Archives 2002

January 6, 2002 - The New Year came without much excitement in my house.  The kids and I flipped between the various shows on T.V. while we waited for the ball to drop.   To my son's delight, we caught Brittany Spears twice in two different recorded features.  My daughter was thrilled that we saw 'N-Stink as well.  I was tickled pink that they showed vintage Barry Manilow singing "Just Another New Year's Eve" from years ago.  I told my daughter that Barry Manilow was my "'N-Sync" when I was her age.  "That's nice, Mom!" she said with false sincerity.

I have been on vacation with the kids since the 21st of December.   I was supposed to work on the 21st, but woke up with pain in my ears and knowing all to well that I had yet another (or the same?) ear infection.  I have been keeper of bad ears since I let one go for so long in '97 with an infection and did nothing about it, thinking no adult should get ear infections.  I ignored the fact I was going deaf.  I ended up with tubes in my ears to help them drain and scar tissue.   Sigh.  I did not want to spend this Christmas break sick with ear infection, so I called in sick to work and went to the doctor's instead.  I got my prescription for medicine and came back home to go to bed. 

On our break we saw two movies, ate two buckets of movie popcorn, played games, and I managed to take as many naps as possible.  We went four days straight without eating any vegetables!  It was great.  I got my hair colored even though I was almost totally my own color again with just a few inches of orange fringing the bottom of my hair.  I swore I wouldn't get it colored ever again!   Never say never.  What I will do to have someone play with my hair!!  I am a hair slut.  All in all it was relaxing time off.  I don't have anymore vacation days now until May. 

My daughter has decided that everything you need to know about life you can learn from the Simpson's cartoon show.  She has had this proved over and over in her life in the last few months.  She got an answer right on a quiz at school because she remembered something she had seen on the Simpsons.  She knew the song "Charter Point" when her band class was going to play it because they had done it as a musical spoof on the Simpsons.  I am an avid Simpsons fan and force my kids to watch it when I do at night.  If I time things right, I can watch three shows of the Simpsons reruns on weeknights.  My daughter has a great sense of humor, and now that she's older she finds many things to laugh about when watching the reruns of the show.  "Yep, Mom ... I'm pretty sure all you need to know about life you can learn from that show!" she announces periodically.  I smile. 

January 13,  2002 - I did something on Friday that I thought I would never do, ever.   (After 41 years, you would think that I would learn to never say "never.")  What did I do?  I signed a piece of paper at the veterinarian's that stated "do whatever you have to do to save my animal."  

Sparky the dog had hit almost rock bottom through this previous week.  She couldn't drink anymore or eat or poop or stand up.  If she did manage to stand up it was only to urinate where she stood, then she would lay down in it.  I thought she would die before the vet could see her, she was that bad.  I called on Monday to tell the vet that something was going terribly wrong.  The problem of her wetting all over mid-December had gone downhill from there.  I had taken her off the hormones he prescribed a week ago since she was acting odd.  They told me they couldn't see her until the 16th.  I told them I didn't think she could wait that long.  The receptionist said they couldn't get her in any sooner.  I was too frustrated to talk, so I typed up all her symptoms and faxed it to the doctor.  They called back and said they could see her Friday the 11th.  I still wasn't happy that is wasn't sooner, but I wasn't sure WHAT to do.  All I know that it dawned on me there and then that I loved that stupid dog.  She was more than a normal pet to me.  She had to be saved.  I would take on a second job to pay for it need be.  After Monday, she started to vomit and got weaker and weaker.  She didn't wag her tail when she saw us.  Sparky the Face Licker Supreme didn't even look us in the eyes.  Normally she would cram her tongue up any available hole on our heads when she was near us.

When I took her in, I think the vet thought the same thing I did - she wasn't going to make it, even though she didn't have a fever or showed any signs of infection.  They did blood work and her electrolytes were dangerously low.  They kept her this weekend.  She had to go on a doggie I.V. because of her dehydration.  She is a sick puppy.  My daughter and I went to see her on Saturday.  She licked my face, stuck her tongue up my nose, and wagged her tail.  I cried.

She is feeling a little better.  The Doc called today to update me.  Seems it is an issue of dog diabetes.  He said he has never seen it in a dog this young, though, so he's not done looking.  But at least she is perking up a bit and has eaten real food, drinks like there is no tomorrow, and pooped.  Things are "working" again.  Phew. 

I love that stupid dog.

January 16,  2002 - Sparky is on the mend in the doggie hospital.  I didn't think at first that she would recover, but I have visited every day at lunch and she is doing better and better each day.  She is SO ready to get out of there.  Tomorrow they will let me know when I can pick her up.  I can't wait to get her home.  I miss her being an idiot all over the place. 

I got a call from my son's principal from school yesterday.  He had to report to me that my son had detention for two days as a result of making "poor choices" at recess time.  Apparently my son expressed himself in front of some female friends with a gesture of the hand.   "You mean he flipped somebody off?" I inquired.  That he did.   My friend Diane, who works in the office at the school suggested that perhaps I had taught him how to do that.  "No," I said, "but if he was running naked through school, I would have to take the blame for that."  I knew my son didn't know what "the bird" meant.  I had no intention of punishing or beating him when I got home.  I did, however, sit down and discuss this 'poor choice on his part'  with him.  "Do you know what it means when you use your middle finger as a gesture like that?" I asked him.  He immediately began to weep uncontrollably.  "Y ... e ... ssssss, it ... sob .... means.... that you ... sob...  hate someone ..... sniffffff ..... very .... much."  It was hard not to smile or laugh over this.  I did, however, manage to keep a straight face.  "Well, it sort of means hate, but in the worst kind of way."  I then proceeded to review all official swear words with him, and when we got to the "F" word, I explained that using his middle finger was the same thing as saying the "F" word.  We talked for a while about this.  I talked, he cried, actually.  I think he had been waiting for me to come home and scream at him.   If I had thought he was doing it with hate and vengeance in his heart, I would have yelled at him, but this was just part of the grand scheme of life's learning curve.   He eventually calmed down enough to show me what he had done.   "See," he said as he grabbed his gloves and put them on his hand, "I pulled my fingers out the glove like this, and held all the loose fingers down and did this ..." and he proceeded to flop around his empty middle finger of the glove.   "So as you can see," he claimed, "I didn't even use my real finger!"  I told him it still counted as "flipping someone off" even though it wasn't his real finger, holding the glove made him an accessory to the crime.    

It dawned on me this morning that I'm getting older.  How did I realize this?  I realized this when I observed that dictionaries are thicker now than when I was a kid.  I realized this when I caught myself thinking about buying a music CD of Frankie Valley and the Four Seasons on the way home from work today.  I realized this the other day when at one point I was going from one room to the other in the same manner that Edith Bunker did on "All in the Family" - at a fast trot with my hands flailing in the air.  Add that to the fact that when I told my daughter I was running around like Edith Bunker, she looked at me with a blank stare and replied, "Who?"  The kids realize I'm old AND senile when we are looking at the photo albums together.  They see a cute baby picture shot, and ask, "Is that me?"  Since all the kids looked the same as babies, and since I was a terrible mother and didn't label pictures properly, I reply to them, "Um ... sure - that's you!"  My son got me on a technicality once when I claimed it was him in the bathtub picture we were looking.  "That's not me!  There's no penis, Mom!!"   My daughter covered for me and insisted that my son was just a late bloomer. 

I laid in bed last night pondering life and the end of it.  I felt a spaz fit coming on, so I wandered off to somewhere else in my mind to avoid scaring myself.   I have not felt that "fire of fear" pain for a long long time.  I spent many of my earlier years dreading dying and the end of "me" and the universe in general.  I would let my mind wander to the edges of thinking about death and I would get as close as I could to the thought of not "being" any more.  That would trigger a panic attack.  I could feel the panic start on the very tip of all my nerve endings all over my body and it felt like fire searing my skin.  The fear would sink deeper into me and rush to my head until I would jump up from where ever I was and run from mentally blinding fear.  Where was I running to?  I have no idea.  As a kid I would end up running into my Mom's bedroom.  She would always wonder what was wrong with me.  I would usually end up lying about having a bad dream or the like.  As I got older I would do this panic dance as well, but I wouldn't run.  I would just bolt myself out of bed in a tizzy.   I think as I got older I realized death is something you can't run from.  It took me forever to learn that I didn't have to run to it, either, by worrying about it all the time.  (Of course, the therapy and medicine helped a lot too.)   Every now and again I will push myself to try to comprehend death.  When the searing pain starts to tickle my near endings, I know to stop and think of something else for a while. 

Panic attacks are as real as the nose on your face.  I am glad people are more accepting of those things now and realize that one is not crazy just because they might have an issue coping with life.  I also think a lot of people still don't even realize they are attacking themselves (physically) with their own minds.  I know it took me most of my lifetime up until 1998 or so to be able to control my own "mind" over things.  I wish I would live long enough to see someone figure out how to utilize the human brain to the fullest extent.   That would be cool.  It is a powerful thing and sometimes our minds have their own minds.  (Rhetorical, but true.)  I am thinking of charging my brain rent starting next month since it thinks it is all independent and cocky in it's old age.

January 20,  2002 - We went to see "Fellowship of the Rings" this weekend.   I took my 21 year old son with us and he slept through most of it.  It is three hours long, and apparently working nights had taken it's toll on the poor lad.  My 14 year old daughter and 9 year old son fell madly in love with Legolas, the elf that is part of the fellowship.  My daughter for the reason he's so "hot" and my son for the fact he can REALLY shoot a bow and arrow! It was an OK movie and very exciting but I would rather read the book myself.   Just like with the "Dune" movie, it had pretty graphics/effects/settings, but nothing beats the book.  The kids want to see it again.  For a three hour movie it did fly by fast, I must admit. 

