The Run Down Cougar Canyon

If you're tuning in late, read the previous post.

Hubby and I are trying not to act too shocked about this whole thing. I suspect that Hubby is saying to himself---like commenter Just Bob---(Damn! Where were all the cougars and horny high school teachers when I was growing up?), so I don't allow him to be very indignant about this.

And since the woman in question is his age, I just don't think it's appropriate for him to comment too much on it.

Not that he would, I don't think---he's really a conservative and somewhat uh prissy guy, but over the years, I've run into ::koff:: "gentleman" (some were friends of my dad who didn't consider that the small fry---mainly me---were listening) pontificate about the wear and tear and saggage of women of a certain age, while complacently ignoring the fact that they had bigger titties, droopier butts and prolly hadn't seen their own peckers that were damply moldering under their beer bellies for at least a decade.

Ever hear the old joke--and truly, I'm not trying to pick on Donald Trump since I made the comment about his hair in the last post---and his divorce from Marla Maples?

Did you know that Donald divorced Marla because she violated their prenuptial agreement?

Yep. She turned 30. Bahahahaha.

But I guess when I cheered Demi and Ivana for marrying their cabana boys, I should have figured that at some point I'd have to put my money where my mouth is. Karma is weird that way.

And Ouch.

Sooooo....knowing first hand how sad and achingly lonely Big Kid has been, I'm not going to put up a full-frontal opposition to any of it. If I do, with his issues, I can't think of anything that will make him more determined to hang in there and see it through.

If it works out and he's happy, then what more could I ask for?

He's been so sad for so long.

If it doesn't work out, then it's a different and hopefully informative life experience under his belt.

I'm pleasant when she calls, but no, I'm not inviting her to Sunday dinner. Nor am I going to facilitate any of it by being his mommy-cab and driving him down to the city for a date. They're grown-ups and can figure it all out for themselves.

By the same token, he has to realize that I'm uncomfortable with this, and if he wants to have hearts-to-hearts about it, he has to be ready to take the flak from everybody. If Ashton Kutcher can do it, why can't he?
________________

Random comments from the peanut gallery so far:

Big Kid's therapist: Run, don't walk away from this!
__________________

Big Kid's Friend: Does she have all of her own teeth?

Big Kid: Do you know how I could find out?
__________________

Big Kid: Did you ever see that movie Harold and Maude (he's apparently been primed on this--and she hasn't heard about Mrs. Robinson)?

Me: Yes. But obviously you haven't.

Big Kid: Well it's about an older woman and a younger man.

Me: Yeah, and after they have sex, she kills herself. You think that will be good for your self-esteem?
___________________

Hubby (to Big Kid): Maybe you're confused about her interest in you. Maybe she just wants someone to do yardwork.

Big Kid: I'm pretty sure that was a date.

Hubby: Are you positive she didn't ask you to trim her bushes?

Big Kid: No, she didn't.

Me: Well if she does, make sure she specifies what bushes she needs trimmed, ok?

Big Kid (not recognizing the whooshing sound over his head): What are you guys talking about?
____________________

Big Kid: I'm feeling sad. She's been working all day and I haven't gotten a chance to talk to her.

Me: Call one of your grandmas. They'd be thrilled to hear from you and you never know---you might just get that same warm, fuzzy feeling.
_______________

Big Kid (to me): I was thinking that maybe the two of you could be good buddies because you're close in age.

Me: My good buddies and I mainly talk about our children and sex. She'll probably want to hear about that poop chunk you left on the back of the toilet seat last week as much as I'll want to hear that you don't know where her clitoris is.
_______________

Bah! Who's going to volunteer to shoot me? Just shoot me now!

The Cosmic Joker

Dear Boss of the Universe,

I'd like to think that we have a pretty good working relationship.

You know I don't spend all our face-time asking for personal stuff---although I suppose asking for world peace does affect me and mine personally. I do ask that you try to change the hearts of people who contemplate doing bad things, and to comfort people who are facing tragedies.

And I spend a lot of time thanking you for my personal blessings and the wonderful creations You provide such as cool breezes on steaming hot days, and now tubs of ready-made Philadelphia Cream Cheese cheesecake filling when I'm tempted to drive a BBQ fork directly into my throat. No bothersome springform pans or graham-cracker crust to wade through. Just hand me a shovel.

