Remember Road Tripping?

When I was a kid, my dad would take a month vacation off during the summer. Mom would provide us with a list of clothes and things to bring. We would spend a week packing up the trailer getting ready for the dreaded ROAD TRIP! I really did look forward to the trip every year because I was the kid who was always optimistic that this trip would be the best trip ever.

We always seem to plan this during the hottest part of summer and no, we never had AC in our vehicles. That would have been a waste of money! Open the damn windows and smell that dairy air! There was one particular summer that I remember with much horror now. We took a trip across the Canadian Rockies. My dad decided to treat us to a night eating out in a restaurant. My sisters were 16 (Cathy) and 4 (Carrie) , my brother was 3 (Eric) and I was 10. Cathy wouldn't let me read in the car as it made her sick to her stomach and I got stuck sitting between my youngest siblings to keep them from poking each other. No window seat for me, unless Carrie got sick or had a bloody nose (like she did this on purpose I'm sure) then she got to ride up front with Mom and Dad. The whole while she is up there she keeps peeking into the back seat and smirking that she is special. This act went on for many more trips. She was so smug!

So the night we ate at this restaurant was bedlam. Carrie and Eric are running all over the place and Dad is livid. He swore he wouldn't never take them out to a restaurant ever again. (we did finally go out when I turned 18 and I asked if we could have a family meal out, Dad was worried until I reminded him that Carrie was 12 and Eric 11 and maybe they wouldn't spend all their time under the table during dinner). On the way back to the trailer, we almost hit a horse that running loose in the road. Someone else was not so lucky and had hit another horse. I can still see it on the ground bucking in pain. We were all shook up.

A few days later we were camping in a park. We are all outside enjoying a meal when we hear the rattle of trash cans. Bears are in the park. Everyone dashes into the trailer and Dad locks the door. They hear pounding at the door. Everyone is terrified until Cathy realizes that I'm locked outside with the bears! I carried that resentment of being forgotten a long time.

Of course our car broke down in the middle of no where. Dad got a ride to town from a nice Canadian in a heating oil truck. He took Dad there and back. We got to stay with the stranded car and trailer in the hot hot sun for hours.

Another place we stopped was at the edge of a glacier. Everyone was climbing up onto the glacier to cool off. I saw this wet looking rock to step on to help me up. It was a steep step up onto the glacier. I stepped onto the rock and sunk up to my knees in mud. For that last 40 years I have been reminded by my loving family about the time I fell into a glacier. That trip is forever in my memory bank.

Another year another road trip. We had a new car, a Suburban. Again no AC, wtf? Dad did a weird little air cooler that you added ice to, plugged it into the lighter and a fan would blow cool air at you if you were lucky enough to be in the front seat. Unfortunately I was in the 3rd row seats. Cathy and Carrie got the middle seat and Eric and I were in the way back. The place where the windows don't roll down. Why didn't I get to sit in the middle? Because then Carrie and Eric would be in the back together and fight. At least I could read back there as it didn't bother Cathy. Dad loved the Suburban. He put in seat covers to protect it. These were stiff plastic bumpy patterned covers. There were so hot to sit on and when you got up, you were stuck to them so it felt like you were ripping your skin off. And you got the added bonus of the red marks of the pattern on the back of your thighs for all to see as you walked around. Over time the cover got tears in them. These gave you quite a pinch if you were bare legged on those seats.

Carrie was always getting sick on trips or a bloody nose. That girl lost gallons of blood it seemed. So up in the front with Mom and Dad she would go, getting a bit of cool relief from the lame ass air cooling system. Do you think I'd get to move up a seat? Nope, Eric got to, as he would cry if he had to be in the back alone. If Carrie was sick at night, she got to sleep with Mom in the big bed/sofa in the trailer. This forced Dad to sleep in the fold down bunk by the roof with me. Dad was a big guy and he insisted on sleeping on the edge so I was stuck behind him. Trapped! Of course I always had to get up to use the bathroom in the night so this meant that Dad had to drag out of his sleeping bag, climb down so I could go. Needless to say, Dad put a stop to his having to sleep up there after a couple of times. Carrie just had to suffer in her own bed.

I do remember these trips with fondness tho. It was good and at times bad. And the great thing is that I have forced my own kids to partake in the occasional road trip. Not as long and not as far away. It's a child rite of passage. The ROAD TRIP!

Yes my son graduated, I have the gray hair and ulcers to prove it!

