As the year began we were filled with hope as a new president took office and for the most part, we still are.
In January we began shopping for a new car for Mom, so whilst in Florida Dad found a cute little Malibu SS and popped it on a trailer and brought it back to the north country to rust. Currently Mom has avoided traffic tickets however; the jury is still out on whether or not she will be seduced by the raw power and the open road.
Chewie is still working for Auto Zone. He and Chewie’s girlfriend are living with Missy in her house in a place called Midwest City just outside of Oklahoma City. It’s technically Oklahoma City, or so Missy tells us.
We did a whole bunch of work on the house. It really needed it. This was our starter house but the weird thing was we never moved. Even though we kept saying, “You know, in our next house we’re going to ________.” Anyway, we replaced carpeting; painted walls, (we’re still replacing carpeting…Come help us! I know you want to…) replaced windows, reworked the deck on the front of the house, replaced the back one completely and added, to the joy of Mom and Dad S., railings for the whole deal. We put in a patio and luxurious new approach that is bigger, better and looks so much nicer coming up the pole barn and will compliment all the hotrods with its concrete appeal and burn out potential. We have a garage door opener to attempt and we are looking forward to finishing the stain on the deck this current year and the fence and back faucet for the hose next spring.
No we’re not busy at all.
We refurbished two cars for Chewie and Missy. Chewie has a 2000 Ford Ranger (it’s the cutest thing ever, we bought it whilst it was in need of love) and we bought a wrecked 2000 Grand Am for Missy and Dad fixed it up and had it painted for her (he was not though, happy with the paint…He would have liked to have done it himself…However, since we must eat, he must travel).
Work has kept Dad busy; he has been traveling all over the United States, Canada and Mexico. This year yet, he will be going to India. Oh Joy!
Mom also succumbed to the joys of flight when she went to visit a good friend in Maryland for a few days. Booga, maintains that we will be going to Germany, CologneChurch within a couple of years. Apparently that is how long it will take the United States to come out of the recession. We don’t argue with the Autistic, they may have sources we are unawares of…. .
H1N1 has kept us on our toes. Mom got viciously sick the beginning of the school year. Then the school shut down because of absences and we couldn’t wait to get Booga immunized. Mostly because it’s hard to gage him when he’s sick because he maintains that other world and doesn’t always tell you what’s really going on. We are currently waiting to get Dad vaccinated. After that Mom will allow herself to be vaccinated. We are cat sitting with Corky the calico from Dad’s folks who are back in Florida again. Max is still fluffy and is still a Maine Coon, although there are reports he’s been seen as a short hair. Inky is still angry and we don’t know why. She maintains her regal darkness, and could be put out by improper advances by Max. She hands him his rear every once in a while and maintains her queen status.
We wish you love and happiness-a great new year and God’s blessings,
Historic Health Care Measure About stinkin time....Although it's not what I wanted for Christmas.... You know, I've been married for a couple o' decades now...And here's my thing...My husband didn't buy me a diamond when we got married. He bought me a Cubic Zirconia. It was really pretty and ornate. But it was too gawdy for my tastes and not a real diamond. He had his mother buy the thing which was fine, however, she has different taste than I do and really he could have gotten me a tiny diamond and nice plain band for as much as the big ole Cubic Zirconia. For years I told him I would love to have a plain band with a nice diamond. Instead, he bought me diamond pendants. Which are nice....And diamond earrings....Which are equally as nice...And a diamond set in a cat pendant...Which was different but nice and a wedding band with diamond chips all over the thing, which was okay....But not what I asked for. So, why was this such a hard request? Well, partly because my husband thought that by buying me all these different assortments of diamonds, that A) I would be placated in my request for a plain band and a tiny solitaire (to which he was clueless to what I was talking about) and B) He just thought I wanted diamonds. Which was wrong. I wanted one. That's all I wanted. One diamond ring; a solitaire. It didn't have to be the size of a paper weight. It just had to be a solitaire. So.... One day we were walking through a department store and I took him over to the counter and said, "That is what I want." (This was in our twenty-fourth year of marriage). "That's it?" He said incredulously. "Yeah." "I would have never picked that for you." "I know." "You're sure?" "Yeah. Pretty sure." So he had the girl measure my fingers and ring it up and in a few weeks I had my dream wedding set. It costs approximately, in all likelihood, so much less than the gawdy, fake one. So what am I getting at? Well, in my estimation this Health Care bill is kind of like all those well-meant diamonds. They are okay, but not what we wanted. And finally when the house and the senate figure out what we really want and how much less it is going to cost everyone in the long run they are going to do the same double take that my husband did. "That's it?" They said incredulously. "Yeah." "I would have never picked that for you." "I know." And it will cost approximately, in all likelihood, so much less than the gawdy, fake one.
