Home again

Well, we made it home from our latest travels last night and now, we're not going anywhere for the rest of the year! Except maybe to exchange some gifts. And to the grocery store. And the library, probably. And maybe to the Madison Children's Museum, if the girls are especially squirrely. But nowhere else!

The weekend before Christmas, we traveled to central Illinois to visit Greg's family. It was a wonderful visit, marred only by the intense cold and horrific wind we experienced driving back home. It was one of those trips where you have to hold the steering wheel at an angle for the entire time to try to counteract the sideways action of the wind, only to weave a bit when you go under a highway underpass and the wind is blocked. On top of that, there was blowing snow across the highway for the entire portion of the trip that took us across prairie.

Trust me, you haven't lived until you've driven three hours straight through with snow blowing across the freeway that's been flying for ten miles or so, there being nothing to stop the snow out there in mid-America. That trip was only topped by our adventure last night.

This weekend, we traveled to visit my family and to attend the 50th wedding anniversary party of my Aunt Carol and Uncle Jim. I was insistent that we were going to my party, since I'm ashamed to note how long it's been since I've seen these relatives. Let's put it this way; Julia was almost a newborn. I very much wanted my girls to meet the kids of my first cousin Ken (their second cousins).

So despite truly dense fog, we traveled about 1/2 hour north of my parents' house for the party, then drove home in really, really dense fog and darkness for almost three hours. We took the interstate again (a different interstate) because it seemed safer to not have all of those intersections to deal with. But it was bad, really bad. So bad that I didn't feel very comfortable unless I had someone's tail lights to follow. So bad that Greg suggested stopping at a hotel and going the rest of the way home in the morning.

But I persevered, and we made it to Milwaukee, where the fog dissipated. We ate some dinner, then drove the rest of the way home, about another hour. When we stopped to eat, the temperature was an amazing 49 degrees. By the time we pulled into our driveway, it was 34 degrees. We were very glad to see the house still standing and to be welcomed home by the cats (and a pile of dirt from a tipped over plant--hey, you had your holiday and they had theirs).

And now, it's home sweet home for us. Ahhhhhhhhhh.

Merry Christmas

"My favorite part was when we got to hold FIRE!" (A quote from Allie about going to church last night and having a section of the service that was lit by handheld candles in the congregation.)

I hope you and yours are having a wonderful holiday season. Merry Christmas!

Cold? Oh, yeah.

Yes, I'm reduced to blogging about the weather. Well, have patience. Yesterday, it was in the 40s and rained. This morning, it was 1 degree and very windy, wind chill of -10 or less. Surely that's worth at least a note.

In other news, we had a relatively quiet weekend. On Saturday morning, we got out of the house early and took the girls to see Santa at the mall. We love this particular Santa--his name is Tom something (I know because he's been featured in our area newspaper) and he has a real white beard and he always says, "Have a blessed holiday," as the girls hop off his lap.

Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures because the company that provides Santa decided to go hardball on not allowing any parent-taken photos. We've purchased the (incredibly overpriced) photo package in the past but chose not to this year. So no photo with Tom. Trust me, the girls looked adorable.

Hah! Off the hook--

It snowed today. Actually it started snowing yesterday and it's not supposed to be done until tomorrow, but most of it landed today. So much, in fact, that the school district called it's first snow day. The girls were thrilled. I figure we got about 6 inches so far and it's wet, icy stuff.

So 4:00 came and I'm thinking, all right. Time to get outside and at least snow blow enough of the driveway so Greg can get his car in the garage. The snowplows have been busy, so there's a considerable pile of icy junk at the end of the drive.

The girls and I get bundled up (it's about 20 degrees out) and I get busy. OK, I successfully get the thing started (only two tries). I make one path down the driveway, gnaw away at the snowplow pile, gnaw some more, wrestle with the snowblower, gnaw some more, tilt it this way and that, gnaw some more and phew! Made it through to the street in one little place.

Okay. Now back the other way, gnaw, gnaw, gnaw (I'm shortening this process in prose, trust me, it took a lot longer)--and then through. Up to the garage. Back again, start gnawing when I get to the end of the driveway and the snowblower dies. I try restarting it by hand. No go. Haul the snowblower back up to the garage so I can plug it in and try the electric start. Nope. Gee, I wonder if it's out of gas. Oh look. It's out of gas.

About this time, our neighbor, Charles came over to see he could help. What a sweet man. He wondered if I could put in regular gas or if I needed a gas-oil mixture. Greg and I didn't cover this in our lesson the other day, so I send Allie in for the cordless phone and called him.

No, he says, you don't need a gas-oil mixture. And I just got gas the other day. Fill it with the gas in either of the two gas cans on the top storage shelf. Hmm, the top storage shelf that has just a big enough gap to fit two gas cans but is empty? Those imaginary gas cans?

Yes, he still has the gas cans in his trunk from the other day. And I get out of snowblowing for today. Aww. I'm so sad.

Snow queen

On Friday, Greg and I took the girls to a local production of the above-mentioned play. It was about 80 minutes long and featured all youth performers. Some of the singing we heard was quite good and there was an attempt made to entertain adults by including some references aimed at adult humor. Nonetheless, when Allie asked me afterward what my favorite part was, I said the end. Not the ending, the end. She got it after just a moment.

Yesterday, Greg taught me how to use our snowblower. It was cold and quite windy and we tackled the 3 or so new inches of snow in the driveway. Allie and Julia came outside with us to play but Julia only lasted about 5 minutes. She's such a fragile flower. I didn't really enjoy my lesson. That was partially because the wind blew a LOT of snow over my body and especially in my face. It was also because the snowblower is considerably heavier than the lawnmower and I found it tough to maneuver and turn around.

Then I blew snow off the sidewalk and didn't do a good enough job for Greg. While I was coming back down the block (and getting pummeled with an avalanche of light blowing snow from the chute and the wind), Greg took pity on me and showed me how to adjust the output. He went over the sidewalk again and we were done. At least yesterday, snowblowing doesn't take as long as lawn mowing, that's a good thing. And now I have a new skill for my resume.

Snow and school

Yes, Dan, it has been snowing where we live. And snowing. And snowing. There was a Winter Weather Advisory yesterday because we were projected to get up to 5 inches of snow, but our eventual result was about three inches. Nonetheless, Greg got to use the snowblower. Oh, what fun. And today it got cold--I think the high was about 20 degrees. I went out to shovel a little leftover snow on the sidewalk and my hands (in thermal gloves) were quite numb in only about ten minutes. When will spring arrive, again?

This week at school, Julia is her class's Student of the Week (SOTW). This honor means that we had to come up with a box of things that are special to her so she could show them to her classmates, we had to make a poster with photos, and we were encouraged to bring a special treat for the class. Yep, it's all about the food. Yesterday afternoon, I made cupcakes and last night I frosted the cupcakes and the girls decorated them.

This was, by the way, the first year of SOTW celebrations where we actually made the special treat. For the last three years, we've bought cupcakes when Allie was honored. Now, I know why that was a good idea. Folks, there were enough sprinkles, nonpariels, candy pieces, and colored sugar on these things to light a neon sign. At my suggestion, the girls left two of the cupcakes plain, just frosting. And when two leftover cupcakes made their way home tonight, what were they? Yes, they were the two plain frosted cupcakes. Shows what I know about the tastes of kindergarteners.

I also went to Julia's class for a visit today. I brought two books from home to read aloud to her class, which went well. I tried to use my dramatic voices and ask a few questions along the way (did you know that 30 percent of kindergarteners have piggy banks?). It was fun, except that Julia cried for fifteen minutes when I had to go. Ah, the travails of school.

Turkey hangover

Happy belated Thanksgiving! I hope your holiday was warm, talk-filled, food-filled, and overall much to be thankful for. That's what mine was.

We traveled to see my family this year. The girls enjoyed seeing their aunties, uncle, grandparents, and quasi-uncle. I made apple and pumpkin pies as my contribution to the meal and I only regret that I left the leftover pie at my sister's house. I'm thinking I might need to make another pumpkin pie this week for us.

The best part is that now we're home in our own beds and the girls are still off of school and Greg is still off of work for two more days. Yay for long weekends!

What was this--guesses welcome

On the weekends, we let Julia sleep in Allie's full-size bed with her and we let both girls stay up later than usual. The result is that they normally talk and giggle for awhile in bed and as a result, they sleep in the next morning until 8:00 or so, which is a wonderful side benefit for Greg and me.

Last night, I couldn't tell if Julia was covered with blankets or not when I went up to bed. I stepped into Allie's room and the floor creaked. Julia flopped her arm over in her sleep and it landed on Allie's shoulder. Allie pushed up on her elbow and leaned over the edge of her bed to look intently at the floor for about 30 seconds.

What she was doing and what she was looking at, I have no idea. I don't even know if her eyes were open since I was on the opposite side of the bed. She says she doesn't remember doing it. I'll remember for awhile because I stood there laughing silently at her for more than a minute.

My child left where?

This week Allie discovered that she likes bagels with cream cheese. I like bagels too, but we don't buy them very frequently; in fact I can't remember when I last bought some. The bagels were part of the special snacks provided by parents at school this week, and Allie didn't want to eat breakfast at home all week because of a provided breakfast also. What was the occasion?

Third grade was taking their "Wicky" tests--the tests that determine if our school system is meeting it's obligations under the No Child Left Behind law or act or whatever it's called. To make sure that Allie's grade does as well as they possibly can, the school system does some extraordinary things.

First, they have the entire second grade practice taking a week of the tests to smell out any problem areas (or problem children, I assume). During that week last year, every child was provided with a nutritious breakfast--just in case they didn't or don't get one at home, I guess. The mid-morning milk break was also special "nutritious" snacks; not just the normal crackers but also string cheese, yogurt, and fruit. They did the same thing this week, plus the school hallways were under special "quiet test time" rules.

I appreciate what they're trying to demonstrate here, I really do. I just think it's sad that they only go through these efforts to provide an extremely positive learning and testing environment for one week during the year.

We sent string cheese. Does that mean we did our part for education this week? This year?

