   We tend to be more open with our kids and share more.  Maybe that is why my daughter feels so compelled to share her day with me.  So I'll quit complaining now and count my blessings as I hose the house down with Lysol. 

February 28, 2001 - My son is on the couch contorting into odd configurations and screaming "I'm burning up!   I'm burning up!"  It's not because he has a fever (even though he does) - it's because I put Vicks VapoRub on his chest.  "That stuff is eeeevvviiiiilllllll..." he says.  He is no better than yesterday.  He's still running a fever and coughing.  He still has a headache and barely an appetite.   Sigh.  My daughter is hacking and coughing more today as well and feeling ill all over in general.  She still went to school today, and plans on it tomorrow.   Such a trooper.  She used up my supply of Kleenex so now we are now into using spare pillow cases as snot preventative.  My niece Tori is sick too, puking and hacking and coughing.  Sigh.  'Tis the season.  My friend Diane was/is sick with an all night coughing and general all over illness that has lasted for weeks.  I guess this crap is going around but it could have just bypassed this general geographic area all together if it would have asked my opinion in the first place.  My daughter is next in line for a VapoRub down and she's cowering in the corner as I type.  I love that stuff!  I don't know why they fuss so much about it!  I made both kids soak in a nice hot bath with that Johnson's Bedtime Bath - the lavender and chamomile stuff.  At least the house smells nice and lavendery now with just a hint of eucalyptus and camphor. 

I got my "med-o-gram" in the mail about my "mamm-o-gram" the other day and it "says-I-am" normal.  I have normal breasts (and all this time I thought they were so special.  Smile.)     At least that is out of the way and I count myself as fortunate. 

It is time for me to go medicate the masses and send them off to bed in a vain attempt to help them get better.  At this point I feel it's a losing battle.  (How in the world did the Walton's ever do it?)  I will also hose down the things they have touched today with mixtures of Pine Sol and boiling oil and burn their used hankies.

(Author's note:  Spell check wanted me to change "Walton's" to "Walloon's."  Hahahaha.  Too cute!)

March 4, 2001 - The attempt to cure all by hosing everything down with Lysol was unsuccessful, although my son did wake up Friday morning without a fever for the first time in five days, so that was good.  Apparently the fever had broken and all of the nomadic cooties infesting his body migrated to and settled in his nose/head.  I took him into the doctor anyway Friday morning to make sure it had not gone to bronchitis or some other evil thing.  He left the doctor's office with a sticker of a duck and a free sample of Flonase nose spray and a hanky full of goo.  My daughter is in the same boat still - all snotted up and no place to blow.  It seems the fever/flu symptoms only effect the younger ones and us older ones just get an immediate head cold.   I went to bed with the feeling I was next on the snot hit parade and indeed, I woke up this morning all clogged up and head-heavy.  I, of course, blame it all on the makers of Lysol.  Makes me feel better at least. 

I attempted to get most of my son's homework done with him over the weekend.  He was not in any mood to tolerate work sheets nor reading.  I forced him to some of it.  "I gots too much snot in my head!   I can't see the words!" was his explanation.  We took turn reading every other page.  While one person was reading, the other was honking like a goose in heat as we blew our noses. 

Saturday morning was the mass visit to the veterinarians for the dogs.  That was a hoot and a half.  Frank walked in and walked right onto the scale and they got his weight, then he proceeded to poop all over then pee.  We made a grand entrance.  The vet talked to me about aging pets, since Frank is "aging" at warp speed.  The doctor sutured off "little brother" (Frank's odd growth on his stomach) to see if he could get it to die and fall off by cutting off it's blood supply.  He didn't want to do actual surgery since Frank is old and the pulse in "little brother" was quite strong.  It immediately turned purple.  Ick.  The kids were thoroughly grossed out.   This morning there was some bleeding, and it looked as if the sutures might not hold.  He is wearing old T-shirts to keep "it" up and off the ground.   I washed Frank up and changed his shirt.  Poor old dude.   He also got some eye medicine for his eye infection.  Just last week he got "lost" outside when he went out to potty and ended up barking into the dryer vent.  As sad as it was, it made me laugh as I tried to lead him back to the door.  He smelled good - just like Downy.  I hope the eye medicine helps him.  Why do we get so emotionally attached to our pets?  They love us unconditionally.  They are always happy to see us.  I personally would not live without a pet in the house.   There are some nights I cannot sleep until I call a cat up to pet.  It is relaxing to have pets.  I have always wondered how much we are their "pets" as we think they are ours?  

March 6, 2001 - We had a winter blast yesterday/last night.  Lake effect snow and lots of blowing.   I knew the weekend of sun was too good to be true.  Always sunniest before the storm.  It was so "spring" like on Saturday that I got a winter's worth of frozen dog poop cleaned up in the yard.  (I live life on the edge, don't I?)  I wish there was some practical use for dog crap - I'd be rich.

Ah, a two hour delay for school.  My daughter is thrilled.  She has told anyone who will listen at home and at school that her "skull" hurts.  I try to tell her it's the pressure from her sinus cavity.  "I hate snot!" she said.  I just sent her in for a nice hot shower to loosen the monster within her head.  My son seems to be feeling much better although he too has the snot thing going on.  He announced last night that the nose spray the doctor has him on smells like "frog" and I am not sure how he came up with that.  Hahaha.  Frog?  I guess only a little boy would know that.

Another school shooting.  Sigh.   Where did we go wrong as a society that we've taught our children that taking another human life is even an option?  (Not only children, but people in general!)   I do believe that's the greatest gift of all - being alive, and it's never an option to remove that gift.  Maybe we've just slipped back down the evolutionary ladder when it come to how we view human life.  Very sad. 