.·:*¨¨*:·.•·.·´¯`·.·•.·:*¨¨*:·.•·.·´¯`·.·•.·:*¨¨*:·.•·.·´¯`·.·•.·:*¨¨*:·.•·.·´¯`·.·•.·:*¨¨*:·.•·.·´¯`·.·•.·:*¨¨*:·.•·.·´¯`·.·•.·:*¨¨*:·.•·.·´¯`·.·•.·:*¨¨*:·..·´¯`·.·•.·:*¨¨*:·..·´¯`·.·•.·:*¨¨*:·. ~Takes a village to raise an objection~
Blessed Merry Christmas and a quietly happy New Year.
Booga was running down the hall and smashed his toe on the cast iron legs of the antique sewing machine. “DOG GONE IT!” He yelled. “What happened Boog?” “I hurt my toe.” “Oh you stubbed your toe?” “Yes.” “I hate it when that happens.” “Me too.” ___________________________________________ Earlier this week I was making chocolate chip cookies while he stimmed (self-stimulating) away in his room. When I was done with the first batch I yelled at him that the cookies where out. A few minutes later he came out and inspected the cookies. He said, “I think I will choose…Two.” And so he took two of them and turned to leave the kitchen. Just then he turned around and walked back and said, “Just a minute, just a minute, I think I choose…Three…” And then walked out with three warm chocolate chip cookies.
I write that name because he a week ago he was a seventeen year old boy going to high school in the town I grew up in.
This week he is in heaven with his savior.
I'm told Josh was an amazing kid- smart and popular, blessed from most people's point of view. He had three brothers, his mother and father and a large extended, close-knit family. He was active in school and was a member of a Catholic church in my home town.
Or at least that is what I gathered from what people have told me.
A tragic car accident took his life.
I personally didn't know Josh. I knew his father because we went to the same high school. We were not friends. But my heart aches for such a loss. Not only because we are both parents but because- I love teenaged children. And my heart breaks for the loss of even one of them.
I cried the other day, over the phone while talking to my mother, about a child I have never met and never would until we are both in heaven.
It wasn't the first time.
I don't know what it is about teenagers that I enjoy….If it's the whimsy in their step or the completely open minded thoughtfulness of their being….Or if it's the lyrical poetic beauty of a mind at that age? There is something about teenagers that I enjoy being around.
Maybe it's because they are adults with open minds? They have not, for the most part, had the tragedy of life befall them yet and can be blissfully optimistic.
This one however, is gone.
And so much more is the loss for the rest of the world.
All we can think is that he was such a good person, and such a joy here on Earth, that God in his infinite wisdom, took him so that he could be a shining soul in heaven and amuse The Lord himself.
At least I hope that eventually his parents can come to believe that.
When you are growing up, you think to yourself that you are the only person in the world with the certain problems. Sometimes you wish that you could trade places with someone else, but you don't know what tragedy is in their lives. You don't know what tragedy will be in their lives.
When you have a child with Autism, the child that was born to you, dies in your mind. They will never be on the football team, they won't go to the prom or drive a car or be their brother or sisters confidant. And you grieve for them as if they had died. Even though you still have this other child that has taken their place.
Does that sound harsh?
You give birth to someone with perceptions of what they will become. When it is ripped away from you and you know it; it's a death.
I remember the first time I had to tell someone that Booga was mentally disabled. I sobbed for hours. It was admitting something I didn't want to believe was true. How could God, who had made me so socially awkward, verbally inept; how could I have been so lucky as to score a disabled child to boot? I remember being in high school and thinking, "If I could only be someone else, somewhere else…." And looking for a way to be someone else, somewhere else….
I was constantly making up some kind of story or some kind of role for me to play in my mind to just get me through the day… And if you came into my circle; you were walking into a role in my private movie of the day.
And I was Jealous of people who just seemed to waft through life. Who just seemed to have everything handed to them…They were beautiful and popular and brilliant and I had to work for everything.
But you know, what I didn't realize (being a teenager and therefore somewhat self-absorbed as they tend to be) was that the people passing me in the hallways had their own demons and flaws to overcome- or would have flaws and demons to overcome. Like, one girl; might be a cheerleader but she has a craptacular home life and would love to have a mother like mine. And one of the guys that seems to have it all going on; however, he's also going to have repeating bouts of cancer when he becomes an adult and not live long enough to see his kids grow up.
The guy that seems to have nothing but a good time on his plate is going to be an alcoholic and a drug abuser.
This other person is going to end up selling drugs.
And this guy; yeah, he's captain of the football team, but his dad is going to commit suicide shortly after he graduates from high school.
Jealousy is a useless emotion in human beings really.
My friend's, jealousy in human beings IS USE-LESS.
People are going to be jealous of you no matter what and people are going to treat you poorly sometimes because of reasons that seem insane and really no fault of your own.
I know in my life, when I was young, I was jealous of my cousin's material possessions and the fact that they were dark, and beautiful. However, I realize now that it was not always the best atmosphere in their home and that they were probably jealous of the fact that I had both parents in my home and none of the stresses of their family.
I know that there were people in school with me that were jealous of me because of my father's position in town and because of my last name growing up…..And really, trust me, when you are growing up with a prominent name in a small town, sometimes it's not the coolest thing in the world. Sometimes you would just like to be ambiguous. I know that even some were jealous of my red hair and the fair skin….Which completely perplexes me.