You've blessed us all with free will, and I know that at least 90% of my problems are those I've created myself, so I don't try to fob them off on You. Sometimes I ask You for strength in cleaning my own crap up, but the responsibility is mine.

And I appreciate that you have a twisted sense of humor---as shown by Your creation of platypuses, Donald Trump's hair, and KFC's "Famous" Bowls of slop.

We've had quite a few conversations over the last couple of years about Big Kid and his issues.

Ok, honestly, I've talked, You've listened.

He's desperately lonely. Between shyness and panic attacks---and other issues----he simply doesn't have the social skills he needs to develop meaningful relationships. The few friends he maintained from high school have either gone on to away college and jobs, or are loser dopers who he has (thankfully) distanced himself from.

Plus the fact that he doesn't learn from his mistakes is a huge check-mark in the minus box.

So over the last few years, most of his interaction to the outside world has been through stupid social networking sites like Myspace. Oh, and Tru.Com, which has a system that is almost impossible to cancel from and keeps billing his debit card (to an account that has no money in it) although he's called 3 times to cancel it. They keep sending him "so and so winked at you" notices in email, and impulsively he goes to check it out. The minute he logs in, they bill him for another month at 60 bucks a pop or so. :::sigh:::

But You know all that.

He's "hooked up" with 14-year-olds who pretended to be 19-year olds. He's given our home phone number out to several psycho girls who have never learned phone etiquette and if they didn't get an answer from one call, instead of leaving a message and waiting for him to call back, found a need to call every freaking 10 minutes with the hope that at some point he'd pick up the phone. Until I answered and screamed at them.

Then they called every 30 minutes.

And then there are the ones who think that calling at 2am is socially appropriate.

Let's not forget the couple of harpies who are local and recognized his MySpace profile and who have too much time on their hands. They make up fake profiles and pretend to be interested and write to him. Like a doof, he responds, gets all invested and spills his heart out, only to get a big huge Bahahahahaha at some point. You'd think after the first couple of times, he'd be a little more wary.

Of course there's the multitude in between---where he's fudged about himself, or they've fudged about themselves and they talk on the phone for a few weeks and like dumbasses are telling each other "I LURVE YOU!!" Then when they meet in person, it's sad and ugly all around.

I know I've talked to You and admitted that I hoped Big Kid would find somebody a bit older than his 21 years to be friendly with. Someone who is out of school, has some life experience and is beyond the juvenile game-playing stage. Somebody who might take this big lump of boy and give him a few worthy life lessons. Big hope, huh? What does he really have to offer someone who is stable and goal-oriented? Other than his lovely green eyes?

As You know, he met somebody recently. She was tooling around on MySpace and liked his musical choices. They chatted in email for a couple of weeks. She's gainfully employed, drives (HUGE plus, because he doesn't), has her own place. Then they talked on the phone for a week or so. He walked around with a huge smile on his face.

Yesterday, they made plans to meet in the park of the sort-of big city down the pass and go to lunch. I drove him down and dropped him off.

Little Guy and I went shopping and to lunch and picked Big Kid up a few hours later. He was on Cloud 9.

She had kissed him goodbye. And she called him later to tell him what a great time she had. He and I sat down to talk about how good he was feeling about it, and what he hoped might come of it all. Then he filled me in on a few things.

Boss of the Universe, I know I confessed to You that I hoped Big Kid might find someone a bit older and more experienced. And I realize that you have a somewhat odd sense of humor.

But seriously, and please don't smite me, because I ask this with the utmost respect....

5 years older than ME? Are You freaking insane????

ATM





PS---to my blogfriends, will fill you in with the details once I manage to choke them down.

More Stupid for Breakfast

What in the heck is UP with The National Children's Bureau in the UK? They recently issued a 366-page guide to those in charge of pre-school children to root out racism before it can take hold.

Nurseries are '"encouraged to report as many incidents as possible to their local council."

To quote: This could include a child of as young as three who says "yuk" in response to being served unfamiliar foreign food.

You have GOT to be sh*tting me.

I mean it.

Ok, in the U.S. we are the kings of pork barrel spending. 200 dollar toilet seats, 50 dollar widgets, etc, etc.

I KNOW we have no room to talk, because we've spent a bazillion dollars on studies of cow farts, but by the same token, you'd think that some of our UK critics would realize that giving this council 12 million pounds a year (which roughly translates to about 24 million dollars in yankee money, but don't quote me on that) could be better spent on things like fluoridated water or orthodontia for all the good this directive has.

