Thanksgiving, the short version

We had a good Thanksgiving. It was just the immediate family: Superman and me, Light, Twitch, Sproing and Diva. C and S spent the day with friends. 

Light did most of the cooking. Superman and I did a good bit, too. It was crowded but friendly in the kitchen today. Too hot at times, but everyone had a generally pleasant attitude. 

We didn't dine until after 7:00. Light had us scheduled to eat earlier than that, but things took longer than expected, as they always do (in my experience, anyway).

Dinner itself was 5/6ths pleasant. The other 6th was Sproing, who was sporting his ODD 'tude. It was trying, but we somehow survived. 

This is the abstract, the severly abreviated version for those of you with more interesting things to do with your time than read the ramblings of a tired old mother. To get more of the flavor of our family Thanksgiving, continue reading about it in the following post.

It was a good day

Things like this can go either way, you know? So much depends on one's attitude. It was a good Thanksgiving. 

Light did most of the cooking. She loves to cook, and doesn't have any way to cook at school. That works out really well for me, because she's eager to cook when she comes home. Today she made pies (pumpkin and pecan), rolls, green bean cassserole, and some other stuff, too, I think. I did the turkey, and showed Light how to make my stuffing. It turned out really well. I like my stuffing. Superman made cornbread to go in the stuffing. He is the best cornbread cook in the house. I made the sweet potato casserole with the sweet potatoes Superman cooked. Oh, and he fixed Brussel Sprouts using a nifty recipe he found earlier this week. The Brussel Sprouts were GOOD!! I mean, like really good, not like Brussel Sprouts which taste nasty. Maybe I'll have him post the recipe as a guest blogger here. What fun. 

Anyway, there was lots of food and it was all good. Mostly, anyway. There were just the six of us for dinner. I haven't seen C and S since mid-morning. I'm not sure who they were with today, but they've got many friends and an extended family-of-choice around here. S has local family of origin, too, but he doesn't usually spend much time with them. C's family of origin no longer lives here. He stayed, they moved. Eh. But I digress. (as usual)

We didn't have dinner until after 7:00. Light set the menu and the dinner time. She had us scheduled to eat at 6:00, but as these things do, the cooking lasted longer than expected. She's a good cook, but not too experienced. She moves much slower than I do in the kitchen. I didn't realize that until we tried to work together today. She takes her time with all the chopping and mixing, etc. I move like a whirlwind with my chopping and stirring and stuff. I'm dumping things into pots and bowls in a blur of activity. She carefully measures each ingredient and meticulously stirs the mix. It drives me crazy to watch, so I mostly stayed out of the way.

It was warm today. We almost got up to 70 degrees! With the oven blasting it got really hot in the kitchen! Way hotter than it should be this time of year, by golly. Superman and I had the window open in our bedroom most of the afternoon. 

I watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade this morning. I'm not overly fond of parades, generally, but I love to watch this one every year. It's tradition. We don't watch football around here, but we do watch the parade. Well, I watch the parade. I turned it on in the living room so the kids could see it, but I'm not sure they really watched. 

Diva was really tired today. I think she was up a lot the night before. I know she got up at 3:00 a.m. and I gave her some pain medicine then. I don't think she went back to sleep after that. By mid afternoon she could barely keep her eyes open. She almost fell asleep at the dinner table. Poor kidlet. She's doing much better. She still can't talk well and is a bit sore, but not bad at all. Night time is the worst. She drinks enough during the day to keep her throat well hydrated. It gets dry and very sore when she sleeps. 

But she's so quiet! This is a new state for her. She and Sproing are exceptionally loud. Children are loud. My children are very loud children. Except now Diva just shuffles around the house barely making any noise. Well, except when she wimpers and whines. That's annoying!!! I told her even if her throat hurts she is not allowed to whine! Sometimes that works. 

Sproing wandered off this afternoon to see one of his friends. He didn't return home until amost 5:00! Lordy, child, where have you been? What if we'd planned supper for earlier in the evening? Oh, well, as it was we didn't eat until 2.5 hours after he got home. And while he was gone the house was fairly quiet. It was lovely. As soon as he got home, though, things got really loud again. He was hungry, and he doesn't do well when he's hungry. Superman and I tried to get him to have a snack, but not eat too much. That was tricky. And it didn't work. He griped, yelled, argued, and screamed from the time he got home until he stomped off to bed. He was contentious at the dinner table. He argued with anything else anyone said. He refused to eat the stuff he'd asked for. This is typical Sproing behavior. It's tiring. He jumped up and stormed out of the room at least twice in the course of our dinner. Matching him scream for scream makes things worse. Mostly we were quiet but firm with him. Then he screamed at us. 