Tonight at supper, my daughter was eating her third piece of bread and butter and wondered out loud if people who are "lactoast intolerant" are allergic to the bread or the butter part?  "Oh, that's so funny I forgot to laugh!" I retorted, thinking she was being the jokester, "I will have to tell Jim at work that joke.  He likes that sort of odd humor!"   "No, really!" she said.  " I have always wondered about that.  Why else would they have the word 'toast' in it?"  It took a minute for me to stop laughing to explain that the word was "lactose" not "lactoast" and it had nothing to do with bread, whatsoever, just dairy products.  We all had a good laugh over this.  I will still tell Jim.  Either way, it's funny. 

January 26,  2002 - Sparky, my $600 doggie, seems to be back to stupid.  That is good.  Stupid and idiotic are her natural personality traits and are what endeared her to our hearts to begin with.  When she was so sick and almost dead she was no where near idiot let alone stupid.  She was just flat out sick.  She took a nap with me today but didn't let me fall asleep until she had rolled all over me, cleaned out my nasal cavity, and spiffed up my ears.  I have gotten quite good at giving her the insulin shots.  The "collecting urine" part of her doggie diabetes is still not an art form for me yet.  She starts to squat to pee but drags herself away when she sees the urine collection device (a.k.a. a small "cut down small enough to shove under a dog" butter dish) coming out of the corner of her eye.  I have tried being nonchalant about it, standing as if I am admiring the sunrise as she goes about her squatting duties then lunging toward her as she starts to pee.  I would love to be my neighbors watching this event.  It must be quite entertaining.   I gave the evening collection duties to my daughter, and apparently lunging toward one's victim is inherent.

My youngest son still likes cuddle with me in my chair at night when he's tired.  I love it.  He takes up a lot of space and it's not really cuddling, it's more like wrestling with a midget but I still like the fact he plops himself all over me and snuggles.  It won't be long and he won't want me that way, so I am enjoying it.  Then I'll have to wait for the grandkid phenomenon to enjoy the head smelling/snuggling routine once again.  Sigh.  (And if my kids read this, remember, I CAN WAIT!!  NOT A PROBLEM!!  WAITING IS GOOD!!)

This morning I watched a few specials called "Twisted Tales" on Animal Planet.  One about the myths surrounding whales and dolphins, and one about cats.  Very interesting stuff.  Both of these specials talked about how these species have gone through thousand of years enduring our human wishy-washy nature.  First we hate them, then we love them.  Then we hate them, burn a few at the stake, then we love them, bury a few with their owners.  Then we stalk them and kill them to light our street lights with their oils, then we love them and protect them.  Humans cannot make up their minds.  Have you ever noticed this?  I know there is such a thing as a learning curve but boy howdy, has the human species gone through a bunch of them!  We once thought of cats as gods, then witches, then companions.  We thought whales were sea monsters, then found out they were full of good stuff to use for our own benefit (like the special said, they were perceived as floating super markets.)  Then we realize we had it all wrong, and maybe killing the last two in the whole sea would be a BAD thing ...  But that is our nature as humans.  Major things happen and we react.  Then we forget.  Then we repeat the process.  

January 27,  2002 - My daughter and I are eating Lucky Charms for breakfast this fine Sunday morning.   That reminds me about the ants at work ... 

We have tiny little ants that pop up around the coffee pot at work.  I do not like ants doing that.  I react poorly to ants running freely through kitchen type areas.  When I first saw them at work the other day, I hollered, "GOOD LORD!  COFFEE ANTS!!" and started pounding them dead with my fist.  Doug came running to see what I was doing.  "Ants ...   BAD ... must die ..." I was babbling as I was smashing the poor critters.   "Don't like ants, aye?" Doug observed.  "NO!" I replied sweetly and lady like as I continued to club the little boogers.  I told him it had to do with the "ant incident of '82." 

I explained to him, "I was eating a bowl of Lucky Charms for breakfast before work.  I had just gotten up, so I was still 'fuzzy' and was eating away enjoying the cereal when I finally looked down into my bowl, and there amongst the 'lucky' and the 'charms' were huge ants, swimming for their lives in my cereal bowl.  No telling how many I consumed before I finally noticed them."  I looked in the box from the cupboard and the box was teaming with ants.  I spent the next hour cleaning out my cupboards. 

Doug laughed at this.  I shuddered.  Now, I don't doubt ants are probably a good source of protein or the like and if I was starving, YES, I would eat them by the handful I'm sure.  But just to eat them and not know I'm eating them until after I've eaten them, well - that's another story.   So since that event, I over react to free roaming nomadic type kitchen ants, and I'm pretty sure that my destruction of ants will be the first thing "They" bring up when I try to get into heaven. 

Barry Manilow is in concert up in Grand Rapids next month.  When I saw the advertisement for this on T.V., I laughed.  I was going to run away from home in 1974 to see him in concert.  He was performing in Ohio where my friend Lisa had moved.  We were huge Manilow fans.  By gosh, I was going to get on a bus and go see him LIVE and in CONCERT, by golly.  I think my plans were squashed when I asked permission first.  Mom and Dad stopped me from going, of course, and I loathed them for that fact for a long time.  Now here he is 27 years later, LIVE and in CONCERT, and I can go legally.  Sigh.  Takes all the fun out of it.

February 4,  2002 - I miss the original Agree Shampoo.  I miss the smell of it that is.  I am not sure how good it is or isn't, but the smell of the original Agree that came out in the late '70s was great.  I wish they would come out with a limited run at least of the Original Scent.  That would be grand.  I also miss Lemon-Up Shampoo.  Does anyone besides me remember that?  The cap was in the shape of a lemon.  I think I will start a writing campaign to get these things back out to the consumes, even it the "consumers" are just me.

I have left my Christmas lights up and between Christmas and now the green string stopped working and the yellow string stopped working, so when they are on at night it's just blue and red.  It looks quite patriotic so I am leaving them there until one of the remaining strings take a crap.  

My daughter amazed us at dinner once again.   She was telling her brother that her "metabolisms" didn't work as good as when she was younger so she couldn't pig out like he does on sweets and the like.  "Metabolism-s??" I asked.  "Do you know what your metabolism is?" I queried.  (After the "lactoast intolerant" incident, I take nothing for granted.)  "Aren't they like the little cells that burn up your food?" she asked.  I proceeded to explain metabolism and the whole idea of calorie burning and also the fact that the cells themselves that did this job were not necessarily called "metabolism" unless their parents happened to name them that.

I don't know what is in the air, but all the animals in the house seem to feel it is their sworn duty as members of the animal kingdom to "please themselves" repeatedly in plain sight right in the middle of the living room.  Of course, I exaggerate ... the cats tend to hump the couch which is to the side of the living room, not in the middle.  Maybe it was that warm spell we had a bit ago that brought out these animal urges in the critters.  No matter what happened, you can only imagine the questions I've had to answer in the last week from the kids.  Sigh. 

February 9,  2002 - We stayed up and watched the opening ceremony for the Olympics.   Wow.  Pretty darned cool!  I am the only one that stayed awake until the lighting of the cauldron.  My son pooped about about 10:30 and my daughter fell asleep around 11.  I was impressed that President Bush sat with the American athletes for a while.  I loved it when the one girl called someone on her cell phone and handed the phone to Mr. Bush.  Smile.  Too funny.  How many of us can say we talked to the President of the United States on the phone?  All in all it was a cool start to the Olympics.  Normally I don't think I would have watched it, but my son was fired up about the Olympics from school.  Now we will keep close tabs of them because he will demand it.  Today we watched the speed skating and the cross country for men and women.  Those people have intestinal fortitude, that is for sure.  I had two heart attacks and one stroke just watching them.

Everyone lazed around the house today.   My son was just lazy.  He made a personal little bunker out of pillows and blankets in the middle of the living room floor.  My daughter was firmly planted on the couch the entire day as she is in the first stages of heavy snotting, sneezing, and sore throating of a cold.  I am getting over my head cold, but there is residual snot outburst and I was just plain lazy.  I did do dishes and made supper and did laundry and all, but overall, I was lazy.  I didn't do my normal cleaning frenzy nor did I care if anyone got dressed.  I didn't even complain when someone didn't flush the toilet.  It was a pretty laid back day.  My son has gotten his second wind, however, and has fashioned himself a snow board out of an old box that he flattened.   He has tied the the box to his feet with shoe laces.  (I am not sure which shoes he stole the laces from at this time.  I imagine we will all find out Monday morning.)  Now he is hopping around the living room pretending he's snowboarding down a mountain.  It's is quite ingenious of him, really.  Oh no - he just 'wiped out' and is treating me to a 're-play' of the incident.  We live life on the edge here.  Wait.  My son has called it quits and was replaced by his three foot stuffed frog on the snowboard.  Apparently with my son controlling the frog, he can catch more 'air.'

My Mom would have been 80 on the 10th of this month had she lived.  I miss my Mom.  I still want to call her and still pick up the phone from time to time to call her.  The bad dreams that haunted me following her death in 1998 are getting fewer and farther between.  Now I can dream of her in a more normal way, as she was before her mental decline.  Time is a healer of sorts. Or just plain maturing helps loads as well. 

My son has gone from playing snowboarding frog to Fed Ex delivery man.  I don't see the frog.  I can only guess that is what he's delivering.  What a nut.

When I was drifting off to sleep today, pre-nap, I was trying my hardest to try to recall my earliest memory.  There are some that are burned in stone in my mind from my early years that I can't seem to forget - my Mom's reaction to Kennedy's funeral ... my sister's reaction to the Beatles being on the Ed Sullivan Show.  But as I get older, the other stuff I know I should remember, I can't.  The houses of my youth get mixed up in my mind when I try to conjure up memories.  I see the house I lived in when I was 12 in memories of things I did when I was 6.  Odd things like that.  Other things that used to be distinct memories on their own are now all blended together with other incidents of my past.  I can't remember the name of my first grade teacher anymore.  My first eight years are fading fast.  I wonder if this is normal for all humans or I am just losing my mind?   The rest of my memories seem fairly intact, however.  Must be if I keep adding memories, some will have to go to make room.