The last week has been very hectic here at Casa O as we prepared for the miracle of Aaron graduating from High School. It was a tremendous battle, fought long and hard. I spent a good part of the final week before the big day cleaning and getting the yard in order, things I'd neglected while I was helping out Girl Scouts. I found out that it's not a good idea to weed whack in sandals. I now have pretty pink polish to coverup the blacken toe nail that got whacked by a bouncing off the wall (must be why it's called a whacker, eh?). So all week, I have been asking Aaron about his grades because as a senior, it doesn't matter that if he "needs" the class (for the credit or a requirement) he has to have a passing grade in every class the last quarter to graduate. As of tuesday he wasn't passing 2 classes. So I'm in panic mode, Aaron just keeps telling me to watch Skyward (the online grade book) and everything is fine. So I keep logging on and finally it looks good. I order the cake (only $16.99 for a half sheet at Costco with Congrats Aaron in orange and blue), buy a ton of food and drink, ask my friends to make salads and keep on deep cleaning the house. I spend $$$ on plants for the pots on my deck so we don't have to look at the dead bamboo and the thyme that has gone to seed. Everything seems nice until Friday morning when I decide to check Skyward one more time. AAARRGGGHH, the Graphic Design teacher has added a new assignment into the grade book worth 400 pts and Aaron has 0, yes ZERO! this drops his grade to F again and I start to hyperventilate. I text Aaron and about 20 minutes later he shows up at home. I ask him, WTF??? He says, Don't panic! He runs upstairs to grab something and heads back to school. He comes home again about an hour later and says everything is fine, he got 290 on the project and should be passing now. He tells me to check online, of course it's not updated and I'm not completely calm yet. He heads back to school for the senior video presentation and I keep checking online for grade updates. Just after 2pm, Aaron comes home and tells me to check now. So I do and woo hoo, he has a D+ and passes!! Before I can do high fives, he says, BTW the school just might call about an incident involving him and his BFF Susan. My stomach sinks down to the floor, I'm thinking, oh god, wtf has he done now? Well, it turns out that after the video, the seniors were to go to the football field behind the school to assemble for one last cheer for AMHS. Well Aaron and Susan decide to ditch that, instead they get in her car, drive into the bus only lanes that run next to the field and lay on the horn, cheering and waving to their astonished classmates. Someone or someones turned them in to the principal about this horrific prank they pulled. Susan's mom came home to a voice mail from the principal that she would not be walking with her class the next day, but Aaron was safe as he was only a passenger in the car. Er, durr... it was his idea! Anyway, Susan's mom managed to convince the principal that it was very harmless and that she should lighten up.

So Saturday morning arrives, the weather is suppose to be nice, I'm excited to see my son accomplish something. Aaron comes bursting into the kitchen, irate. My phone charger isn't working!! You have to go out right now and get me a new one!, he yells at me. I pretty much lost it. I dropped quite a few f-bombs about what I had or had not "got to do" that morning. He stomps off to shower and get ready. I go back to nursing my coffee and Rob chimes in with a smirk, Just how is Aaron going to pay for this new charger? I said, I will pay for it since he spent most of his salary on clothes I told him to buy so he could follow the school's requirement of dress pants, a dress shirt and tie for graduation. Rob then changes his tone to the holier than thou attitude about responsibility. I lost it and told Rob to "stop effing lecturing me!" Then at 8:50 Aaron says, Aren't you going to take me to school? I'm like, Do you think you could have mentioned this sooner? He had to be there by 9am sharp! I race into clothes and off we go only to be gridlocked outside the school parking lot as 300 parents try and get their kids to school by 9 too. The whole way there, Aaron is demanding that I get him a new charger ASAP. On the way back home I realize my morning has fallen apart, so I call Mary to commiserate. I explain that I have alienated most of my family before 9:00, we have a good laugh and she asked if everything is set for the party. I told her I had enough chairs but people were going to have to eat with their plates in their laps due to lack of tables. I go in to find that Rob and Nicole have showered. I growl out that there had better be hot water for me, or there would be hell to pay. I zip in and out, get dressed and call Brianne at 9:50 to get her dad's number as I had tickets for his group. She was surprised to hear we were about to leave for the stadium as she had wanted to carpool with us. We knew that if we waited for Brianne, Aaron would have graduated without us, so we told her we'd save them a seat. I managed to meet up with the ex, find Rob and get seated well before the crowds showed up. Unfortunately I forgot to ask Aaron what side he was sitting on so we ended up not near him but we were facing him. I start talking with the woman sitting next to me and said that I was just happy that my son made it. She asked me who my son was. She screamed with I told her. Turns out she is Susan's mom, Aaron's BFF. She just loves Aaron. Out of 300+ grad families, I lucked out and sat with someone who loves my son!! My day was looking up. I will admit that even tho they told us not to cheer when our childs name was called, almost everyone did and I gave a big whoop for Aaron. I was quite proud.