March 8, 2001 - The kids and I looked up astronomy facts tonight.  The moon is very bright tonight and they both had questions about the moon and the sky and space in general.  One question led to another so I had to get out a book on the subject to aid me in fielding the questions before I started making up names for things.  (Ok, now that is the SnotHead Nebula and that star is called 'Lou Bega' ....)  My son was shocked that they had these types of facts in books.  Hahaha.  

My daughter had a "skull" ache again, plus her eyes hurt.  I knew just what to do thanks to my cousin, Dr. Dave.  I made her sprawl out in the lazy boy and put a hot pack on her sinus area over her eyes.  After it cooled down, I did it one more time.  "Wow!  My eyes don't hurt!" she proclaimed after the second time around.  "That's 'cause Mom burned yer eyes out" her brother laughed.  I have very dry skin so I decided to boil some water on the stove tonight instead of firing up the humidifier.  My daughter said "my choir teacher said to breathe in steam and I'd be all fixed up."  DUH!  Now why didn't I think of that?  I got her all set up with a personal head sauna device.  (Ok, so it was just a bowl of steaming water and a towel over her head.)    My son was convinced I was going for the whole face this time, not just the eyes.  After the sauna was over she blew her nose for approximately 1/2 hour non stop.  I do believe we made some progress.  No wonder her skull hurt!  She had a small third world country up there in snot alone!

I am working on a project at work that is driving me crazy.  All my brain cells go on strike by 4:30 from thinking too hard.  I am SO CLOSE to figuring it out but I CAN'T and it's driving me crazy.  Sigh.  I know a year from now I'll look back on it all and laugh, flip my hair back and say "oh, that little thing?" but right now I see no humor in it whatsoever.  Another big sigh.  Work lately has felt like a giant Rubik's Cube and I'm color blind. 

March 12, 2001 - So much for Sandy's Medical Cave of Wonder.  My daughter came home from school on Friday burning up with fever.  Obviously the steaming just pissed off the germs inside her and they rebelled.  Sigh.  She spent the weekend puking and snotting and sleeping.  My son came home with an ear ache on Thursday night and was sick AGAIN with that on Friday morning.  It took him into the doctor AGAIN.  Guess what?  He was sick!  He needed medication!  Amazing!  They used to over medicate, now they are afraid to give out a prescription unless puss is oozing from some orifice, and then they must consider the color of the puss and speed of the ooze before they give out medicine.  There has to be a happy medium.  Everyone is feeling much better tonight, however.  Thank the Lord.

Just a warning - if you come to my house and have to look something up in the Encyclopedia volume containing the word you are in search of, there are certain rules.  If you use a volume to find out something interesting or for school related projects or just need it to boost a toddler's height at the dinner table, it is up to you to dust all the dirt off of that volume before returning it to it's numeric position on the official Encyclopedia Shelf.  Sorry, but those are the rules.  Those would not be the rules, however, if I was more prone to dusting.

I was plucking chin hairs.  I am very sick of chin hairs.  I curse my hairy heritage or level of testosterone in my body for giving me chin hairs.  I would gladly trade my chin hairs for Pamela Anderson's body.  I wonder if Pamela has chin hairs?  Most women have facial hair.  It is a fact of life that cannot be avoided unless you are rich and can afford de-hair-ing.  It is a fact of life that I am going to have hair in places I would just as soon NOT have hair, and I should just accept it and get over it and deal with.  But I am SICK of chin hairs.  They bug me.  They are real whiskers, so they are stiff and hard and they bug the living SHIT out of me. Tonight I was doing my nightly plucking and chanced upon what I thought was just a normal ingrown baby hair, but when I attempted a 'pluck' it literally exploded.  A two inch hair flew out of my chin.  It actually scared me.  It actually sprang out of it's facial prison at the speed of hair and I screamed!  Sigh.  I beg my children and close friends to "pluck" me in the nursing home when I am no longer able to do it myself.  One of my biggest fears is going down in a plane crash in the mountains and surviving but being without tweezers.  If I was there too long, someone might capture me thinking I was a sasquatch.

It has been very brown around here lately.  Most of the snow has melted except for the huge brown mounds that exists along the edges of the road and at the edge of parking lots, left from all the plowing this winter.  Those amuse me because they catch me off guard on a daily basis - I will see a brown mound out of the corner of my eye as I'm driving and think to myself, "Oh my, a poor dead deer!" but it turns out to be just dirty snow.  (As opposed to my thoughts all during the white winter, when I was passing a poor dead deer every day thinking "Oh my, a big pile of dirty snow!")  The mound of dirty snow directly across the street at work looks like a mastodon taking a nap.  The grass is brown, the trees are brown.  It is brown as far as the eye can see.  Perhaps by now you might have gotten the impression that it's very brown around where I live.  You are correct.  It has also been very windy as of late.  Michigan's version of the Chinook wind, I assume.  Brown and windy.  Windy and brown.  There is one thing, though that brightens the view and makes me laugh every time - have you noticed how every big field contains it's own personal blue plastic wading pool?  Seems the wind has taken those little blue wading pools from their winter storage areas and blown them into fields across the state.  You can be driving for miles thinking, "it sure is brown and icky" when suddenly, you pass a field and in the center of the field is a blue plastic wading pool.  It reminds me there is hope for summer.

March 21, 2001 -   I have just eaten enough stale green jelly beans to give Willy Wonka a sugar coma.   Ick.  The first ten or so went down pretty good, but now they are hitting bottom.  Belch.