Speaking of early memories, I fell in love with chapter books when I was in fourth grade, when my teacher Mrs. Stephenson read us 'Little House in the Big Woods' by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  I was mesmerized by that book.  I would hate it when reading time was over.  I begged her to read more.   I would lay in bed at night and replay the whole chapter in my head.  For Christmas that year, I received my own copy.  After that I started spending my own money on a the next book in the series whenever we made the semi-annual trek to Kalamazoo.   I gave my daughter the whole 'Little House' series a few years ago for Christmas.   She has read the series a few times.  Now I am reading them to my son.   he seems to enjoy them.  He questions how things were done in the1800s and why, which is good.  Learning how things "used to be" is a good thing.   Helps one appreciate what we have now, and since I didn't live through a depression like my parents did in the 30s, I can't tout all the suffering, sacrifice, and hard ways that were a fact of life for my parents.  I have to rely on Laura Ingalls Wilder to help me out some there.

February 14,  2002 - I think this is the first Valentine's Day in my whole life that I didn't receive a paper card.  History has been made.  I received e-cards, mind you - and virtual cards are better than no cards to be sure!  It just kind of threw me for a loop that even my own children didn't make me a card like they normally do ...   it was just weird.

I filled out a chain type email to send to friends that had many questions on it.  One questions was, "Do you like to drive fast?"  My answer originally was, "Yes, I love to drive fast.  Wait, not when the kids are with me and only on back roads and not when the deer are moving in the fall and spring, 'cause you never know when one of those boogers are going to jump out of the bushes, and never on ice, of course ...."  After reading my pathetic answer, I just changed it to read "yes" before I sent out the questionnaire.    Easier that way.

I swear they are making sanitary napkins with super glue nowadays.  All of my underwear's cotton crotches have been ripped to shreds by the adhesive on the back of those things.   Of course they are a far cry better than strapping in with those belts from hell like when I was little!   Those things, if worn wrong, would rip out your pubic hair with no mercy.

My daughter was running around the house tonight singing, "Yummy Yummy Yummy I've got love in my tummy and I feel like lovin' you..."  I asked her where she had heard that song since it's an oldie for sure!!  She said the bus driver plays the oldies station and she heard it on the way home and it stuck in her head.  I told her it was 'bubblegum music' and it was done by Ohio Express in the late '60s or so.  I looked it up on the internet to be sure, but was afraid of searching on "Yummy ... love in my tummy" for fear of coming up with a ton of porn sites.  Actually, the search went pretty well.  That group also did "Chewy Chewy" and "Doc, I Don't Know How I Got So Many Cavities" if memory serves me. 

I was listening today to some music on the radio at lunch and it finally hit me that I love that sound of percussion "splashing."  I don't know how else to explain it.  Music with constant symbol sounds or robust percussion in general ... sounds as if they are playing with all their might on a drum that has a top filled with water, you know?  Splash Rock.  I love it. 

Last time I was at the doctor's office, I had an infection on my chin.  As she was leaving the room, I pointed at my chin and said, "oh, hey - can you prescribe something for this?" meaning the infection.   She wrote out a prescription and off I went.  I got it filled and used it for a week before I finally read the details on it.  It's not for infections, it is for HAIR GROWTH PREVENTION!  Hahahaaaa.  When you point at your chin to your doctor, make sure you state WHAT you are pointing at and why.  I don't know if this stuff will work in helping to curb my facial hair.  My whiskers are still growing in.   The only thing I have noticed is that they don't seem to want to come out like they used to.  I have pulled and tugged to no avail.  Apparently this cream works as a super glue for hair follicles.  Maybe it works in such a way that no more grow, but what you have stays put.  Hey, I just noticed it's made by the Gillette Company ... hmmmmm.  Suspicious.  (Smile.)

February 24,  2002 - Yesterday I was washing my daughter's hair for her.  I used some of that Herbal Essence Shampoo you see on the commercials that show the person practically having an orgasm using the shampoo.  I said to my daughter, "I'm using the orgasm shampoo on ya!" without even thinking twice of what I was saying.   "The WHAT...?" my daughter replied.  "Oh My!" I said.   I opened a subject I was really not prepared to cover at that very moment, but since the topic was on the table, I proceeded to ask her questions.  Did she know what an 'orgasm' was or had she heard mention of it?  Did she know what masturbation was and speaking of masturbation, did she realize that her cat Taffy had made the living room couch his "bitch?"

She laughed at things but answered me on all questions I asked.  I stressed to her that if she ever had questions about anything, she was free to ask me.  "We don't want another misunderstanding like the 'lactoast' intolerant issue!"  I said to her.  I am blessed that I can talk to my kids openly, to a point.  There are some things and will always be some things a child will never want to discuss with their parental unit.  But so far, I am lucky the kids are pretty open to me.  My daughter did mention at one point that I tend to get into 'TMI' mode on occasion.  "Sometimes, Mom - some information is just Too Much Information." 

I saw my cousin on Thursday for lunch, and he was telling me about the conversation he had with his daughter.  Seems he had to explain what a "pervert" was and that ran into explaining other things.  It is never easy to talk to your kids about certain topics, that's for sure.  My parents were incapable of speaking about these things.  I am happy that my generation is at least able to attempt it.  (It doesn't mean, of course, that we do it well - we just feel as if we can at least try!  As I have always said, if anyone is going to screw up my kids, it's gonna be me!!)

I was feeling sorry for myself Friday night.   I was wishing that there was somebody in my life that wouldn't feel like it was an effort to make an extra stop and get me Chinese food and just know I wanted Chinese food instinctively ...  all in all I mean that I wish that we always had romance and "young love" in our life.  That is, of course, impossible.  Young love only last for a few years in a relationship.  If you don't work on a relationship, the "young love" part goes away.  Sometimes it is impossible to ever get that back.  (Unless, of course, you start all over again with someone new.)   Some people, however, have managed to do that throughout their entire relationship.   To those people, I say KUDOS to you!!  It is an fine art, for sure. 

After my morbid Friday night, I realized on Saturday morning during chores that one cannot assume that another person is going to know how you feel.  One person will never know that they were supposed to do something for you if you don't tell them.  We, as humans, cannot think that people in our lives should just KNOW things, then punish them when the don't KNOW things, you know?   Communication is our gift as a higher life form on this earth as opposed to let's say a prairie dog, but do you think as humans we use it?  NO!  We simmer in our own juices of anger/jealousy and never tell the person those feelings are stewing about how we feel or how we thought they should react.  All in all, it's a sorry state.   We are, perhaps, not so high on the food chain after all when it comes to getting along with our pack mates.  Woof.

February 26,  2002 - It was a humorous day today, to say the least.  I tend to amuse myself by some of my actions.  Being self contained and easily amused keeps me busy as a baby with Cheerios stuck to its toes. 

We got a good amount of snow last night and it had gotten colder than in had been in the last few days.  This morning I started my car about ten minutes before I was going to leave to help melt the snow.  As it ran I brushed off the several inches piled up on the car.  I came in the house and finished getting ready for work and to get my son in the final prep mode for school.   We left the house together.  My son went off to the neighbors to get on the bus at the bus stop.  I proceeded to go to my car and I attempted to open the door.   It was stuck.  I just assumed it was frozen shut.  (Geez, it did snow, after all, and when I opened the passenger side door to lean in and put in the keys and start the car, the passenger side door stuck in a frozen kind of way.)  So I leaned my rear up against my door and just stood there, trying to melt my driver side door with the heat from my butt.  I waved at my son at the bus stop and then looked around at all the beautiful snow laden trees for a while.  I tried the door again.  Still it wouldn't open.  "Oh Great!" I thought.  Then it dawned on me that when I start my car, the doors automatically lock, and I have to unlock them before shutting the door to let the car warm up.  I peered into the car to see that the doors were locked.  It only took me five minutes with my butt smashed up against the door to realize this fact.  I took out my extra set of keys and unlocked the door and amazingly, it opened! 

My phone rang today at work.  It was an outside call, indicated by the type of ring of the phone.  I answered it.  (Just good business practice there.)  The person started out by stating his name, then telling me he was from the local sheriff office, and by the time he was saying, "... wondering if you have a son ..." I proceeded to pee my pants in preparation to begin the process of a having a heart attack.  "Oh my God, what is wrong?" I burbled.  He continued, "... do you have a son by the name of ..."   The name was not the name of either of my boys.  I immediately yelled at him, "You had better be thankful I'm wearing a Poise Pad!!" He hesitated and made an attempt to laugh.  We came to the conclusion, after I averted my seizure of fear, that the boy he was calling about was not mine and the number he dialed was just flat out wrong.  I looked in the address book at work for a similar name, but found none.   After I hung up the phone, I wandered into my end of the building, screamed to whoever would listen about what just happened, then made my way to the bathroom to throw up.

On the way home from work tonight two Sandhill Cranes flew over my car.  Already!??  They are back early!!  I was thrilled to see them, but worried that about them and all this snow.  I am just amazed a pair is back in this area so soon.  But then again, I swear I have heard robins singing as well.  The odd weather has us all confused.  (Ask my car door and my butt - they are engaged to be married now.)

March 15,  2002 - It seems like forever that I've had the time to sit down and write in my diary.  I know there are a million things I wanted to share, too - but what they are now, I forget.  This has been the week from hell at work, and I am glad to send it packing back to the bloody bowels of the dark underworld whence it came.

March 16, 2002 - I stumbled into the bathroom this morning in a five a.m. daze of semi-sleepiness and did my duties as it were, and when I left the bathroom I felt something on my rear.  A lump of sorts.  I felt back there.  The lump turned out to be removable, and it was a smashed lady bug!   They are everywhere this week in the house.  Kamikaze ladybugs float dead in the toilet and the dog bowl water every morning.  Herds of them roam aimlessly on the counters and sinks and windows on South side of the house.  The warmer weather has brought them out in droves along with the box elder bugs.  Sigh.  I was talking to someone at work the other day and felt something moving in my bra.  I reached in to check and there was a box elder bug who had hitched a ride in my brazier.   "Lord have mercy, I'm housing illegal aliens!" I proclaimed, as I zinged the little booger across the hall.  They are everywhere!  On my curtains, my plants, in the drawers of clothes, in the dog food, in the dish cabinet ... everywhere.