I know of someone when I was in high school that went out of her way to bad talk me to other people, who in turn hated me for no good reason. She was jealous of my position in my own family, she was jealous of the love that my parents showed me and even jealous of my siblings and the people in their families. It was ludicrous.
There was absolutely nothing I could do to change who I was and who my parents were and who my siblings married or for that matter, who their children were…Your position in life is what God gives you. There was absolutely nothing I could have done to change who I was because I was a child. And to be honest I wouldn't have even if I could have because this was my family, not theirs.
And because of other peoples influence and my grandmother and mother (who, in perpetuity, I will see in my minds eye as wringing their hands and putting their palms to their cheeks in concern) I became a nervous and paranoid person who can't stand the winter darkness…(So why am I in the mid-west with all it's winter darkness?)
Good news is that since high school, things have straightened out in my world and I and this person who was jealous of me have become okay with each other. I still can't grasp her jealousy, however, I am glad that I was not the only one whom she was jealous of and that other people were also the brunt of her self-loathing wrath.
And that is really what jealousy is isn't it-self-loathing and anger at your life not being what you want it to be in your own opinion? And envy….Envy at someone having something that you so desperately want and think will make your life okay?
And isn't meanness and jealousy and envy and self-loathing, all tied in together? Isn't there always something in there that makes a mean-spirited person the way they are….The fact that they didn't accomplish some goal in their lives or become the person that they thought that they would always become…Or have the family that they wanted or the career that they wanted, or was the highlight of someone's life or made someone happy whose opinion meant the world to them?
I began thinking about this while I was watching television one day and listening to people complaining about someone simply because they were jealous of them; and I say this because clearly it was jealousy and nothing to do with anything this person had done to them individually or to the world as a whole, their lives were just junk right now and they were digging on them because they were one those people who just seemed to have everything and they were vulnerable right now.
Like vultures, they were picking at them while they were down, simply because they could. This person just happened to have the extraordinary opportunity to be extremely blessed. And it was then that it occurred to me that jealousy is a largely useless emotion in human beings and causes some of the most astounding pain and grief in the world.
I'm sure there are reasons human beings are gifted with jealousy. But as human beings we can't control our jealous rage and therefore should try to alienate this need to be jealous of people, simply for the things they never asked for but were gifted with anyway. They were just blessed with different gifts than you- not better ones, just different ones.
Do not covet.
It's one of God's commandments.
The grass is always greener on the other side…However; they fail to tell you when you get there that the taxes are also higher.
You never know what the other persons life is going to be like and there are going to be things in their lives that are not going to be pleasant, even though you may not see them from the outside.
I am blessed.
Booga is verbal and not wheel chair bound. He is relatively healthy, however annoying at times. My husband loves me desperately and I strive to keep him happy and myself worthy of that love. My average children are smart and content, for the time being, and they love me and they are good people and grow spiritually in The Lord from time to time so I know I wasn't talking to the wall all the time while raising them.
They live far away; however, I do see them during the year. My husband's job affords us a comfortable living and it makes that possible…..And The Lord's blessings are always apparent in my life. Even though it might seem to the outsider that they are not….They very much are….And I thank you Lord Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth for all the blessings you have bestowed on us.
I can't listen to depressing songs without getting depressed lately. It's the darkness. I hate the darkness of winter. And I have to be honest I am sick of daylight savings time. I'm not crazy about Christmas either, and I think my two older children are figuring out why I never really as an adult have embraced the joviality of the holiday.
Oh, I love the meaning of Christmas, the birth of our savior, the promise it brings, I love the image of the family in a mere barn and the wise men and all of that.
However, I don't care for how we have made it the holiday where we loose all sight of all reason and our respective financial and emotional minds.
For example:
You have to get the perfect gift for every person.
You have to have spent the most money on it.
You have to have the most wonderful time.
No one can be sick.
No one can be hurt.
You have to have all the traditional foods.
Every person in your family has to be there and you all have to get along….
You have to have snow, and be happy and nothing bad can happen or for the next two or three months everyone is talking about what a craptacular Christmas you had….
No no no.
I don't care for that aspect.
My family didn't always get along and the big thing was that if you wanted to confront someone on Christmas for being rude, for not watching their children, for being a mean drunk and for being a horse's ass and acting like a moron. You couldn't do it, because you were ruining Christmas….
Christmas had to be a perfect day.
Well, occasionally, because we are human, it happens. We ruin our day to day lives by our stupidity towards each other or because of someone else's stupidity and to be honest I never have figured out why people laud and magnify being stupid towards one another, because it always makes me feel like an ass, a baying, and stubborn ass.
And, aren't we supposed to carry all this love and happiness with us every day instead of just the one? SO why are we making this day pristine? Why don't we make an effort to make every day pristine?
Well, because we aren't perfect.
And perfection is never achieved and I think I've mentioned Christ a couple times in that area. No one comes close to that perfection.
So we make due with what we have and be happy with it.
We love those who love us and are with us and without us. We send our greetings and well wishes and hugs. Our feeble attempt at gifts and we are together even in absentia.