I ran out of my Paxil prescription on Monday.  One doesn't normally attempt to go "cold turkey" when it comes to Paxil or any other medicine that deals with brain chemical production.  I did not notice my prescription date had come and gone at the time I called in for a refill.   I went to the pharmacy to pick up the prescription last night, but they didn't have it and proceeded to tell me a story of the expired prescription and calling the doctor but never hearing back from the doctor.  Sigh.  Nobody bothered to let me know.   What ever happened to courtesy calls?  It was too late to call the doctor, so I went one night without my Paxil.  No big deal. 

This morning, I called the doctor's office to clear up this problem.  The girl who took the call put me back to the nurses phone message area.  I never have EVER gotten any call backs or results from that avenue, so I went back to her.  "Really, all you have to do it mention my name, and Dr. K will just write out a prescription or call it in.  It's no big whoop!"  I tried to explain.  "You will have to come in," the nice lady said.   "Oh," I sighed, "I do?"  "Yes," the nice lady said.  "Then I need to make an appointment today."   "There are no appointments available today," the nice lady said.  "I need a drug that prevents my brain from converting oxygen and various other vital gases and bodily fluids into their raw elements that could result in a person going postal, and you have no appointments TODAY?" I said, my voice getting a bit pre-postal.  "Ummm, please hold," the nice lady said.  I listened to the 'Piña Colada' song.   The nice lady came back and said, "Ma'am, we can work you in at one this afternoon.  But it's a work in.  Work ins get seen if there is time."  "So, maybe by five p.m., then?  That will be fine, thank you!" I managed to say. 

So, I went to the doctor.  My blood pressure was textbook.  A first in over a year.  How my blood pressure was so calm, cool and collected, I do not know.  I was in no mood to be calm nor feel cool and collected for that matter.  A freak of nature, no doubt.  I made the nurse take it twice.  I didn't believe it the first time.  Of course, one of the reasons I did not feel calm, cool and collected was because of the doctor's office to begin with.  I told the nurse my story.  "Maybe you are the type who loves chaos and that's why your blood pressure is normal!" the nurse said.  When Dr. K came in the room, I said, "all I want is my spaz medicine!!"  "We faxed it in yesterday," she said, checking my file.  "If you did, it never got there, and no one told me that is was faxed ... " I whined in a pathetic voice.   I told her the story of trying to just get it phoned in.  Dr. K apologized and explained the problems her office had been having with new people and lack of nurses and mentioned that the visit was 'free' since there was all the confusion.  As she was walking out I mentioned a cyst on my head, or as my Mom used to call them, a 'wen,' and asked her if she could take that off when I came in for my annual poke 'n prod visit in May.   (I get those things a lot and when they get real big, they bother me to no end.  Dr. K can cut 'em, drain 'em, and stitch them up so you would never even know there was a lump on my head to begin with.)  "I can take it off now!" she announced.  Too cool, but then I wondered why I had to be a "work in" when she had time to hack off my head bumps and so much for a free visit.  I just had to laugh to myself.  We talked as she drained the cyst and as she pulled out the cyst sack.  It's all too cool.  I got blue stitches.  I left the doctor's in a happy mood and proceeded to the pharmacy to pick up my prescription. 

"We don't have a prescription for you," the nice pharmacist said.  "They faxed it to you yesterday!" I exclaimed.  "No, we never received it yesterday," the nice pharmacist said.   "Oh."  When I got back to work I called the doctor's office.  I explained that I was just there for a prescription and since they had faxed it (though no one let me know and I had to come in for a visit) could they just re-fax it so I could get it on my way home from work.  "No," the nice lady said.  "Why?   I was just there!!  Walk back and ask the doctor!  She will say "oh goodness - how silly" and tell you to fax it in again!!!" I practically screamed.  "Ummm, please hold," the nice lady said.  I listened to something by Air Supply while I waited.  "Ma'am ... " another lady came on and said, "we can't promise we'll fax it today since you were just in and your file is in the dictation pile and we would have to retrieve it."  "Oh,"   I said, "Just forget it.  I am bringing in my daughter tomorrow and I'll ask the doctor in person.  Screw it.  How postal can one person get in two days?" and I hung up.  Sigh again.   

If that wasn't enough Catch 22'ing for one person, work has been the same way.  I am having a terrible time with software that is faulty but the software vendor doesn't think it is.  Around and around I have gone.  I am trying to implement a new module of the software, and apparently only three other people in the whole world besides me are trying to make it work.  This particular module of the software was one of the 'key' selling points for us back in 1994 when we all went shopping for packaged software for our company.  The module never did work up until the most current version of our software.  Well, I say that loosely.  It works, but you have to sacrifice small animals to make it work.   Tomorrow morning I am going to document all the facts and program errors and challenge the software vendor to a site visit.  If they can make this particular module work with the software as it is - or "vanilla" as we say in the geek department, I will be happy to pay the bill.  If not, they fix it and they eat the cost.  There should be nothing as difficult as my last few weeks have been except, of course, for childbirth and passing kidney stones. 

Does anybody remember when Skylab fell back to Earth?  I do.  I wrote a poem about it way back when.  I found it a rather humorous and interesting subject then - this 'space garbage' idea.  Now we are anticipating MIRS re-entry this Friday.  And by gosh, Taco Bell is floating a "target" in the ocean for MIRS to aim at.  I find that too funny.   What a brilliant idea!  A five dollar plastic target that will get millions of dollars worth of advertising attention.  If it hits the target they are prepared to give each person in the United States a free taco.  That's a lot of meat.  We can only hope they are not getting it from Argentina or Britain or the local animal shelters.  Smile.

