I Want to Fix Something

Lord, anything right about now. There's a duck nest in the empty lot next door. When the babies hatch, she'll have a hell of a time getting them to the reservoir (too many fences and the babies must walk). Not sure there's anything I can do about that, but I sure want to save those ducklings. Heard the familiar thump, bump, whack! on Memorial Day emanating from Test Case's bathroom. Caesar boy up to his old tricks again. Damn sure there's nothing I can do about that either. I wish I could fix it, but really all I could do was shove a thickness of towel between his shoulder and the water faucet because it was beating him up pretty badly. All that was there between his head and the metal door railing was hubby's hand. It didn't seem to go on and on forever like it usually does. I'm getting USED TO THEM. shit, did i just say that?






How can I find the words to express my anger, frustration and misery towards the universe, towards fate for giving my son grand mal (now called tonic-clonic) seizures. Fuck, I am so sick of it. I am helpless, guilty and sad.
Everytime he has one I feel like a little piece of him is floating off into the ether, never to be heard of again. I pray his employers won't find some reason to sack him.
And yet, I am strangely grateful. He is alive. He is functioning. His true friends have stuck by him.
Life moves on...
So here's a funny little thing that happened last night. I took the Warrior Princess shopping for her first ever high-heeled shoes for the 6th grade completion ceremony. She proudly walked around in the house with them on, and then exclaimed "Hey mom, these shoes make your butt wag."
That's my girl.

A Porch With a View....

or what twenty-somethings do when they get bored. In the middle of the night. With their sister's chalk. I often say Test Case is 21 going on 17. He would be SO insulted if he heard me say that. Hey, I have evidence:

Happy Face Court, it's like crop circles
without the aliens

The plans for said court drawing:



Last weekend, it was the Gangsta/Gangster party. That's my pride and joy on the right.
Complete with 'grill'. He toils away at his restaurant job so he can have all the latest accessories.


But then he has to go and be a bad influence on his little sister...
(who then had to run across the street and see the decorations only to be summarily booted out by big brother)




To be fair these fellows have theme parties throughout the year and they have done Hollywood, Halloween, GQ, and Luau parties as well.
So he's not the towering intellectual I dreamed he'd be back when he was 5 and he knew the scientific names of all the dinosaurs. He's alive. He's working. He does his best to keep track of his meds so he doesn't wind up a gibbering idiot from time to time. Once in a while he enjoys a good party. Big Picture Idea: I'm fine with that.
Could he do more? Yes, and hopefully he will figure out what he wants to do with the rest of his life. He is on his own timetable.

Karma Bites Me in the Ass, Sort of...

In a flash of age-related forgetfulness, I missed the Volunteer sign-up for the Warrior Princess's swim team. Everyone must sign up or you don't get to come back next season (or so they say). In all the years WP has swam, I have never shirked my duty. This time, as one of the slackers, I was randomly assigned to The Snack Bar. Yuck and double Yuck! I ran the football stadium snack bar while FPM played HS football. It was fun at the time, but really hard work and I was glad it was over.

I must admit sheepishly, that I was tempted to call back the swim snack bar lady and lie and say I wouldn't be attending this meet. No Way could I ever really do that (catholic upbringing?).

I showed up and worked my shift. Know what? It wasn't so bad. There were enough people that I was able to run over and watch WP swim her races. I worked my shift and stayed to help them dismantle. I remembered why I did this in the first place (swim team is time consuming). She loves the sport. When the boys were young I logged countless hours driving to practices, clinics, games, tournaments and lessons for baseball, basketball, soccer and football. I'm certainly not inclined to do any less for the girl! I also signed her up for an instructional water polo league later this summer. The new HS opening up in our town this fall will have a pool, so she could play water polo in HS if she wants (in 3 years).

I missed the sign-ups, felt like I got screwed with snack bar duty, knew it was my own damn fault, and was mad at myself, but the final result turned out just fine. WP swam well and she is now tired (always a plus). I was reminded why everyone needs to pull together and do the work, even the horrifying snack bar work. We do it for our children. Eventually they really do appreciate it.

"Yarp!" What do the Ming Dynasty and Hot Fuzz Have in Common?

Well, me of course. I received an early surprise Mother's Day gift of a plane ticket to Oregon where I visited FPM. It just so happens he turned 19 on Sunday. I rolled into Portland early Saturday afternoon, my son picked me up and we drove about an hour to McMinnville where he attends Linfield College. He is a football player for the Linfield Wildcats, hence the name of my blog.
FPM needed to spend some quality time in the library researching a paper he is writing having to do with the Mongols, Manchus, Chinese Ming Dynasty and the Great Wall. Oh and I Hate libraries -NOT! And did I mention he seems to have expanded in muscular proportion? He's so much bigger than I remember from just this winter.
All that researchin' built up our appetites so we had to go out and have a wonderful dual Mother's Day/Birthday dinner. We discussed movies. I mentioned that I had heard Hot Fuzz was a good movie (thanks to MalnurturedSnay). FPM really wanted to see it, so I agreed. Guess what, it was hilfreakinlarious. Surely these people are channeling Monty Python.
The following day we Had to partake in a dual Mother's Day/Birthday breakfast. Gee that was delicious too. Getting the picture here? It was just a huge and wonderful surprise (thanks Hubby!). I loved seeing the beautiful campus (flowers everywhere!) and spending time in that cute little town (3rd Street! -bead shop!). The best part was seeing my son who I miss but at the same time I am really happy about where he is and what he is doing. And I actually got home in time to have another Mother's Day dinner with the rest of the fam (stuffed like a porker I am!).
If it makes Mama happy then, it is "For the greater good" (see that movie!).

The Day the Principal Saved the Bees

The honeybees are swarming at our school. Right near the parking lot. They are in transition, getting ready to find a permanent home. They have been in this tree for about 4 days. Some unenlightened people complained. The principal called the school district and asked them to take care of it. Naturally, they sent a guy out who was just going to blast them with chemicals and kill them all. They're honeybees! The principal of our school sent the chemical dude packing ( I love that guy!). He called all around and found a beekeeper who is coming out and taking them away to a nice new home. Get this -he uses a special low-suction vacuum device to suck them up so they won't be hurt. I snapped some shots of the swarm because it looks so awesome. It is huge. In the middle photo it is in the upper left side of the tree. Every chance I get I lecture the kids at school about the importance of bees to our ecosystem, so another teacher and I are going to put together a little book about our special swarm just for our school. Can you guess the title?

Mrs. Grumpy Grumpington

I am just so pissed off right now about my teeth. Yesterday I was coming off an adrenaline surge related to Test Case and the seizure that he did not have after all (thank you, God). I went to the dentist for the usual cleaning of my usually clean and terrific teeth. I have lovely teeth but they actually suck.
I have to have a root canal on #14 (upper left) and a removal of #30 (lower right) due to an extreme abcess. Then I will have to a have a bone graft and an implant into my jaw in order to have a tooth there. It takes 4 months for the graft to heal, another 4 months for the titanium pin to heal and only then do I get a (fake) tooth.
I. Hate. Dental. Work.
And I have a funny feeling my insurance won't cover the implant. Why should it, after all to make a bridge which they would cover means grinding down and crowning two other perfectly fine teeth. Doesn't that make good sense?
F*** insurance companies and the horses they rode in on.