But it was a good day. He was screaming and acting out, but I was calm. I didn't get overly upset. Superman was really good, too. He didn't rise to Sproing's bait, either. We were both calm but firm with him. He didn't follow the plan quite so well, but we did our part. The boy is kinda funny sometimes. Between 5:00 and 8:00 this evening he was "going to bed! I don't want supper!" at least 5 times. The second time he left the dinner table we were all about finished anyway. I made him wash one of the serving bowls then he went to bed seething with anger. About 5 minutes after he got into bed I went in and sat on the bed beside him. I asked if he'd like me to scratch his back. He didn't answer, but I did anyway. I know he likes it. Then he started talking to me. He told me why he was frustrated, what it was he really wanted when he was screaming earlier. He actually listened to me! It was a good conversation! Both of us really like it when we can talk reasonably like that. He just hasn't figured out how to talk that way in every situation. It's almost as if he can't just talk until after he's screamed and pitched a fit. I don't know why. But the less upset I get about the drama, the less drama there is. As I said, today was a good day. I stayed cool!

But damn, that boy wears me out!

The preparation

Light came home from college for the holiday. Superman drove up to College Town to get her Tuesday afternoon. I've been using her bedroom for my sewing recently. Some of my sewing stuff was in her room last year when she was at school. It all got moved out into the living room over the summer. Since she went back to school this fall I've been gradually moving the sewing stuff back into her room. With all the sewing I've been doing recently I've really made a mess of her room. There wasn't any room to put the mattress in there. Here it is, leaning up against the wall in the living room, waiting for a place in the bedroom. 

About the time Superman left to get Light, I wandered into the bedroom to begin the clean-up. Yep, I procrastinate. This is a sample of the work I had ahead of me.I got distracted with my sewing table. This is it, after I had spent at least 2 hours in there working on it. What distracted me was my box of thread. I'm saving that for another post since it was so enticing. 
Look carefully at what's on my table there. On the right is my trusty sewing machine. I've put the dust cover on it like a good little girl. My big yellow "Bubba Keg" sits beside the machine. It's a 52 ounce insulated mug that I fill with ice water every day. I try to drink at least one full keg of water every day. If you look carefully to the left of my water keg you might notice a brown bottle. That's a souvenir from my Carribean cruise last winter. It's a bottle of creme rum. I mixed that with the egg nog there to the left of the bottle. It went into that small green mug. Briefly. Then it went into me. Times 3. Yummy stuff!! And that might be one reason it took me as long as it did to get that room ready for Light's homecoming. 

And here we see the ironing board folded up, and do you see that spot of floor there? That's was a recent discovery.
Look! Here's the mattress all set up and ready to use. I got it into the room, but Light's the one who made it up. I was exhausted by then. She made the bed then dumped her dirty clothes on it. Yep, that's my girl.
I felt quite productive, getting all that cleaned up. But it was tough. I sweated!!! I don't like to sweat, people. And I'm so overweight and out of shape that it's difficult to do the bending and lifting required to pick up the messes that I make. Pretty pathetic. BUT hey, I'm focusing on the positive here. It's picked up, organized, and kinda clean-ish. After Light goes back to school on Sunday I'll take the mattress out of there and hopefully do some more sewing. There are many other projects I have in progress. (Ok, actually stalled rather than progressing, but...) I'm really glad I put forth the effort. 

And I had so much fun sorting my thread!! I have pictures. I'll show them and tell you all about it another time.

In the meanwhile, have a happy Thanksgiving. I hope you get to do more of what makes you happy than obligatory crap you'd rather not do. 

I mean, really!

xkcd, check it out. It's either looking at the world from an odd perspective, or saying what I've been thinking for years myself.  

Come to think of it, that might be the same thing.

Superman has found a new love

To say he is enthralled may be an understatement. The man appreciates good food. He has a way with words, too. This is what he told me when he came home from the store today.

"This is the chocolate they serve in the Elysian Fields." 

"Nectar and Ambrosia aspire to taste this good." 

from the website:

Excellence Chili

This combination of fine dark chocolate with exquisite chili pepper delivers an absolutely unique taste experience. When savoring this new creation, chocolate connoisseurs will experience how the initial mild, delicate flavor of cocoa gradually gives way to a full-bodied but harmoniously spicy touch. Seductively piquant!