March 25, 2001 - It dawned on me Friday that I was waiting for MIR with anticipation only because I assumed it would hit something or do something spectacular on the way down.  It pains me to admit that I had "The Enquirer" mentality about the whole thing.   Things related to space travel excite me.  Falling 'stars' and atmospheric fireworks excite me.  The Aurora Borealis excites me.  The universe in general and all it's majesty excite me.  But after watching the MIR results on CNN on Friday morning, I felt very "empty" and disappointed, as I did after staying up and watching Geraldo unearth Al Capone's secret bunker or whatever that was and only finding a glass jar.  What was I expecting from MIR?  A sequel to Independence Day or something?  Sigh.  In reality I am thankful now that MIR didn't explode all over Japan or take out several fishing trollers.  But no doubt in the future in my sick pathetic human nature way, I will once again be anticipating some other potential pending global disaster that is over exposed by the media or helplessly mesmerized by "Real Cops - Real Bloody Video" and I'll be ashamed of myself the whole time I'm watching it.

I woke up at five a.m. and have been up ever since.  I've gotten three loads of laundry done plus the dishes and scooped the cat crap in the litter box.  Now it's nine a.m. and I have done all my 'fun' stuff for the day.  What am I supposed to do now??  I sat on the toilet long enough to leave a ring around my rear, reading 'Time' magazine.  A good article in it about Alzheimer's disease in it, as well as other good articles apparently - good enough to keep me reading and seal my butt to the toilet seat. 

March 26, 2001 - I would love a blue print or user's manual of the brain.  I crave to know how to set the dip switches on emotions, learning, understanding, and indifference - just the schematics of the brain in general.  Elders talk to youth and the youth don't listen.   The youth in turn become the elders talking to youth who don't listen.  I would love to skip that step, especially when it comes to my own kids.  When I was 18, I thought I had the world by the lower extremes.  At 18, I actually said to an older member of the softball team I was playing on at the time "I pretty much all I'll ever need to know right now about life!"  She just shook her head as she reached for a pop fly and said, "Girl, you don't know shit yet!"  It wasn't until I was in my early 30's that it dawned on me that life as I knew it was constantly changing and evolving.  I didn't "know it all."   I could never stop learning even if I lived to be a million years old.  My understanding of circumstances surrounding situations grows every day.  So when I talk to my own children or nieces or friends of my children, I would adore to give them my insight on things.  Help them 'skip the step' of various learning curves.  Save them the angst of trying to figure things out.   They listen to me try to explain things, I am sure.  Do they apply it?  No.  Did I apply the lessons hinted at by elders when I was young?  No.  Sigh.  What a crappy loop of life, isn't it?   Seems that we waste a lot of time grappling to get a hold of a fairly stable ledge within ourselves where we feel comfortable, when all along it would have been a lot nicer if we had just taken the elevator instead.

I mentioned to my youngest son that I wanted to be a waitress at Red Lobster.  I love seafood.  I love going to Red Lobster.   It's like a trip to Disney Land to me.  "They get to wear those cool fish shirts!" I told him.  "Mom, you can't be a waitress at Red Lobster!!" he laughed at me in a matter of fact way.  "Why?" I asked him.   "You are too fat to be a waitress," was his reply.  He didn't mean it in a cruel way at all.  He was just stating facts as they appeared in his little head.  Either he has never seen a larger waitress in his short life or his brain is so advanced he has noticed my girth vs. the distance between tables at Red Lobster.   

April 13, 2001 -My friend Diane mentioned I had not written in my diary in quite a while.  I think that is a good sign - Nothing to lament on "paper" as it were.  I will, however, jot a few things this morning.  Happy April.  Happy Friday the 13th!!  BOO! 

I woke up at 5:45 this morning, and decided to catch up on laundry and balance my checkbook.  I have been on vacation all week.   I put up my hummingbird feeder last weekend in hopes of luring some of the early arrivals.  I have not seen any yet.  It was so warm last weekend, I was inspired to do that for some odd reason.  If I remember correctly from my hummingbird studies, the males come back first searching for territory and nesting areas and after finding a spot that suits them away from all modern conveniences and with several cars in the front yard on blocks and sit and wait for the women to come and do all the work.   (Hahahaaaa.  Sorry.  Had to get a male bashing jibe in there.)     It has rained in abundance and the grass greened up nicely.  The daffodils are blooming.  The crocus are croaking.  The trees are budding.   It officially smells like worms and wet puppies so it must be spring.  I took several road trips around lower and mid Michigan.  Michigan is beautiful, especially in the first throws of spring.   I love the hills you come across on "blind" drives.  Mini-roller coasters!  Ah, the glaciers did such good work here.  And lakes ... CRIPES!!  Anywhere you turn here, there is a lake.   Pine, Maple, Morse, Gun, Long, Indian, Silver, Lincoln, Sunset .... I could go on.   And speaking of lakes ...

My daughter had to spend yesterday in a boater's safety class.  "Why do I need to know how to drive a boat, and safely at that?" she complained Wednesday night.   "Maybe in case you ever have to run from the law and the only thing available is a boat?"  I suggested.   "Plus, any where you turn in Michigan there is a lake and what if you are speeding along in your Volkswagen when you can drive, assuming of course you pass driver's training, and reach down to pick up a Starburst you dropped because, OF COURSE you wouldn't be drinking and driving due to your D.A.R.E. training, and when you look up there is this lake coming at you at warp speed!?  What will you do then?  You will remain calm as you plunge into the water due to your boater's safety training, that's what!!"  She rolled her eyes at me and stormed off in her teen-PMS-rage, mumbling under her breath.  (It sounded logical to me, Geez!)