Christmas for my husband and I one year was composed of each other, because we refused to take our children to Christmas with his family while sick. We opened our presents and put our children back in bed with the flu and watched movies and cooked steaks because we weren't expecting to have to cook Christmas dinner.
It taught me Christmas was more than just family and food.
It's really the day that matters and what you do with it.
And that is something I have found helpful for everyday life, make lemonade from lemons and have something fun and memorable even though life threw you a curve ball.
Swing at it anyway, you might get a piece of it.
It also taught me to have a turkey at the ready for just such an emergency.
And I learned to bake my own cookies and have my own strategy for Christmas Eve and New Years because I found that I couldn't count on others for my happiness. And it's true. You have to learn to make the best of a situation that might not be the best.
For example:
I had this tall, PartyLite, Express It, candle holder, the one that you can change the picture in and make into a luminary. I loved that thing. It was the coolest thing I thought that PartyLite ever came out with at that time I bought it.
And I was thrilled recently when they brought out a shorter version and I bought it for myself thinking, that it was so awesome. Because you can put your wallets in this little candle holder and make them into luminaries and I would have both. I was tickled.
Booga broke my tall, PartyLite, Express It candle holder. We were tickling him and he kicked the coffee table (kicked the coffee table) over and the cast iron grate on the coffee table came down and smashed it. I was in shock. I was so angry at him but you can't be angry at Booga. And I was so sad; because I really liked it.
So the biggest problem I have right now is that I can't cry in front of anyone because then Booga feels bad and everyone wants to comfort me and that just angers me because I don't want to be comforted. I want to hold on to my anger like a trophy. But then something happens and dissolve into tears in my office because I don't want anyone to see me crying because it will start the whole comforting/anger cycle again.
And sometimes I just want to scream at people but since that is socially unacceptable...And again with the vicious circle of life.
So, I had to order another one. And really bummed me out because now I have to wait for it to arrive and it's not cheap. However, crap does tend to happen now doesn't it. And so we are just happy we have the means to make it healed.
What's the lesson in this? Not to get angry?
Well, people are going to get angry whether we like or not. You are going to get angry, whether it righteous anger or silly stupid anger or "you're in the store and the clerks are not paying attention and you trip over an end cap they left lying on the floor in the aisle" anger.
So the best thing to do is take that anger and try to figure out a way to make it go away before you unintentionally hurt someone and try to forgive whoever, and try to fix whatever, to make that wound heal faster. First thought after the rage subsides, should be, "Okay, how can we make this okay?" And then follow this up with action and take that action.
Comprehend?
Take this as you will, it helps with daily life and also with life with the autistic.
Granted, I'll be honest, there are going to be times when this is not going to work, (and you can recall those times in your own life) but 70% of the time, it will work because we get angry over the most ridiculous things. Trust me. We do.
______
My husband was looking at Booga sitting on the couch, and Booga noticed and told him, "Okay, shows over…." Sometimes he'll motion for you to turn around and stop staring at him.
Well, in a movie I watched I heard it said that "Normal" is what everyone is and you are not.
That's double talk. If everyone else was normal than we would all be the same with the exception of those who were not "Normal". And those would be a handful.
Where are the rules of normality in this world? Is it written down in a book?
Thereby this we are normal?
No.
The intellectually impaired truly aren't impaired per say. Other's might understand quicker or be farther along in their development as human beings but that's not being normal. I know men in their seventies that aren't grown up socially, same with some men in their fifties, same with some men in their thirties and so on….Same with women; we don't get out of this either.
SO what is normal?
There is no real normal. It's an illusion brought on by eating too many Oglanuts.*
Booga was sitting with his teacher. And lately Booga has been going through some real independence issues. He's also become a bit rebellious and since he can't pierce his upper part of his ear, nose, eyebrow, and lip and so on, and since he can't color his hair all the colors of the rainbow it's a little worse than it was with my other teens.
Such as the whole, "Don't watch me," thing, the keeping secrets and locking his bedroom door and the whole drinking coffee thing (which I believe is similar to the whole coloring hair and piercing body parts but only on an autistic level.) These are all levels of rebelliousness that can't be eased by outward signs of independence such as alter ones appearance to the chagrin of mom and dad.
Anyway, Booga was sitting with his teacher and she said to him, one day not long ago when he was getting in trouble a lot and she spoke to him saying, "Sometimes, we just need to be….."
And Booga completed her sentence, "Normal."
It broke her heart that she realized that Booga knew that there was something not right with him.
I can't be surprised. He's smart. He's not mentally impaired so much as the veil of Autism keeps him from showing his true mentality.
I mean, his brother and sister and not that much older than he and they are gone. Missy got married, Chewie moved away to another state. And he has to know, he's not doing the things they did to grow up and become adults, like, driving and dating and going to prom and going to parties and getting into trouble (well at least for the things his brother and sister got in trouble for) and graduating from high school. He's been sheltered by the fact that we made sure he was confirmed in a special needs catechism at about the same time as the other two had been confirmed and we go about treating him like any other kid.