Warning to future buyers of any car I have owned in the last 11 years

Once upon a time, I diligently followed the service recommendations that came with my automobiles. I'd get oil changes done every 3,000 miles or so. I'd get the recommended 30,000 mile check done, and I'd keep on top of getting new windshield wipers and such. Then I'd trade my car in and buy another one. At about 50,000 miles or so.

Actually, I did used to do these things but those were the years when I did sales and put about 25,000 miles on my car each year and I got a monthly car allowance of several hundred dollars.

Then I quit sales and got married and started having kids and car maintenance slipped way, way to the bottom of my list of priorities. I read some things about frequency of oil changes and realized I was an idiot to spend so much money on them and I started going a lot longer between changes. A lot longer.

Umm. Well. Today I got my oil changed. I think I went about 13,000 miles on this batch of oil. Oops.

So if you ever buy a car that I've owned, this has been your public warning that the maintenance hasn't been the best. Oh, and I never wax my car anymore either.

Gotta go--the oil change place discovered that I have a screw embedded in one of my tires and I'm off to have it fixed. See, I take care of my tires. Kinda. Not really, but I'm taking care of this one.

Sigh.

Busted!

Allie lost another molar last night. I think that's about tooth number 10 that's she in the process of replacing. She'll be 9 in January and she lost her first tooth before age 5, so her dentist says she's on track, if running a little early.

She found her little pewter tooth fairy tooth holder (a long-ago gift from Lisa--thanks again, Lisa!) and put her tooth in place on her nightstand. I should find out where Lisa got this gift because if I could stop any parent from having to reach under a sleeping kid's pillow--but I digress.

Allie looked at me, then asked Julia to go away for a minute. I had a sinking feeling. Yep, she wanted to tell me confidentially that she saw me exchange her last tooth for cash. Dang! That night, she wasn't stirring when I went in her room, but she stirred right after I made the exchange. It was probably a month ago and she hadn't asked any questions until now, so I thought I was in the clear.

She's agreed to keep the tooth fairy secret for the sake of her sister. Her only condition was that she wanted to see the teeth I've been keeping. Why I've been keeping them, I don't know. Why she wanted to see them, I don't know.

But now we're conspirators together. I'm wondering when she's going to bring up Santa. And again, she's growing up too fast.

November blues

There's supposed to be a high of 37 degrees today and snow this afternoon. It's also going to snow tomorrow, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, according to the meteorological powers-that-be.

Why do people like autumn?

Can it be 500?

According to Blogger, this is my 500th post. I've actually written over 500, but I deleted a few a few months back because I changed my mind about how much I wanted to talk about work. So 500 official posts available for review. That's a lot of talking about my kids and the cats.

Ah, who am I kidding. I know that I have about 10 regular readers and I know who all of you are, so most of you only really care to hear about my kids. I'm OK with that.

So, because we didn't report before, we did have 277 kids for Halloween this year. It was unseasonably warm, so that was actually a lower total than I expected. Our two kids had a good time trick-or-treating with their dad and the Clausen family. All of the chocolate is gone now from their candy stashes. I wonder how that happened? Oh, come on, please. I'm home all day with big candy stashes and those little fun size Milky Ways are just staring at me. What would you do?

By the way, I'm somewhat surprised that I haven't actually gained any weight since I've not been working. I've lost about 10 lbs. instead, which is exactly the opposite of what I thought would occur when I have immediate access to food all day. Not that the candy vending machine at work was all that distant, but whatever.

OK, so that's about it for my 500th post. More of the same old, same old. 500 posts in almost 5 1/2 years. I'm not exactly publishing enough to set the world on fire, but I'm capturing some family moments for my kids someday. That's enough for me. Have a great weekend!

Isn't puke fun.

Julia threw up at 4 a.m. this morning. And 7 a.m. and about 11:45 a.m.

I guess the benefit of having a five-year-old who's got a tummy bug is that she's not managed to make much of a mess throwing up. And since I'm not working, if she isn't well enough to go to school tomorrow, I'm obviously available to take care of her.

That's looking on the bright side of things, isn't it? Instead of me and Greg debating (fighting) over whose work for that day is more important?

Now we just have to hope that she's the only one in the family affected.

November already

We have a new president-elect, and I'm happy about who won.

I have a third interview tomorrow with a local company, so I'm pumped and a little nervous.

And the girls brought home their school pictures today. They both look adorable and older than their years. I told Greg on the phone that he wouldn't believe them when he saw them, especially Allie's. I said she looks about 20 years old.

Julia heard me and piped up, "And I look - - um, 14!"

What's goin' on

Nothing much, how 'bout you?

I took the girls to their Halloween dance last Friday--ah, the overwhelming joys of a grade school dance. The first 1/2 hour was horrible, the next 1/4 hour was tolerable, the next 1 hour was much better, and the last 1/4 hour was horrible.

After 10 minutes, I offered the girls a bribe of each their own fullsize candy bar if we could leave. Allie said yes, Julia said no, so we stayed.

In other news, yesterday it snowed. Yes, by god, it snowed. Big chunky flakes that melted when they hit the ground.

Thank goodness it only lasted about four minutes. Our snowblower is still in the shop and besides, it's October!

BTW, Happy Birthday to my sister, Claudette!

Not too full

Today is the 12th anniversary of the day that Greg and I married. Last night, I arranged for one of our exceedingly rare babysitter visits and we went out to dinner to commemorate and celebrate and all that.

We ate at a relatively new restaurant in Madison called Samba. It's one of those Brazilian meat restaurants. The kind where there's an amazing salad bar and then you turn over a disk (or in this case, hourglass type of thing) from red to green and men with large skewers of meat keep coming to your table and slicing off pieces and chunks for you until you turn your hourglass back to red. They had 8 different meats on the menu last night.

Barbecued chicken, flank steak, duck, lamb, tenderloin, sirloin steak, and so on. Greg and I joked during our meal that we should bring Dan and Kerry to try it if they come and visit again (bad joke, sorry Kerry--she's a vegetarian and I imagine that anyone who wasn't a dedicated meat eater would have been literally sickened by the skewers of meat walking around). But if you're a carnivore--mmmm, it was really good. And then they had these little rolls that tasted like Yorkshire puddings--it was quite an event, actually.

So 12 years ago today at this time (11:15 a.m.), I was at the beauty salon with my bridesmaids, getting our hair done.

At 12:15 or so, I was arriving at the church to get dressed for photos. A friend got sub sandwiches and no one ate them.

At 2:00? 3:00? (oh my god, I can't remember what time!) we got married.

At 5:00, we arrived at our reception and had a little popcorn from the popcorn machine. This was hours before my Uncle Jim, who had been doing a wonderful job helping us out by running the popcorn machine, got a little distracted by the amount of beer he'd drunk and forgot a bunch of popcorn and it smoked up the hall a little--not too bad.

At midnight, our feet sore from all the dancing we had done, we left the hall and discovered that our "friends" (I use the term lightly, at this point) had filled the interior of our car with those little circles you get when you 3-hole punch paper and the exterior of our car with written congratulations. We didn't have time to clean the interior before we left on our honeymoon, so we still had those little circles blowing around more than a week later. And more than six months later, I was still finding them when I vacuumed out my car.

It was a wonderful day and so many wonderful things have happened since. I love you, Gregory. Happy Anniversary!

Campfire songs

Last night, me and the girls went downtown to the senior center for a campfire sing-along. The logs were made of cardboard columns, wrapped with brown paper and decorated with squiggly lines. The fire was shapes cut out of orange and red paper, propped into the "logs." It was about 55 degrees outside, but I guess Allie's school didn't want to risk frostbite or something. So the sing-along was inside on the carpeted floor.

The music teacher, the principal, and a friend of the teacher had instruments and the 40 or so assembled kids and 30 or so assembled parents sang folk songs that the kids have been learning recently in class. I guess that's a good reason for being inside, so that people could read the song lyrics.

We weren't very good, but Allie liked it and Julia liked that they had cookies afterward. Gosh, it's only two months until the December All-School Sing--I guess I'll just have to bear the wait.

A nice offer

We had guests this weekend, so we ran through a few pantry items and we hadn't yet had time to hit the grocery store to restock.

Allie: Mommy, we've been out of napkins for a few days now. Should I bring some home from school in my lunchbox?

She's studying up to be a petty thief in her spare time, I suppose. I declined the offer. Allie shouldn't consider stealing from her school until she's in college and she takes off with dormitory linens, right Greg?

Raspberry picking

Raspberry picking this weekend was not as much fun as I remember it being when I was a kid. This weekend, it seemed that the berries were either well past ripe, not yet ripe, or non-existent. It was to the point that I stopped eating as I picked because I wasn't really getting enough raspberries to chew on and besides, if we didn't all start collecting them, we were never going to be able to fill our little berry container.

When I was a kid, my sisters and our neighborhood friends and I would go to the wild raspberry patch adjacent to "our" city park. We'd have to wear sweatshirts even in warm weather, and we'd pull up the hood and cinch it tight around our faces--because we were, no doubt about it, going to get eaten alive by mosquitoes as we picked.

Nonetheless, we girded our loins and braved the bugs because there were a lot of beautiful, ripe, delicious raspberries to be had. Mmmmm. Raspberries that were picked 20 minutes ago, smashed slightly and with a little sugar, over vanilla ice cream. Now that was good.

Allie's latest nightmare

I walked into your bedroom and there were millions of fans on high and I walked in your bathroom and saw Hello Kitty and she had killed Julia and she was covered in blood.


Amateur psychologists, feel free - - -

I'm not sure how to title this

Greg was picked up by some co-workers today for a seminar they are all attending. Me and the girls stood at the dining room window, as usual, and waved goodbye. Two men that the girls don't normally see waved back in a puzzled but friendly way from the front seat of the car.

Allie: Who was that in the car picking up Daddy?

Me: I don't know for sure, but it looked like one of them was Daddy's boss.

Allie: Oh, I know him. He has a face with interesting hollows and stuff. Like his face is sucked in.

Me: Hmmm, OK.

Allie: I wonder what it would be like to have hollows in your face like that.

Julia: I wonder what it would be like to be a boy.

Allie: Well, for one thing, you would have a lot more stuff in your privates.