After the ceremony and goodbyes, we drop Nicole off at a birthday party, drop Rob at home to set up tables (while we were at commencement, the Table Fairy came and left us 3 more tables!! Love the friends!) and Aaron and I headed to Verizon to see about his lifeline, er, phone. Turns out not to be the charger but the phone itself, it's under warranty and 45 minutes later, he has a new phone and we head to Costco for the cake. Hate Saturday at Costco. This takes us more time than it should have for one item. Off to Safeway for ice and back home. It's now 3:30 and guests are due in half an hours. Rob and I rush around like crazies and get it all done, right before people arrive. Time for a cold one or two. Aaron graced the party until 6pm and then begged off to visit other parties. We all had a great time, I got more cheerful and stopped swearing like a long shoreman. Everyone was gone by 9pm and we slept like babies.

Nicole's 8th grade graduation will be a snap. She has her dress, I have to make the little bolero jacket but I've started that. There is no party here, she is going to one via a limo ride. Nice to have rich friends. She is getting to go to the Jonas Bros concert as her present.

I've looking forward to some quiet time starting next week.

Shell Shocked

My son Aaron came home from school today to find the front door open just a crack. He peered in and saw that our dining room window had been broken. He called 911 and called me at work. We had been robbed.

Aaron waited for the police to show and led them thru the house. No one was there but he could see that they had been thru some of the rooms. I called Rob who unfortunately being a cop himself could not leave work but I ran out of my temp job like a flash! I called Brianne who headed over to be with Aaron and texted Nicole to come straight home.

The police officer was dusting for prints when I got home and told me it was okay to look around to see what was missing. Aaron said they trashed my bedroom so I headed upstairs. Every drawer in the bedroom was emptied on the floor and I could see immediately that our large gun safe was gone as was one smaller safe from the closet. Curiously the smallest hand gun safe was just sitting there where they must have dropped it.

On further inspection we discovered that Rob's and my mp3 players were gone as was Nicole's ipod and camera. They took 2 broken cell phones and some foreign change that Aaron had. They took the wii but not the wii fit board, guess they got enough exercise carrying the gun safes which weighed a ton! I found all my jewelry (not that I had much) just tossed on the bedroom floor. I'm not sure what else might be missing.

The kids helped me clean up, there was glass from the window spread about 20 feet into the house. We found the rock they threw too.

There have been a lot of burglaries happening in the area lately. Is it the economy or maybe I just live in what I thought was a nice safe neighborhood, not a poor area, just comfortably middle class.

It could have been worse. Both my younger kids almost didn't go to school today as they are both nursing colds. I shudder to think what could have happened if they, especially Nicole, had been home. It could have been much worse.

Ironically I am taking my first grade Girl Scouts to tour the Police Station tonight. Some fun!

Good Mom, Bad Mom

Good Mom: I let my daughter rent a movie on PPV last night with her friends.

Bad Mom: I didn't check the rating on the movie before hand.

Good Mom: When told it was a scary movie, I asked if they could handle it.

Bad Mom: I didn't check with other parents if this was an acceptable movie.

Good Mom: I let them stay up as long as they wanted.

Bad Mom: I let them stay up as long as they wanted.

Good Mom: I let 13 yr old daughter crawl into bed with me and hubs at 5am.

Bad Mom: I made her sleep in the middle just under the comforter.

Good Mom: I didn't tell her friends she got scared and crawled into bed with us.

Bad Mom: I made them all get up before 10am to eat Chocolate Chip Pancakes.

Good Mom: I make chocolate chip pancakes.

More Good than Bad. I think good out weighs the bad, so I'm not going to hell.

I remember Mama

Today is my mother's birthday. She would have been 80 today but she died almost 10 years ago. Here are some of the things I remember about my mom:

My mother was a housewife from the 50's. When I was very little she always wore dresses. I remember her coming outside and skipping rope with us in a dress. In 1964 I was 6, she and my grandmother were talking about things and my mother mentioned that this pregnancy was really tough on her. My grandmother shushed her to not say the word pregnant in front of me. For years I thought pregnant was a swear word. I remember playing in our back yard with my friends when the back door was wrenched open and a flaming frying pan came sailing out and landed near where we were playing. My friends were frightened but I just nonchalantly said, Oh my mom is cooking dinner. She wasn't a very good cook.

When I was a teenager my mother took me aside and said we should have the "sex" talk. I asked her what did she want to know? She figured she'd waited a bit too long. Once I went to JCPenneys with her when she needed to buy a jock strap for my brother. The clerk asked her how big he was. My mom cups her hand and says about this size. I told her the clerk was looking for his waist measurement.

Mom subscribed to magazines and other publications. When she started telling us that the Russians were controlling the weather, we cancelled her subscription to Weekly World News. She figured since it was printed in black and white it was actual real news. Mom loved to shop. QVC was one of her favorites. She liked to buy 2 of things. She would keep one and give the other away. Usually I was the lucky winner. I have more crap I will never use stuffed in my cupboards. Once she bought everyone in the family the Ronco Food Dehydrator. This I actually still use.