But lately, it's more and more apparent, that he is not just any other kid; because he's going to be twenty, and these things aren't happening and he's still in high school….And everyone's on him to be quiet in public and to give people, "personal space" and so forth.
And so we told him, "Booga, no one is normal." Which is true.
Not Mom, not Dad, not your aunts, uncles or cousins, no one can claim to be normal and perfect. Not even people that seem to be normal and perfect can claim to be normal. The only person that was normal and perfect was Christ and they crucified him, because he told people that they were wrong and they didn't want to hear it and because he had to die on the cross for our sins.
We're all imperfect human beings. And as imperfection is not normal, no one can claim to be normal.
There's simply no such thing as "Normal".
Can you think of one person that you can call "Normal"? I mean, no imperfections and aside from Christ himself.
Yea.
So, no normal.
Deal with it.
It's not sad, in fact it's very enlightened, the individual that can determine that he or she needs to grow.
I would like more people to examine themselves and check on the fact that they need to grow personally, mentally, socially, spiritually….
So does that make Booga smarter than a lot of people? Less impaired as it were?
May be.
Pretty heady stuff there. Think about that.
*And you know what I am talking about if you've read Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams.
So we were getting ready to eat dinner and Booga and his father and I were holding hands saying grace over dinner and when Booga was done eating dinner he turned to his father and said, "You're holding my hand, you sly devil."
I know-but I guess you would have to be there.
Booga had an IEP (Independent Educational Program) meeting at his high school, and I had to pay on my layaway at K-Mart, and wash an oversized duvet that I had meant to wash for days. Now, I hadn't had the time nor the inclination-since the nearest town with a laundry mat is quite the drive and the duvet was too big to wash in my washer. And since I needed to make the payment at K-Mart I decided to do it after the IEP-killing a few birds with one stone as it were.
I put the duvet in the washer, popped in my coins, put in my detergent, set the timer and left it to wash in the laundry mat.
(No, I'm not crazy….Okay, I figure anyone who steals that duvet needs it more than I do….And good luck washing the thing when it gets dirty because there is three alternatives when washing that thing.
Expensive.
Even more expensive.
And washing it by hand.
No good way around it.
I had been sick when it was on the bed and I didn't need to spread the wealth of germs to other people in the house.
However, I digress.)
I got in the car and went to K-Mart.
I am not a K-Mart person. I do not care for K-Mart, I use to work at a K-Mart, however, they do have a great layaway and sadly Wal-Mart does not, so, here we are.
I went and paid on my layaway and decided that I needed some rubber gloves so my hands aren't so utterly soiled when I cut up chicken or had to handle turkey. So I went into the pharmacy and picked up a box of expensive (they're six dollars and something….SIX DOLLARS FOR SOMETHING I'M GOING TO THROW AWAY!)
rubber gloves and went up to the check out.
I weighed my options carefully because this particular K-Mart is not the most organized thing in the world. The checkout's had tons of crap in front of them, and they were hard to get to…There is stuff just beyond the check out's that hide more stuff that is behind another wall.
You just kind of go, "What?" and shake your head and squint your eyes in amazement at this K-Mart.
And so I decided to get behind this woman in a motorized wheel chair with a flu mask on her face.
This is not odd. Not in a town with a flu epidemic going on. People with disabilities and special medical problems go around with those masks on and believe some how that this helps them from getting sick.
I listened to the conversation between the check out girl and the woman in front of me as I do most of the time when I am standing in line at the check out.
I heard what I thought was her saying that she had been sick with "the mumps".
You don't hear about it often.
Most people under the age of thirty are immunized for mumps as babies. Unless they are my age and never had immunizations for it or they had a relative that believed that tripe that immunizations are the case of Autism and won't immunize their child. Then they end up getting and giving mumps to someone who's never been immunized. SO it isn't unthinkable….
I found my mind wandering a bit while I was watching her check out…I was looking at the motorized chair and wondering what kind of illness or disability lead her to be wheel chair bound. She wasn't mentally disabled. It could be neurological or possibly to do with a growth deficiency and bone growth or density, leading to her being in a wheel chair….Maybe an auto accident or accident when she was a child?
(These are all things I think about when I am in line and watching someone else speaking to the checkout person. I'm looking at their coat and checking out their hand bag and looking at the person they're with -if they're with someone- and looking at their hair cut. Sometimes I don't even look at them and I look at the idiocy on the fronts of popular magazines, seeing if I have that "Martha Stewart Living" magazine and checking out what little do dad's might be hanging out at the checkout waiting to be last minute purchases….)
Despite the fact that she was in a wheel chair she stretched and yawned and wiggled her stripped sock clad feet and talked about how she couldn't be around her nephew, and how her mother was stunned she was tired because she had slept for three weeks, and how she couldn't get "it" again now.
(Hua. I had mumps and I didn't sleep all that much, however perhaps it affects people differently).
Suddenly I heard myself ask out loud, "So what did you have?"
"Swine flu!" She said gleefully through the mask. "I had Swine flu for three weeks!"
The checkout girl and I exchanged a horrified glance.
The poor checkout girl.
You have to be nice no matter what when you're a check out girl.