My son started soccer.  This is his first time playing.  He has a way to go before he becomes aggressive enough to go after the ball.  He has a way to go before he is not so afraid of the ball that he ducks and covers when it comes at him.  The first practice he had his hands in his sweat pants pockets the whole time, performing a sort of impromptu "River Soccer Dance" as he followed other kids around the field.   Several Moms have told me that they play in a 'herd' or as Diane said, "it's Bumble Bee soccer" where the kids are all in a bunch up and down the soccer field in a group around the ball like bees at a hive.  Hahaha.  How true.   After a practice is over, my son is just worn out.  "Man, I am a sweatin' bad" he will say as he collapses in the back seat sucking on his water bottle.  The coach went through all the positions with the kids at the last practice.  They all had a turn at forward and defense and mid field and goalie.  After that work out, the coach had them sit down and tell her what position they would like to play.  My son screamed "goalie!"  (The position he didn't have to run all the time in.)  I laughed out loud.   

April 18, 2001 -   Tonight was interesting.   It turns out my daughter was not having just PMS rage, she was sick!  Sunday she was puking and had fever and ear aches and gut aches and snot was oozing out of each hole she has in her body.  It scares me to see her that sick, because she is never that sick.  I got her to the doctor on Monday.   Sinus infection - ear infection - possible strep.  She spent Monday on the couch snotting and sleeping.  She spent Tuesday on the couch snotting and sleeping.   She felt better enough to go to school today.   I would like to take this time to mention that if a medicine says DO NOT TAKE WITH MILK .... it says it for a reason.  She had eaten breakfast this morning - cereal with milk - and I told her to go ahead and take her pills.  Two minutes before the bus came, we found out why one doesn't mix this medicine with calcium products.  She flew to the bathroom.  The poor kid.  "Thanks Mom!!"  she yelled from the toilet.    I ended up taking her to school once her potty time was over.  Tonight's medicinal dose was sans lactose. 

The homework tonight was driving her insane.    "There's a test tomorrow in science, and I don't understand this stuff at all!" she cried.  Tears of frustration were evident.  "I cannot think they would force you to take a test since you have been sick, honey!" I tried to calm her fears.  "I can't get behind, I just can't.  And I just don't get this ..."  She had called friends earlier to ask, but it was clear that she did not understand HOW to get the answers.  I tried to help her out between dinner and dishes and laundry and getting her brother's homework done.  "You are just confusing me!" she practically sobbed.  I was ready to throw her book at her and give up.  The frustration levels were so high that it would have been easy to say "forget it, do it yourself" or "wait until a teacher can help you" but I counted to ten, as it were.  I was thinking to myself how it would have been so nice to get mad and give up and walk away, or shame her into thinking she was driving me crazy, or lay a guilt trip on her.  Our parents did that to us a lot, I think.   Too much.  Maybe because they knew no better?  Sigh.  I also thought to myself how many times people DO do that to each other.  Just saying "screw you" and walking away fixes nothing now, does it?

I let her have a good cry.  I gently explained to her that she was still sick.  She had been very sick.  She was tired and trying to learn two days worth of school in several hours.  That can be very confusing.  We started over again.  It went much better after that.  We just slowed down and I showed various ways until her "light bulb" came on on how it worked.  It all ended well with a nice discussion on planets in general with both kids and from there we talked about how planets were a lot like our like cats.  (Don't even ask me how we came to that conclusion.  All I know is we ended up laughing about it, and now they are both in bed!)  Stress for kids in school can be as real as stress for an adult over work or life in general.  Nothing is worth a breakdown, especially when it comes to planet's orbital rotation in kilometers per second.  Sigh.  "One kilometer at a time, Sweet Jesus, is all I'm asking from You ..." 

I could not sleep last night at all.  I tossed and turned.   I am getting my daughter's illness.  My throat hurts.  Snot is beginning to spew forth.  I tried to relax in bed but it didn't work.  I guess I should hit the hay and say a prayer and pet a planet ... I mean CAT.

April 28, 2001 - I was listening to "Comedy is Not Pretty" by Steve Martin.  I had downloaded it from Napster before the controversy began.  (I have the album of it, purchased back in 1980 or '79 I think, but no place to play it, even if it wasn't shaped like a Ruffle now. )  Some of the bits still make me laugh out loud.   I doubt if some of the things on it would humor my kids, such as the bit where he is talking about banjos -  "I always thought a banjo could have saved Nixon ..."  or when he's talking about getting a new stereo (but it sounded like "shit") then a quadraphonic (but it sounded like "shit") then a doe-decca-phonic (but it sounded like "shit") and then he realized after buying all that equipment that all along "it must have been the needle."  My kids have never seen a turntable to know what he was referring to.  And I was worried a while back that there was no real "generation" gap!  I feel better now knowing there is. 

On the way to work yesterday, I was driving past one of the local cemeteries and was nodding to the headstones in respect, when there right in the front of this lovely fresh cut green grass full of old headstones view was a shocking florescent orange sign stuck in the ground reading "Moving Sale!!!"   At first I was aghast!  How rude of those people to put that sign there!!   Then I had to chuckle.  Moving Sale?  In an odd way, it was funny.   Proof you cannot take it with you.