March 26, 2002 - I talked to my friend Julie tonight, and she explained how things work in the restaurant business when it came to tipping and waitresses and bus boys and the like.  I never knew how it worked, so it was very enlightening.  The waiters/waitresses have to give so much of a percentage of their sales (out of their own money) in their designated area to their bus people, dish washers and bartenders at the end of the night.  Plus, my friend only  makes 2.65 an hour as a waitress, so she relies on the tips to survive.  Survival as a waiter/waitress depends on the quality of service for sure!!  I never knew that.   

March 31, 2002 - Happy Easter.  We had an Easter Egg hunt this morning for my nieces and my kids, and then I picked up my oldest son and brought him home for Easter dinner.  I am full and content.  The content parts comes from forcing my kids to do the dishes after dinner.  Smile.

Earlier this week we found out that my daughter will attend Band Camp this summer at a place owned by one of my former classmates from High School.  That made me ramble on to my kids about the fact I had also worked for this former classmates parents at their factory in town when I was in High School.   I also told them what they had given me for a graduation present.  It was a little porcelain sculpture of a child with a horse that was hand crafted in Russia.   Actually, it says "U.S.S.R." on the bottom.   I told my kids it was one of the few thing I have from my past that hasn't been broken or damaged or the like, plus the fact that the U.S.S.R doesn't even exist any more made kind of cool. 

Now mind you, I am not a materialistic person.  I don't put much stock in the fact I own cool stuff or that I should own cool stuff or that you have cool stuff and I do not.  I never had, I never will.   I don't own a lot of cool stuff because it is just that, "stuff."   It won't make my kids better people ... it doesn't bring anyone any more or any less genuine happiness to have lots of acquired "stuff."   I do, however, have a few things that I feel are special.  The vase that belonged to my mother's mother - she received it for her High School graduation in 1918 or so - that is very special to me.  I have other things from my past I cherish.  I know they are just "stuff" but they are special stuff. 

So after forcing my kids to listen to the story of the child and horse porcelain sculpture from Russia the day before, I came home on Friday to have that very child and horse presented me in pieces by my daughter.  "I'm so sorry!   I was dusting, and I bumped it and ..." she trailed off.  I felt very bad.  Almost sad enough to cry for a minute.  I told her I was not upset.   "Accidents happen ... It lasted 23 years ...  It had a good life ... Maybe we could super glue it ... I don't blame you, honey..."  I went on and on.   I knew she felt bad.  I felt bad.  I rationalized - it was, after all, just a thing.  I thought about this as I did dishes later that day.  Stuff is just stuff.  No need to worry over it.  I was thinking this to myself as I was looking at the glass mobile that hangs over my kitchen sink.  That glass mobile, with hummingbirds on it, was the first purchase I made for myself as an independent after high school.  I has hung over every kitchen sink I have had since.  I smiled and laughed out loud and said to the glass hummingbirds, "Well, at least I still have YOU!"

So, today during the morning spaz of new Easter goodies, my son was bouncing a super bouncy egg he received.   Who wouldn't be bouncing a bouncy egg if one had one to bounce?  I was in the shower getting ready for the day.  I heard a loud "smash" ring out and then silence.  I got out of the shower to ask what had happened.  "I'm sorry!  I was bouncing my egg and it just flew out of control!" my son lamented.  All I could do was stare at the glass hummingbird mobile smashed into tiny shards in my kitchen sink.  I couldn't even find it in myself to talk for a few minutes.  "Accidents happen, Mom!" my son offered.  "It lasted a long long time, Mom!" he ventured, drawing upon the words of comfort I had offered my daughter on Friday.  "It had a good life ... Maybe we could super glue it, Mom?" he asked.  I cleaned up the glass pieces and finished my shower in silence.  When I got back out, I told my son that it was just "stuff."  I also told him, "You know, I really loved those things that broke in the last few days.  I can't lie and say I'm not sad, 'cause I am.  I am sad."   We both decided that bouncing things would best be left to the outdoors, and me, I'm not going to ponder about any more "stuff" for a while.  

 April 2, 2002 - OK, I got this whole thing narrowed down to a theory.  I was thinking of an old friend a lot lately, and low and behold there he was today out of the blue.  I saw him when I ran to the Battle Creek plant today.  (Hopefully he won't get "broken" now since everything I pondered lately explodes or breaks.   Hahaha.)  I am thinking we all have times where we are able to see/feel the future in an odd sort of way.  The whole ESP thing ... I think we all possess it.    And maybe there are times it's stronger than others.  I just wish I could channel that mental power!  I could rule the world!!  (OK, so maybe that is why the human race has yet to harness this power - we are not ready.)  We all have 'Deja Vu' moments and we all have had times where we knew what was going to happen before it happened.  This is more than a coincidence.  This is something just beyond our mental grasp.  I just wish I had the time to work on this in my own head.   What a neat thing.   I just wish things didn't have to break in the mean time while I work on this m.. ental skill .

Spring has hit like a ton of bricks.  Two weeks ago it was snowing, then suddenly yesterday it was in the 80s!  You could hear all of the trees and flowers practically explode with buds.  (My ears are still ringing from the sound.)  The birds are singing with a gusto I have never heard in my 41 years on earth.  The frogs in the swamps all around my area are so loud you cannot hear your radio playing when you drive by.  Almost an eerie flurry of activity taking place in a few shorts days.  The dogs and cats have all spontaneously shed their hair, leaving tumble weed sized fur balls all over the house.  The lady bugs that were thick in the house during the last part of winter have gone into mating overdrive, pumping out hundreds on a daily basis, or so it would seem.  The grass over the septic tank grew with such intensity that it was declared protected under the National Wetlands Act. This is the oddest (and most rapid) springing into spring I have ever witnessed. 

April 16, 2002 - We were driving home last night from attending my daughter's High School Orientation.  As we drove by a swamp, the noise from the "peepers" was so loud my daughter covered her ears.  "Cripes, those frogs are high on something!" she proclaimed.  I told her, "Just think ... all those froggies singing and they are all probably ... 'doing it' too!"   I believe her response to that was, "Oh, Gross, Mom!"

Her High School Orientation went well - for me.  I am excited and proud she will be going to such a fine High School.  She, on the other hand, felt confused and not so "orientated."  What 8th grader isn't scared or worried about starting High School?  I toured her around and told her the basic location of all bathrooms, office, etc.  I also stressed that she'd be just fine.  Not a comfort when said by a parental unit.  Just because I lived through it doesn't mean (as she points out often) that she will.  I helped her figure out her schedule as well one night after she had gone to bed.  It turned out I had her down for enough courses with enough homework hours to blow the head off of Stephen Hawking.  After we analyzed this together, we toned it down a tad.  

All parents try to "live" through their kids, and we all expect far too much from our kids sometimes as well.  Kids are kids.  We do (or will if it hasn't happened already) forget how we felt at that age.   We assume too much when it comes to our kids.  But we don't stop with just the first child.  We inflict this assuming on all the products of our loins.  I also believe the fact that we end up turning around and spoiling our grandkids silly is an evil form of showing our own children we are still in some form of power, and that we are still perfectly capable of screwing stuff up until we die.

I heard on the radio yesterday that they didn't let women run in the Boston Marathon until 1972.  (They were interviewing the woman who entered a "fake" entry form to get into the race in 1962.)  They used to believe that a female running more than one mile would cause their uterus to fall out or something.  Good Lord!  Have we come a long way baby, or what?  I am so amazed at the human mind - the evolution of it over the years.  Now, I must go bang my laundry with a rock in the river, or the kids won't have jeans to wear tomorrow...

May 1, 2002 - My son came running into the house tonight screeching at the top of his lungs, "Ice Cream Truck!!  IIIIIcccceeeee CCCCCCrrrrreeeaaammmm Trrrrruck!!"   Apparently 'tis the season for the Ice Cream trucks to roam free again. 

May 13, 2002 - It has been very cold as of late.  This is not spring.  This is two steps into a walk in freezer when naked.  I made potato soup tonight because it feels too chilly out and something hot sounded good.   When I am cold, something is terribly wrong in the grand scheme of life.  Besides, I'm on a soup kick as of late.  I do that - I go in phases.  I will crave something and eat it non-stop for weeks until I finally get my fill of it.  Soup is my latest obsession. 

Mother's Day was nice.  My oldest son sent me a lovely fresh flower arrangement on Friday at work.  Three beautiful Mylar balloons accompanied the array of yellow flowers.  It even had daffodils, which I adore.  I about had a heart attack.  At first I cried and then I was just in a state of shock.  He normally does not do that type of thing.  Normally he gives me a card with an I.O.U. in it.  My coworkers were in awe to see me so speechless.  I could not finish a full sentence.  I babbled on like an idiot.  They are beautiful flowers.  I called my son and grunted "Thank You" best I could in my condition.   "Didn't you like them?" he worried.  "Oh Goodness .... Heavens ... They are just ... just .... they are so wonderful!" I managed to finally get out.  

My youngest son made me a picture frame at school and a card.  His card went something like this, "Happy Mother's Day.   I love you because you buy me cool stuff.  I can't wait until you buy me more stuff."  On Mother's Day he flew down the stairs to give me the card and picture frame.  After he watched me read the card, he said, "Can we go to the store now?"  Sigh.  I have raised a greedy little blonde haired monster.  I asked him to pick up the shoes in the living room before breakfast and he proceeded to throw himself on the floor and whine and spin like a wounded bird.  "I have to do EVERYTHING around here!" I am sure this is just a typical nine year old phase.   I am hoping, at least.  Until he gets over it, I am not buying him any "stuff" that's for sure.

My daughter made me a lovely Mother's Day card.  She wrote a poem.  It went like this:

You order "Do this and do that - Feed the cat!"
And "Hurry, let's go!" While I say, I know!"
But that's OK because you're the Mom.
The coolest Mom, and "Da Bomb"
I get mad, usually get an attitude
I apologize for being so rude
I want to thank you for all you do
You do so much we couldn't make it up to you
You gave me life, support, and you feed me
You give me room for what I want to be
Thanks a ton and have a great day
I hope good things come your way
No matter what I do
Remember I love you

As I read it, tears rolled down my cheeks.   It was a sweet poem.  As I blew my nose and wiped my tears, I could hear my son asking his sister, "When she's done crying, do you think she'll take us to the store and buy me something?" 