So when I got up there to check out. Which I hesitated to do since I would have to touch things that Swine flu Sweetie touched, I looked at the check out girl and asked, "Would you like to dip yourself in hand sanitizer?"
"Yes." She answered quickly.
Then I went on to say how I felt about this woman exposing her Swine Flu-self to everyone! And what nerve this person had and I thought, 'Thank God Booga's immunized in case I get it.'
And then I thought, 'She didn't know us, and what if either one of us- the check out girl, or myself- had been just a few weeks pregnant….It could kill us, just because this woman needed to get out and go to K-Mart; and why couldn't she had gotten her mother or someone to get her things, why did she have to go out and get them?'
I picked up my clean duvet and drove home. When I got there, I hand sanitized every stinking thing in my car. I sprayed the car when I got home. I sprayed my purse, the inside of my purse, the inside of my wallet, the receipt. I sprayed my shirt and pants and put my jacket down the laundry shoot.
What the heck was that woman thinking? How thoughtless.
I am still going, 'What the heck?' over that one.
Still I am praising God that Booga has the immunization against "the swine".
Booga and I went to the school for the H1N1 vaccinations. There was a sign outside the cafeteria as you walked in that read, “We are only vaccinating children from 0-18 years and pregnant women.”
Well that was weird because the sheet that came with the vaccination authorization sheet said, “Everyone 24 years and younger and pregnant women”, and I already gave consent and sent it back into the high school.
That had to be a mistake.
Then I thought, “Maybe it’s not, maybe it’s changed because they don’t have enough?
Then I thought, “Maybe they won’t ask.”
He doesn’t look nineteen years old.
But he has to have a vaccination, I mean; he’s in high school right?
He had been silently observing the bizarre parade of children in varying states of mania and health, some climbing all over everything and everyone, some coughing like they already carried H1N1.
Yuck.
We stood in line for what seemed an eternity.
An old woman in front of us would grab her chair and move it every time the line moved. She would walk a bit and then sit down when the line stopped all movement. It was a sort of one person musical chairs that no one ever won.
I found that funny.
I wondered if she was someone’s grandma, and if she wasn’t, was she a caregiver and what parent would allow their child to be taken care of by a woman who clearly couldn’t stand on her feet for much longer than a tiny march of minutes?
Suddenly a mother of one of Booga's classmates, came up and grabbed his arm, “Oh good,” I thought, “Someone I don’t know that knows Booga.” I love that, because they act like they’ve known me forever-even though I can’t remember them from “Sic-um.”
She had a young girl with her that was probably someone Booga knew in middle school and he was so excited to see her he blurted out, “I’m nineteen now! I’m all grown up.”
Well, so much for ‘he doesn’t look nineteen,’ and ‘maybe they won’t ask’.
And I really couldn’t lie because well, it’s immoral and the guy behind me looked like a minister from the community church and his wife and kids, so, I couldn’t do that.
I was beginning to worry I had spent an hour in line for something they were just going to deny Booga.
Would I get up there and would they just turn me away?
We finally got up to the cafeteria and again, there was a sign that said, “We’re sorry, but only children from 0-18 years old, others must wait till December.” Or die off and leave a continent of parentless children similar to “Lord of the Flies”.
We got up to the Health Department workers dealing with the paperwork of plague.
They dug his form out of a box of forms they had probably received from parents all over the county. I filled out some minor things and went to the next station. Two women quickly went over the form and one check marked it and another stamped it.
Then he got up to the lady who assigned tables for vaccinations.
She looked at his sheet.
“How old are you?”
“Nineteen.”
“He’s nineteen,” I spoke over him, “But he’s still in high school.” I said with probable apparent terror in my eyes.
“He’s going to get vaccinated anyway, I ask all the kids that, I want to make sure they know how old they are.”
I thought, “Wow, she could’ve just said, ‘nope, he’s nineteen’ but she didn’t.”
“Do you want a shot or a mist?” She asked Booga.
“A shot.”
I said amazed, “Okay, but that is a shot. You don’t want the mist?”
“I want a shot.”
I looked at her stunned “Apparently he wants a shot.”
“Okay then.”
So we got in the line and up till the time they put the needle in his arm, I truly felt like he was not going to get this vaccine for some reason or another, because this just wasn’t my luck.
Honestly, I don’t care if I get sick because together God and I can overcome anything. However, Booga is difficult to gage when he is sick. I can’t tell how he is feeling even when he tells me how he is feeling.
As we walked down the hall to the parking lot, after we spent our fifteen minutes in the cafeteria waiting for something like Booga turning purple or passing out or something like that that never happened, I thought, “Wow, I wish I could control my other children and get them their vaccinations when they need them.” Of course they are adults with jobs now and one gets her vaccinations by default. The other one, I have smack across the back of the head and remind incessantly to get things like car license plates and vaccinations….And they both still don’t always do what I tell them.
I sometimes think because I tell them to do these things.
I don’t do it to control my children but to protect them. Like I did Booga.
I looked at Booga, next to me. His long dark eyelashes framing his large cobalt blue eyes, sometimes there was a slight smile come across his face.