At the age of 3, neither of my guys would eat anything with curry in it. Did it make them prejudiced against people from India or Pakistan? Did they know where India or Pakistan is? Did they know there was such places as India or Pakistan? Doh.

Little Guy wouldn't eat anything orange, including carrots and oranges. What a pig he was, discriminating against rabbits and Floridians. He wouldn't eat cotton candy either, which clearly shows a bias against clowns.

Sometime in the past, I wrote about how in the 6th grade we did a study on Eskimos, or Inuits in North America. We were shown a standardized and locally infamous film where a father killed a caribou, cut out its eyeball and handed it to his toddler son, who took a big bite out of it. When we watched it in my class, the kid named Gregory in front of me (who weirdly enough I was thinking about around a week ago out of the blue) turned around and yarked on my pants and shoes.

Was that racist against Inuits?

In my opinion, no. If somebody handed me a plate with an eyeball on it, I'd promptly hand it back. Maybe with a little pukey added sauce on my part.

You can't account for personal taste.

My husband despises Lima beans, but he doesn't walk around damning Peruvians.

And inquiring minds want to know: People in the UK traditionally eat blood sausage, toad-in-the-hole and Spotted Dick.

If some "foreigner" turned THEIR nose up at those culinary choices, according to the National Children's Bureau, would they be accused of discriminating against AIDs victims, frogs, and men with freckles on their privates (don't EVEN want to go there!)?

Stupid. They eat stupid for breakfast.

How to Mess Up a Nice Pair of Jammie Pants

So last night I was up in the big city with the guys. My older brother took Big Kid to the concert, my mom took Little Guy out for bowling and dinner.

Me---I got to lock myself in the Holiday Inn room with air conditioning, an Arby's Roast Beef Sandwich with extra Horsey Sauce, ice cold Snapple and a couple of new Charlaine Harris mysteries. No dogs, no guys, nobody with a crisis...

Oh Bliss!!!

Mom brought Little Guy back at about 10pm. We watched some TV and then snoozed. Around midnight, my brother dropped the Big Kid off. They tried to chat about how awesome the concert was, but I just sorta waved from my bed and said "Thanks for taking him!" before falling back into the abyss.

Sometime in the middle of the night, a weird noise---one I could hear over the air conditioning--woke me up.

Scritch-scritch. Scritch-scritch.

Sleepily, I looked at the clock. It was 3:30am.

Scritch-scritch.

What in the hell WAS that?

I sat up and looked at the boys in the other bed. They were motionless and dead to the world. No arm-pit or groin scratching to explain the noise.

Scritch-scritch.

The noise was beyond them at the hotel room door.

Oh crap. Was there some kind of RODENT in the room?

I put my glasses on and tiptoed over. The only light in the room was from the bathroom---back behind my bed---and that door was mostly closed. It then hit me that we were actually in a room that faced outside to the parking lot, something I hadn't thought about before. Anything could be trying to get in.

Did Big Kid remember to lock the security locks when he came in?

Before I could check, something caught my eye in the sliver of streetlight that was coming through the curtains next to the door.

About 3/4 of the way down, something white was moving in and out of the space between the door and the jamb in a sawing motion.

Scritch-scritch.

In an instant, the first thing that crossed my mind was that it was some kind of slim-jim that could pop the door lock. With a scream caught in my throat, I grabbed it and YANKED it through to my side of the door.

Outside, I heard a startled "GAAAAAHHHH!!!!"

Like a dummy, I looked through the peephole (Yes, yes, I've seen movies where people get shot through the eyeball doing the same stupid thing. But I wasn't working on all 8 cylinders).

Standing outside the door was a little old bald man with a shocked look on his face. He scurried away like he had a flaming firework up his butt.

WTF?

I looked at the thing I had yanked away from him. It wasn't some kind of new-fangled slim-jim.

It was crinkly. I took it to the bathroom to examine it in the light.

It was our folded-up Express Check-out receipt.

________________________________________

P.S. Gotta say, that scared the CRAP outta me! My adrenalin was pumping so hard I felt like I'd mainlined a triple shot of expresso. I stayed up shaking for the next couple of hours, then woke the kids up and drove right home. When we got here, I crashed in bed for half the day after it wore off.

The only consolation I have is wondering how THAT guy's day went. LOL

Happy 4th everybody!

A Little Ass in Your Glass

This story caught my eye, because our community is also served by a freshwater reservoir which is unfiltered.