Mom was generous and loving. She would give you the shirt off her back. She was a pain in the ass a lot and everyday I become more and more like her. And that's ok. I miss you Mom.

Purple Chicken

We had purple chicken for dinner tonight.

Rob likes to cook on the weekends and try new things. We have been bitching about the amount of alcohol we have in the house, not the lack there of, but the over whelming amount still left over from the Wedding of the Century. I know, I know, there is no such thing as too much booze, right? Well, we are not that big of drinkers! Yes it is hard to believe, especially if you were at my birthday party last January and saw the state I was in but in reality we are just normally goofy and don't require booze to make it so.

We have a bunch of wine leftover, red and white. I'm sure there are other more technical names for the type of wines they are but we are not connoisseurs so fuck off. I don't mind a glass of white but I haven't developed a taste for many reds. Ya ya ya, red wine is suppose to be good for you, blah blah blah. I drink things that are good for me. There is a wedge of lime in my Gin and Tonic. Lime is good for you, prevents scurvy. And gin is made from juniper berries and technically that is a vegetable or maybe it's a fruit, either way, its yummy and healthy, right?

So Rob asks me what should he make this weekend. I thought Coq au Vin or drunken chicken. Rob shops for all the ingredients, as all we had was wine. It's a 2 day recipe according to the God of Cooking, as Rob calls Alton Brown. I had to make room in the fridge for this poor bird to soak in a red wine bath. Then today it had to stew in the oven for hours. I have to say the smell was not appealing and Nicole and I were wondering if we had any chips and salsa leftover for a back up dinner.

Rob slaved away and strained and reduced and voila! Dinner was served. It was excellent. Did not taste like nasty red wine but was a blend of flavors and the chicken was oh so tender. Nicole and I gave it 2 thumbs up!

I'm going to start calling Rob, Julia Child. Maybe tomorrow he will make croissants. (don't even go there, I have made croissants and not the one's from the pillbury dough boy either, and you have to start a day ahead of time. The french must be cooking all the time, who has time to eat!)

Hey, Hey, It's Turkey Day!

The Turkey is in the oven, the pies are baked and safe from marauding cats. The house is clean, ok, it's respectable. Thank god my friends and family are generous and not critical because, hey!! I'm the one doing all the cooking. Except the rolls, my friend Jackie is making homemade rolls. She is a bread baker, loves it.

So my son is serving dinner at a local church for about 4 hours today. Before you think that he is a warm generous person, he is doing community service to wipe 2 speeding tickets off his record and he needs com serv hours to graduate.

Nicole spend the nice at Jackie's house so she wasn't here to mess up the living room and bathrooms. Rob is learning and has been taking directions well with the response, "yes dear" so that's good.

My sister is feeling better, she has been sick recently so she is coming over. Brianne and Marcus will be here, I don't have to share them with too many other people although I'm sure they will be having a second dinner or dessert elsewhere.

My brother's kids are all sick so they won't be coming. This means that my house will not be torn apart and have sticky finger marks everywhere. The cats are happy about this too.

So I have lots to be thankful for. In fact, everyday I'm thankful for what I have, that I love and I am loved.

So Happy Thanksgiving to all even those like my sister in Norway for whom it's just another Thursday. Everyday should be Thanksgiving Day, just without all the food.

Happy Anniversary to Us

Today is our 14th anniversary. This is my second marriage. My first ended after my 12th anniversary but we weren't divorced until after the 13th one passed without fanfare. So I feel this is quite a mile stone. Not because I doubted we would would get here. Robert is wonderful and we are wonderful together. He brings out the best in me and a day never goes by that I don't appreciate what I have.

We were married in a park in Renton on Lake Washington. The day started out rainy and dull but as it came time for our little ceremony on the dock, the sun came out and we felt the warmth of it on our faces (ok the wind was cold and I almost didn't take my coat off, but I didn't want to get married in my coat!). Brianne and Aaron stood by my side, our family and friends surrounded us and Rob and I pledged our love.

Together we can face anything, do anything. I have no fears on what life can bring because he is always there.

I know that I am fortunate. That not everyone has what I have. We are all those sappy love songs but for us, its just right.

The Power of (Magnetic) Words

I cleaned off the refrigerator today. For years we have not seen the doors or sides of the fridge for all the things attached to it.

Over the years I've had art. Those oh so cute drawings that your kids are so proud of but after five years they are begging you to take them off. Funny how those pieces of art have disappeared, not by me but by embarrassed teens.

Then there are the photos. Mostly the photo magnets of your kids at sports. My son pulled off the ones of his from soccer years. He didn't want to be reminded of how chubby he was back then.

I like to cut stuff from the comics or a cute article from the paper. Those came down today, yellowed from age.