Redo done

This week I painted our master bathroom. Instead of being a creamy white that the builder selected (with chipped areas on the exposed corner), it's now a light greenish grayish color called Boulder. I like it.

In the spirit of renovation, Greg and I decided to put up a new shower rod. It's one of those rods with an arc so that when you have a shower in the tub, you can keep the shower curtain from getting familiar with your private parts. I love it. It tends to feel a little too spacious, actually, after the years of close quarters, but I'll be happy to get used to it.

And since it's been 5 days now, my body parts don't ache anymore from the weird positioning required to paint a bathroom. On my knees, reaching behind a toilet in a confined area--not my favorite way to paint. Standing on a ladder with my neck arched in a weird angle--not my favorite position. But it was worth it.

Now we're thinking of tackling the living room and kitchen. Be still, my heart.

Anticipation

This morning, on the way to school, the girls started talking about Halloween. They're already looking forward to Halloween, in the way I imagine a heroin addict looks forward to his or her next fix. They weren't excited about their costumes or the adventure of Trick-or-Treating. Oh, no. They were focused on the CANDY!

OH MY GOD, THE CANDY . . . they said. They talked about chocolate and lollipops and SpongeBob marshmallow treats in the kind of tones that most people reserve for something they're drooling over. I didn't look back to see if any napkins were required. Then Allie spoke the words that brought the conversation to a place of horror.

"I hope we don't get any apples."

NO! NO! THE INHUMANITY!

Not that the girls have ever gotten an apple while Trick-or-Treating. That would be a pretty unlikely treat in these cautious days. And their tone of dread ignored the fact that Allie loves apples and in fact she had one for breakfast today.

I'll admit it. I loved the days when the girls would go Trick-or-Treating and then Greg and me (mostly me) got all of their chocolate treats because all they cared about was the fruity and chewy stuff. Now, Allie actually likes chocolate. Fortunately, I still have the power to forbid her to keep her candy in her room. That means after 8:15 or so--fair dibs!

Snackin'

If your cats had the opportunity to get at some food other than their own, they'd take it, right? Like dogs, cats are pretty omnivorous. Cats chew on plants, bits of leftover breakfast cereal, tuna packages, carpeting (don't ask, but Rabies should have gotten drop kicked for that one).

So if your cat had the opportunity to get at a plateful of dinner that one of your kids (Julia) didn't finish, and that plate contained mushroom pork chops, au gratin potatoes, and broccoli, you wouldn't be surprised to see a piece of pork chop on the floor, would you?

Nope. It was broccoli.

Weird cats. Sneaky too. I was about four feet away with my back turned.

September's over

It was cold this morning. I mean really cold, for September. We were completely spoiled by the warm weather last week but now I do believe that it's autumn. The girls are in corduroys and long sleeved shirts again.

Time to put away their summer sleeveless dresses? Say it isn't so!

On the way home from the library

Allie: Mom, there's a fly stuck to my window.

Me: Open your window and shoo him out.

Allie: No, he's on the outside.

Me: OK, whatever.

Allie: He's hanging on. Why doesn't he go away?

Me: (not listening) Mmmm.

Julia: Maybe he's concentrating on pooping!

Dinnertime

Today is Sunday. I've been cooking a lot lately (since I have little else to do, or so Greg says) and so Greg hasn't had a chance lately to be creative in the kitchen, which is something he very much enjoys. It's just a shame that he lives with the three of us, because we are hopelessly pedestrian in our tastes in food. Nonetheless, he perseveres (sometimes) and today, he decided to make us an absolutely enormous pot of spaghetti, homemade tomato sauce, and meatballs. He wrote about it here. The tomato sauce was wonderful and Greg made both of his daughters take exactly one meatball on their plates to try.

Allie is pretty brave about trying new food and she tasted the meatball and ate the whole thing with most of her spaghetti. I cleaned my plate of all of the spaghetti, light sauce, and meatballs that I took. And then there was Julia. Julia has a bad habit of saying that her stomach hurts when she doesn't want to eat any more of her dinner (or any of it at all). We've been trying to work on this habit with her somewhat, so tonight she took another tack.

We insisted that she try one small piece off of her one small meatball. She ate it and didn't say it was yucky or any other comments about it's taste. She clearly didn't want to have to eat anything else on her plate however, so she tried something new. She reminded me that I made her a really big lunch for school on Friday, then said she was full from that.

Allie didn't understand why I was laughing.

Not so Great America

Back in the year of our nation's bicentennial, my family traveled several hours to a new and exciting attraction, the area's first amusement park, Marriott's Great America. To a kid who had never seen anything for rides and shows except the local carnival and a school field trip to a play, this was heady stuff. It was amazing. Everything was shiny and new and red, white and blue. We rode every ride possible in one day, despite the long lines. After all, adult admission had cost $6.95, so my parents wanted to make sure we got our money's worth. I still remember that we got red, white and blue frisbees to take home.

After that, I visited Great America occasionally, maybe two or three more times. Then, back in 1985 or so, I made my last excursion to Great America. I was with my college boyfriend and he compared every ride to King's Island Amusement Park in Ohio, which was the park he'd enjoyed in childhood. I had never been to Great America without my parents before, so we had a wonderful time, despite some budgetary restrictions. And then I didn't go back to Great America for 23 years.

I'm not really sure why. In the meantime, I visited Epcot in Florida for the first time (and then again), but amusement parks kind of took a back seat entertainment-wise. And then enough time passed that I had kids of my own. So my family visited all of the Orlando parks earlier this year and I finally made it to DisneyWorld for the first time. And that was shiny and sparkling and looking like new, very impressive, truly.

Then we had an opportunity to go to Great America. The girls were out of this world excited. After all, they know we're not going back to Disney anytime soon. We walked into the park and immediately headed for the double decker carousel that's the symbol of the park. All four of us climbed to the top level and Julia selected a beautiful white horse with a very elaborate mane and tail for her ride. I lifted her on and then took a step back and I noticed something disconcerting. The side of her horse, right where a little girl might pretend to stroke her steed's neck, was smeary with what looked like black grease.

I looked around a little more and felt nothing but dismay. The ride itself wasn't clean. And the railings definitely needed paint. And it was obvious that no one had swept bits of greenery off the indoor-outdoor carpet in a very long time (it's an outdoor carousel). I know, I know. I shouldn't expect this park to rise to Disney standards. Disney leads the world in that kind of thing. And it's the very end of the season for Great America. They'll be closed for the winter in another month and I'm sure they'll take the time to make everything shiny and sparkly before they reopen next summer. But it was definitely a let down. And it was like that everywhere, everywhere in the park.

The girls didn't notice. And the rides themselves were wonderful. There were still some things in exactly the same locations as I remembered, but there were lots of new things too. Greg got to fly on the Superman coaster, which he repeatedly said was all he cared about. The food was pretty gross, and about as expensive as you'd expect. The weather was wonderful and because it was a closed event, the lines were wonderfully short. And overall, we had a great, fabulous time.

But will we be back? I think overall I'd rather save my pennies for Disney.

Cats and kids

This morning, I walked the kids to the bus stop for a ride to school. This is Allie's fourth year and she's never ridden the bus to school, ever. She has always gotten a ride from one of her parents. But eventually, I'll get a job. And it probably won't be in town like I had before. So the girls will probably have to ride the bus to school, or I would be dropping them off at school too early. Thus the test run.

Allie, not unexpectedly, thought she was going to throw up. She actually did throw up from nerves on the first day of school, so I took her feelings today in stride. The school hasn't called me requesting another set of clothes, so I'm assuming she made it OK. If things went well, I'm going to have the girls ride the bus tomorrow also and then I'll go back to driving them until I can no longer do that.

When I got home, there were pieces of chalk on the kitchen floor and a cat on top of the kitchen counter. Last night, one of the cats ate most of Julia's only piece of chalk. Stomach ache, I guess. I picked up the pieces and put them on the counter when I saw them and now Simon the cat had obviously been at them again. Our cats are so bold about getting on the counter after we've gone that I've, at least three times, come back into the house to grab something immediately after stepping out the door and caught a cat on the counter.

I yelled at Simon and he jumped down. I picked up the chalk again, threw more pieces in the garbage, and put the last little piece that was left inside Julia's chalkboard box. Then I turned back and I had two cats on the kitchen counter!

That's when I noticed that Allie's bug cage was on the counter, with the large fuzzy yellow caterpillar inside that she caught and made a home for last evening. Oh! I get it now. Damn cats. Get off the counter!

It figures

We had our hottest day of the entire year so far on Tuesday. It got to about 91 degrees or so, so of course we used the air conditioning, hopefully for the last time this year. At about 8 p.m., I thought, gosh, I'm overheated.

I looked at the thermostat and the air was running, so I disregarded my feeling (no, I'm too young for hot flashes). About an hour later, I thought, gosh, I'm overheated.

Crap. The air conditioning was supposedly running but there wasn't any cool air coming out. Greg braved the vicious mosquitoes around the back of the house and tried some things, but no go. It was still about 82 degrees outside, so we had an uncomfortable night.

The next morning, a cold front had come through and it was only 72 degrees outside. Regardless, I called the air conditioning repairman. He said we were smart--always nice to hear. He said people whose air conditioning fails at the end of the season often wait until spring warms up to call for service, and then they have 100 or so service calls ahead of them.

Gregory, it was a dual capacitor, not a flux capacitor. $140 and we're good to go. No DeLoreans in sight.

School and essay questions

Allie went back to school today to start third grade. Julia starts kindergarten on Thursday, which I am frankly not at all ready for. And I'm the one doing an exam. I've decided to apply for a job with the State of Wisconsin and it requires a civil service exam of essay questions. It's only 3 questions, but each question has about 15 subsections, so I've been working on it all day.

Allie was so excited about school this morning that she threw up as we got in the car. Julia held her nose and complained while I bustled around getting Allie napkins and then emptying her "puke bucket" (as we so delicately call it--her carsickness bucket). She was fine in about two minutes--just nerves on an almost empty stomach.

I get to meet her bus in about 1/2 hour so I can hear all about her first day. How can it be September already!