Luckily for us, up here the water is colder than a brass bra and capped off.

A couple in Portland were caught skinny-dipping in the Mt. Tabor reservoir, which serves as part of the community's tap water. Fortunately for the townspeople, they were swimming in an area that was currently off-line, or the water bureau would have had to shut off the reservoir and consider dumping millions of gallons for cleanliness issues.

Of course, inquiring minds and all....

Since the water is untreated, and presumably at some point that part of the reservoir is going to be going BACK online, do officials think that stray pubes and skin cells are going to disintegrate? Or sink to the bottom? Or what?

Ok, I know---I watch too much CSI. LOL

Going back up to the big city to take Big Kid to the Stone Temple Pilots reunion tour.

Catch up in a couple of days!

ATM

The Good, the Bad and the Fugly

Or Should I say,

Hail to the Queens!

The Good

Queen of the Mayhem, that Beeyotch, got to get away without all the appendages and have a faboo weekend with the girls. Good for her, but I'm so jellus!

The Bad

Queen Goob, who totally cracks me up, tries to survive the gas crunch by riding the bus, and gets the horny driver from hell.

The Fugly

Ok, I have to provide some back-story here. Especially since I promised to tell another tale of my trip to the big city.

My Mom has become a senior-citizenish coupon cultist. And then some.

Some months ago, me and the boys were up visiting and she was able to lasso a time when both my brothers would be available for a family lunch. I'd never had that particular pleasure, because I live a couple of hours away.

Usually when we're there, it's for a holiday, or a birthday, so we have big family breakfasts, or dinners (and sometimes she lets us grab the check if it's not at her house, where we all pitch in and cook the meal ourselves). I'd never actually gone out to lunch with her---at least not for YEARS (the last time I remember she offered to take me to the doc and get me on the pill---so it was like back in the dark ages).

Before we decided where to go to lunch, my older brother looked a bit glum. My younger brother looked a bit glum. Mom was tooling around in another part of the house, so I asked them what was up, and they said:

"She won't let us treat her to lunch, so since it's on her dime, she's going to pull out a coupon to some really crappy place and insist we drink water."

Whaaaa????

Now mind you, although my mom is widowed and retired, it's not like 4 bucks in soda or ice tea is going to make a difference on whether or not she's going to have to eat Alpo for the last week of the month. She's ok. And if she wasn't, she could let one of us treat her or let us pay our own way.

But that's how it went down. LOL She had coupons and insisted that water was good for us. It was weird.

Anyhoo, when the boys and I were up there a few weeks ago, we went out to dinner (my younger brother couldn't make it), so it was Mom, my older brother, me and my two boys. We went to a "really neat" Cajun/American restaurant that she and her lady friends had discovered, which was about a block from our hotel, so it was perfect.

Plus, I discreetly told the woman who seated us to make sure the check came to me. Didn't want to wrestle with my mom over it, and didn't want the boys to complain. Although I did actually order water to drink. ;-)

Finally I figured out why my Mom liked this restaurant so much.

The service was slower than a snail with broken leg thingys. I mean if they had legs.

We ordered, and then the waiter brought out two huge bread baskets for the 5 of us. They contained a variety of breads. With whipped butter.

My mom only ordered from the "small bites" menu----I thought it was because she's been dieting sorta, and admired her restraint. Me? I was hungry, dammit, so I ordered a big-ass beef sandwich au jus with cole slaw. The kids ordered similarly, and my brother ordered jambalaya.

So while we were waiting, everybody attacked the bread baskets. There were baguettes of hot french bread, some kind of carrot cake bread, and some other sweet bread. With whipped butter.

I was surprised frankly to see Mom dig in. I had two pieces (waiting for dinner), and the guys and Mom demolished everything else.

About 15 minutes later, Mom flagged down a waiter and asked for more bread. They brought out two more huge baskets. With whipped butter.

Mom and the guys had a chance to take like one more piece each, and then our dinners came.

I ate my slaw and a half of my sandwich (it was cut in two). Then I was stuffed. My older brother was so full, he only ate half of his entree. Big Kid ate some of his fries and only half of HIS sandwich. Little Guy, of course (has sensory integration issues) ate everything on his plate, but felt a bit ill later.