My son woke me up this morning by insisting I feel "his muscles!"  "Mom, feel this!  Feel my muscles!!   Feel them!  FEEL THEM NOW!"  He was already dressed for his soccer game today and apparently was posing in front of the bathroom mirror when he discovered he had muscles in his arms.  After I felt them and said, "Oooooooo, hard and big!" he bounded off my bed and ran to his sister.  "Feel my muscles!   FEEL THEM NOW!"  If the dogs had opposable thumbs, they too would have been forced to partake in his discovery.

My niece stopped for a visit last weekend and brought her son.  My son and her son went off to play and had a grand time while 'us girls' visited.  Eventually they wanted to have us push them on the swing set so we went outside to do so.  As my niece pushed them, her son said, "I want Grandpa to push us" referring to me.  Hahaha.  "Grandpa?" I asked my niece, laughing.  "That's his generic term for anyone older!" she explained, although I think she was a little embarrassed.  I hope she was not, for I found it very adorable.  He calls my sister "Grandpa" too.  I felt accepted!  She wrote me a letter later that week about his antics at the doctor's office.  He needs his tonsils out so my niece was listening to the nurse explain the routine and the word "suppository" came up.  Apparently my nephew thought that was by far the coolest word he had ever heard and proceeded to do a dance in honor of it, shouting "suppository" over and over again.  I wonder how he will feel when she explains to him what a suppository is?  Smile.

May 2, 2001 - May already?  That means four months have zipped past us as an unusually high rate of speed.  Sigh.  "Stop the world, I want to get off" makes all the sense in the world now that I'm older. 

Tonight at soccer practice, the parents played the kids.  Jokingly, I took a survey on how many people knew CPR,  and thank goodness many did.  Now mind you, I haven't moved farther that six feet in one sitting in years and then not with any sense of speed at that.  Playing forward for five minutes almost put me on a stretcher.  My lungs were battling for every breath.   I had to actually think about not breathing so hard.  I had to remember how to breathe normal!  How out of shape is that?  Good Lord!  "Any one .... ah huff ah huff .... want to ... ah huff ah huff ... change .... wheeze .... places .... ah huff ah huff .... for ... ah huff .....  a while .... ah huff?" I asked, hoping that I was looking all nonchalant about it.   I switched with Trish, who was playing defense back by the goalie.  After switching, it still took me five minutes to recover!   Linda asked, "are you alright?" because my chest cavity must have been heaving like bellows.  "Oh ... ah huff ahhh hufff ..... sure ..... wheeze cough .... just fine!"  Actually, it was really fun all in all.  I had never played soccer before, and frankly, I have new respect for those kids!  How they can go out on the field and kick that ball without falling down every time - I don't know.   There were a few times that when I went to kick the ball, I'd half miss and get my foot stuck on the top.  It's amazing I didn't fall on my rear.  I think the kids had fun and I know I did after nearly dying.  (And I'm not totally ruling out the fact that I may have loosened a wad of fat that may still eventually find it's way to my brain later tonight.)  In the car, my son didn't comment on how I almost embarrassed him to death by collapsing on the field in front of his team mates.  All he said was, "you can sure kick far, Mom!"   He has big plans on "getting me in shape."  He told me, "First I'll walk ya, then the next night I'll jog ya, then then next night we'll run.  Oh, you will run, Mom ... you will run!   But I'll take it easy for a day or two!" 

He wanted to stop at the store 'for a treat' after soccer practice tonight, but I told him I'd make him a peanut butter shake when we got home.  "You don't know how to make a peanut butter shake!" he proclaimed.  "Yes I do!" I told him, wondering why he would doubt my abilities of turning on a blender.  "Where did you learn how to do that?" he asked doubtfully.  "Well, I did work at Tastee Freeze as a teenager, you know!" I responded firmly.  He was amazed - Truly amazed that I had worked at Tastee Freeze.  I proceeded to tell him about all the different things I did growing up.  "I was a waitress and a dishwasher.  I worked in the corn fields.   I worked in a metal factory.  I ran a press for eight years in a plastics plant, then I was in shipping and receiving for years.  I drove fork lifts and loaded and unloaded semi trucks."  "Holy Cow, Mom!  You did all that stuff?" he said in awe.  I almost threw in some 'fake' stuff about being an astronaut for a while and finding cures for some major diseases, but I thought I had better quit while I was ahead.  If he was impressed by me driving a fork lift, I already had it made and didn't need to embellish.  "As a matter of fact," I told him, "it was YOUR fault that I had to stop driving a fork lift!  When I was pregnant for you, I got so huge in front that I couldn't fit behind the wheel anymore!!"   My son was very impressed that he was involved with heavy equipment at such a young age.  Hahaha.  He came home and proceeded to tell his sister about all the things that "Mom had done in her life."  His sister was not as impressed as he was, but she drank a peanut butter shake nonetheless. 

This morning I took my son to my doctor's.   I am switching him over to her from a pediatric doctor so he had to have a 'well child' checkup.  He was worried all week about having to get a shot.  "Oh, honey!  No!  You don't have to get a shot!  Silly.  You will, however, have to pee in a cup."  I told him.  He seemed relieved at the 'no shot' part, and was happily anticipating the 'pee in a cup' part.  "Why do I gotta do that?" he asked.  "They have to make sure everything is coming out ok," I explained.  Last night I heard him singing an impromptu song, blues style, about "going to a new docs...gotta pee in a cup....ain't gettin' a shot...I hope they give out suckers not stickers...." 

Well, my muscles are systematically shutting down now in post-soccer shock, so I will end this entry before the kids find me frozen here at the computer when they wake up tomorrow morning.  (I bet my son didn't know I can do an awesome 'un-oiled Tin Man' impression too!)  Viva Ben Gay!!