"Challenge" is a word teachers use to say your child is a pain in the butt. So when a teacher says she looks forward to having your child in her class because it will be a challenge...It's because your child is going to be her pain in her butt (or his pain in his butt, depending on the teacher).
And sometimes they are a "challenge".
Yes, sometimes they are a festival and sometimes it's one of those days when you look up to God and say, "....There are days Lord...."
Lately Booga has been more challenging than normal, mostly because he's unreasonable with his demands at times. Like, "Don't watch me!" and "Don't help me!"
Well, everyone needs help now and then and it's not about helping him more than normal- it's about just being in the room with him or glancing at him while getting tea out of the fridge....
There are days.... _______________________________________________________
The Boss of Me!
I've always said that my husband is the General and I am the second in command: That's the way it's always been. He's first, I'm second. When he is gone I am in charge. When he's here he's in charge. Ultimately the last word is his..., now there have been times I have put my foot down about things I have felt very strongly about but they were important things like, "We need a phone!" and "We have to have insurance!" "Booga has to go see this doctor!" Generally it wasn't bull stuff like, "What time will we go to dinner!?"
Love and Marriage is a give and take: Be sure that the things that you want to argue for are important. That this is a thing big enough to say "NO! THIS TIME I'M RIGHT!" And willing to fight about. Something that you are going to have to be willing to give up is complete control, sometimes, you give and sometimes he gives...
I want to be clear on this:
For marriage to work, sometimes you’re going to have to give up some control. He needs to be right sometimes and you need to be right sometimes. And it's that balances of things that make this all harmonize. Marriage is give and take and you aren't going to be right every time. Look at my husband and I...I love cars....I enjoy them, but they aren't my priority. It's something I give him. He gives in to some things that are important to me, like the house. The house is important to me. The house to me is a priority.
Give and Take. Very important. How much do you love this person? Are you willing to have them upset because of this?
There are important arguments that go without saying:
We need a phone. We need a car. We need a house. We need glasses. The children need shoes. I want to get a dryer because this one stinks. We need insurance. THERE'S A TORNADO IN THE FRONT YARD! TIME TO GO TO THE BASEMENT!
You see what I'm saying... Picking the time to go out to dinner, or time to go home, is not a valid argument to have. Unless something more important like, say, your child's birthday is happening at that particular time... Then you have to go, "it's not worth fighting about..." It's an - "Oh well, I guess it's important to him." - Argument. I will give this one to him.
So, realize it's not always going to be YOUR turn to be right. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it's HIS. GIVE AND TAKE...VERY IMPORTANT IN ANY RELATIONSHIP. People who don't have it; usually don’t have very good relationships with each other.
Only in America would we celebrate a man finding real estate!
Here's the back story about the whole Collogus fiasco…
It's a day in which we eat chili and celebrate the loss of our children to collegiate society. We eat the chili, drink the beer and drape the house in garlands of bratwurst.
Buy extravagant gifts of diamond inlay pens and pencils and notebooks with notes of how unacceptable it would be for them to fail in any way- out of college.
We also begin the ritual of turning their bedroom into an office for mom.
So to all of you, begin next years Collogus shopping early and be sure to remember everyone who sent you a Collogus day card next year…Because the postal service needs your money.
Happy Collogus to all and to all a good night.
My daughter came home exasperated one time because everything was closed and she said, "COLLOGUS! COLLOGUS! What is this COLLOGUS DAY!?!?" And I said, "You mean Columbus Day?" And she said, "Oh, OH!!!" So I call it Collogus Day. It's funnier. .·:*¨¨*:·.•·.·´¯`·.·•.·:*¨¨*:·.•·.·´¯`·.·•.·:*¨¨*:·.•·.·´¯`·.·•.·:*¨¨*:·.•·.·´¯`·.·•.·:*¨¨*:·.•·.·´¯`·.·•.·:*¨¨*:·.•·.·´¯`·.·•.·:*¨¨*:·.•·.·´¯`·.·•.·:*¨¨*:·..·´¯`·.·•.·:*¨¨*:·..·´¯`·.·•.·:*¨¨*:·.
You know what gets me about living here? The "fudgies". Which is a term
that we use to describe people who come up only for the tourist or summer season...?
They go and camp at the lake and get lost around it and if you have a garage sale
or are trying to sell something in your yard like a car, you get to meet them.
Fuzzy as they are.
"Boy it must be cool to live up here at the lake." They say.
"It's okay. The taxes stink."
"Yea but it must be like camping all year round."
"Yea, especially when the snow comes up all the way to your butt...It's like
a festival."