May 20, 2002 - Yesterday when we were out and about town, we passed a man walking three large dogs.   Without thinking, I blurted out, "That man must be extremely blind!"   There was a bit of silence in the car, then my oldest son and daughter started laughing.  My youngest wasn't sure what we were laughing at.  I, on the other hand, cannot believe I said it.  I had not intended to say it.  I didn't plan to say it.  It just flew out of my mouth.  Why do things fly out of our brain at the speed of speech without formal approval?  You could say it is lack of control on my part.  Well, you may be right.  I may be crazy.  But still, all of us as humans have had an experience where something that we stated in humor or as fact came shooting out of our cortex and through our mouth long before our actual brain's control center gave the "all clear."  That amazes me - the whole concept of a working brain just amazes me.  I am in awe of brains.  I never will lose my reverence, fear, and utter awe at the human brain.  Daily I am amazed at my own ability to learn or comprehend one more thing.  Sometimes, however, I wish the brain came with an owner's manual.  I would love to know how it works, how it works independently of what we think it should be thinking, and I would LOVE to know what is up with DREAMS!?

May 20, 2002 - I had my 20th anniversary celebration at work.  They honored me with a purple jeweled tiara.  (Not a real one, mind you, it was plastic - but cuter than all get out.)  The accounting girls knew my dislike for jewelry (I just don't wear or like it on me) so they got me a cute little kids pearl necklace as a joke.  (I raised such a stink about jewelry - I didn't want jewelry for my 20th anniversary as the company had done in the past for other people, and I let everyone know about it.  So the girls had to play on that little tantrum of mine.   Too funny.)  The cake they had for me had purple writing and purple flowers.   I was very honored that they did that for me.  I ran home afterwards to show the kids my mouth.  I ran into the house and stuck out my tongue and asked them to guess what color my cake was.  "Oh, pretty - purple!" they commented on the state of my mouth.  Then it hit me.  How many people get their own cake from a company?  I started to cry.  Twenty years is all a blur in my head now.  My entire adult life was spent with that company.  I have grown up there.  Then I started laughing at myself for crying because it dawned on me that I have gotten an "Employee of the Year" award and I have been honored in other ways, but what made me cry? - A purple cake with my name on it.  Maybe they like me - they might really like me after all.  And I really need to address my unhealthy obsession with frosting.

Last night after I had just drifted off to sleep, I heard a commotion at the end of my bed.  (The stairs to the kids rooms are in my bedroom.)  I assumed it was my youngest coming down for water or the like.   I got up on one elbow and said, "What's wrong?"  I could barely see in the dark but at the end of my bed it looked like someone's head  was struggling with a blanket on the floor.  "Are you alright?" I demanded.   "Did you fall down?" I asked in a panic, trying to get an answer out of the person on the floor.  I finally flew out of bed and slid down to the end of the bed.  I almost peed my pants laughing.  It wasn't a "kid" struggling with the blanket.  It was the Mother's Day balloons that had finally lost their 'float' and had landed there at the end of my bed and was bouncing around in the wind of the fan. 

May 21, 2002 - Sunday I had dinner with my family.  We went to Bill Knapps.   While we were waiting for our food as one usually does for a long time at Bill Knapps, my oldest son perked up and said, "Oh, Yeah!  I got a flyer in the mail.   It says the Boston Pops are going to be in concert here ..."  That was the last I heard.  The real Boston Pops?  Good Lord!  Tears instantly shot out of my eyes and I was silently sobbing to myself at the table.  I grew up listening to the Boston Pops on the radio while I did the big Sunday dinner dishes.   I also watch them on PBS now for the Christmas concerts and the Fourth of July celebrations.  I had always intended, before I die, to go see them perform.  Now from what my son was saying, they were going to be a stone's throw away.  I was so happy.  Nobody does an arrangement like the Pop's "Sleigh Ride."   Other orchestras can try to copy it, but it's not the same unless it's the Pops.

My youngest son turned to his big brother and said, "Great, she's crying again."  My children have to suffer through the fact that music moves me.  Some music more than others.  Band/orchestra music truly hits my heart, and I cry with joy.  I can't stop this flow of tears.   It happens.  After 41 years I just let it happen.  I can't stop it.   Some music hits me like a total body orgasm and I am paralyzed with such joy that I could, well - cry.  My two oldest kids always knew how well they did/do at their band concerts by the amount of 'puff' in my eyes afterwards.  If my face was a contorted, bloated mess, they knew they did very well.  You know, now that I think of it, I am touched that my friends and family don't even question this quirk of mine anymore.   They understand this leaking function as just 'Sandy.'  I could have never been in band as kid in school.  I would have been marching and blubbering like a baby.  My spit valve would have been worn out a week after I had my instrument from excessive snot release. 

When I finally came back from my mental coma to the conversation at the table, my children were waiting patiently and smiling at me.   I started to question my oldest son about times/dates, etc.  He didn't know much.  It was just a flier in the mail.  So when I got home, I went to the Internet to check this information out.  Nothing.  Not on the venue's web page nor the Pops page.  Nothing.  No information.  I was devastated.  I relayed this information to my coworkers the next day.  (I tend to have to act out situations like this and I get a bit over dramatic.)  Before I left work last night, however, Jim had left me a voice mail stating simply, "December 7th."  I knew he had gone home and seen the same information my son had seen.  I was once again full of spaz. 

When I got home last night, I too, had a flier in the mail, and it stated clear as the nose on my face that December 7th I would see the Pops in my Hometown.  You have seen people camp out for tickets to Star Wars.  You have seen people camp out for tickets to see a huge rock band.  Have you ever seen anyone camp out for tickets to the Pops?  Well, check your local papers.   You may get to see ME doing THAT! And then you can tell your family, "I know that freak!"  Oh, and this Pops news is only one of many good things to come.   We also get the Glenn Miller Orchestra in September!  I'm in heaven with a brass section.  The beat goes on ... and we thought we had flooding problems from the rain!  Ha.  Wait until I'm done weeping with happiness.

I received the coolest letter from someone who reads me in Indiana.  I will change her name and other vital details to protect the innocent.  So we will call her ... um, let's call her Lester.  Lester writes, "Dear Roseanne Rosanna Danna..."  Hahaha.  Ok, not really.   'Lester' did write - (and I am reprinting this without her permission, so 'Lester' - don't sue me!) 

"Hi Sandy,

You have no idea what a life saver you are.  I've been home sick for 2 weeks with horrible infected lymph nodes, which spawned the ear infection, which spawned the kidney infection, which spawned other infections.   Anyway, you get the idea - it was the apocalypse.  I am purchasing stock in the Imodium company though!

Week one was a blur because I slept through it.   Week 2 was agonizingly slow and boring.  So I downloaded your diary to read all of the archives.  I am up to 2001 now.  I read a little, sleep a little, read a little, sleep a little (not to mean that your diary puts me to sleep, it's the medicine I swear!)  I tell the highlights to the hubby and my daughter when they get home in the evenings.  They kept giving me odd looks like I'd over-medicated so then I started emailing my friends and telling them some of the funny experiences you have had. We are all enjoying it enormously and they have been telling their co-workers.  So you have bragging rights that you are the topic of conversation at a software company in Indiana, a ISP in Iowa, the post office on the southwest side of Calgary, and best of all, the customer service dept at a gold mine in Australia.  Not many people can say that I'm sure."

I cried when I read this letter.  This was a very wonderful letter.  I adore this letter.  I printed off this letter and slept with it.  OK, not really, but I appreciate that she commented on my diary as she did.  When I type in this thing, I type to hear myself type and ponder stuff in my head that needs pondering.  I post it to the public, but I don't expect out of the millions of web sites in the world that many people will find it and read it.  It touches me deeply that she has found me and reads me.  Thank you very much, Lester and Lester's coworkers.  You honor me.  (If I had a webcam, you would see me bowing to you all at this point.)   Oh, and I hope you feel better, Lester.   Please take care of yourself and get better soon.

 June 1, 2002 - June is bustin' out all over!  It was a lovely day.  A bit windy, however.   And since it is Open House for Graduation Season, there will be many airborne paper products.  We went to an open house tonight for my friends Diane and Jeff's daughter, Katie.  It was lovely.  The food was terrific!  There are times that if there were not a bunch of people around, that I would put my face in the bowl, the food is so good.  The spaghetti salad was the best I ever had.  Maybe when I get really old, I will just go ahead, damn the torpedoes, and put my face in the bowl after all.  

I felt bad because her son was there, and he looked so handsome and mature that I honestly did not recognize him at first!  Our oldest kids graduated together in 1999, and you would think after years of seeing him grow up that I would recognize him!  He finally talked to me, at which time I knew who it was - but CRIPES!   I felt like such a jerk!  (Tim, if you ever read this, don't think I'm senile!  OK, so maybe I am a little senile, but really - you look very handsome and GROWN UP!  SO STOP THAT, OK?)

My daughter and I sat out for our nightly "watching of the hummingbirds."  I never knew until tonight that hummingbirds had tongues!!  As my daughter said, "Well, Duh, Mom!  How else would they drink?"  I guess I never really thought about it.  Frank, the Alpha Male of the area, perches right above our head in a tree just waiting for unsuspecting hummers to perch and eat at "his" feeder,  so he's easy to observe.  And by jimminy, he has a tongue.  I would not have noticed it had my daughter not pointed it out.  Frank (named after Frank the Basset Hound mayherestinpeace) thinks that the feeder is his and his only, and sharing is not allowed.   He will wait until another birds lands and is sipping the sugar water, then Frank will launch off his perch and fly toward the road in an attempt to gather speed apparently, and in just seconds comes back ramming his pointed little beak up the rear of the unsuspecting intruder.  Ouch.  But, it IS grand fun to watch.  Better than T.V.  Hummingbirds are way cool to watch interact with each other. 