Julia's dream

This morning Julia told me:

"Mommy, I had the greatest dream last night. I dreamed that I was sleeping with Allie in her bed and Ava's kitty was outside the window but her feet weren't touching anything. And then I saw that a big dragon was holding her. Then (Barbie) Mariposa came and she hit the dragon and it went away and Ava's kitty was OK. That was the coolest dream ever."

Request

"Mommy, can you please leave so we can play with the princess set?"

A request from Julia this morning upon arriving at daycare. The girls wave goodbye to me and they wanted to get it over with.

So not worth it

Greg and I went to the movies with the girls this weekend. Julia very much enjoys being contrary, so when Allie said she wanted to see the Star Wars clone movie, Julia immediately insisted she was not going to that and that she wanted to see Fly Me to the Moon. Julia's been taking this contrary tendency to the extreme lately, especially in regards to food choices. She never, ever wants the same thing for lunch that Allie does.

This is healthy assertion of her independence, right? Damn irritating healthy independence, but there you go.

So we went to the theater and Greg took Allie to the Star Wars movie while Julia and me went to the Fly movie, which was shown on an Imax screen in 3-D. Did I mention that it was $35.00 for the four of us? Yep, $22.50 just for me and Julia. And both movies sucked. Well, at least ours looked good. And Greg said Allie seemed entranced.

But overall? I think we should have gone to the (free) zoo again.

Greg's vacation

Greg's company has this wonderful program associated with work anniversaries. After you reach your 10th anniversary and at five-year intervals after that, if you take one entire Monday through Friday week off, you get an extra week off for free. Greg is now in the middle of his two-week "holiday."

We haven't killed each other yet.

Busy weekend

Allie had a friend for a sleepover this weekend, so we went to Ella's Deli for dinner on Friday night. The poor deprived child had never been there. It was carousel rides all around afterwards, then home. After a big breakfast on Saturday morning, we all went bowling, which was wonderful, especially since I got four strikes and Greg got none. It makes the Wii bowling defeat much less meaningful, trust me.

We had lunch out and delivered the friend to her home, then on Saturday afternoon, we bought school supplies for the girls. Needless to say, Allie's third grade requires a whole heck of a lot more supplies than Julia's kindergarten. Julia is showing just as much pride and excitement about her new backpack, crayons, and other items as she did about her birthday party supplies, which I can tell you is a considerable amount.

Yesterday, Allie went to a different friend's house for the afternoon and Greg talked online to Dan for quite awhile. Later I took the girls to the park and then Greg took them on a long bike ride. It's an awesome thing, now that Allie finally can ride without training wheels. Then Greg tried to teach them how to shoot baskets, which sounds like it was an interesting endeavor. After baths and watching some Olympics women's gymnastics in high def, it was bedtime.

I found out this morning that they were both trying to tumble and somersault on Allie's bed. Julia fell off. We heard the thud but she didn't cry--tough kid.

Summer

It's a beautiful day today. The sun is shining, the only clouds are big puffy white ones, it's not too hot so all of the windows are open, the birds are chirping, there's a light breeze . . . basically your stereotypical nice-as-possible summer day.

It's Friday. I hope you savor today for a few minutes and enjoy the coming summer weekend.

Healthier

This morning, I heard a ruckus in the master bathroom that suggested a party was going on. I seriously didn't know what the heck was occurring, so I grabbed the cordless phone and headed upstairs, even though I suspected it was just the cats.

Oh, indeed. This morning, Greg was ready to take his four vitamin tablets and capsules when he realized that we were out of Dixie cups. He walked away and left the pills on the bathroom counter. It took the cats less than an hour to jump up and discover some small and yellow things that looked like fun to bat around. And so they did.

When I found them, Rabies was crouched over a fish oil capsule, licking it and batting it around the carpet. Simon had another capsule under his paw, I think vitamin E.

They've both gotten quite the boost to their metabolisms today!

Over

Just a really quick update because Blogger is going to be doing an update in four minutes. My interview went fine. It sounds like I'm one of four candidates under consideration. I should know something about a second (and possibly third) interview by the end of next week, maybe. I'll keep you posted.

Thanks again for your good wishes!

Butterflies

A few days ago, I had my first mammogram. It was not fun. It was not godawful. It was one of those necessary evils of getting older, and I had put mine off a few years after I was supposed to have my first one.

Interviews are not fun. They aren't godawful. They're a necessary thing (I won't call them an evil). They're important. And despite my years of human resources experience, I have butterflies about today. Not great-big-leaping-in-the-stomach-fish, just butterflies.

Deep breath.

Feeling uninspired

I don't know what it is. Now that I'm not working, I'm not very motivated for other things either. I did gear up last week and cleaned all three floors of our house. That actually takes much longer than you would think because before you can actually wipe something, you need to redistribute the three tons of crap that's on top of it. There was more stuff going up and down the stairs (to places that seemed more logical than the original locations) than a freight elevator should be asked to handle. There was an occasion to clean for (there usually has to be for this household to tidy up). Julia turned 5 on Wednesday and my family came for her birthday party on the weekend.

It was wonderful to have them visit and Julia got a ton of presents. She truly is spoiled rotten. My in-laws bought her (and Allie) all kinds of things the week before, then she got gifts from our daycare provider and her family, then she got a gift from us on her birthday, then she got more presents at her party. Quite the haul, it was. Where it's going to go, I have no idea. Actually, that's not true. Later this week or next week, this family is going to try to simplify. I want to open a closet door and have room to put something inside. After 10 years in this house, that's not the case right now. There'll be more on this project later.

In the meantime, I have to go shopping for interview clothes today. Yes, that does mean something. Wish me luck!

I'm free

Yep, as of noon today, I'm unemployed. After one final "screw you" from the powers-that-be, of course.

If you're reading this, you've probably said wonderful things to me about how stupid my old employer was and is (oh, you have no idea how stupid, but yes, they are) and how you're sure that I'll land on my feet in a much better place (that would not be too hard) and how you wish me the best of luck always.

Thank you. I appreciate every one of those comments, and I thank you.

I'm free.

Amazingly inspirational

For those of you who don't know, Greg and I are lucky to have wonderful friends who live in Yorkshire, England. Dan and Kerry are amazing people, though Dan is more than a bit bonkers. Why would I say such a thing?

I say such a thing because in about 5 hours (our time), Dan and nine of his friends are starting on a walk for charity that's going to take them 78 miles or so (mostly uphill, it looks like). They have a week, and I think you'll understand why I say Dan is crazy when I tell you that the first two days are 16 miles each (mostly uphill, did I say that?). Kerry has graciously volunteered for the task of schlepping the luggage around for all of these guys. Who says men pack light? Check this pile out.

Dan and his friends are taking on this amazing challenge (mostly uphill, did I say that?) to raise money for a charity run by a wonderful couple he knows after they suffered a tragedy and wanted to help others. They sound like terrific people. You can read Dan's further explanation and appeal here. This is a wonderful cause. Please, it's not too late to help by making a contribution. And if you just can't swing a contribution, please stop by Dan's website to check out their progress over the next week and to offer some words of encouragement. Please, about mile 31 of day 2 (of mostly uphill), they're going to need it.

Thank you!

So what's up?

Well, I'm just about ready to start applying for work. There are three positions that I'm aware of that I want to submit my resume for, but that document needs "The Greg Stamp of Approval." Since Greg writes for a living, I value his opinion (and proofreading skills). Last night, he took a quick look at it and said something about widows and orphans. I don't know what that means, but I'm sure Greg will bring everyone together into families without much trouble.

At my current job, every day is kind of an ordeal. I have things to do, they're not bad things, but needless to say I've lost my heart for it. I just want them to let me go. They recognize the knowledge I have in my head and that they should try to get that stuff passed on, but the way they've asked me to do that . . . Without going into details, I'm so discouraged by recent decisions that I certainly recognize our "relationship" has come to an end. I can't quit, or I won't get unemployment. At this point, I'm thinking I'll be done by next week--or maybe even this Friday, who knows. Just let me go, people!

Greg is starting a campaign for me to be released and it has a slogan: FREE DEBBIE! FREE DEBBIE!

Yay for breathing!

There's a letter to the editor in our local paper, talking about the victory the writer and others in our city have achieved. All of the full service restaurants in our town of 12,000 people are now smoke free. The writer says that he believes this is the first time a change like this has been accomplished in Wisconsin without having to pass a city ordinance.

Yay for Norm (the writer)! Yay for the other people who worked long and hard to get this completed. My family will no longer stink like cigarettes after eating Friday fish fry. We'll no longer have to try to explain to our girls that some people like to smoke right before and after they eat while they sit at the table next to us, even though, yes, they know it's going to kill them.

We'll probably have to walk through clouds of smoke to get in to the restaurant, but it's easier to hold my breath and hustle my kids through than to breathe it for an entire meal. Heck, we'll probably consider sticking around and ordering some of the delicious pie that a couple of our local restaurants are known for since we don't have to breathe other people's smoke.

Oops, opened a can of worms with that one. No, I'm not going into an obesity lecture (even for myself). I was kidding about the pie! Honest! One health issue at a time, people.

Ugh! - - - Ahhhh!

Outside is just not a good place to be these days. What with the flaming chunks of firecrackers, the mosquitoes, the very high humidity, the mosquitoes, and the heat--it just seems prudent to spend time indoors.

So yesterday we took the kids to see Wall-E. Cute, very cute. Fortunately, our kids are old enough that when they ask questions during the movie, they whisper instead of holler. And fortunately, they stay in their seats, unlike a little boy next to us who went wandering around the aisle more than he sat down. And fortunately, our kids (meaning Julia) just cover their ears when there's loud noise, instead of scream at the top of their lungs, which is what the aforementioned boy did. Fortunately, the theater surround sound mostly drowned him out. Mostly.

We ate a little bit of popcorn and drank some lemonade and enjoyed the show. No mosquitoes. No humidity. And no heat (in fact, I had on flipflops and my toes were cold!). We should do this every night!