Mom picked at her entree. She was already full of bread. LOL

Soooooo.....when it was all over.....Mom and my older brother (who lives with my mom) took home almost Mom's entire entree of salmon and some kind of pilaf, the other half of my brother's jambalaya, half of my roast beef sandwich (with the au jus in a little styrafoam container), half of Big Kid's sandwich and the rest of his fries, and the rest of the two bread baskets---which contained like 12 pieces of bread. And the rest of the whipped butter.

gak!

But back to the Fug.

The day after I got back, I went and visited Queen of Planet Hot Flash's blog.
I laughed so hard I almost peed myself. Not being cliche. I mean it.

Because no matter where we are, or what we do, I saw US in there. Now go here, and then here, and then there.

You think YOU have momster probs, then you have to check this out.

In my life, I can get down on my knees and feel grateful that I'm not related to Queen's MIL.

But damn, it's butt-fugly and funny as all get out. LOL

Don't Drink the Koolaid!

In the news:

Dallas Residents See Crash Test Dummy and Umbrella Mouth Gulper Eel In Granite Slab!

Ha, you think that would actually make print on even a slow news day?

Does anyone really believe either of the Simpson sisters has talent?

But change it to Dallas Residents See Jesus in Granite Slab and you've got a headline!

(This was obviously brought to you by the same folks who mistook images of Scott Hamilton and Kristi Yamaguchi trapped in a potato as one of the Messiah.)

Hey, you doofs. If you have faith, you don't need to see an image of Christ on a cracker to affirm your belief in the Almighty. Go outside and roll around on the grass at morning, noon or night. Behold the majesty of a spectacular sunrise---or clouds drifting across an azure sky---or the blaze of color in a stunning sunset. Contemplate the life and workings of a lowly ant that crawls across your path.

If you need a miracle, go hold your child or your grandchild in your arms and breathe in the smell of them. Touch their hands and marvel in the flesh made from your flesh. Wonder at how their fingers, or their hair, or their eyes are like yours, and how your own might resemble those of your ancestors before you.

If you aren't a believer, well the above is still pretty cool stuff, however you might explain it.

But who in the heck needs a granite slab or a potato or a piece of toast to tell them that miracles exist?

Sheesh.

Cutting the Apron Strings

We had a meeting with Big Kid's new neuropsych the other day. Although our family doc has been prescribing (last neuro was a diagnostician and couldn't prescribe meds), he wanted to have an outside consultation, because Big Kid isn't where he needs to be.

Some of it is his illness. Some of it is because he refuses to believe that we don't intend to allow him to squat in our home for the rest of his life and provide for his every need.

A lot of it is because he is resistant to being an active participant in his own life. Everything is done "to" him (he has no responsibility for whatever happens---like when he trips over the shoes he threw on the floor, it's the shoes' fault for getting in his way) or must be done "for" him (2 years of private rehabilitative driving lessons, and he's no closer to getting his license than he was then).

He's got applications out for part-time jobs, but refuses to call to follow-up on them. He got set up with a small thing where he could make pocket money sitting on his butt in front of the computer, but refuses to complete any of the work they ask him to do. Then he's angry because Little Guy has the money to buy CDs and DVDs and it's "unfair" and we're "favoring" him.

It's convenient to turn a blind eye to how Little Guy earns his money---by emptying the dishwasher, feeding the dogs, taking out the trash, pulling weeds, sweeping the deck. There's MORE than enough chores around here to earn a little cash.

grrrr.

Anyhoo, while I was visiting blogs the other night, I went over to catch up with my bud Ruth Dynamite, and she had a link to a sketch from Little Britain that I'd never seen before.

I laughed so hard that I cried. I showed it to Hubby and HE laughed so hard that he cried.

I showed it to Big Kid, and he said...."eww. That's gross. I don't get it."

He had a night to mull it over, and the next morning he said, "Were you trying to be sarcastic by showing that to me?"

Bahahahaha.

Not really safe for work or for viewing around small children:

Small Blessings

Both of my wandering guys are home. Hubby is back from visiting his mom, and Little Guy is back from camp.

Whew. All accounted for and safe and sound.

Unfortunately, Ellbee was still Ellbee to all the staff and fellow campers, so my prayer for her personal rebellion and anarchy failed.

But I asked her how her week went and called her Daniella and got an impromptu hug from her in return.

Last year I wrote about Hubby, aka "Fluffy, the Peony Slayer". Heh. You have to read this before you go on.

Anyway, like I mentioned there, 11 years ago I bought some lilac bushes---which I tried to nurture for awhile---hoping they'd take to our climate and grow. No luck. They died. So I forgot about them and moved on to other plants.