May 7, 2001 - Is today National P.M.S. Day?  I am quite sure it is in my own little world.  I was a bit upset about work, since the 'fix' I received to 'fix' a problem in my software didn't 'fix' it.  Then not less than a half hour ago I had to lock myself in the bathroom to keep from screaming and/or hurling large objects across the room.  To avoid this violent action I locked myself in the bathroom and put my head out the window to listen to the rain, the birds, and smell the fresh smell of spring and try with all my might not to think about hurling things at my kids or coworkers.

My son was tired and pooped out after school tonight.  Mondays can be hell when you are in second grade, I agree.  All through dinner he complained  - "This sketti sauce taste weird, what kind did you buy?  You musta bought somethin' different, 'cause this taste crappy... " - and he complained about the length of the spaghetti and the texture of it.  He complained about the banana I made him eat in lieu of lima beans.  "This 'nana is all stringy and it's old.  I hate old bananas!"  Then during homework he fought with me over how to measure things.  "Not things, Mother!  OBJECTS!   We have to measure OBJECTS!!"  He had blue measuring strips and yellow measuring strips.  The yellow strips were half the size of the blue.  We measured my foot.  My foot was one and a half blue strips long.  "So that's two and a half yellow strips!" he proclaimed and he wrote this finding down.   "No, measure my foot with the yellow strips.  You will find that my foot is three yellow strips long ..." I told him.  "NO!  My teacher measured stuff today to show us how to, and she said that one and a half was the same as two and a half!"  and he began to cry from being confused.  I drew pictures and showed him.  We measured several things to "prove" my theory of strip length.  He did not believe me and didn't understand, but he wrote down his new findings anyway.  Sigh.  I miss the days of inches and feet!  Right about now I'd settle for metrics! 

After all was well with my son and the terror of Mom helping him with his homework was long forgotten, my daughter walked into the room.  She had been working on homework all night, breaking only for dinner and doing the dishes.  She has a science presentation due tomorrow.  She had all weekend to work on it, mind you.   She did not.  She did ask for advice on how to demonstrate the greenhouse effect on our planet this weekend.  I suggested something.  She managed to put that together, but that was it - no research and no questions and no comprehension.  It seems she is partnered with some people for this project who are not bent on school work in the manner she is.  They did not help much, if at all.  Now she is faced with their group giving a session on the greenhouse effect and nothing in place to present.  She wrote a presentation up as a script for all four of them.  She asked me to read it to point out any spelling errors or errors in general.  Seeing as she asked me to read it and correct it, I assumed she meant "read it and correct it" but I was horribly mistaken.   What she obviously meant was "I don't want to do this project and all of my group mates are lazy and now I'm left to save the day as always so I want to be a martyr and feel sorry for myself and I really don't care if this little skit is correct in any way scientific, I just want you to say 'ok' so I can type it up and print four copies so I can be done and get on line to chat."  One must never assume!  I pointed out some errors and she began to cry and wept "so WHAT is wrong with it?  I don't understand WHY you say it's wrong?!!  What is wrong?  You ARE the ONE who told me to do what I did!!!..."   It was at this point that I grabbed the dictionary for "G" and looked up 'Greenhouse effect,' handed her the book and proceeded to  "lose it" quietly, walked to the bathroom, and locked myself in to prevent bodily harm to my young ones and myself. 

The kids are now in bed and all is quiet, except for the rain outside.  A calming sound.  Thank goodness.  The animals have sensed my mood and are at the furthest regions of the house away from me curled up and silent.  Tomorrow is another day, so I have heard.  I'm taking a couple of Pamprin as preventative medicine and going to bed.

May 18, 2001 - Tonight something fun happened.  We were coming home from picking my daughter up from the Junior High Dance and noticed a turtle trying to cross the road near our drive way.  A rather good sized one at that.  We parked the car and decided to save the poor old guy.  My kids and I and the neighbor boy meandered across the road and looked at it.  He had sucked into his shell by then.  He was a into the road by a foot.  I had taken a stick in case it was a snapper turtle, but it wasn't.  We poked at it with the stick anyway, because you can never tell when it comes to turtles if they are killer turtles or not.  My first thought was to pick him up and haul him down to the creek about 1/8 of a mile down the road.  It would have been a nice little walk and we would have been helping out nature.  I picked him up.  I was checking out his shell and rotating him around to show the kids when he cut loose urinating.  Never in my life have I seen a turtle pee like that.  One would almost guess he had just come from a reptile kegger and had not peed for hours after heavy drinking.  He was peeing with such force that he scared me!  I dropped him upside down onto the road on his shell and peed my own pants from the shock.  The kids were doubled over laughing like heathens.  After he stopped spinning from the drop, I rolled him over with the stick.  The kids could barely breathe from laughing.  Now one would assume that after peeing so hard for so long and with such force that there was no more inside to come out, especially since the volume that came out of that turtle would equal more than his whole body mass.  I took the chance to pick him up to move him off the road (forget the trip to the creek!) when he kicked into pee-pee overdrive again!  Once again the kids started to laugh hysterically.  I didn't drop him this time, I just put him off the road itself into the field a bit.  My son announced that it was perhaps the coolest thing he had ever seen.  I just looked at the kids and snarled, then came back to the house to clean up my shoes.  My daughter grabbed the nature book to look up what type of turtle it actually was and decided it was a form of a Pond Turtle.  There was no listing for a turtle that uses pee as a defense mechanism.  I told her look under the Latin name "clemmys peelotsonmea." 