Our Independence Day

Allie wanted to go see the city fireworks. Julia wanted to go see the city fireworks. Greg wanted Allie to help him set off our fireworks in the driveway. Julia was supposed to watch but she only watched one or two before she came in, holding her hands over her ears. Allie watched all of it, but said that the smaller fireworks were boring. I was in and out of the house watching some of them and towards the end, Greg was lighting things, throwing them towards the road, and neither he nor Allie were even looking at them. Isn't that the point? All of us got completely eaten by mosquitos.

Then it came time to leave for the city fireworks. Julia had to change her clothes because she had on a sundress and it was only about 70 degrees outside. She started crying because her head got stuck and then she remembered that she apparently burned her fingers slightly on a hot sparkler. She was horribly tired anyway, so I suggested that she stay home with me. It was a measure of how tired she was that she thought about it and immediately said yes.

Julia went to sleep despite the noise outside and about 10:15, Greg and Allie came home. They banged on the window of the living room to try to scare me. When they came in, Allie immediately got into her pajamas and she went off to bed. For about 3 minutes. Then she came out on the landing and said plaintively, I don't want this night to end!

About that time, Greg and I realized that Simon the cat was missing. Greg looked all over the house and became convinced that Julia had let him out earlier when she was watching the fireworks in the driveway and holding the front door open. I suggested that Greg get some leaves off our catnip plant and see if that rousted him. I think the leaves from our catnip plant could entice a dead cat (yes, we do have cat visitors to our garden). Simon did not appear but Rabies had a great time. Greg went outside with a flashlight, risking intense mosquito attack, and I checked the house again. We both realized that if Simon had gotten out, the fireworks would scare him to death and he'd probably be long gone.

I went into the basement and opened the door to the storage room and behold! There was Simon, eager to get out and get upstairs to the catnip. Today, our plans are to go buy collars for the cats. There's a pet store in Madison that has cats, dogs, birds, ferrets, lizards, fish, spiders, snakes, hedgehogs, crabs, etc. It's like going to the zoo without getting eaten by mosquitos. Ah, summer in Wisconsin.

Now on TV

Tonight, my family watched a new show called "Baby Borrowers." The premise is that five teenage couples who all think they're ready to have a baby are given individual homes in a cul de sac and their own vehicles. Then they wear an Empathy belly pregnancy simulator thing for two days and then they get real babies. The infants ranged in age from six months to eleven months and the kids got them for three days and nights. After the first day, one of the kids stays home with the baby and the other goes to work outside the home (and believe me, there were fights over who got to leave). The real parents could watch 24-7 on surveillance cameras and a trained nanny stayed the entire time in the house, but the nannies were told not to comment or intervene unless the child was in physical danger.

In future shows, the kids are getting toddlers, then preteens, then teenagers, then senior citizens. It was pretty interesting stuff. Some of the kids were just completely overwhelmed. The couples would start arguing over who had to take care of "it." Yes, they called the baby, "It." In most cases, the real parents ended up popping in to either chastise the kids or give them a pep talk (mostly chastising). Two of the girls just stopped trying to take care of the babies. I've read reviews of the show, and apparently in a future episode, a nanny has to step in when one couple decides to leave a toddler alone in a house.

Allie and I had a good conversation while we watched. She ended up saying that she doesn't want to get a baby (yep, she said "get") until she's at least 38, like me. Oh, boy. I told her that she can have a baby when she's younger than 38. After all, I had Allie when I was 34 and I think I would have been ready by 28 or so (I'm a late bloomer!). But I think now she's going to be checking the parenting credentials of future boyfriends!

Special visitor

My brother-in-law Mike has owned a small gas station for about the last year. It's one of those Clark stations that has a wide store area across the front of the station that's only about six feet deep. On warm spring days, as he perched on a stool behind the counter at one end of the space, Mike loved to prop the glass door wide open to get some fresh air inside the store. Until the day he had a visitor.

Mike was watching a program on his little TV one day between customers when he caught some movement out of the corner of his eye. As he turned his head, he saw that a squirrel had come in the open door. The squirrel ran across the depth of the store to the candy rack, considered his choices for a moment (just kidding), and then grabbed a king size Snickers bar and took off. Without paying!

About ten minutes later, he snuck into the store again and stole another king size Snickers! How he knew that those candy bars had peanuts inside and the Milky Ways didn't, I'll never know. He came back again the next day and snagged another candy bar before Mike realized that he was going to have to close the glass door and put on the air conditioning to defeat his furry thief.

For about a week afterwards, Mike says that the squirrel would come to the glass door almost every day and look longingly towards those sweet, sweet decadent confections, now beyond reach. I know what he was thinking too--how can I sabotage the air conditioning?

Quite the businesswoman

Allie seems obsessed lately with running her business. Yes, I'm talking about her lemonade stand (newly expanded yesterday). She started her business two weeks ago and had good initial results, cut short by a spell of bad weather. Last weekend, she went out on both Saturday and Sunday and raked in some more cash. She stood out on our corner for a good two and a half hours, waving at potential customers, dancing and talking to herself when there were none, and being polite when someone stopped by. Her cups of kool-aid were $.25 and she frequently got $.75 tips.

This week, her daddy suggested expanding her product line and she grabbed on to the idea like a true entrepreneur. So yesterday morning, between conversations about her supply of "Product," we baked and frosted cupcakes and added sprinkles. In about an hour and a half (before more storms rolled in), she sold 8. We had made 24, and later in the day, she got upset when her daddy and me said we wanted one for dessert. She got a lecture about the importance of family over the importance of "Product."

Today, it's barely 70 degrees outside and even "the businesswoman" agrees that it's too cold for people to want to buy lemonade. To say she is disappointed is a huge understatement. I'm thinking when I lose my job, I'll just rely on her earnings!

It sucks

So I'm losing my job. Last week, my boss (for the last six months) came to see me and told me I was being removed from my position. Oh, and the company had hired a replacement. Oh, and she was coming by to take my staff to lunch in a day and a half. Oh, and we don't want you to actually leave, we love you blah blah and we want you to stay. I'm shortening the story up, obviously. He wasn't quite that blunt but I'm not too far off. I said, stay as what?

My company's been in a real change pattern for the last seven or so months and I guess this is a continuation of that. They've also been in a significant downturn for over a year. We've had a significant number of people on improvement plans for performance issues and we've let a bunch go. That's in addition to the 220 laid off last year.

I have not been one of the people told to improve my performance. I've never been told that there were any problems with my performance at all, or that I should be focusing on anything other than what I've been doing. Oh, the unfairness of it all goes on and on and I won't bore you with more detail. Let me just sum it up by saying that I'm leaving. I won't be done until August 1--32 more days of work--but I'm getting out. And I'm excited.

I keep thinking that I'm probably going to get a job at a place that doesn't have a leaking roof every winter. A place where I don't have to worry about mold in the insulation. A place where I might have a window where I can see outside. A place that's growing and stable instead of declining and maybe dying. And a place that wouldn't do something like this to someone like me, who's been a stupidly loyal, dedicated employee for almost 11 years.

Oh, I'm bitter. But I know this is a good thing. I'm getting out. I'll miss the people I've worked with. But I sure won't miss the people who decided to do this to me in this way. 32 more days. And counting down.

Really. That's the best you've got?

In Madison, Wisconsin, there's an agency called the Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS, get it--isn't that annoyingly clever). They like to take surveys and weigh in on stuff and some of it is mildly interesting.

Today, I heard on public radio that one of their researchers has a new proposal to lower our carbon footprint or some such worthiness. Ban drivethru lanes.

Got sleeping kids in the car and just wanna grab some McDonald's? Wanna grab some joe to get your get-up-and-go going? Too bad. Park, get out of the car into the (sometimes) -20 weather, walk into the restaurant, order, pay, and then juggle the whole mess as you climb back into your car. Start the car up again and finally head off again.

This is the best strategy they've got?

A change of view

I've been wearing glasses more than contact lenses for the past few months, but I'm slowly changing back to wearing lenses more. Now I have a new factor to consider.

The other day, I was cleaning my glasses and one of the clear plastic nosepads ripped. I went to the optometrist to have it replaced and the nosepad they put in is just a bit thicker than the old one on the other side. This means that my glasses sit further off my face and higher.

This slight difference has completely changed the way I view the world and it's taking some getting used to. Do you think we should try this in Washington?

Waiting for a biopsy result sucks

I mentioned awhile ago that I had a sore in my mouth that my dentist was concerned about. I went to the dentist because it hurt and got an antibiotic. It didn't get better. I went back to the dentist and he said, hmmm, come back in two weeks and we'll see if that's completely healed yet. I went back in two weeks and it was still there.

So at 7 a.m. last Monday, the dentist said he thought I needed to see an oral surgeon for a biopsy. And oh, by the way, you should have it done in the next day or so, so my office will call for you so you get in faster. Gulp. Okay, Dr. Anderson.

Six hours later, I saw the oral surgeon, who took a look, numbed me up, and carved out a cone-shaped chunk of my hard palate (from the roof of my mouth). They showed me afterwards. It was a little less than a centimeter long and a millimeter wide at the top, then tapered.

Then I started the longest week and a day of my life. I read up on oral cancer (damn the internet). I learned that most oral cancer occurs in people who use tobacco products (I've never even put a cigarette to my lips, ever) or those who drink heavily (I have a drink about once every three weeks or even less frequently). I also learned that in just over 25 percent of cases, there are no risk factors. Could I be one of those unlucky people?

It took until Tuesday morning, but the surgeon called and said that what I have is sialometaplasia. It's a benign inflammatory condition that looks just like squamous cell cancer (hence the doctors' concern). So my sore will go away, over maybe another month or so. And I'm fine.

It's been two extra days now and I realized that after obsessively looking at the roof of my mouth for four weeks, I didn't even look at it yesterday. Tonight I did, and the sore looks better. It doesn't hurt. And what I mostly see is the place where they took out the biopsy. I'm fine.

Thank god.

She's got a good eye

My family watched "Hairspray" this weekend. The girls like musicals and Greg and I enjoyed it too.

Julia was sitting next to me on the couch with her blanket as we watched Tracy Turnblatt talk to her mom, Edna (John Travolta). Then she spoke up, "Is that a boy?"

I guess John left a little five-o'clock shadow or something?