Work has been very frustrating lately.   New bosses coming on board ...  People getting fired.  Ah, big business.   The more stupid it gets, the funnier it gets.  There are still those people that think climbing the corporate ladder actually means something.  I will always find that funny.  What we fool ourselves into believing is important or worth something is just, well, just sad.  Sigh. 

I waited all morning to buy tickets on line for the Boston Pops.  When the tickets didn't go on sale on line at the time they said they would, I forced the kids to clean with me.  I kept hitting the "buy" button only to get the "these tickets are not yet on sale" message.  I would dust a little, click a little, dust a little, click a little.   My kids were not happy!  I told them in my agitation that if I had to suffer, they had to suffer.  What a Mom I am!  Duh.  At least the house got clean.   And eventually, I did get tickets and the kids were free again and they ran as fast as their little legs could carry them to a safe place away from their Mom.  Me, I was content in knowing that in seven months, I would be staring at Keith Lockhart's rear end from the 17th row.

June 22, 2002 - I woke up this morning with odd ponderings and my head filled with thoughts of my Mom's purse.  When I was a teenager, I was sure that Mom could go on "Let's Make a Deal" and pull out anything Monty might ask to see, no matter how obsequious it was.   When I was a little kid in church, Mom's purse held wonders to keep a five year old entertained during long boring sermons.  Pens and pencils and a pad of paper ... hard candy ... Band-Aids ... hankies galore that Mom would fold into interesting shapes in attempts to entertain me.  By the end of some church services, I would have a whole family of "hanky people."

Both my parents lived through the depression and brought the things they learned from those hard times with them through the rest of their lives.  As a child growing up, I remember more than once on extremely cold winter days having bread bags over my layers of socks to keep my feet dry in my boots as I romped around the yard.  My Mom always saved bread bags from "store" bread.   She would wash them and hang them up in the kitchen to dry.  When I was old enough to do dishes and mind the kitchen, it was almost a federal offense for my Mother to find a bread bag I had thrown away because I saw no need to keep it.  "What a waste!  We can use this!" she would scold.  And we did use them.  She would put home made bread in them.  She would wrap our lunches in them.  She recycled the hell out of those old bread bags.  And it wasn't just bread bags that lived extremely long lives in my house.  Butter dishes and anything that came to us as a container remained a container, washed and reused time and time again.  Wrapping paper and ribbons - recycled.  Foil from food - washed and recycled.  Now that I am thinking of this, my Mom no doubt single handedly stopped the need for a new landfill somewhere in the USA time and time again. 

By now you are wondering why I am rambling on about bread bags when I originally started out talking about purses.  I wondered that too.  Somehow the two have a nerve link in my memory.  I think it's because of the fact anything needed to survive short trips was stored in my Mom's purse.   (Yes, sometimes in bread bags.)  But the mentality of my parents, that "depression" mentality, I think, is what her purse contents brings to mind in general.  She was 'prepared' and we could have lived a good week off of her purse in the event of an emergency.  All vital papers were in her purse, as well.  When there were tornado warnings, no one headed to the basement until it was cleared that we had "Mom's Purse."  Then, and only then, could we descend to safety. 

I carry a purse myself now that I'm a Mom and older.  Actually, I always did carry a purse starting with my first purse in sixth grade.  It was a round Smiley Face purse.  I loved that thing.  But I digress ... I carry a purse and it is with me at all times.  Or if it is not with me at all times, I know exactly where it is.  My purse is the first thing to be called for when a tornado warning is issued in my house.  "Grab Mom's Purse!!"   I have carried on a tradition.  I have keys and wallet in my purse.  Pens and pencils and a pad of paper.  A small address book and a cell phone and Kleenex.   I have Band-Aids and my asthma inhaler and cough drops and other little medicinal things.  I feel complete with my purse.  My youngest feels that all of life's little problems can be solved by my purse.  "Can I have gum?"   "Do you have money for a toy?" and those things come from my purse.   At least once a day I can be heard saying, "Bring me my purse, Boy!"

As far as bread bags go - I do not save them.  I recycle cans, paper, and glass via our local waste department - but not bread bags.  I feel a pang of guilt every time I throw one away, but I throw them away nonetheless.  I just have this deep down dire need NOT to have a house full of butter bowls and lids and bread bags for my kids to clean up when I die.  Instead, I can only hope they can build nice ranch houses on top of the landfills full of my old bread bags.

And speaking of purses, my cousin David told me that my Aunt Jean lost hers when my Uncle left it on top of the car and they drove away.  I feel her pain as a fellow female.  Life literally has to stop for a while as you recover from a purse loss.  Credit cards and checking information must be stopped.  Medicines have to be refilled at the pharmacy.  You are instantly poor from the loss of your wallet and thrown into a state of ... well, depression!   (Ah, the link in the thought chain!)  A chunk of History itself is lost every time a woman loses her purse.

Good Lord, I need coffee.  Never wake up and walk directly to the computer and start typing. 

June 28, 2002 - OH MY GOODNESS!!  Hahahahaaaa.  We just got done watching a new 'Mystery Science Theater 3000' tape that I ordered.  I don't know if you have ever heard of MST3K or not, but it's where robots and the host (who are stranded on a spaceship) are forced to watch terrible movies as punishment.  They sit in the 'theater' and comment on the terrible old films, and that is the funny part.  Some of the movies are SO BAD it's hard to find anything funny about them.  Tonight we watched "The Creeping Terror" and it was a horrible film from the 1950s, but the boys were in top form.   Too funny.  MST3K shows on Saturday mornings on the Sci-Fi Channel, but they are reruns.  The show is no longer in production, but you can find the tapes that have been released so far on DVD or VCR from Rhino.   Worth the investment.  A very cool show.  I highly suggest you get a room full of friends over to the house for a MST3K watch-a-thon.  You won't be disappointed, but wear pads if you are over 40, because you will pee your pants laughing.

My son announced the other day in disgust, "Man, my armpits are sweating!  That just isn't right!!"  Ah, being nine and the joys of pre-puberty.  He was quite upset by the whole ordeal.  My daughter and I just let loose on him after that without mercy.  "It won't be long now until you STINK!" my daughter proclaimed with zeal.  "Yep, you will start getting hair in the weirdest places!" I warned him.  "OH, don't' forget the ZITS!" my daughter practically screamed.  We were not kind.  We did not show him any sympathy.  He listened to us two girls banter back and forth for a while and announced, "I'm going to call my brother..." and wandered off.   The poor kid.  I just don't know what came over us two girls.

I was a little more sympathetic to him last night, however.  I was sitting on the toilet just relaxing.  I had done what I went in to do but stayed on to enjoy the quiet time.  When I am on the toilet, of course, a sign must go off in Times Square or Radio Free Europe must broadcast a special code, because everyone flocks to my feet without the slightest hesitation.  My son came down from bed and stood at the door.  "Something is weird, Mom ... " he stated in a quiet voice.  "What is weird, my son, besides the fact I'm sitting on the toilet talking to you?" I asked.  "I was laying in bed, thinking about everything, really.  Just thinking about my day, then about spending the weekend with my brother, then just about stuff, and all of a sudden it felt like I wasn't 'real' anymore."  I could see the concern and slight fear in his eyes.

"Awww, honey.  You know what?   We all feel that way sometimes.  Our brains just get to thinking and thinking about things without our permission, and after a while, it's just too much to think about.  I know how you feel.  Feels very weird, doesn't it?"   I said from my seat of honor.  "It doesn't mean you are crazy or dying or anything.  You just have to give your brain something to do besides think.  Have you tried reading?"  He said that he hadn't, because he was "kinda feeling like something was wrong with feeling like he wasn't real anymore."  I told him to come with me, relocated myself from the potty to the living room, and we found him some nice picture books to look at to take his mind off of his mind. 

All I could think of was of myself at five years old - when I laid in bed thinking too much, but I didn't have the insight to tell anyone that all that thinking made me feel 'weird.'  I just thought more and more and more and more until I worked myself into major panic attacks that I fought with for years and years.  When I see those signs in my kids, I try to work it out with them on the spot.  "You are not crazy."  "Those are supposed to be there!" "We all have those moments."  "No, your kidneys are not falling out."  Stuff like that.   I talked a bit more with him about things that were more 'real' and finally he wandered back to bed feeling more 'down to earth' and ready to sleep.  I then went to bed myself, and laid there, thinking too much ...

July 17, 2002 - I thought summer would give me more time to myself to type and think out loud here, but it has been the opposite.  Work has been very busy and my daughter is taking drivers education and there is her marching band practices and .... big sigh.  But, we take life in stride now, don't we?  We roll with the changes and carry on my wayward sons.   This too, shall pass. 

Sparky the six million dollar diabetic dog of mine had a relapse or something.  She was fine until a few Sundays ago and had been fine up until that Sunday, but then when we came home from grocery shopping, she was squirreled away under the furnace violently shaking with pain.  She wouldn't let us near her.  She was panting so hard I thought she would pass out.  (Gee, now that I think about it, can dogs pass out?)  I managed later that night to get half an aspirin down her,but that was after getting my hand bit and causing her much stress.   The next morning, I called the vet as soon as they opened, and got her right in.   He supposed she hurt her back, since her sugars were ok but she was walking so stiff.  She is a longer style model of dog, and they can have disc problems.   She was given a cortisone shot and sent home with doggie pain medicine.  She didn't improve, in fact she got worse.  She was crappin' her brains out.  She lost five pounds in a week.  I took her back the next Monday.  He did another blood test on her sugars.  Her sugars were still fine.  This time she was sent home with a strict diet plan and anti-poop pills.  She was obviously still in pain and not doing well at all.  The vet didn't want to put her on cortisone pills, since cortisone conflicts with insulin, but we ended up putting her on pills.  She was back to new over night.  She was back to her spazzy idiotic self - and that is exactly the reason I keep pumping money into her.  (Remind me I said that when I'm bitching about being broke because my paycheck was garnished by the local Veterinarian Mob Collection Agency.)