What I had the most of was magnets. Sport schedules, advertisements, calendars from the Insurance man, etc. Those cute little butterflies and the note pads. The cute Dilbert characters with the sarcastic sayings or the bubbles you could fill in with your own witty sayings. But what I had the most was those little magnet words. I didn't have those cool poetry words or anything like that. The ones from the Science Center were good but the freebie ones from Bank of America and from a United Way campaign made for a bit of creativity in the making.

"I deserve turkey"
"I came in your hat"
"special children are like potatoes"
"power full stomachs volunteer for Thanksgiving"
"my family is from outer space"
"we loudly support fun"

I might have to put these back. "empower positive thinking"

A Fairy Tale

Once upon a time there was a prince who slept in the buff. He had a very sensitive behind and would jump up in the middle of the night if he felt anything on the bed, a grain of sand, a hair, a wrinkle in the sheet. This would wake up and annoy the princess as she could sleep on a pile of nails without noticing. Once she slept on a penny all night long and Lincoln's face was embedded in her ass for a long time.

The princess would complain to the prince that he was OCD but he just brushed off his feet and the sheets each and every night. The princess would not brush off her feet and if there was a foreign object in the bed, she would just gently push it over to the prince's side and get to sleep.

One day the princess found an unpopped popcorn kernel and had an idea. She placed this kernel under the 3 inch thick mattress pad exactly where the prince's butt would be when he slept. Then she waited....

For 3 nights the prince tossed and turned and complained that he didn't know why he was having such bad nights. He said it was like he was sleeping on a pile of nails! Being the detective that the prince is, he decided to investigate further. He removed the sheet and lifted the mattress pad and found that kernel. He was like, "AHA!" He knew that was what caused his discomfort. He was so pleased until he realized that kernel didn't crawl under there itself!

Moral: You can tell a true prince by how sensitive his ass is.

Blurtitis or is it Tourettes?

My husband is a nice guy. He does nice things, he says nice things, he thinks nice things. He doesn't get me. If I comment or ask him about a particularly annoying person, he will always find something nice to say about them. It is a gift. It must be something you are born with because it ain't in my jeans or genes.

I asked him today if it was hard for him not to blurt out what he really thought, that he must be suppressing snarky things since I spend most of my day doing just that. I try really hard to keep my thoughts to myself but damn, when something is bugging me or I observe something that absolutely necessitates a comment, I tend to blurt it out. I'm not trying to be cruel, I honestly think I'm funny. Rob says he doesn't have this problem as he doesn't have random opinions shooting around in his head looking for an outlet.

Rob likes to sit close to me, I thought it was because he loves me so much, but I think now it's to censure me. He will flick his finger against my thigh as a warning to SHUT THE FUCK UP! Of course Rob would never say FUCK, I don't think he is capable.

For example: We were at the pool and there was this poor kid who had a large mole in his back that was dark and hairy. I kind of blurted out to my friend, "OMG, he's got a hamster on his back!" It was huge and bushy and I'm sure it caused drag while swimming. Come on parents, at least clip it!! Rob is busy thumping my leg to shut me up, while my friend is rolling off the bleachers laughing. No one but the 3 of us heard it, so what's the problem?

It really hard living with such a nice guy. I try really hard to keep my thoughts in but the voices in my head really need to be let out! It's exhausting trying to be nice when funny things are happening that need to be pointed out. My dad was a funny guy and my mom didn't get him either.

Mom used to say, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." My dad said, "If you can't say something nice, just make sure it's funny." But Olympia Dukakis said it best in Steel Magnolias, "If you can't say anything nice about someone, come sit by me!"

The Agony of Defeat

Is anyone else old enough to remember ABC's Wide World of Sports show? The opening scenes show someone winning ("The thrill of victory") and some schmuck crashing down a snowy hill side (the agony of defeat). I'm that schmuck, ok, not that particular schmuck, but I have experienced that agony of defeat (I also experience agony of da feet but that is due to being incredibly flatfooted, having plantar fasciitis and bone spurs).

I live on the Wet Side of the Mountains in Washington State and winters are wet. We are surrounded by mountains that offer up snow sports but us hugging the Sound, snow days are few (thank god, keep those kids in school!). When we get snow, whole cities close down, we can't cope.

Presidents Day Weekend 1990: Woohoo, it's a winter wonderland and we are ready! We load up our SnoTube (inflatable inner tube with handles for added safety?!?) and we head up to Lower Woodland Park in Seattle. Seattle is like Athens and is built on 7 hills, although somewhere down the line, they plowed down Denny Hill and that area is called by old timers (ah, me, native person) as Denny Regrade. But the problem with inner tubing down city streets is that there are cars and to hit a car would be bad. Example: Slide under front of Mercedes, slice off head, head becomes hood ornament.