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but Superman is a chili-head. He loves the heat, the hotter the better. Me, not so much. My enjoyment of the hot spicy stuff comes from watching him sweat when he eats it, and making fun of him. Seriously, people, the man likes to put hot sauce on his ice cream!! Puh-leeeeze. 

This afternoon he went out to get some more gummy worms for Diva*. I asked him if he'd get a box of dark chocolate covered cherries for me, please. 

That's one of my holiday indulgences. 

When he came back he was glowing, waxing rhapsodic about this chocolate bar he'd found. He offered me a taste! Isn't that nice? I politely declined. 

Look at this picture. Doesn't it look seductive? Perhaps subliminally sexy? Whatever it is about this chocolate, Superman is in love. 

*Diva seems to prefer the gummy worms to the bears for some reason. She is recovering well. Thank you, all of you who have expressed well-wishes for her recovery. Her throat is still quite uncomfortable, but it feels much better than it did Friday. She's trying to talk although she shouldn't. Her volume is low, and that's a new experience for all of us. I like it. I wonder if it's possible to lower the volume on Sproing with anything short of surgery. 

Diva in the spotlight

Here's my baby girl as we sat in the waiting room to be called back to get prepped for surgery. She was still pretty excited about all the drama. I made her wear a night gown to the surgery center. She was not amused, but when I told her "Oh, wear whatever you want, I don't care." she put on the night gown. Kids. 
Here she is on the gurney waiting to go into surgery. The surgeon and the anesthesiologist both visited her to ask questions and explain a little bit about what to expect. Both guys were very nice. Diva beamed through it all. 
My gawd she's a beautiful child! This is such a good depiction of her. She's so often cheerful, except when she's pouty. She's much less attractive when she pouts. I love way her skin glows with this buttery richness when she's happy. This picture was taken pre-surgery. Obviously. 

I forgot to take any pictures of her in the recovery area. She looked pretty dull. She didn't respond to much, negative or positive. Thankfully she did drink some water and eat a popsicle. That's the trick, getting them to drink, drink, drink. They also recommend a lot of chewing. That helps the throat muscles, and decreases the muscle spasms that make the kids' ears hurt. So Diva has been chewing a lot of gummy bears. Gummy bears are nice and soft, and aren't rough on the raw flesh in the throat.

Here she is at home Friday afternoon. She's watching television. It's now mid afternoon Saturday and she's been in front of that television almost constantly. Her throat may be healing, but her brain is rotting. When I took this picture she didn't feel very good. She has cried a few times because the throat hurts so bad, but crying makes it hurt worse, so that's been minimal. It's worst when I give her the pain medication. 

This picture was also taken Friday evening. As you can see, she's still pretty cheerful. She's been cold, though. She's sitting in the chair in front of the fireplace wrapped in blankets. She wanted me to take this picture because the frill on the blanket sort of looks like a beard or a lion's mane. 

The recovery is going well. She's right on schedule. Her assessment of the situation is a bit different, as she's the one with the sore throat. I hope she'll feel significantly better by Monday. She won't be able to go to school until the following Monday, though. We scheduled the surgery for yesterday in part because next week is only a 2 day school week, Thanksgiving break being Wed. through Fri. She needs to be in school as much as possible to keep her grades from plunging. 

Thank you all for your concern, thoughts and prayers. My Diva loves that attention!! And I appreciate it. :)

Diva's day

Today Diva gets her tonsils removed. She was SO excited about it yesterday! This morning she's pretty excited but a little bit nervous. I wonder if she'll be nervous as they're preparing her for surgery. I call her Diva because she loves attention. Last night Superman took her out shopping for post-surgery food. She got some ice cream, juice, chicken noodle soup, and popsicles. Oh, and gummy bears. They say that chewing is very good for healing the throat. 

I shall post updates when we return from the surgery center.

What do you know?

This is fun. Do you think this is any predictor of my performance in college?

There Are 0 Gaps in Your Knowledge

Where you have gaps in your knowledge: No Gaps! Where you don't have gaps in your knowledge: Philosophy Religion Economics Literature History Science Art

Do You Have Gaps in Your Knowledge?

I had a Tuesday ::Updated::

Update: Here is the model in question and the beamish boy himself. 

A Tuesday in November. I usually like November, to the best of my recollection. It's February that really gets to me. But for some reason I seem to be dull, lacking anything resembling enthusiasm for life right now. I feel as though I'm plodding. 