On Friday, when we were leaving to drive up to get our Little Guy, I saw this small plant at the end of the driveway---about 2 feet tall---that was starting to bloom with lavender spikes.

What in the heck WAS that?

Holy smokes. It was one of the lilac bushes I'd planted all those years ago! It actually survived and is blooming!









On another note---keeping all the windows and doors closed, but it STILL isn't preventing that dreaded yellow pine pollen from sneaking in on our clothes and shoes and dogs.

There's a fine yellow dust on everything, and that part of the cycle is just starting.

Achoo!

A Revolting Development

Arrgghh!!

If you've noticed that my links list is wonky, well there's a reason.

I "upgraded" my template today so that I could add new features. Unfortunately, all the links that appeared are at least 6-12 months old.

So if you were on my list previously and don't see yourself there now, I promise I didn't delete you. I'm in the process of recovering them. Gak!

Binkys and Baby Voices

We drove Little Guy up to camp this weekend. There are very few social activities up here for young adults when school's out, so it's something to break up the summer.

It's a neat program for people who have mild to moderate disabilities. This week's age group is for 18-21 year olds, and Little Guy has been really looking forward to it, since he missed out last year when he smashed his fingers in the garage door.

For the past year, Little Guy has been practicing greetings---hand shaking, making eye contact, adding phrases to his verbal repertoire so that when he gets past the "Hi, how are you, I'm fine, how are you?" part, he'll be able to appropriately add more to an exchange other than his old initial stand-bys---"Are you wearing socks?" or "What did you have for breakfast?"

He desperately wants to go beyond a first conversational connection when he meets people, so he's been trying on a phrase wardrobe to see what fits and what doesn't.

"Did you take a shower today?" is not usually a hit.

"I really like your colorful t-shirt!" is.

While we were waiting our turn in the lodge to get him signed in (we were there early), I sat with his pile of stuff along with a few other parents and he wandered around putting his new skills to work. He introduced himself to other campers and counselors, shook their hands and chatted with them. Then he came over to stand by me.

Sitting next to me was a mother and her daughter. The daughter smiled at Little Guy and shyly said, "Hi!"

He stuck his hand out to her.

Hi, my name is Little Guy! What's your name?

Somehow her mother intercepted his hand first and shook it. "Nice to meet you, Little Guy!", she exclaimed brightly in a baby voice. "My name is Marty!"

He cringed.

I cringed.

We don't do baby voices.

She turned to her daughter. "This is Ellbee!"

Little Guy moved his hand over to shake. Nice to meet you, Ellbee!

She took his hand and grimaced.

"My name is really Daniella", she said softly. Pretty name for a very pretty young woman.

Then her mom chimed in loudly---again in an excruciatingly cloying baby voice---and pointed to the name tag on her daughter's chest, "But WE like to call her our little Ellbee!"

Yikes.

When we filled out the forms for camp, I remember there being a section for nicknames. I guess if I even spent any time pondering it, my thoughts would be along the lines of Tom being short for Thomas, or Liz being short for Elizabeth, etc. It never would have occurred to me to fill it in with nicknames we called Little Guy when he was 3----Bubarooni and Sweet Pea.

He's not a baby. He's a young man, for Pete's sakes.

While he was doing an inventory of his belongings with one of the staff, I wandered over to the table that held the name tags, hoping to see if any of his old friends were attending this week. Amongst the Johns, Ricks, Marys, Heathers and Kates were WeeDee and Binky.

What the heck?

Ok, to be fair, I haven't met these people. For all I know WeeDee and Binky LIKE their nicknames. Or maybe they're like Daniella, who is struggling to claim her adult name as her own.

I know it's hard to let go of our babies, especially if developmentally they will remain as children. But our babies WILL inevitably grow up to be adults.

Where is the dignity for someone named Ron, if everyone is calling him BINKY when he's 40? It's not cute any more. It's a bad caricature of stereotypes regarding people who have cognitive disabilities.

I said a little prayer the other night.

I prayed that Ellbee tore off her name tag and continued to assert herself after Mom dropped her off. I prayed that at least this week, she gets to be who she wants to be.

A lovely young adult named Daniella.

This 'n That

Heya!

Hubby is still back east taking care of his mom and getting her affairs in order. She's doing well, but looking at a 4-5 month stay in the rehab unit. :-(

Drove Little Guy up to camp yesterday for a week of summer fun. Have a few comments on that, but will have to think about how to phrase them.