So we head to a park. Tons of people are there already, sailing down the hill. They head down and the track that has been made veers off to the left and you gradually slow down. I'm with 1st husband and Brianne who was 8. Like all smart women, I made 1st go first and make sure it was safe. Then Brianne goes and she sails down and left like everyone. Now it's my turn and I start down the hill but I start to spin around. Now I am going backwards and gaining lots of speed. I turn left and I realize that left is now right and I'm heading into a stand of TREES! I turn my head just in time to see the tree that I hit. I don't know how fast I was going but I bounced about 6 feet from the tree and lay on the ground. (btw, the tree was about the size of Redwood and was not harmed by my attempted suicide) From upside down, I can see 1st and Brianne running down to see if I am a live. I had knocked the breath out of me and was gasping as I rolled over to see if I could stand up. I could stand but I was dizzy and my back and head hurt like hell. 1st says, we better go home. I said, we better get to a hospital.

Going to the hospital ER on a holiday weekend is great. Getting there was half the fun, as our hospital is on a hill and the streets are covered in snow. I hoped we all would need to be transported by ambulance after we crashed but we finally made it. There were about 20 people in the waiting room, all looking pretty bad themselves, because why else torture yourself with a 6 hour ordeal at the ER. I'm checking in and the 2 clerks ask me if I need a wheel chair. That's when I realize that there are no identical twins in front of me but that I'm seeing double. I get that wheel chair and I'm moved right past those poor waiting folks. I didn't think I looked that bad, except for the whiteness of my face and tree branches sticking out of my sweater and hair! And the fact I was bent at an angle, think Quasimodo.

By this time, I'm listing to port and can't seem to straighten my back. They send me to xray and the tech there is crabbing at me because I can't boost myself onto the table and she has to get a step stool. I didn't break any ribs or my back but I bruised the hell out of my kidney. Oh yeah, I cracked my skull, hence the double vision from the concussion. They eventually send me home with pain meds (yipee!) and muscle relaxers and instructions to see my regular doctor in a few days.

Now we hadn't been back in Seattle very long and I didn't have a regular doctor, so I called my HMO and they gave me one. About a week after the accident, I'm sitting on the exam table, the doc is done checking out my bruises and asks me if I could be pregnant. Why do you ask? I say. Because you look pregnant to me, says doc. I'm just fat, I say, and I have an IUD. Doc says, I'm taking some blood for a test. Waste of time and lab work, I'm thinking.

2 days later, the doc's office calls and tells me the good news. It's positive! I'm thinking, OMG, this baby is going to be deformed. I've been on pain meds, muscle relaxers and had xrays of my body! And don't forget that IUD. My kid is going to be born looking like a teletubby with this plastic thing embedded in it's skull!

Doc says to stop taking drugs and come on back for an IUD removal. So as I'm in stirrups and they've pulled the useless device, doc says, oh yeah, this might cause you to spontaneously abort the fetus and if it does, can you save what you expel and come right to the office or ER. So for 5 days, I lay in bed hoping not to miscarry. All is well? Nope, now they are concerned that it's ectopic and so now they want to ultrasound to see where it is. Turns out the egg planted itself above the IUD and was nicely settled it.

My little mishap is now 18 years old. I blame everything that he does that annoys me on his father and the fact that I took drugs.

Oh yeah, my whole point to this story is that the Girl Scouts in my town are planning to have an event at one of the passes this winter and everyone will go inner tubing. This is something that my troop will want to do and I'm having anxiety attacks thinking about it. I can't watch the winter Olympics much less people I know sliding down a hill. I'm dizzy just thinking about it.

Moss

Most people in our neighborhood have really great lawns. Trimmed, weeded, beautiful green color. I have a yard that is sometimes green, sometimes yellow and sometimes orange. Yes that is the color that moss gets when it gets too dry. Since we live in the wet side of Washington State, the yard is usually swampy and green. I don't mind the moss. It's soft under the feet. It doesn't get tall. Occasionally grass will spring up between the moss and we have to mow and weeds do grow in moss too. But all in all I like my moss yard. But I don't like moss where it doesn't belong!

In the spring I asked Rob to do something about the moss on the roof. On the north side of my house the roof is green. Elswhere it is brown. I like green, my house is green, but I really liked that the roof was Brown. All spring and summer, I mentioned that the roof still needed to be treated for moss and even offered up Aaron to help as he is always looking for jobs that will keep him in gas money. But it never got done. There was always something else to do, and if the weather was really nice, there was always a bike ride. When the weather sucked, it was too wet to get on the roof, so now it is fall and the roof is coming in greener than ever.

Then there is the driveway. Every day the moss patch is growing. It's like some alien blob that will creep over until everything is covered. I doubt that Rob has noticed the moss, he hasn't noticed the roof moss either. What will probably happen, is that I will call someone to come treat my roof and driveway to remove the moss, and then months later Rob will say, "didn't you want me to get rid of the moss?" And I'll say, "what moss??"

If Things had been Different.....

