Garden Center

I took a half day vacation day from work Wednesday to celebrate my anniversary. Our "date" was to go shopping at the Jacob's Garden center. It's a cool store, they have a lot of decorative things that are nice to look at. We were too early to find any plant starts, but they did have some frost-resistant shrubbery. We bought a few packets of seeds: canteloupe and cucumber.

Eric wanted to make dinner, tuna salad. Yes, really. It was good!

We watched the movie "The Lucky Ones" about a trio of returning soldiers. It was good.

My dad and step-mom gave us a restaurant gift card to Sakura. I've never been there. It looks neat.

What's Up?

I forgot to mention something I saw the other day: Two swirly clouds, spaced a quarter sky apart with nothing in between. It looked exactly like quotation marks. Hey everybody, watch out for the "sky".

Also: Today's my anniversary!

Last Saturday Night

We got Eric a party for his birthday. He knew it would be his only present and he didn't care that was the thing he wanted. I also got him a gift card but we were in cahoots, it was only $20. Don't tell anyone.

My boys and I had a fun time on our way to Q-Zar Laser Tag. Somehow we morphed "Q-Zar" into "Cause-Ah!" and had a fun silly time. I really get away with having a lot of fun with my kids. It's like having none of the disadvantages and none of the advantages of being a single mother. I give them all my wisdom, such as it is. (I couldn't even formulate a clear opinion the other day as to whether I'm for or against socialism. "Laissez-Faire!---Oh, poor baby! [Wait, you're not a baby! ...Or _are_ you?]") I aim for hard-working, honorable, fair and unshakably loyal. I have to believe there will be a benefit for my kids of having 2 parents behind them. So I give them my wisdom but they also get a lot of funny conversation so when they grow up famous they can buy me a house.

The party itself was a huge success. I didn't have to worry about my husband not feeling up to going after all, because they have the whole thing planned out. It's a two hour party with games [Update: had to fix the typos from "gams" to "games". It just wasn't that kind of party!] and pizza. Half hours of intense crowds and noise and activity alternating with half hours of total quiet and boredom when every single kid goes back to play laser tag. It's the strangest thing. Almost like some kind of therapy. Kind of relaxing, really. Aah, all the kids are gone... Yay, all the kids are back! : )

Eric was the birthday star; He got first place, the high score. He's a neat kid, really strong headed. (FWIW he's a triple Aries with 5 planets in Capricorn which might be meaningful just as a statistical anomaly.) He incredibly strong. He was born with muscles. When he was just barely two, he helped with the groceries: He comes walking across the kitchen carrying a gallon of milk almost as big as he was. He's on the honor roll in 6th grade. He did the talent show with his brother when he was in 4th grade and pantomimed as his brother told jokes. He always stops the TV on PBS create to watch Jacques Pepin or Ming Tsai and we have to watch Hell's Kitchen. He's the only other person in the house who can make decent tuna salad. Actually, when he does it by himself it turns out better than mine.

How to Find Lost Objects

Look under something that wasn't there a while ago.

Who You Gonna Call?

One year, my company got a new accounting program. I really wanted to transfer our (FoxPro) data directly into the test company (SQL Server) database. But the software company had a program to convert Excel files to the new program and everyone (else) wanted to be comfortable and do it that way. Master files and 2 years of transaction files and let's restructure the General Ledger along the way. I started out working normal days. But the last week, the days got longer and longer. 10 hours, 11 hours, 12 hours, 14 hours, can I hear 16? I was there at 11 pm Sunday night and our bathrooms were broken. I had to go down the hall through the warehouse. (The building is supposedly haunted by a guy who died in the elevator.) On the way back, I heard this crazy sound. (It sounded like a pipe fell off a shelf.) I started booking! I ran as fast as I possibly could all the way back! "Just because I don't believe in ghosts, doesn't mean I won't run from them!"

(Sorry my phone and email were out. It hadn't occurred to me yet to put the utilities on the credit card.)