Big Kid and I are on our own, so we went out to dinner and rented a movie----Stephen King's The Mist.

I have to say that The Mist is one of my absolute favorite stories...on one hand, because it isn't stretching the imagination to believe that it could happen, and I've spent many a night over the years wondering how I'd react in a situation like that. On the other, because it scared the shiat outta me.

The movie, on the whole----was pretty true to the novella. Until, of course, the "adapter" decided to kick in some absolutely stoopid and unneeded third dimension bullshit (which pretty much took it out of the realm of "wow, I could actually see this happening") and then CHANGED THE ENDING COMPLETELY.

Boy, was I pissed off. I was so pissed off, that I woke up this morning STILL pissed off. Grrrr.

RC at Strange Culture did a really fabulous blogathon about Dad's and the Media for Father's Day. There are lots a great contributors with thought-provoking posts. Drop by and check it out!

Ballad of a Bad, Bad Mom

We're back from a brief visit to my mom's house. And it was quite the mini-adventure! A couple of tales to tell in upcoming days.

When the weather is good (no snow or ice), we usually take the back mountain roads to get up to Mom's house. They're winding and steep in some parts, but there's hardly any traffic, it's a nice scenic drive, and cuts around 45 minutes off our drive time as opposed to going the front way up the interstate.

About every 10 minutes from the back seat, Little Guy asks, "How you doing, Mom?"

I'm doing just great Punkin, how about you?

"I'm doing good! How about you, Big Kid? How you doing?"

30 minutes into the trip (on the 3rd time of being asked), Big Kid responded...."I'm not doing too good."

Me: What?????

Big Kid: "I think I'm about to have a panic attack."

I looked at him. He was definitely white. You can tell, because he's a little freckly. They all stand out in stark relief when he goes pale.

During the last year, we've been able to cut down on his anxiety meds by half. But once in awhile, with no rhyme or reason, he has a panic attack out of the blue---with no obvious triggers. His meds were packed in his bag, which was in the trunk of the car.

I reached across the seat and held his hand.

Do you think you need more meds? Can you wait until we hit XXXXX (a small town on the way)? I can't think of any safe place to pull over until then.

"You mean the Ghost Town?"

We've driven through this little mountain town maybe 4-5 times a year back and forth. The main part of town is historical, with some buildings dating back to the late 1800's. It's so small that there isn't a grocery store, or even a gas station.

There are a lot of little Victorian cottages, a couple of which have been converted to antique shops. There's a relatively new church of the main drag, as well as a dilapidated trailer park. A little further on, there is quite a lot of new development with log homes. They have a restaurant, and usually there are one or two cars parked in front of it.

As terms of size, I guess you could say that if streets were named after letters of the alphabet, they'd probably stop at K. One of those "blink it and you'll miss it" kind of villages.

Anyway, in the last 10 years that we've taken this back way into the city, we have NEVER seen a live person in this town.

Nobody sitting on a porch. Nobody standing in a parking lot. Nobody playing on the swing set in the park. Nobody crossing the street. Nobody looking through a window either way from a store or the restaurant.

Not one person.

Ever.

And after the first year or two of noticing it, we've made an effort as a family to peer out all windows of the car to see if there are any actual residents.

The only people we see are travelers in cars, like us, who are just passing through town.

It's like a really weird Twilight Zone episode where all the inhabitants are invisible. Or the "Lost Colony" of Roanoke, where everybody just up and disappeared, leaving all their worldly possessions. It's creepy as heck.

But every summer, when we drive through this little burgette, we see newly-hung banners for the "Rhubarb Festival", which has made me privately wonder if it's some Shirley Jacksonish way for the townspeople to lure passers-thru into stopping one day a year.

So they can do something terrible to us.

Maybe slaughter us like cattle and bake muffins out of our brains for the local bake sale to pay homage to some weirdo God to keep fire or flood from reigning down and wiping out the town.

ONCE, three years ago, we were driving through and we saw a Fed-Ex Guy standing on a porch with a package, waiting for someone to open the door.

"Look!" Big Kid squealed. "A real person!" He pointed, and we all pressed our faces against the car windows to get a look at the first real live person we'd ever seen in this town.

Except that he really doesn't count. Because well, he's the Fed-Ex guy. He doesn't really LIVE there. And he later prolly thought we were absolute loons----gaping at him in awe from our car.