The best and the worst of today came from interacting with Sproing. This morning before he left for school he was horrid. Have I mentioned that he has been diagnosed with ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder)? Before we had Sproing in our lives I thought ODD was some fancy psychological label given to a mean little kid. I have a new appreciation for the deeper severity of the psychological designation. He's not just mean, he doesn't just oppose. He goes out of his way to push the opposition. It sucks the life out of me sometimes.

This afternoon, however, I helped him work on his science project. He has to make a model of a cell that includes (labeled) a cell membrane, nucleus, cytoplasm, and vacuoles. (I want to say "vitriols") We had a good grove going and it was an exceptionally positive experience as long as his attention held out. He lasted well over half an hour, which is fantastic for him. I spoke with his teacher today, too, and she says his effort and thus his grades have improved remarkably over the last week or two. 

I might take a picture of the cell model we made. I sewed the basic form. His idea was to use a styrofoam sphere, but I couldn't find one at the store today. So I made a hemisphere out of fabric scraps. Initially he was skeptical. That's mommy speak for "he totally freaked out because it wasn't exactly the way he wanted it." Once he warmed up to the idea of using this thing I made, he worked on it with me and did a lot of the work himself. It was overall very rewarding. 

I had a very friendly girls' trip to the ice cream store with Diva today. She had an appointment with her counselor (which she spent pouting and unresponsive in the counselor's office) so after the appointment we went out for ice cream together. That was another one of those good mommy things to do. 

It all takes so much effort. I'm exhausted. 

And I'm tired of blogging about my children. I love them dearly, as you probably know. But I don't want to talk about them right now. 

The Holidays are approaching. Ugh. I don't want to do anything for Thanksgiving. We aren't going anywhere, not that I want to anyway. My extended family will be gathering in the driveway between my dad and brother's houses (next door neighbors to one another) to eat a festive holiday meal. I rather imagine my other brother will be frying a turkey again. It's what they do these days. They're all in Florida, not far from one another. (especially my dad and youngest brother. duh.) Too far for us to travel this year. I have mixed feelings about that. I tell myself I'm glad we aren't going, but there is another voice somewhere deep inside whispering a scream, "You belong with those people!" My overall impression, though, is that I'm glad we aren't going.

Then there's the Christmas thing. Ugh again. The only thing I want to do is exchange one or two small token gifts (but not junk, stuff-to-dust, or clutter) with members of my immediate household. No fancy dinner, no tree, no lights, no stockings stuffed with stuff, none of it. I want to sit in my comfy chair in front of the blazing fireplace drinking either hot chocolate or egg nog. I also want to build a gingerbread house this year. I do that occasionally, when I'm not so overwhelmed by the rest of my life. I'd like to do a gingerbread house this year, and perhaps that means I'd like for my life to not be so damned overwhelming. 

I have high hopes that things will get better when Light gets home from school the second week in December. She takes a lot of the pressure off me. But then I worry that I'm putting too much on her. Oy. I am obviously overthinking things here. 

So I will stop thinking for now and go to bed. 

Goodnight

I want one just like this

This you have got to see!

Check out the making of video, too. Very interesting.

I had a weekend

The play for which I was sewing costumes opened and closed this weekend. Community theater, folks. Five shows, plus one on Thursday morning for the school kids. 'Twas the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I didn't watch it. I actually didn't even do all the sewing I was supposed to. I did get the four dresses built, but the mob caps were fewer than desired.  I'll go ahead and make some more now, anyway, because they'll be used later. Brigadoon is coming up soon.

My allergies have been acting up, causing my throat and ears to itch. Sunday the mess moved into my lungs. I need my inhaler, but can't find it. I think the thing has expired, anyway, so I'm going to call the doctor's office this morning to request a refill on that prescription. If it gets much worse I'll go in for a look-over. Right now I don't think I need any antibiotic. Yet. My chest is tight, though, and I've got a wee cough. I feel icky, but not so much that I can't do anything. 

I think some other things may have happened this weekend, but I'm not sure what. I slept a lot. Superman and Twitch went grocery shopping yesterday and bought $400 worth of stuff. He likes to stock up. 

We have a new-to-us fireplace insert. It was cool enough last night that Superman built a fire in it. He says it puts some nice heat into the room. I think we'll set a fan in the hallway to encourage some of that warm air back toward the bedrooms. 

So, in conclusion, there isn't much to blog about. On today's agenda is more laundry (yes, the washing machine is still working!) and a visit to the drug dealer, my psychiatrist. Nice fellow, but not nearly as useful as my therapist. (No offense, Ur-Spo)

Happy Monday to all, and to all a good week.