Hearing out loud

We let our girls "play" on the internet just a little. Julia likes the Polly Pocket website (the U.K. version usually) and Allie likes Barbie.com. I've had the talk with Allie about navigation, telling her that we will continue to help her get to the Barbie website because there are awful people on the internet and kids need to be careful (none of you, of course).

Saturday morning, Julia asked if she could visit Polly Pocket and I got her set up in the big chair in our bedroom with the keyboard on her lap. She started mousing away. I was doing something else and walked away, so when she called for help, I sent Allie. All was well. I went downstairs, Allie came downstairs, Allie went back upstairs--who was paying attention.

Then Greg came downstairs and joined me on the couch. Suddenly, we heard the loudest imaginable racket from the computer upstairs. Allie, apparently, had decided that Julia needed to hear the website better, so she turned the speakers all the way up. Julia was crying and screaming, Allie was screaming for help, and Polly was telling everyone that they needed to help her with her pets. Greg and I rolled eyes at each other and he headed upstairs to calm the troops.

Just another morning in the Lee household.

Dad

Impressions of Dad:

- Learning to iron by making his handkerchiefs as perfect as possible
- Watching for him to come buzzing home from work on his bicycle
- Smelling the sawdust on his work clothes
- Polishing his black dress shoes as he prepared to go dancing with Mom
- Watching him laugh when he found out that his three girls each bought him two bottles of Afta for Father's Day
- Seeing him smile when he figured out that we organized a surprise 50th birthday party for him
- Learning from him that medium prime rib is the way to go
- Seeing his happiness when we moved when I was 11 and he finally had a garden of something other than clay
- Giving him a gift of a pilot's lesson
- Learning from him about the joy of travel and the knowledge held in maps
- Loving the fact that one summer he made all three of us stilts (and started a neighborhood craze)
- Giving him some truly awful ties that he wore anyway to church on Sunday
- Swinging on the tire swing in the tree while he played horseshoes with his own dad

I love you, Dad! Happy Father's Day!

We're all gonna die, except Dora!

We've been under a tornado watch all afternoon and will be until 8 this evening. The tornado sirens have gone off three times and there's more storms coming. So far, the weatherman is saying that a funnel cloud/possible tornado went to the north of us and there's another one due any minute that should go to the south of us. Well, at least to the south of our house, and that's all I care about right now.

We ran to Culver's to grab some food just as the clouds thickened (quote from the back seat--"Mommy, why is a car a good place to be if you get struck by lightning?") and then we ate in the basement. Now, we're actively switching channels to hear different meteorologist opinions of what's coming next. Unfortunately, it seems that we're going to have this type of storm activity all evening.

Meanwhile, Allie and Julia are enjoying playing with their basement toys and Dora the Explorer is happily asking us if we want to buy more things at the grocery store. I'm sure the house could come down around us and she'd still be asking if we wanted to "compra" more stuff.

Uh, no thanks. Unless Dora sells concrete reinforced storm shelters.

They kill me

Last night, we sent the girls upstairs as usual to brush their teeth. Greg promised them they could come back downstairs for a few minutes after they finished. They seemed to be taking a long time, but that's not unusual. They get distracted with the toothpaste or they play with the soap and we have to tell them repeatedly to get moving on their teeth.

Then we heard them coming down the stairs and they were both saying, "Oink! Oink! Oink!" A minute later, they came around the corner, both with Dixie cups taped over their noses, with pig nostrils drawn on the bottoms of the cups. Allie's inspiration. Greg and I laughed and laughed.

Feeling puny

We have experienced wave after wave of severe storms in the last few days, including a fun one that included hail on Thursday morning. Unfortunately, my car was damaged with little chips of paint missing all over. Fortunately, I have zero deductible on comprehensive, so it won't cost me anything but time to have it repaired. Still sucks.

It stormed Friday, but it stopped by the time I drove to my parents' house. It stormed Saturday, but we still had a wonderful morning and early afternoon at Bay Beach Amusement Park beforehand. It stormed Saturday night and today and it will tomorrow.

Mother Nature is definitely in charge these days. Duck and cover!

Evening time

I have a warm, furry cat butt pressing against my right shoulder as I type. Earlier today when I was on the computer, I had a warm, fuzzy cat butt pressed against each of my shoulders. Why, you may ask, do I have warm, fuzzy cat butts against my shoulders? Because I'm sitting in the upholstered chair in the corner of our bedroom with my feet up on the ottoman and the window behind me is open.

It's the window that faces the neighbors that live closest to us and they have two dogs who have the run of the backyard. That alone would be reason enough for the cats to spend a good part of their day watching. I think they're waiting to see if the dogs trespass into our yard so they can run downstairs and kick their fuzzy asses.

Oh, who am I kidding. Our cats are housebound. I feel sorry that their lives are so constrained. Not sorry enough to let them run outside and have their lives shortened by at least five years (or so the statistics say), but sorry enough that I put up with warm, fuzzy cat butt pressing against my shoulder. At least for awhile.

My little girl

Julia has been attending preschool one morning a week since last September. It's gone very well. She has made at least one best friend that she talks about, Ava. That's a cool thing because Julia has been at the same family daycare since she was 10 weeks old and she had only before really known the kids there. It turns out that Ava lives on the opposite side of our block, a few houses down. You know, so our backyards would connect if our houses were a little closer?

Ava and her mom came to our door a few weekends ago and they asked if Julia could come to their house and visit. Ava's mom took pains to tell us that her husband is a school principal. That did make me feel better, actually. He should be less likely to be some kind of molester, right? So we let Julia visit them for an hour or so and the next day Ava came to visit and play at our house (despite the fact that we don't have as strong a set of non-molester credentials). Both girls had a great time.

Now Julia wants to go and visit Ava pretty much every evening. She says, truthfully as it happens, that Ava's mommy said she can come over any time she wants. We're just trying to convince her that that doesn't mean after every meal, every bedtime, and every morning. Julia says she knows where Ava's house is and that she can walk there by herself. This is also true. Fortunately for our piece of mind when it comes to Julia heading out to the backyard and then disappearing, there are two big dogs who live in between the two houses. It looks like Julia's going to keep needing us for a little while longer. Thank goodness.

Together

There's something to be said for being sick with a cold at the same time your spouse is sick with a cold. Sure, there's competition for the box of tissues, but there are all kinds of advantages.

If I wake up Greg by coughing in the middle of the night, he wakes me up by coughing in the morning. If I disturb Greg's sleep by getting up to try to clear some of the gunk out of my sinuses, it's not that big of a deal because Greg needed to take some more cold medicine at 2:20 a.m. anyway. When we feel chilled while watching TV, we can share a blanket. If one of the girls calls for us in the night, I'm not automatically the one who gets out of bed, because Greg was awake anyway, trying to breathe.

We're never going to be able to get anyone to visit us ever again, in our germ-ridden house.

Pamela Sue

My sister Pam reads my blog religiously, seeking updates on her little sister's life, anecdotes about her only nieces, and laughs from the latest things her brother-in-law has done. This is despite the fact that she doesn't have a cable modem. She doesn't have a dial up either. Broadband, nope. In fact, she probably doesn't know the difference between a cable modem and dial up. Pam doesn't own a computer.

Pam relies on my sister Claudette to call her (which trust me, she would be doing anyway) and to read her my latest blog entry. Pam hears about the latest photos that are online and about the movies Greg has posted on his blog, and she doesn't see any of it, unless she makes an effort to look the next time she's at Claudette's house (which trust me, she would be visiting anyway).

So this one's for you, Pam. Happy birthday (yesterday). I'm so glad you'll always be older than me.

Long, long day

At work today, there were only two of us instead of the normal eight. Once again, the company is on shutdown. It was a very, very long day. I got in at 7:30 and the phone rang for the first time at 9:00. And then it was a telemarketer.

Greg is always very polite to telemarketers at home. I am the exact opposite. At work, because it's work, I'm more polite by a minuscule amount. I listen to the first part of their spiel and then say, thanks, but I'm not interested, goodbye. Almost always, they're still talking as I put the phone down.

I started my day with another visit to the dentist, my dentist this time. He seemed rather impressed by the size of the sore in my mouth, which appears to be slowly healing. He measured it, speculated about what it could be, and gave me a thorough oral cancer screening. Even though I just had a thorough screening at my six-month checkup in January.

Then, he told me he wants to see me back in two weeks. You know, it would be easier to be calm about whatever the hell this thing is if dentists didn't keep wanting to follow up on it.

15,625

I would like to commemorate this momentous occasion by remembering all the other occasions, all of the other instances of me waking up for another day. Yes, today is the fifteen thousand, six hundred and twenty-fifth day I have been alive.

This compares to the only 15,230 days that Greg has been around and the paltry 3,039 days that Allie has graced her presence with. Julia, well, she's only been around for 1,762. She's not even in the two thousandths yet.

The point of this blog? There isn't one. I could make up something sentimental about how I look forward to every additional day of life and how I yearn to see my children reach the daily total I've achieved (and then some). All that's pretty obvious.

So I'll just say, on Memorial Day, I'm grateful for the people who have died so I can have more days of peaceful, safe life. We remember them.

Feeling better

I slept better last night than I have in two weeks. Yesterday, I saw a dentist in my dentist's practice for an emergency visit. Is your own physician or dentist ever available in an emergency? The good news is that because my mouth sore came on so quickly, he doesn't think it's a tumor. Well, gosh. That is good news!

The bad news is that I do have some kind of secondary infection on the roof of my mouth, something that probably started with a small burn or abrasion from eating something pokey (like hard crusted bread). It's progressed pretty far considering the level of pain I've had and how abused my upper palate looks.

So I'm on an antibiotic and pain pills and I have to go back for a checkup on Tuesday. I actually think the spot has gotten bigger since yesterday, so hopefully the next dose of antibiotics will sock it good. Regardless, I'm feeling better.

Thank you to all who sent good wishes!

Recovering?

Don't bother reading this, it's boring. Really. Click on Dooce or Allthatcomeswithit or something. Still reading? Don't say I didn't warn you.