Once upon a time, my husband decided that the water pressure in our well was not strong enough and that he needed to fix it. He was home (because of a death in the family) and it was time; at least that is what he said. I never thought it was that bad...I was fine with the water pressure...But men (maybe not all but at least this one) have an issue with how much pressure is behind his squirter! And what distance they can master... (My hose shoots all the way out to the road ...Look at that arch!) my husband is a mechanical genius...He is highly gifted and can stand and listen to a machine and tell you what is wrong with it from the sound of the engine...He can take a motor apart, lay it on the floor, and put it back together and watch it run in his head...However, he is helpless when it comes to household projects. He ruined my counter top in my kitchen by putting ( his hands on it ) a hole in it with a hand held saw...He managed to drill too many holes in the cupboard doors for the handles and used wood filler to fix it. He put the faucets in the bathroom in backwards and didn't caulk around the tub when we put it in so water can get in the basement if it stands in the bathroom for very long... (Booga...Need I say more). One time he decided he thought the flooring was buckled in the kitchen and cut it with and exacto knife and so for years we had to put rugs over it to hide it...He built the deck and didn't finish the railing and the steps are lopsided and have had to be replaced. He didn't finish the decorative planter in the front yard and to this day, the end of it has the cinder blocks gathering dirt from an additional flower bed at the end.
He's getting better at it...The siding he did on the house looks relatively good still and the fence is still pretty decent....
However, I decided to drink a lot more than I should have….. most of the day….when he decided to tackle the well.... He spent probably two to three hundred dollars pulling up our well....He went back and forth to varying towns. To the Lowe's in one town because Home Depot in ours didn't have the right stuff...Then he found that the well we had, had an old fashioned kind of head that was hard to find. It was evening by then and he decided to call a well guy. Three days...Four basement floods and a lot of my own tears later...We had a working well... And all was good.... Until.... My husband went to Louisiana (who at that time had their own problems) and didn’t come home until the day before Thanksgiving...Which was fine...I mean this is how he makes his living...However… One day I went downstairs to do laundry...And Chewie had complained earlier that the water was coming up in the toilet when he took a shower...And I had blown him off because he liked to tell you bad news back then. I called him the harbinger of death. Then I saw the brown liquid inside my washer and the water on the floor. Crap. So I called my husband and he said to get a hold of someone and have them pump out the septic drain field...Oh joy. As a general rule this would not be a problem. However, in this state there is a time in November when "almost" no man can be found...This day is November 15. This is the first day of the rifle hunting for deer.
So I called and called all over the area...I called an hour and forty five minutes away to find someone. They wouldn't come and in fact I had people hang up on me. Crap.
These are people who would, in normal circumstances, come over as soon as they got done hanging up the phone. There would be gone until Wednesday if not for the rest of the week. Now most people who live in the city (I was born and raised in a city) take for granted that their sewer goes down into the drain and out to the sewer system...However, those of us who dwell rurally have to rely on drain fields and septic systems to keep out the filth. You cannot flush the potty when the drain field is full or it ends up coming back up through the pipes...Two days of no potty and this girl goes to a hotel to have a working toilet. So I am crying at this point...Not only has Great Grandma died and we have dumped $2,500.00 in a well...But now we have to deal with dirty septic. Lovely. I am thinking seriously about drinking heavily....
Finally I get a hold of an ancient woman who says she will talk to her boy about sucking out the pooper and she says that she will call me if he can do it tomorrow. Oh joy! So, we allow this time...And she does call back and she says, he will come in from hunting at noon and pump it out for me... I thank her profusely and she says right before she hangs up..."You should be very grateful." I agree that I am.
I will not argue the point with someone who has gotten a rifle carrying, deer hunting, "this is our traditional time of year to fart and drink beer and poop in the woods" male to suck out the feces field. Joyous!
SO I sat there waiting for the arrival of the man with Septic truck, unable to look like or smell like a human being because there would be no showers here until after that.
But that wasn't the kicker.
About the same time that this was all going on...Booga decides that his hair is too long and (without my knowledge) cuts his hair with my razor. So he walks out of the bathroom with a towel over his head. And we ask him to take the towel off. He takes it off... "I cut my hair...Isn't that wild?"
Sure was.
I took him out on the deck and gave him a marine cut so he looked like a person again. But needless to say I had a full day of crap.
It reminded me for days of my mom who says when she is tired or disgusted with something, “Oh poopie doopie.”
I used to get really disgusted when my mom used to use her family’s toilet-laden humor to make people laugh. It wasn’t funny it was just disgusting and childish and coming out of my mothers mouth; who was just like June Cleaver it just didn’t look right. I realize where it came from, I mean these are largely uneducated people ( I swear my grandmother got married to my grandfather to piss off her family…) But my mom married my dad who had a more intelligent and sarcastic sense of humor and this is the sense of humor I have. The events of those days have made me say, “Poopie doopie” and I have a more interesting opinion on Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo. I think he lives beneath my back yard actually. I was tired of water. I was tired of dirt. I was just plain tired.
Unfortunately, the woman who promised her son would come out right after hunting called back and cancelled. And eventually some people from an hour away came out at an added one hundred dollars to their normal fee. Which I was more than happy to pay it and happier still to tell my husband about who I was furious with for having thrown conniptions about the well and gloriously happy about it later because we decided later, it was the chlorine that they had put in the well to sanitize it, that killed the bacteria in the septic and caused it to back up.
So there it was….Be careful what you think you need, because it might be more complicated than you think it actually is...
My husbands still this way, currently he’s putting in a cement, patio, driveway and approach around our barn….