As soon as Sparky was better and stupid again and romping about like a chicken on acid, I caught her doing something one day this week that made me bust a gut laughing.  She was standing under the hummingbird feeder, waiting for drops of sugar water to fall on her tongue.  Apparently the fact that she is diabetic isn't important to her.  Stupid dog. 

With all the trips to the vet's in the last few weeks with my youngest son in tow, well, he had to find ways to entertain himself and one of those ways was weighing himself on the scale for the larger dogs.  He would get on and get off of it, watching the digital numbers go up and down.  When he managed to stay still for 1/52 of a second, he ended up weighing 81 pounds.  This weekend my daughter and I were trying to figure out Odie's (the dog) age in dog years since we've had him 12 human years.  We had heard that "they" had changed the rules on how many dog years were equal to how many human years and were trying to figure it out when my son piped up, "I wonder how much I weigh?"  I told him that he had just weighed himself at the veterinarian office and he weighed 81 pounds.   "Nawww ...that was DOG POUNDS!  How much do I weigh in HUMAN POUNDS?"  After my daughter and I stopped laughing, we explained there isn't a difference there - a pound is a pound.  From the look on his face while he was trying to comprehend all of this, I am sure that he is still quite befuddled over the whole thing.  Woof.

My daughter's driver education classes are going quite well.  She has trouble with turning, but that comes with experience or lawsuits, whichever comes first.  Plus she forgets to accelerate after doing a turn, so someone will end up in her front seat eventually if they are traveling too close behind her.  I know she will get better.  She has her doubts.  Meanwhile, my oldest son purchased a 1969 Cadillac Coupe DeVille for $200.  When he brought it to the house to show us, it was approximately three times the length of my living room.   That thing is HUGE.  In quite good shape for such an old car, though.  I hope it gets him around for a while.  I like the idea of him having some transportation of some type again, plus if it breaks down I am going to use it as an addition to my house.

August 12, 2002 - Since when did separating coffee filters become an event similar to solving a Rubik's Cube?   Cripes.  I must have spent ten minutes the other day fighting with a stack of filters to procure just ONE filter.  Is it because I'm getting older?  I know the body aches will come, as they have already arrived with the cracking and popping sounds that are broadcasted from my joints for all those who care to listen when I move, but losing a battle to a coffee filter?  This wasn't in the owner's manual ....

Summer is coming to an swift end.  My daughter is done with Driver's Ed and Band Camp.  Band Camp was held up North at Boyne Valley Lodge.  She was there for a week.  We went up to get her and took a mini-vacation after picking her up.  The show they did for the parents was grand!   They are doing songs from "Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat" this year.  As my friend Jim says, "you can't call it a marching band anymore ... they don't really MARCH, they STEP ... and they don't play BAND music, they play MUSICALS..." But still, the program was marvelous.  I wept with joy.  This is her first year of marching, and I think she did just fine.  I am very very proud of the kids, the director, and all the parents that put so much time into the band.   Now they practice for two and a half hours twice a week in preparation for the football season. 

We shot up a bit more north after picking up my daughter to go see Mackinaw Island.  My youngest son had never been on a big boat before.  He was terrified!  We rode on the top deck, and he pushed himself up against his sister and slid his hand into hers.  (I observed this from the seat behind.  It was quite touching.)  Normally my daughter would have knocked her little brother upside the head and followed up with a lecture about "personal space" as he flailed about on the floor, but she held on to his hand not saying a word.  After we were out on the water and on our way, he was happy as a clam and no longer afraid. 

When we talked later, my daughter said, "I remember being scared the first time I went on the boat to the Island, and I knew how he felt, so I let him hold on ... "  She said it in a "oh it was nothing, really" manner, but I realized she was maturing a bit as well as admitting that she really did like her little brother (kind of, sort of, maybe.)  I was still very touched.  We all worry about raising our kids correctly.  If kids are to be messed up, only the parents can do it best.  I worry if I were to die tomorrow - have I conveyed all the things I want them to know and understand?  And just when I am worrying the most, big sister does something like hold little brother's hand in his time of need.  Suddenly all the worry seems to have been in vain.  (Houston, we have a sniffle...)

September 13, 2002 - School is in full swing now.  My daughter relishes her time in 9th grade, and to assure we all understand how wonderful it is, she insists on explaining every minute little detail of her day.  I am not complaining too much.  I am happy she talks to me.  I dread when that times comes to an end as she grows up and leaves the 'nest' as it were.   So I will endure the "likes" and "you knows" and the miles and miles of conversation tangents with a smile.  She is in marching band this year and loves it, but hates the marching part.  (Don't ask.)  She loves to make music, mind you.  She is a soul FULL OF LIFE that needs to come out in some form, so shooting out the spit valve of a trombone is a good way to express her joy of living.  She just received her uniform today, and tomorrow is her first officially uniformed march.  I made her suit up tonight and go out into the yard to practice in full garb.   She finally got the hang of moving without her hat falling off or her pants falling down.  (There IS a reason for suspenders, we see that now.)  I can't wait to see the show.  The first football game at home they did very well.  I cried.  I am very proud.

September 18, 2002 - Last Sunday was a busy day.  My daughter turned 15 years old.  I had cleaning to do and and a cake to bake.  Which wouldn't have been too bad, but things at work were not, well, working - so I lost a few hours there in the morning.  By the end of the day on Sunday, I was beat.  About 10:30 I finally got to plop down on the couch in my underwear and t-shirt with my hair sticking up like Medusa.  As I sat there enjoying the quiet, I noticed out the window that a van was slowing down in front of my house.  I thought to myself that there must be deer crossing.  This time of year, the deer use this general area as fair grounds.  The van stopped, and I noticed a car behind the van.  "Hmmmm...." I was thinking to myself.   ("Hmmmmm" being something one thinks to themselves when they are not sure what to think.) 

October 3, 2002 - Last Friday, my oldest child;  my firstborn;  the fruit of my loins -  OK, you get the idea - turned 22 years old.  Impossible in my mind.  How and when did this happen?  Think back to all that has happened in the last twenty two years.   It's unreal.  Sigh.  He was born the year the first space shuttle took off.  His favorite stuffed animal was a Care Bear!  Once when he was little and I had just brought him home from the babysitter's house, he would NOT stop crying because he left his favorite Care Bear at the sitter's house.  He wailed and wailed.  Finally the babysitter's husband brought the bear to our house to shut up my son.  He was a tiny little Care Bear fanatic.  So I got him on for his 22nd birthday.

October 22 2002 -   I wish I could meet the sniper people before they shock them into hell or there 'bouts in the electric chair.  I would like to ask them why they felt the need to do what they did.  'Tis a sick sick mind.  What could have happened in a person's life to cause that person to think it was up to them to take a life?  This confuses me.  Even without any religious upbringing whatsoever, taking another life intentionally is not right.  What is happening in our society that it's considered OK by anyone to begin with? 

Last night I was overwhelmed by many things such as the why the sniper did what he did.  I was helping my daughter with some homework.  She had to take a stand, either pro or con, on going to war with Iraq.  "I have no opinions on this, Mom!" she whined.  (She is sick.  Whining was induced by snot in large quantities and a sinus headache.)  We got on line and investigated the subject.  Pros and Cons.  She decided to go with the "con" in the subject, supporting NOT going to war.  Many things to support her in the news - the lack of support from the UN Security Council, the feelings of the world in general, etc.   Then we ran across several comparisons to this situation with Kennedy's Missile Crisis.  After she printed off some information to reference while doing her homework, I read on about other things concerning Iraq and news in general.  My son was wondering about the sniper.  He was telling me about a dream he had about the sniper, how it shot down planes and the planes came crashing down all over.  I could see his concern shaded in this "fake" dream he was telling me.  He really didn't have a dream on it.  I think he just needed to talk about it.  We talked about it.  I tried to explain to him that no person has the right to randomly take the life of another.  We talked about God, about sick minds, and about fear in general.  It was decided as a family that fear cannot keep us inside and hidden away, although that is the first thing we want to do is hide.  From Saddam to Sick Minds - it was a productive, thoughtful night last night, although  I don't think any of us has went to bed feeling any more secure about the world.

One of my biggest fears is the fact that as a Mom, I cannot shield my kids from the evil things in life.  I could keep them out of the mainstream until they were 18, I suppose.  But the shock of the real world after that would be quite overwhelming.  I cannot lie to them that they will always be safe, either.  I lay awake at night and worry for them.  I watch them until they get on the bus to assure myself they are OK in the mornings.  I think back to my rage over losing my mailbox to a jerk in a van - what would my reaction be if someone hurt one of my children!?  Sigh.  I think I could just jump off the side of the earth sometimes, providing it was still flat.

October 28, 2002 - My kids were getting ready for bed tonight.  Now that it's colder, my daughter has switched from wearing boxers and a t-shirt for pajamas to her warm long fuzzy night gown.  The normal routine prior to bed here is that the kids brush their teeth, then decide to tell me everything they forgot to tell me prior to it being time for bed.  While they are telling me all these vital details of their lives to stall the sleeping process, sometimes they dance around the living room in an odd fashion.   Sometimes just dancing.   Sometimes they pretend they are kick boxing.   Tonight, my daughter found out why professional kick boxers do NOT wear long fuzzy night gowns.

She did a small leap then a kick in the air as she walked into the living room.  The night gown only went so far.  The kick with her left leg jerked her right leg right out from under her.  She fell to the ground with a loud thump flat on her back.  Now mind you, people falling down makes me laugh uncontrollably, so I was impressed that I didn't laugh as I sprang off the chair to go to her aid.  I flew to the ground and hovered over her, face to face before I started laughing.  "Are you OK?" I managed to sputter.  Then we all laughed.  I tried to check for broken bones as we were all peeing our pants with hysterical laughter.  She was laughing too.  I made her get up and do some stretches to loosen up her muscles as well as take two Tylenol.  She thinks the brunt of the impact was taken by her elbows.  Nonetheless, she is gonna feel that in the morning!  Poor Kid. 