Do you ever have flash backs (no, not LSD flash backs) to your childhood? To times that were so miserable that you wonder if they scarred you and you might have become a different person if things were different?

I had one really horrible year when I was a kid and I still recall parts of it vividly. I can't find things I saw 2 days ago but my mind is fresh on this.

When I was in first grade I was given an intelligence test and scored well. My parents were told I was brilliant and that the school wanted me to enter this program called Accelerated Primary - meaning I would do 2nd and 3rd grade in one year. My parents were thrilled and loved the bragging rights so off I went to a different school with no one that I knew. Back then, I was a shy quiet kid (truly I was!!) and right at the start I was scared and sad. I don't remember having any girl friends in the class and it seems like I sat alone on the steps during recess. I hated school especially when they discovered I wasn't brilliant. That somehow they missed that I didn't know how to read. I was taught the See and Say method instead of Phonics. So although I could memorize words really well, if I hadn't been told how to say the word I didn't have the skills to sound it out. So for the whole year I struggled with reading and had a teacher who didn't have time to work with me. I fell behind and became more miserable. My worse day was when I needed to use the rest room which were in the main building and we were in a portable. The teacher would not let me go to the rest room and told me to wait until recess. I tried to wait. I didn't. I remember sitting at my seat, tears running down my face and pee running across the floor. I remember the long wet march across the playground and the school nurse cleaning me up and giving me an old dress from their stash of clothes for such emergencies. Needless to say, kids are cruel and I was teased for the next few months about wetting my pants.

My parents were aware of how sad I was but told me to stick it out. When the end of the year came, the teacher told my mother she didn't think I was ready for 4th grade and wanted to place me in 3rd. They recommended I get reading help too. So 3rd grade I was back at my old school with my friends and although I had to go to the special room for reading help, it was a much better year. That is until my sister Cathy decided to play hairdresser and whacked off my hair. I wanted to wear a hat for a month. Cathy said it was my fault, that I asked her to do it. Now who listens to a 3rd grader?

Our Swim Team Star

Nikki is on Swim Team. She loves to swim, enjoys competing and doesn't seem to care that she's not going to make the Olympic team, ever. So now is the start of swim team season, which runs until March. She still swims in the off season and competes but it's more for fun.

We started off with Fall Festival yesterday. Drove 2 hours to see her compete in 3 races. We were gone 8 hours. She spent most of her time playing DS with her friend. There were lots of teams at this event so that's why it was so long. Looking in the stands, there are the parents with notebooks in hand, charting their kid's times, checking against the standards, already playing the trip to regionals. We are not quite as rabid as that. We always say words of congrats or encouragement but mostly we check that she is having fun. This is a rec team and I thought that they were suppose to have fun. Just one word to parents: Don't make your kid feel bad in front of their peers. Nik is pragmatic, if she does well, she's cool, gives herself a pat on the back. If she doesn't make at least her best time, she says, "I'll need to work at that."

Would we like our daughter to be a star? The best at everything? Or anything? Nicole is a star to us. She's a great team player, she sets a great example, she's a nice person who believes in fair play and she always tries her best.

Laundry

What is it about laundry that makes it an object of disdain? I love clean clothes. How they look, how they feel, how they smell. How they magically go from being laundry to being clothes again. My husband does laundry, he doesn't do clothes. He washes the laundry(puts into machine) and he dries the laundry (puts into machine). When he opens the door to the dryer they become clothes and are not part of the laundry experience. They now become part of the clean clothes pile in the laundry room. Everyone takes items from the clean clothes as they need them but never all their clothes. I will pick through it and take all my socks and underwear and a few shirts so the pile grows slowly.

Every once in a while, I decide the pile to too large and I drag all the clothes into the living room and I have a marathon folding session. I then instruct all owners of this clean folded clothes to put them away in their rooms. Since no one likes to fold the clothes, everyone will put their clothes away.

Suddenly the laundry room is pleasant and clutter free. You have counter space that can be used to fold the clothes as they come out of the dryer. Making it ever so easy for everyone to take their clothes to their rooms. This phenomenom lasts a day or two at the most. Then Rob does the laundry, into one machine then the next, then on to the counter. Laundry is done. Cycle of clean clothes starts again.

Ear Wax

Did you know that ear wax builds up in the ear causing the listener to hear things that are different that what is actually being said to them. I think my kids suffer from ear wax build up. This prevents them from understanding what you say. Of course I could be wrong and they just don't listen to me. I am positive that it must me an ear wax problem because no matter what I say to them, they all hear things differently. Aaron always hears me say, "Yes, I will buy you everything you want and always have money for you." Brianne always hears you say the time for something but for her it's in BLT - Brianne Losing Time and so she tends to be late. Although for her wedding, she was spot on and was very firm about starting the ceremony on time, which it pretty much did. And now Nicole is having similar problems. I asked her today if she had her pass to the water park and she said yes. I asked her if she needed anything at all, she said no. So I picked her up at her friend's house, drove to the park and as she is getting ready to get out, she asks me for her pass. I said, "you told me you had it". Her, "no, you asked if I needed it. And I said yes." But if that was true, why hadn't she told me where it was? So back home we went and then again to the park. Ear wax.