Various and sundry

I spent the evening yesterday in the green room at our local community theater. I was at the ready with needle and thread. It was fun. The play is Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Most of the cast are children. The energy was exciting though not over the top. Last night was the dress rehersal. This morning they are performing for the local schools. Tomorrow night is the first public performance. I plan to go over there shortly and see what sort of costuming assistance I can provide. This time I'm taking my thimble. I forgot it last night, and my finger is consequently suffering. 

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Manny is on the fritz again.

Superman thinks ist's the starter motor. It won't start. Duh. Instead it makes this strange grinding noise. I said to Superman this morning if it is the starter motor, we should be able to push start the thing, bypassing the starter motor. We (meaning him and the boys) can push it out of the driveway and point it down the street (a very gentle decline) and I can start it as it rolls down hill. He agreed that if it is the starter motor, that should work. However, if it isn't the starter motor, we'd have a dead truck at the bottom of the hill and he wasn't going to push the damn thing back up the hill. Hmmm.  Good point. For now Manny will just decorate the driveway. We'll decide what to do with him in a week or two, or whenever it gets unbearable having only one working vehicle. 

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Just a quick note about the washing machine. I don't know about you, but I'm getting tired of the subject. Anyway, it is working, but seems to be having balance trouble. These front loading babies are supposed to spin beautifully without the typical out-of-balance shimmy that many top loading machines have. Well, something is screwy. Superman is talking about taking the back and top panels off to check the shock absorbers. I don't know how he'll check them, but I'm not going to fret about it now. My point, though, is that I don't know how much longer this machine will last. I paid a lot of money for the thing, and I expect to get more than 6 years out of it. Although I love the features, the recent performance is frustrating.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You have met Sproing, right? He's my bouncing (you have no idea) baby boy, nearly 11 years old now. We adopted him as a newborn, brought him home from the hospital when he was 4 days old. If you compare the picture of me in the right sidebar to this blurry picture of him (he didn't hold still) you will notice that our skin tones don't match. 

The dear boy gets teased a lot in school because of his race and skin tone. He's very dark, and by some twisted standard within the black community (at least around here) the darker your skin, the lower your value as a person. I could go on and on about how wrong that is, but I'll resist. He also, of course, gets a lot of flack because he has white parents. People are always asking him if he's adopted. Frankly, he's sick of it. He said so this morning. According to him, this is what he now tells anyone who asks:

These people are not my parents. They are my limo drivers.

The entry I've been waiting to write

So last night I was in the living room cutting out the pattern for the dresses I'm sewing for this play at our community theater. Which opens Thursday. Yes, 2 days from now. And I just got the dresses cut out. But that's not what I'm here to talk about. 

Superman was at the computer, behind me as I was working. I've been thinking on these things the past couple of days, and I said to him "Superman. Do me a favor. Google 'Whirlpool Duet Repair.'" A few clicks later he said, "Oh look! Here's the repair manual! It's a PDF file!" Oh, for cryin' out loud. Why didn't he look this up earlier? Why didn't he find this when he was looking for the replacement part 5 weeks ago? I know Mimi has been wondering the same thing. 

Why didn't I look it up myself, or suggest it earlier? Well, part of my reason for not suggesting it was to wait and see what he would/could do. The dear man is very intelligent. Brilliant, one might say. But he doesn't think in broad strokes (or something like that). I was hoping he'd take the initiative. I got frustrated enough to break through my immobility and suggest a deeper search. Some of my hesitancy was intentional. Some of it was more laziness or fear or something deeply emotional. I'm not sure.

So he read the pertinent parts of the manual, looked at the pictures,  and went to tackle the machine. The thing requires a star head screw driver to disassemble the pieces. By show of hands, how many of you own your own set of star head screw drivers? I don't bitch too much when Superman buys himself stuff at the hardware store because frequently it is in my best interest. Yes, Superman owns a set of star head drivers. 

The part in question is the door latch mechanism, which is (not surprisingly) on the front of the machine at the door. I was so excited about him fixing my washing machine that I forgot to take any pictures of that process. It was really easy once he knew the trick to access the latch. There's a spring retainer ring that secures the gasket to the doorway... yada yada you aren't interested in that part. But he was so sexy and manly as he was repairing my machine! I nearly swooned. 

The machine has been vibrating wildly as it spins sometimes. That's what broke the latch this last time. I wondered if the springs holding the drum were the problem. Turns out there are 4 shock absorbers holding the drum in place at the four corners at the base, plus a couple of springs at the top of the drum. He took the back off the machine to check these. He looked. They looked like shock absorbers. Hmm. Then he replaced the back. Whatever. I got a picture of that. 