I think when my web domain name comes up for renewal I am closing the page down.  This diary has served me well.  It helped me feel so not alone on many lonely nights.  I never got too deep on here although at times I wanted to.  One never airs ALL their dirty laundry, now does one?  By writing about the 'little things' such as those small day to day humorous things that happened in my life, it kept me from dwelling on those  bigger things that normally would have bugged me too much or depressed me.  In reality the bigger things shouldn't bugs us as much as they do, and I have decided that "sleeping on it" really does work.  Sometimes you have to sleep a whole weekend, but it does work.  

Most of the 'crisis' in our lives eventually goes away.  Most of the pain doesn't hurt as bad the next day (or at least after the swelling goes down.)  We as humans dwell on petty little things to the point of working ourselves up into a frenzy about it.  We lose valuable living time worrying about stuff we cannot control.  We hate things and instead of walking away from them to make ourselves happy, we stay and feel terrible because we fear change or we create a false feeling of guilt inside ourselves and blame it on others.  We obsess over things to the point of creating a festering pot of constant irritation in our brain that begins to spread through our mind like wild fire creating doubt and judgment of people and things that we have no right to judge.  I am not saying we should be as indifferent as a cat and just lay around all day swishing our tails and demanding attention just when we need it and the rest of the time doing what we please.  I guess I'm saying that we as humans tend to think that people/things MAKE us feel certain ways, but in reality we are allowing those people/things to bother us.  We have the power within us to rise above a lot of the stuff we let shroud us in anguish but we don't.  Being a thinking human isn't easy.  Thinking and the power of free thought can really be a pain in the ass.  Sigh.  I pity us as a race. 

I feel bad for all the years I spent being an asshole and hurting people by being petty - thinking I had the right to say things or do things just because I deemed it correct and just.  

I feel like an asshole for all the years I spent feeling superior to any other human in any way.  I am ashamed of the fact that I even dared assume that I was right and someone else was wrong concerning life subjects.  How can anyone judge another until they have walked a mile in their shoes, as it were?  

I guess what is all boils down to is - why lament the fact that 'they' didn't come up with scoopable kitty litter until recently?  Just be thankful you have it now.  Carry on my wayward sons.

May 27, 2001 - "Thank you" to all those who have sent comments on my retirement from doing this page.  Very kind words.  So, I guess I'll be like Krusty the Clown and come out of retirement!  Hahaha.  I told my Web page Host to go ahead and 'renew' me when the domain name comes up.  I'll stick around.  I'll continue to bore you all with daily trivia about my life.  Ok, not daily trivia, more like weekly trivia or .  As my friend Jeff said, he likes reading it because it suits the voyeur in him.  Although there isn't much perverted stuff here .... but you couldn't tell from the search phrases that end up finding my page!  Below there is a list of various search phrases that have found my page (but then again, with a website name of 'Wetsands', what did I expect?) ...

The more Risqué searches:

amputee women hooks  /  petticoat punishment  /  blonde naked women sticking things in them  /  little girl twirl underwear  / mellow nude maids  /  playboy barbie benson 

Other search phrases that found my page:

amish seed boxes  /  silicon dioxide uvula  /  rectal temps  /  pictures of women with dishwashing gloves on  /  cartoon cats swallowing birds  /  accidentally peed themselves peeing  /  excessive wiping after bowel movement  /  cartoon diary girl  /  male bride's maids  /  bates casket company  /  why i like to wear bras  /  cartoon fly swatter  /  ankle stories

I always find the search phrases that 'hit' my page humorous!  Speaking of humorous - you must all go see 'Shrek' if you haven't already.  A movie well done!  I enjoyed it very much.  Maybe it's because I look like Princess does at night, I'm not sure ...  Nonetheless, the graphics alone are wonderful.  Fascinating.  I would pay and go see it in the theater again, and I haven't felt that way about a movie since Star Wars first came back in 197aught something.  It has adult humor over tones here and there, so if your children are at the age of asking questions ("Why did the gingerbread man say "Eat Me?" ") then you might want to hold off.  But it's a very cool movie.   I cried even!  

It has been raining and raining and raining here in Michigan where I am at.  (If it were not for the whole God's Rainbow Promise, I'd begin to panic.)  The hummingbirds have been at the feeder eating in the rain looking all wet and soggy.  Poor birdies.  I think there are so many hummingbirds because it has been very chilly for this time of year as well, and they need to eat more to stay warm.  (No wonder I'm always so hot.)  

I am grilling out today even if it does continue to rain.  It's required by law to grill out on three day weekends.  I will take the kids to the parade tomorrow and explain to them the significance of remembering those who served and died for our country.  Even if you are 'anti-everything' one must still take a moment of silence to remember those who served our country - most did it due to draft or it was 'their duty' and they did the best they could.  Most were not gung-ho about dying.  Most did not want to kill or be killed.  They took living in the United States as something worth fighting for.  Loyalty to a cause is not to be taken for granted.  

May 29, 2001 - Well, today was very interesting.  All days are interesting, really.  If you wake up breathing - well, there you go!  Something wonderful right off the bat!  I'm still a bit emotional from the Memorial Day ceremonies we attended on Monday, so the right song today would push me to tears.  Not tears of bad or sad - just tears of "happy to be alive" type feelings.  

I just picked up my daughter from her seventh grade field trip.  I was waiting in my car in the parking lot along with all the other parents.  When the buses pulled in filled with our bouncing over stimulated pre-teens, it made me tear up again as I wondered "do these kids on the buses realize that these are some of the best days of their lives?  Days like these will forever be in their memories ..."  My emotional reflec