In two days, it will be Friday night again. When that Friday arrives, it'll be two weeks ago that I first started feeling like I was coming down with a cold. Sore throat, tickle in my nose, you know the feeling. I really didn't feel like becoming sick, so I decided to try some of those homeopathic cold remedy things. You let the lozenge dissolve in your mouth every two freaking hours until either the cold symptoms go away or you're so busy blowing your nose that you forget to take your next lozenge. I religiously did those lozenge things for two and a half days, until the bottle was empty.

By then, the symptoms had arrived with a vengeance. Two days later, I started coughing and I mostly lost my voice. Another day later, my entire throat became sore. Not just when I swallowed, which is sort of expected with a cold and nasal drainage, but my entire neck. Sore glands, I guess. Oh, my neck hurt. I started taking Motrin pretty occasionally, at least twice a day. And now, a week later, I'm still taking Motrin at least three times a day.

For the last two days, my jaw has been aching. My teeth are very sensitive on both the top and bottom and if I don't take something when it starts to build up, my entire head aches. My neck still aches. And I have a sore spot on the roof of my mouth. My cough is now in response to numerous dry tickles and I'm still not really sleeping.

I know I should probably go to the doctor. I probably have some kind of sinus infection going on or something and/or I do have strep throat (though I don't think so). I just know that if this is a viral cold, my 7-10 days of misery didn't end in 7-10 days and so I am really ready to feel better. After all, I have a date this weekend! And I'm out of Motrin.

Oh, lord

Greg and I are watching a special on PBS that's pretty much guaranteed to scare the crap out of any parent. It's about social networking sites for teenagers, cyberbullying, and kids who have committed suicide as a result. We've been watching it for about 1/2 hour. At this point, my children are never going online unless I'm sitting next to them. Ever.

Caution - sick girl ahead!

Greg and I are going to the theater tonight to see "Spamalot." The tickets were a birthday gift to him way back in September. Thank goodness we didn't lose them in the meantime, which is no mean accomplishment in this house.

So we're off to the theater. You know, turn off your cell phone, no talking, don't get up during the performance, and for goodness sake, don't have a coughing fit and disturb everyone around you. Umm, yeah. About that last one?

I've been fighting a cold since Saturday. It really started kicking my butt on Monday night and I've been exhausted in the evenings this whole week, which makes it fun to try to get up the energy to clean our house (the in-laws are coming this weekend). My cold is now at the coughing stage--lots and lots of tasty, disgusting yellow and green phlegm. Obviously, my coughing can't be controlled to any large extent.

I'm sneaking in a bottle of water and crossing my fingers. Good thing that Greg and the girls got me that huge purse for Christmas.

Early evening play

This evening after dinner, the girls wanted to go out and play. Allie grabbed a blanket from the garage, Greg's hammock pillow, and her umbrella. She set up a lounge on the old bench under our backyard tree. She draped the blanket over the whole bench, put her head on the pillow and laid down, sheltering herself from the wind with her open umbrella. I thought she looked quite comfortable.

Then Greg came upstairs and made an exasperated noise as he looked out the window. "She's practicing to be a homeless woman!"

Simon's saga

Simon is going to be just fine. If you've followed our journey with him for the last three weeks, you know that our cat suffered a serious leg injury when he fell nine feet in our front entryway. We originally thought he might need $2000 in surgery. Instead, it appears that he had a significant sprain/strain with some bad tendon action that he's slowly been recovering from. Last night, I saw him run for the first time. And, he's back to fighting with his brother Rabies.

If you add in the time last summer when he wandered outside for about two hours, I'd say he's now on life number 7. At this moment, he's cuddled up on our bed with Greg and Julia, getting massive love. Not a bad life, even for a cat.

Summer?

It hit 83 degrees here today. The girls wore summer clothes and Julia got to play in a sprinkler at daycare.

Considering that my tulips are still blooming and that my lilacs haven't really formed much into flower buds, let alone bloomed, I don't think it's summer yet.

It is definitely May though. I think it's safe to put away the winter boots.

Visitors

My parents are here visiting their granddaughters. I don't bother to trouble myself any more that they're actually here to see me or my husband. There was one point in time, somewhere between Allie's awesomely-cute babyhood and her not-really-that-terrible-in-retrospect twos when I thought the pendulum might swing back over to them wanting to see me more than my kid(s), but I was deceiving myself. So they're here, visiting and doing us a favor by watching Julia tomorrow (and taking her to preschool, and meeting up with Allie, and maybe doing some of my laundry) because our daycare is closed. Not too bad of a deal for us, obviously.

Greg and I seldom go out alone because we lack evening and weekend childcare and because we want to be with our girls since we're all apart all day, so you would think we'd take advantage of the free and available babysitting to go somewhere, anywhere, without our kids. Instead we had pizza and salads tonight and watched some TV and Allie did her homework. So we did pretty much the same thing we do every weeknight. Except tonight, we had more dishes.

I could get used to it.

Get the ark?

I drove on some of Wisconsin's lovely state highways yesterday. On two separate roads, I had to slow down and move over because one entire lane of the highway was covered with high water. The amazing amount of snow we got this winter, plus the hard rain we received at the end of last week and this week, has definitely had an impact.

The good side of this is that a local spring, after being dry for decades, has started flowing with water again. Back in the early 1900s, a lovely park surrounded this natural spring. People picnicked and children used the cool spring water to make lemonade (or so my local newspaper alleges). But, so many years ago that no one can remember exactly when, the spring went dry, victim of the excessive groundwater pumping to supply the city of Madison.

But now it's back. No one knows how long it will flow. I think Mother Nature has a plan and I hope humans don't screw things up so much that she can't win. I think springs are kind of magical, and so is the return of this one is an awesome thing. I'd just like Mother to keep things off the highways.

Patient update

I haven't written about how Simon is doing lately. He's doing remarkably well. We've been very lucky.

Tuesday afternoon, Greg took him back to our vet and she removed his splint. He was pretty cautious with his leg at first but over the last few days, he's started using his leg more and more. He's running a little and going up and down stairs and even jumping some. I think he's really going to be OK. And all it cost us is--well, actually we still don't know how much it's going to cost us because our vet hasn't billed us yet. But it's just two office visits, X-rays, and the splint. And pain medication. That shouldn't be more than $300, right?

I'm waiting to see if he decides to jump over to the plant shelf again. And by the way, did I mention that Rabies occasionally jumps across too? I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

JULIA LEE

Julia and Allie just came upstairs to get ready for bed and little Miss Lee typed her name by herself (with just some help on the double e). Some day, she's going for the world speed typing record. Today, not so much.

How does this make me tired

Yesterday, I went to an all-day seminar in Milwaukee. It was almost a 12-hour day. I drove for about two hours, I sat through introductory remarks, I attended two breakout sessions, I ate more for lunch than I've eaten for lunch in months, I attended two more breakout sessions, and I drove for about two hours. I was sitting for almost the entire day.

Yes, I recognize that I sit for almost the entire day every day, but this seemed a lot different. Normally, I get up and walk around between tasks. I deliver documents, prepare mail, fax things, consult with people in their offices. But this was a lot of sitting. I felt very tired when I got home. I definitely didn't feel like doing anything physical.

So, like I have for 15 weeks now, I dragged my sorry butt down into the basement and walked on the treadmill. Yep, me. I've been exercising (however minimally, really) at least every other day for at least 1/2 hour for 15 whole weeks. That means I've been walking since two weeks before we went to Disney, since I was trying to prepare somewhat for all the walking we did on that trip.

Disney seems forever ago, unfortunately. But hopefully this minor legacy of activity will continue forever-- we'll see.

Teach me sadness

Allie has fallen a little in love with each of her three grade school teachers. She said that Mrs. Grady, her kindergarten teacher, is her absolute favorite of the three. Mrs. Richard, her current teacher, is her second favorite. And, only because there are but three places to be had, Mrs. Mace is her third favorite.

Sadly, Allie's school year with Mrs. Richard is going to be cut short tomorrow. Her teacher needs heart surgery and she won't recover in time to return to the classroom this year. To say that Allie is crushed by this news is an understatement. At random times, she starts crying because she thinks about Mrs. Richard.

She's a sensitive child anyway (except when it comes to squishing bugs), so this is really hard for her. We keep telling her that crying isn't going to change the situation and that crying is just going to give her sore eyes and a stuffy nose and that crying in front of Mrs. Richard is just going to make it harder for Mrs. Richard. But she can't help it. She's sad.

I'm sad too.

Oh so soft

I am such a wimp. It's a beautiful day here today, so Greg and I decided it was time to tackle raking the yard. We've lived in this house for ten springs now and Greg power raked the yard once in all of that time. We had never raked the yard by hand.

How is that possible, you may ask? Well, since our subdivision is pretty new, there aren't many trees. We have one big tree in the corner of our lot and we're glad to have it, but the rest of the yard is relatively bare of greenery (though it's growing in now). We do get lots of leaves blown in from other yards in autumn, but we've found over the years that if you just leave things, the leaves will blow along to other yards. And our house was new when we moved in, so we were the ones who established the lawn.

This was an amazingly snowy winter, and the grass really looked beat down when the snow finally melted. It was clear that we would need to get some of the dead grass out of the lawn, especially since we have a mulching mower. So this morning, despite the fact that Greg feels like death-warmed-over, we started to rake the front yard.

I was outside for about 10 minutes when Greg brought me a pair of work gloves. I was outside for about 20 minutes when I found that even with gloves on, I'd peeled off a piece of skin on my right thumb. It stung. My hands are that delicate and insubstantial that I couldn't even handle raking for half an hour. I felt better when Greg showed me that he'd peeled off a piece of skin in the exact same spot on his left hand.

My grandfather farmer would be so ashamed.

Simon Lee, Patient

Well, it looks like it won't be $2000. Maybe $750? We don't know. What we do know is that Simon's metatarsals aren't broken, none of them. What we don't know is why his foot is so "floppy," as our vet puts it. She suspects that the tendon or tendons on his leg either got horribly stretched or they've detached themselves from his leg muscle. If they're detached, he's still going to need surgery.

The vet doesn't know how much that type of surgery would cost and the surgeon was too busy to come to the phone. I have to think though that it would be less than $2000, since there isn't the delicate pins and wiring reconstruction. It would just be some stitches, right? I know, I'm dreaming.