The back of the washer

The backside of Superman

Now I get to wash a load of clothes!!! Since the washer broke I've had the laundry lined up along the one long wall in my living room that spans the room from the kitchen to the hall. The kids have been dumping their dirty clothes anywhere along there. Last night I sat in that beige chair you see in this picture and sorted that laundry. There are now 6 full baskets waiting to be washed. 
There are probably at least 3 more basket's worth of dirty laundry in the kids' room and my room. Plus bed linens. And I need to sew up those dresses for the play. And cook supper. Yeah, I'm still on the computer. OK, I'll get this posted and move on with my day. Ta ta!

Stay calm

I don't even know where to start. It's Diva. She's growing up too fast. I don't mean in that "what a sweet girl, it seems like just yesterday she was but a wee thing" way. If only. 

She is in the 5th grade at the elementary school a few blocks down the street. Her 11th birthday is less than a month away. She likes to ride bikes, watch cartoons, and is crazy about Hannah Montana. 

Evidently she is also crazy about a boy in her class at school. 

Last Thursday morning at about 10:30 I got a call from her teacher. She said that she'd intercepted a note that Diva wrote to "another student in the class" that was of a sensitive nature. The teacher wouldn't come right out and say what exactly my dear child said. But she said she'd send the note home to me in a large sealed manila envelope. OK. I debated whether to go over to the school and try to get it myself before Diva had a chance to "lose" it. I decided to wait.

When Diva arrived home at 3:00 that afternoon she was all sweet and smiley. She is usually a cheerful child, unless she's pouting about something specific. Without waiting for me to ask for it, she produced the large envelope from her book bag. Sproing made some excuse about going to see his friend and bounced out of the house. Good. I didn't want him involved in whatever this turned out to be. 

I opened the package to find a nice stationery envelope with the name of the object of her affection (misspelled, I think. She pronounces his name with an "n" in it, but there was no such letter in the address). To give further clue to what I didn't want to think, there was a big luscious lipstick kiss across the flap of the envelope. Where did this child learn about sealing a letter with a kiss?? Inside the envelope were two pieces of the matching note paper (mine, which she took without permission, but that's so beyond the point). On the first page was scribbled in green marker "XXXXXXX means kiss  100x's  100 kiss's" It looks much more random on the note paper than I can make it look typed out like this. But that's the message, loud and clear.

So I brought forward the second page. It says, in green magic marker, "Do you want to have sex? Yes or No   roomers"

Oh, shit. Deep breath, Mom. Don't yell. Remain calm whatever you do!

I was sitting in the chair I'm in right now, her standing beside me. I took a few breaths. And said "Um, Diva?  Um, wha'... um... who... um, ah, ..." No good. Try again. "Diva, um, how... wha'..." This isn't going well. By this time I'm holding my forehead with my left hand, the notes in my right. "Ah, Diva, um, did you, ah, ...um... We need to talk about this." Good move Mom. You can't even speak. I don't remember if I made any coherent sentences after that until I told her to go to her room. I was calm as I said it. In retrospect I realize I should have said "We need to talk about this, but I need some time to gather my thoughts." Well, my thoughts weren't gathered enough to say that, but whatever.

I didn't have the heart to call Superman. I didn't want to tell him over the phone, you know? Eventually he came home. Diva was in her room most of the rest of the afternoon, and ended up cleaning her room very well. Her Dad came home, she was out of her room, we had supper, life happened. Of course I told Superman about it, had showed him the notes by then. I knew we needed to discuss this before she went to bed.

As the kids were beginning to get ready for bed around 8:00 I called Diva into my room. Superman and I were sitting on the bed. I was calm. I asked her about the notes. We talked. I was calm. She answered my questions. After some bit of discussion something she said prompted me to ask her what she meant by the question. Was she curious about his intent, or was she inviting him to have sex with her? Her eyes brightened up and she said, "Yes, I wanted to know. See, that's what I wrote there," pointing to the word "roomers." Then she read the note to me, filling in a whole sentence that contained the word "rumors" and indicating she had heard that he wanted to have sex with her. She was just curious about it. 

The child lies with astonishing frequency. I could tell, however, that she was being totally honest about her intent. I suspect she was a bit befuddled about all this fuss. The teacher had discussed it, I had been unable to clearly speak when I read the note, she'd spent the afternoon in her room, and now we were having one of those infamous "discussions" that parents have with their children. But I was calm. Superman sat on the bed and didn't say a word that I can recall. He didn't know what to say, either. 