Do I indulge my kids? Sometimes. It's hard not to. They are my heart.

The Secret (sex) Life of the American Teenager

Nicole and I just finished watching the season finale of the show The Secret Life of the American Teenager. For those not in the know, it's about a 15 yr old pregnant teen and her school full of sex crazed kids. We have watched this together this past summer and we were both rather disappointed in it. First, the acting sucks. Or maybe it's the scripts that suck which causes the actors to act badly. All these teenagers spend too much time talking with adults about their feelings. They open up and spill it all. Oh, get real! You don't get information from teens without a crowbar and even then, it's full of holes. OK, I'm sure some teens talk about everything with their parents but I just don't know any.

Nicole and I have used this show though, to talk about the issue of teen sex and pregnancy. She is pretty open in our discussions and is very good about giving her opinion. Also, I just like that we have time together. We don't just talk about the show, we talk about school, friends, the future- in high school and college. We both respect each other and our opinions.

Although the show isn't living up to my expectations as far as content and reality, it has opened more discussions with my teenage daughter and that is always a good thing.

Birthdays

It's the start of a month of birthdays. Nikki's is today, Brianne's on the 18th and Aaron's on Oct 9th. I have been a mother for almost 27 years.

Nicole is 13 today. I no longer have a little girl. She is now a teenager. I have been noticing the change for sometime now. There is that little "attitude" in the tone of her voice when I asked her something. Her obsession with clothes and her appearance. (of course this is better than not caring and looking and smelling the slob) She also doesn't want to hang out with mom and dad anymore. But that's ok. Our goal as parents is to make them into functioning adults someday and giving them opportunities of trust is part of it. Of course parents are important to take you places and pick you up later, as long as "hot guys" don't see you getting in or out of the minivan. We got her a camera for her birthday. She had a choice, a North Face jacket or a camera. She said the camera (good choice, we are doing our job!). She still needed a jacket and we got her the Columbia one, which is just as good as the North Face only it's $100 less. I hope that my kids can understand that we aren't rich and even if we were richer, we still want them to appreciate what we give them.

Aaron will be 18. He is a senior this year and this means we have added expenses related to that. He is obsessed with getting a different car. Only thing is, Aaron wants us to give it to him. He doesn't want to earn the money to pay for it. We got him the car he wanted last year and now it's not what he wants. I truly want to give my kids everything they desire but Aaron needs to do his part too. So for his birthday, he will get a new cell phone and not a car. He is still a work in progress and we won't stop until we see him become an adult.

Brianne will be 27 on the 18th. Yeah, she is married and happy and likes that we give her stuff she can use. She is an adult and we helped her get there. We will always be there for her and the others too.

Kids

Brianne and Marcus were in awe that at their age I was already a mother of a 4 year old (Brianne). They can't visualize themselves as parents yet at 26-27. They just got a second dog and think this is a big responsibility. But a baby?? They say someday but not soon.

How do you prepare for parenthood? You can read the books, you can observe others, you can babysit. But when it comes down to raising children, it takes you unawares. Every kid is different. How different? You can never tell. I thought both Brianne and Aaron would be fairly similar as they have the same parents but that wonderful blend of chromosomes yields a completely new person every time. And then there's Nicole, different dad but so totally different from the others and so unique. Are my kids like me, like Lloyd, like Rob? Yes but no. They are definitely their own persons and that's great. Imagine if you had to relive your life by watching your kids grow.

I think my kids are good kids. Brianne is an adult now although her kid side showed through during the year of the wedding. But that's a bride thing and we aren't going to count that in the larger scheme of things. She is doing good. She has a house - mortgage, car, 2 dogs, a husband and 2 jobs. They bought a time share in Vegas and now they have that cost, but they also have that vacation to look forward to also.

Aaron is coming along. He has been a high maintenance child his whole life. He is still in the me, me, me mode and can be very annoying. He is a senior this year and is looking at getting his real estate license next year or so. The thing I do worry about is that he doesn't have a lot of self confidence and this holds him back. He puts up a brave front, but I think he is scared a lot of the time and this effects his attitude. Maturity is on the horizon and we will help him get there.

Nicole. She is a great kid. Confident and caring. She's not afraid to try things and not afraid to speak her mind. She is very smart and has lot of common sense. She is messy tho and leaves a trail of destruction where ever she goes. We have hopes for college and lots of scholarships. I'm not too worried about her except for her recent obsession with clothing.

Life is good for us.