Got to make a cake. Today is Eric's 12th birthday! : )

Working for the Weekend

When you have to work from home, you focus and ignore your house and your family. When you have to actually go in to work on the weekend, it's so dark and quiet and lonely you also need to entertain yourself, like listen to a podcast. I can't believe how little I got done this weekend.

Like Some Kind of Bandit

I said Goodnight to my 11 year-old: "If you're going to give me a one-armed hug, I'm going to give you a one-lipped kiss... Whuh-whuh-whuh..."

"Hee-Hee! Jeez, Mom! Don't be gross!"

Running Around

Sorry I was busy. I spent the weekend running around. Getting groceries for my Mom and fixing her phone. I think she actually needs a new jack.

My Dad is doing good he's at a new long-term hospital and they are really good. Really well-staffed. They have the good stats monitors and ventilators and all that. They have a pressurized trach thing and he is talking! They've done swallow tests and oh, heck, I forgot to find out what the results were. The applesauce test went well last week but this was the ice cream test. He wasn't looking forward to it because they already let him have ice chips and he got gung ho with those and sick of having a cold stomach.

Flight for Fight

Obviosity: "Exercise is good for you."

So hard to remember when you're stiff and tired and all you want to do is lay down. Sometimes the answer is to lay down and stretch out, make gravity get off your back. Other times you've got to get up, even if you start out like Frankenstein, and like a steam engine, go faster and faster, in the stumbling madness... Ah, feels good! : )

A little stronger, a little more able to stand up. Sometimes it takes a little adversity to bring out the fight.

"Que Sera, Sera"

--What I'm going to say next time I hear "It is what it is."

Not Actual Urban Decay

See the "N", fixed with rope? It didn't just fall off by itself. A block away is Roy C. Start High School. So it's just a case of childish pranks/trespassing and vandalism. As they used to joke when my husband went there, "Start High, stay high". So the rope was the only possible compromise. (Two cop cars drove by minutes after I took this picture.)

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Funniest thing I heard "today": Last night my 14 year-old asked me the name of the chemical that makes you sleepy. He thought it might be what makes smokers stay calm and not want to smoke when they ate cold turkey for lunch.

Dark Side of Oz

I went to see Polka Floyd last night. They are awesome, totally worth seeing. Their vocal harmonies are much better now than they were in this video from last year. They did great. There was a man dancing who looked like a marine on drugs. But you don't just spontaneously do the splits. I think we have a real-life Binky Barnes. There was also a really cute couple dacing who really knew their stuff.

Some friends invited us but my husband didn't want to go because it sounded weird. I wanted to go because it sounded weird. So I went. I only spent $9.

I blew out a tire on the way home. Maybe I ran over something? I noticed it was flat as I went over the railroad tracks. I made it to the Burger King parking lot. My thoughts: "This not such a great neighborhood at one o'clock in the morning." Okay, only this thing happened: A carful of teenage boys and another carful of teenage girls both pulled into the parking lot quickly and got out and talked to each other for 15 minutes and then left as they came. But I was in my car 2 spaces over with a flat tire, repeatedly calling home, trying to wake my husband from a dead sleep. So I was nervous. Who was I to say that these teenagers were really motivated by hormones and not just a synchronicity of criminal intent?

Then I called my friend Barb who I had just said goodbye to. I knew she was awake. She said okay. A little while later an SUV pulls up and it was her three friends. They found me and they changed my tire. In the cold, at one in the morning. Jeff, Tom and Tony are wonderful! I thank them so much! My husband and I will have to make it up to them somehow.

On the way home, I was so grateful. I was thinking, three, and thought about the three helpful characters from the Wizard of Oz. But that falls apart in about a second: Which one's which? Shall you go by height? Whoever has the fluffiest hair? Do you know that much about their characters, other than they are really nice?

What about the three musketeers? I never read that book. Are the musketeers even all good, or is there a sarcasm there that I've never, ever caught?

This is all nonsense. The best thing, that I can do is go to church and say a prayer that God will bless them.

[Aw heck, I could have titled this post "Floydian Slip"]