If he ever made it out of there alive, that is.

So when Big Kid asked if we were going to stop in the "Ghost Town" to get his meds out of the trunk, I started thinking about the reference. Quite apropos. And in hindsight, I should have engaged my brain before opening my mouth, simply because we have similar thought processes sometimes, and I should have figured this was on his mind.

Do you think you can wait until we get there? I know just the spot where we can pull over.

He decided that he could.

Silly me, I thought I'd lighten the moment, and try to help take his mind off his anxiety with a little bit of demented humor.

Wouldn't it be really weird if you were getting your meds out of the trunk and somebody jumped out from behind the bushes and tried to rip your throat out with their teeth like in Shaun of the Dead?

"AAAAAAIIIGGHGHGHGHGHGHGHH!!! AAAAAAAAIIIIGHGHHHHHH!!!"

Full and total meltdown. From the kid who thinks that Saw 1 through 4 is cool and the ultimate in high moviemaking art.

Had to pull over to the very next mountain shoulder wide enough to fit the car into to get his meds out of the trunk.

Bad, bad BAD Mommy.

Gak!

I'm Running Away...

Far far away.

No not really.

Since Hubby is getting ready to leave for a week back east with his mom, I'm going to take a few days to go get a lil love and attention from my own momster.

And let HER yell at my kids for a change.

See you in a few...

ATM

Peaches, You Guys are Just Peaches!

Thanks so much for your shared outrage and support over our dealings with Dr. Dillweed and the Dips.

Hubby came home with the mail last night after work. Got a letter from SS announcing an appointment with a NEW doc that basically said:

"Since you didn't make your previous appointment you better not miss this one with the new doctor, or else we'll make a determination on medical records alone."

And the date was scheduled for the day after Little Guy leaves for a week at summer camp.

I just about sat down and cried.

Then I bucked up. Screw them. His medical and school records are sufficient and complete. There ain't nothing in there that's going to indicate that he was actually trained to be a jet pilot in disguise who could earn 150k a year under the table while ripping them off for their $53.00 a month. No, not a typo.

About an hour later, the phone rang.

It was my sister-in-law, asking if I knew how to get a hold of Hubby. I told her he was swimming laps in the pool, and she said, "ok, can I talk to him"?

Can he call you back? He's been really stressed out, and I didn't want to go out there with the phone and get growled at.

"No, I need to talk to him now."

Yikes, is everything ok?

"No."

I've talked about his mom, who is 86 and lives back east. Since his dad died about a year and a half ago, he goes every couple of months for a week or so to spend precious time with her and help her with anything that needs to be done. He's got plane tickets to go spend a week with her on the 12th.

His siblings are actually half-sibs---children from his dad's first marriage. The half-sister who lives locally and the half-brother who is semi-local have been wonderful about filling in when he can't be there. But he's his mom's only baby boy.

Turns out that MIL went for a mammogram yesterday. While she was "in the vise" so to speak, she told the tech that she was feeling shaky and needed something to hold on to. The tech said, "wait until I get this picture".

Well, she fell down, broke her femur, sprained her wrist, ripped up the very thin skin on her arm---not to mention the--uh--part that was in the "wringer".

And the tech didn't even get the picture.

When we got the call, she'd been in the ER for hours (we got the call at 6pm which was 8pm there).

Blessedly, sis-in-law's son is a doctor with privileges in the hospital, and went down and raised hell about everything. And he knew her medical history better than the people from her assisted living place.

They were going to operate on her leg today, but she still had too much cumoden (blood thinner--don't know if I'm spelling it right) in her blood, so they put it off until tomorrow early morning.

Good news is that she isn't apathetic---she is thoroughly pissed off about the stupidity of the whole thing. Plus the hospital food. It sucks.

Better to fight her way through it, in our opinion. Oh, and Morphine is great.

Send good thoughts for her, would you?

So this morning, instead of feeling sorry for myself over this idiotic SS thing, I decided to work with the system, called and talked to the medical compliance person.

She assured me that the letter we received wasn't a reflection on the Dr. Dillweed episode, but a form letter that Social Security sends out. I told her the dates (before and after summer camp) that we could be available and she promised to work with us.

Whew.

_________________

Update: The surgery went well---they put a steel rod in MIL's leg, and she's resting---not exactly comfortably, but with a lot of good drugs. Thanks again for all your kind wishes!