These are a few of the things we talked about. I asked does she know what sex is? Yes. What? Rather hesitant and embarrassed she said "When a boy sticks his dick in my, um, you know, privates." OK, she's got that one pretty much figured out. "Have you ever had sex before?" I ask, masking my fear. "NO! Ewww." Oh, thank Gawd. 

I talked about how old one should be to have sex, what state of a relationship one should have before becoming intimate. I always try to ask her questions (I am the question queen, after all) to get her to participate in these discussions. If I just drone on, she tunes me out. It is so hard to make this stuff applicable to a child her age. I tried to tell her about how a sexual relationship involves complex emotions that children aren't able to handle. The thing is, at her stage of emotional development she doesn't have the maturity to understand that it takes maturity to successfully enter into a consenting sexual relationship. Half the stuff I said to her probably went right over her head. I realized as I was speaking the words that she wouldn't understand them. I repeated myself, trying to simplify with each repetition. The dear child watched me with rapt attention, a very unusual state for her. 

At one point during the conversation when I was talking about writing notes to boys (Don't!) she said "Do you want to see the other notes I wrote to him?" I remain calm. "Yes, I would." She runs out of the room, Superman and I look at each other, and I whisper "There are more????"

The one note in question had the number 3 written in the upper right corner of the envelope. Yep, the third of six notes. None of the rest had been opened. I calmly told her I'll hang on to these notes, since it isn't proper for her to be writing notes to the boys right now. Y'all, I haven't had the guts to open the other envelopes! And number 6 is addressed to this boy's mom and dad! I still have them all right here. 

One thing I don't want to do is fill her head with fear and superstitions about sex. Respect, yes. Outlandish unhealthy ideas, no. I told her that now is about the right time for her to start to think about boys (or girls, as the case may be. You know I'm cool either way. But since the note was written to a boy, I didn't bring that up.) and about being in love. But it's the time to just think about it, not do anything! This is a time for young boys and girls to practice these emotions, and it will take a lot of time to figure it all out. Take your time, child, don't be in such a rush!! No, I didn't say that out loud. Do you think she heard me thinking it?

So that's where we stand now. A week later and all seems calm. This is not the end. The next 7-8 years are gonna be real doozies. 

I'm still standing

Yes, I'm still here. I've been busy with all that life stuff. The time I have spent online I've been surfing other blogs rather than posting anything on mine. I have an interesting story to tell you, but I want to work on it some more. I'm not going to tell you now. In the meantime, here are a few random thoughts.

Superman is getting sick again. He gets sick a lot. It worries me. He had a flu shot last week and yesterday he started having some mild-ish flu-like symptoms. He is achy and has a stuffed up nose. He's also stupid the way he gets when he's sick. He isn't rolling around on the bed in pain or anything, he just feels generally icky. 

I took Diva to the ear,nose, & throat doctor today. She is now scheduled to have her tonsils and adenoids removed on Friday the 21st. We saw the doctor, he's a nice guy, it didn't take long at all with him. Then we went to see the gal who schedules the surgery. We waited in that little anteroom for over an hour. Finally we saw the lady who handles the insurance stuff. Then we waited for a few more minutes to see the gal who actually schedules the surgery. It was a long and boring morning. I would much rather have been here. Diva finally got back to school at 11:30, 2.75 hours after I picked her up from school. 

Yesterday was the lunch meeting with that women's forum thing I've been attending. I put on a posh frock and sat in a room with other women and it didn't even kill me. I mostly enjoyed it. The speaker yesterday was the neuro-psychiatrist at our hospital. I have met her before. 3 times. Because she has tested 3 of my children for learning disabilities and emotional problems. Yep, were're spe'shuul. Anyway, the doctor is a really nice lady, very smart, who had some interesting information on how memory works. It was good. And I ate some salad; very good for me.

C and S got a new-to-them truck. It's a little pick-up, a Ford Ranger I think. It's cute. Dark green. They got it for $800? Something ridiculously cheap like that. C casually mentioned that it needs transmission work. Hmmm. It was parked on the side of the road out front when Superman came home yesterday. As he approached our yard he looked at the truck and could tell the frame is bent. We shall see what we shall see. It's not my truck, they will have to deal. Looks like another character building experience. 

I have had something I have to do, somewhere I need to be every day this week. I hate that. I much prefer to have my days unscheduled. It's more peaceful like that. Of course in January when I start classes I'll be pretty scheduled, huh?