So far, we're in for about $300. Greg is going to take Simon to see the surgeon on Monday afternoon and we'll know more then.

We made a bedroom for Simon, complete with clean litterbox and food and water, in the first floor bathroom last night. He ate all of his food and drank some water (and spilled the rest, standard operating procedure). When I opened the door this morning, he immediately stood up and starting rubbing his whole body against me to be petted. He's walking around some, mostly hopping on three legs but he does use his bad leg for balance. He's definitely touching it to the floor and I can't think he'd be doing that much unless it felt relatively OK.

Of course, it's wrapped very tightly and despite his obviously dedicated work, he hasn't succeeded in getting much of the tape off. It must itch too, because he's got teeth marks in the wrapping on his actual paw pad. I think what annoys him most is that we put up the baby gate to keep him from going upstairs. Who knew that thing would come in handy again.

Meanwhile, Allie still has pinkeye and Greg also caught Julia's cold from last weekend. He's coughing and stuffed up and complaining. I'm the only one in the house who's healthy. What about Rabies, you may ask? Rabies is busy being freaked out that his brother won't play. I think it's going to be a quiet weekend.

Two Thousand Dollars

What's the value of a cat's life?

We lost our cat, Pig, last year in January. She was 13 years old, very sick, and had had a good life. It was still an incredibly difficult decision to let her go.

Two weeks later, Simon and Rabies came into our lives. For an adoption fee of, I think, $250, we got two four-month-old kittens, brothers, and a dose of fun into our family. They'll be two years old in August and they still tear around the house like kittens sometimes.

Unfortunately, that tearing around the house sometimes extends into jumping onto the plant shelf in our entryway. A plant shelf that is 9 feet off the ground (I measured). They can reach it by jumping through our upper railing and across the width of the staircase. I've written about this habit before (6/12/07, but I can't get the link to work).

Allie is home from school today because she has pinkeye. Julia didn't want to go to daycare when her sister was home with me. So all of us heard when Simon jumped across to the plant shelf. And all of us heard when he tried to jump back through the railing, clawed desperately with his back legs, and fell. He's fallen before. Once he fell right onto his side, onto vinyl flooring, and just went Oof. Then he got up and walked away.

Today, he didn't walk away. He limped away, keeping his back left leg completely off the ground. I called the vet and they got us in 1 1/2 hours later. They're going to have to sedate him to get the x-rays they need, but from how "floppy" his foot feels, our vet thinks he may have broken all of the metatarsals in that foot. She hasn't even looked for damage further up his leg yet. If he broke his foot that badly, he would need pins and wiring to position his foot correctly, so surgery would be necessary. The good news is that the surgeon could work on him tomorrow, so we'd just have to continue his pain medication through the night and he could start getting better tomorrow.

The bad news is that it would probably cost $2,000. Two thousand dollars. Allie asked how many Barbies we could buy for that (her standard measurement) and I told her, Allie, you can buy a car for $2000.

It's too early to decide what to do. First, we need to know what's really wrong with his foot and if there's any injury to his leg. I'm thinking this is gonna be about $500 worth of diagnostics. Then we have to decide what to do.

How will we decide what to do? How?

Planning ahead

Julia's fifth birthday is coming up at the end of July. If it's after her birthday and before Christmas, every time she sees a toy that she'd like on TV, she says, I want that for Christmas. If it's after Christmas and before her birthday (even if it's December 27th), she says, I want that for my birthday.

Now that her birthday actually isn't that far away, we're starting to pay more attention to what she says she wants. The other night at dinner, she started talking about some drawing kit that she saw advertised and, of course said, I want that for my birthday, Mama, I do.

I told her, OK, maybe you'll get that for your birthday. Allie (otherwise known as the voice of reason/big sister/heartbreaker) had to speak up and say, Julia, you might not get what you're asking for as a birthday present. But Julia has a backup plan. She said, I'll get Daddy's phone and call Auntie Cat and she'll get it for me for my birthday.

I guess being one of three only nieces for Auntie Cat has it's advantages!

Pillow talk

I've been married to Gregory for over 11 years. I've been sleeping with Gregory for, oh for the sake of my mom, let's just say a little longer than 11 years. I know how Gregory sleeps.

Night before last, my husband didn't come to bed. I went to bed about 10:15. I get up at 5:30, so that's about as late as I want to stay up on a "school night." Greg was downstairs watching something on TV (not unusual, obviously) and I went to sleep. At 2:30 a.m., Allie had a bad dream and called me to her room. I can't even remember the last time one of the girls has called for me in the night. I told her to think nice thoughts and go back to sleep. And I realized that Greg hadn't come to bed yet. He was still watching TV. At 2:30 a.m., on a school night.

Yesterday morning, he said he came to bed at sometime after 2:30. I'm thinking it was maybe 3:00 or so, which, even if he did nap a little on the couch, gave him about three hours of sleep for the night. And he did this voluntarily. Not because a child kept him up by throwing up at regular intervals.

Last night, I went to bed about 10:20. Greg came upstairs a few minutes later and climbed into bed. We talked a little bit. I told him that I was making a bet. I said, I bet that within two minutes of when you stop talking, you'll be snoring. He said nuh uh.

We stopped talking. I waited about five seconds and then started counting slowly, on the scale of One-Mississippi, Two-Mississippi, Three-Mississippi. I got to 52-Mississippi and he started snoring.

It's nice to always be right.

Picnic and lake

We were away this weekend, visiting Greg's family, after a disgracefully long time since our last visit. I think the girls grew six or nine or twelve inches since they last saw their Nana, Papa, and aunties. There was beautiful weather to be had, sunny and warm. Central Illinois has daffodils in some sheltered places, and lots of green grass everywhere. We had a picnic in the park and the girls played on a jungle gym.

Afterwards, we walked along the lake and tried to find unsuccessfully to find any hungry ducks. There was bread on the sidewalk, there was bread floating in the water, there was bread on the rocks. The birds were not at all interested in the bread in our hands. Allie and Julia were disappointed, but amused themselves watching Riley the dog swim and find new ways to get out and sprinkle people with nasty lake water.

All in all, a very nice weekend.

How de doo

I don't really have much to say; I just wanted to have one more post in the month of March than I've had the last couple of months.

Oh, and that bit about waiting awhile before we bought a car? We bought a car.

So Greg got a flat screen TV yesterday and a new car today. He's spoiled.

A good weekend

Friday night, we went shopping for a birthday gift for the party Allie would attend on Saturday (her best friend Sandra--movie and pizza) and we had Mexican food at Carlos O'Kellys. There's a Carlos O'Kellys in Decatur too, near where Greg's family lives. It's always busy. This restaurant is always only about half full.

Saturday, Greg went car shopping because we've been thinking about replacing his car now that it has over 90,000 miles on it. I took Allie to her party and then Julia and I hung out and partied like it was 1999. Then Greg came home, all fired up about buying a VW Rabbit. I wanted to see what they were like to drive and Greg wanted me to drive it too, so I went off to Madison and he handled picking Allie up at the theater. Later, I visited the bookstore alone (when was the last time I got to do that!) and then I brought KFC home for dinner. That was some nice variety compared to the deli chicken we usually get from the local Pick Your Nose.

Today, Greg and Julia went off to Madison and bought a new flat screen TV and two booster seats for her for our cars. We've decided to put off getting the car. Allie and I played games and partied like it was 2008. And then the four of us had the best time of the weekend. We went bowling.

Oh my goodness. I haven't been bowling since probably before Allie was born, and neither had Greg. Allie wanted to try it because she's been bowling on the Wii with Greg lately. She discovered it's a lot harder in real life. Julia actually got second place in our little contest behind Greg, thanks to a bowling ramp. And I think Greg got three or four strikes. It was fun and both girls really liked it. We're definitely going to have to go again.

Allie's spring break is over now and she's back to school tomorrow and we're back to our normal routine. Here comes another week--

The two extremes

Today at work, I was involved in the discipline of one employee and the firing of another due to a significant event that happened last week. Involving the fire department.

The first guy had a pretty normal reaction. He protested his innocence, then said other people had done the same thing and were they going to be disciplined too, then said the whole thing was a fucking joke and that he wasn't signing his fucking work violation. I've had more people than I can count have this reaction over the years. It doesn't phase me at all anymore.

I didn't have sweaty palms. My heart wasn't pounding. I wasn't worried about what I was going to say next and how he would react to it. I certainly didn't fear for my safety. That's partially because I felt in control and partially because in this case, his manager was also in the room and he's about 6' 5" and 300 lbs.

Regardless, the guy headed for the door, saying he was going back to work. I had to tell him to stop and that if he didn't sign the work violation, he was quitting. He stood in the doorway for a second, slammed the door closed, said fuck a few more times, and scrawled his signature. Then I told him he had to serve a one-day suspension. That didn't go over very well either.

Several profanities later, it was time to fire the other individual. He sat down, I told him we'd concluded our investigation, and told him the specific issues applying to him. He said that he agreed with the results of the investigation (in fact, he repeatedly said that he accepted responsibility) and then I told him that he was terminated. He said, "Thank you."

OK, now that's a first.

It wasn't as odd as it sounded. After he said thank you, he stood up and pushed past his manager to the door, saying he was leaving. We tried to talk to him about some of his belongings and some company items he needed to return but he took off. His manager followed him and about five minutes later, the employee stopped in my doorway while I was on the phone and dropped some company items on my desk. He seemed a little calmer.

I do think I'm going to remember this one however. I've had people cry (actually, lots of people cry). I've had people swear and pound on the table. I've sometimes warned my co-workers that if they hear sounds in my office that seem like trouble, they shouldn't be afraid to open the door to see what's happening (just a safety thing, it's never been necessary). I've had people laugh and then threaten me and the company (No, Mom. Not me bodily. Just say things like God is going to take care of me. Or that they know some day I'll pay. One guy asked me if I had children and then said he was asking because he didn't know how I could go home to them with what I had done to him on my conscience.) Lots of people threaten to sue.

This guy, he's the first one to say Thank You. But you know, I don't really think he meant it.