Earlier this week I bought myself a six pack of diet meal-replacement drinks. Like SlimFast, but the store brand. I put the unopened box on the floor under my bed. Earlier this afternoon I looked under there and noticed the box was opened. Two cans are gone. I'm pissed. Again. This happens all the time!

Sproing saw his counselor this afternoon. Superman took him. Superman told the counselor that Sproing sometimes steals little things, lies about all sorts of stuff, and bickers with his sister all the time. He told me the counselor kinda shrugged and said she didn't know anything specific we can do besides what we're already doing. Well, that obviously isn't working real well!! I have said it before (perhaps not here, I don't recall). Our kids are so extreme they befuddle the professionals. Or maybe we just have incompetent professionals around here. That's a possibility. There aren't a lot of local therapist/counselors who work with children. 2, maybe 3. Diva sees one, Sproing another. 

Our washing machine is still broken. Superman is waiting on the repair manual. He called about that. The supply house said that it is on indefinite backorder. The manufacturer has run out of manuals and is waiting for enough orders to come in to justify a printing. This is getting ridiculous. I'm still not sure what we're going to do. We could call the repair guy out again, pay him to fix it. We have the replacement part. Or we could spend $100 on a cheap used washer to use until we get the nice big one fixed. 5 or 6 trips to the laundromat would pay for a used washer. I'm wearing my last piece of clean underwear. Oh, the humanity!

It seems like I'm forgetting something really obvious, but for the life of me I can't figure out what it is. Eh. We'll let this do for now. Then I'll write up that other interesting story. Maybe I'll post that one tomorrow. 

Gonna go to college to gain a little knowledge

I got an email message Friday from the assistant director of admissions at Lander University. In part it said

I’ve verified that we have received your Mercer University transcript, which indicates that you have earned a Bachelors Degree in Sociology.  Based on that alone, I was able to admit you this evening. 

In Saturday's mail I received an official letter informing me that I have been accepted for the Spring 2009 semester. There are a few loose ends to tie up, then I'll be able to pre-register for classes when pre-registration opens in a couple of weeks. 

I had no doubt I'd be accepted. I've been kinda cool about the whole thing, though. I was pleased when I got the email Friday, and again very satisfied to get the official letter. But as the idea has been percolating over the weekend I am getting more excited. I'm going back to college! This has been a dream of mine for, well, over 20 years, since I graduated the first time back in '86.

Per request

A brief explanation about how I came to have sex in a cemetery

A post full of linky love

It was 1981, if that makes any difference. I was 19 years old and in a rather strange relationship with a young man named Joe Choo. Of Chinese extraction and from Malaysia, Joe had come to Macon, GA to attend Mercer University. I was a freshman in my second term at Mercer that spring, and had been dating Joe, mostly living with him and his brother Edwin for most of the winter and spring until I wised up and left his sorry ass. The story is much more complicated than that, of course, but has nothing to do with having sex in the cemetery. 

Macon, GA is a very large town rich in history.  When General Sherman marched to the sea from Atlanta, he bypassed Macon. We are all thankful for that, I suppose. Macon has some gorgeous antebellum architecture that otherwise would have been destroyed. 

Macon is also rich in dead people. Old cities tend to do that. The largest and oldest cemetery in town (as far as I know) is Rose Hill Cemetery. It is built (are cemeteries "built"?) on the hillside overlooking the Ocmulgee River that runs through Macon. It's very beautiful and much like a park.

Irrelevant fact: One of the most famous graves there is that of Duane Allman of the Allman Brothers Band. 

Back in the early 1980s when I lived in Macon, this cemetery was the prettiest park-like place to visit. Lots of the students from Mercer would come to the cemetery for picnics, Frisbee-golf, or other instances of fooling around. It is private property and should be respected as reverently as is due a cemetery. But we didn't. We were jerks. 

A railroad track runs between the river and the cemetery. Somewhere at the bottom of the cemetery right by the tracks is an area that looks vaguely like this (but not so neat). This one happens to be the Allman grave site. But pay attention to that retaining wall. Joe and I found a secluded area with a wall similar to this one. I think we had a picnic there. But one thing led to another and as young lovers will we ended up playing hide the sausage. He had me sitting on the wall, which was not the most comfortable perch. Except for the engineer in the train that passed by, no one saw us. (oops) So I guess I was caught having sex in the weirdest place I ever had sex. The experience is memorable, but not for quality of the sex. For good quality sex I'd have to tell a different story, probably one that didn't include Joe Choo.