The National Tour of "The Vagina Monologues" are in our area this month.  I know this, because at every corner of every road I take, there is a billboard stating this fact in large red letters.  I am tired of seeing this everywhere I turn..."The VAGINA Monologues, SPREAD the Word!"  My son was trying to sound the word 'vagina' out one day as we were driving.  Thanks to that handy dandy billboard, I had to explain about female body parts in more detail then I had ever cared to explain, particularly when en route to a grocery store.  What is next?  "The PENIS Profiles?"   "The URETHRA Uttering?"  "The TAMPON Trilogy?"   Cripes.

November 15 2002 -   I have some odd obsession with the show on Fox called 'World's Fastest Police Chases.'  I normally don't like to watch anything too violent, but this show I am drawn to like a moth to a flame.  My family sits by helplessly as I give loud play by play commentary on the car chases and crashes, as well as how everyone is dressed.  I react to this show, I assume, as a devout sports fan would react at a sporting event.   I yell out to the police, "Get 'im, Get 'im!!  Ram him!  RAM HIM NOW!" or "Get the bloody rat bastard!  Take no prisoners!!"    I bounce on the edge of my seat and clap my hands.  Oh sure, it's hardly as exciting as my night flight in pursuit of the people who killed my mailbox, but the adrenaline rush is similar.  I end up sounding like Beavis hopped up on too much sugar.  My kids spend more time watching me than the show.  Mind you, I don't miss the chance to lecture to them on driving issues I spot in the show, such as, "See?  That's called fish tailing, and you can never over correct when you start to fish tail, or you lose control like that guy ... OH YEAH, GET 'IM!  RAM HIM!!  Ooooo, he's gonna flip it!   HE FLIPPED IT!!"   Sigh.   I find it almost therapeutic to watch this show.  All the evil emotions of revenge in me pour out as pure fanatic loathing for those who choose to run from the law.  One of the comments caught on tape from an officer on tonight's show was, "What a Dumb Idiot."  A redundant use of words, but very true.  They are DUMB IDIOTS!  And it feels good to yell that fact at the T.V.!!  The show's narrator leaves a lot to be desired, the same helicopter pilot must follow every police department around all over the USA proving he was formerly an announcer for the NFL, and most of the "hot pursuits" take place in either California or Alabama, but this show seems to catch me by the brain and won't let go (except for commercials) for an hour.   I let the kids stay up with me and share in my lust for justice.  OK, so maybe it's my lust for car crashes and my dire need to see police dogs bite perps in the crotch ...  we'll never know.

I thought last night I should post to my diary before October was over, but tonight it dawns on me that I'm a bit late for that, now aren't I?  My daughter has already marched in one holiday parade!  I ordered my first Christmas present on line.  Sometimes it feels like there is no real 'time' but just a set of routines one must follow on a daily basis in a mindless way.  I wake up at 5:30 a.m., and let the dogs out to potty.  I then feed the dogs so I can give Sparky her insulin shot.  I start the dishwater for morning dishes and call my daughter down to shower.  I call up work and do morning work stuff, and as I wait for jobs to run, I make the beds and fold any laundry from the night before.  I finish working on line, then check my personal mail.  I yell at my daughter through the bathroom door to inform her that she is going to miss the bus if she doesn't get her butt in gear, and do the dishes.   I start another load of laundry, and wake up my son.  I switch the T.V. from the news to 'Ed, Edd, and Eddy' and do my daughter's hair.  I take time for my morning 'coffee inspired crap' then make sure everyone has taken their vitamins and has eaten breakfast.  My turn to shower, then my son's.   We're out the door, I wait for him to get on the bus, I go to work.  Then I start the whole thing over again when I get home, but more in the reverse mode of events.   Sigh.  I do most of this without thinking about it.  It has to be done.   Dishes ... Laundry ... House Work ... Homework ... Bowel Movements ... all of this has to take place, even if I don't want to do it.  So I just do it.  Mindlessly.  

Listen to me lament my life!!  Hahaha.   (I always feel let down and lost after a rousing hour of the World's Most Super Colossal Speedy Police Crashes!!  Almost post-coital.)

Several weeks ago, Muffy the cat was hit by Ford the van.  The people who ran over him were kind enough to stop and bring him up, still alive and wailing at the top of his kitty lungs, to the door.  It was at night, when Muffy thinks it is his duty to patrol the greater tri-state area for vermin.    Muffy was not in good shape.  He was in shock, and it took me a while to get him calmed down.  This was on a Saturday night.  He couldn't walk on Sunday without falling over.  He was hurt, this was obvious.  I doctored the road rash on his body best I could.  I couldn't feel any broken bones.  He did, however, make cougar sounds when I touched his back right leg.  I took him in to the doctors on Monday after spending an hour trying to get him out from under my bed where he managed to drag himself.  After moving the whole mattress set up and wrestling him into a cat carrier, he went to the vets and had a three day stay.  Cat I.V.'s and x-rays.   The doctor thought Muffy was in good condition considering he lost a fight with a van.  Muffy's hip was dislocated, but nothing was broken.  He came home after three days and three hundred dollars.  We were ordered to confine him to one room.   We are talking about a cat here.  Cats do not listen to humans.  Humans are just something with opposable thumbs that can open cans of cat food to feed them with.   Keep a cat confined to a specific space?  I don't think so!  Muffy could barely walk, but he did manage to drag himself around some.  We brought him food and water, and I faithfully shoved pills down his throat twice a day.  He is still limping when he walks and has trouble getting up on chairs.  He wants back outside in the worst way.  He has made a break for it three times.  I have spent much time out in the dark in my pajamas chasing him down.  Ah, the things we do for love.   I kick myself now for not staying in college to be a vet.  I could have been saving myself a lot of money and time by now ... 

November 19, 2002 -  I wonder what Julie Andrews goes through ... not being able to just burst out into song as she had all her life.  With her medical problem concerning her throat, she can't sing.  Julie Andrews not being able to sing would be like me losing my sight after 42 years.  It would drive me crazy.  I feel for her.  I was pondering that this morning since I got up at five a.m. to see the Leonids meteor shower.  It was supposed to be kick ass this morning, and won't be this kick ass again until 2098.   I will be in no condition in 2098 to see them, so I thought I would try for today.   So much for my thought process.  I live in Michigan, after all, so of course it's raining and cloudy.  Duh!  What was I thinking?

Did you see (the cartoon on Fox) Futurama's "Jurassic Bark" episode on Sunday?  Wow.  Very emotional ending.   My daughter and I cried like little girlie women for a half an hour after the show.   The boys didn't seem to think there was anything to cry over.  (My youngest told his brother, "Oh, man - there goes Mom again!")  For females, however, an ending like they had can bring on the initial emotion intended, then open the flood gates for a million other pent up emotions.  It's called the "chick flick effect" by scientists.   You can utilize this outburst of a million emotions to it's fullest if you are female and having PMS at the same time.  But you don't have to be having PMS to experience this barrage of feelings.  I have learned over the years to not fight this type of emotional mud slide.  I just let it happen.   I am sure there are reasons for this to happen.  Women do things in different ways than males.  They process information and react in ways not known to people with a penis.  So there must be a reason for the cascading effect and crying tangents as was brought  on by this show's ending, or similar to what happens when watching Doctor Zhivago.  I love being a girl.  Really.

Boy Howdy, is Bush is just waiting for one thing to jump on Iraq or what?.  Zero tolerance!!  If they floss incorrectly, he's going to bomb them.  If they wipe wrong, he going to bomb them.  He's like a puppy who has to pee. 

In less than a month, I will be seeing the Boston Pops Christmas concert!  Woo Hoo!!  I wish my Mom were alive to go with me.  Oh, and speaking of people no longer with us ... the other night I was trying to go to sleep, just talking to a spot of light I see in my eyes from time to time when my eyes are shut.  You know how you see 'things' when you close your eyes?  (You can sometimes close your eyes in a dark room and rub your eyes and see geometric shapes on your eyelids!  Try it!  I used to see trains when I was a kid, but that's another story.)  I sometimes see a bright light for a split second when I close my eyes to sleep.  Now don't ask me why I was talking to it!  Maybe because I did a lot of research about orbs and sightings of 'ghosts' around Halloween?  That subject fascinates me - the possibility of spirits hanging around after they die.  Anyway, I had finished my prayers and was still not sleepy, so I talked to my spot.  In reality, I was talking to everyone I've lost in my life.  I was gabbing away to this 'spot' when I eventually started to fall asleep.  Suddenly, a loud voice said, "Hello?  Is anybody there?"  It woke us all up!   I looked out all windows to see if someone was outside.  Nothing.  Then we went through several minutes of, "Did you hear that?" and "Did you say that?"   and "What the hell was that?"  Mind you, it was probably teenagers driving by with a bull horn just shouting out things as they passed by, but their timing was way freaky!  Eventually we all got back to sleep but before I drifted off, I gave my 'spot' a mental 'high five' for effect.

December 8 2002 -  Last night was the greatest night of all nights.  Sigh.  I sang along with the "Merry Little Sing Along" and the Boston Pops!  I, being ME, Sandy, SANG ALONG WITH THE BOSTON POPS IN PERSON!! OK, so there were nigh on 4000 people there as well in the auditorium, but a dream of my life came true last night.  I am not one to have too many goals or aspirations.  I set the bar low in my expectations of life, choosing merely to enjoy life as it happens, breathe on occasion, and  wake up in the morning when ever possible as opposed to driving myself for "goals" that may or may not come true.  But I did have one goal before I died - "See the Boston Pops in performance in person!"  Either their Christmas concert or their Fourth of July concert, but see them I had to before I shuffle off this mortal coil.

The concert was wonderful.  SANTA CAME!!   I KNEW HE WOULD!  Here I am, 42 years old, and when they started to play "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" I said out loud, "Santa is coming!"   To be honest, I barely made it to the car afterwards.  I held my daughter's arm and she dragged me as I  managed to sputter, "I ... sob sob ... sang ... tremble ... along with ... gasp ... the Pops!"   I had been holding back sobs of joy the whole concert through.  I cried the whole time, mind you, but not loudly, and finally gave up trying to wipe my face of tears, opting instead to just put my hanky at in my cleavage to sop up the down pour.  I am still in a daze of sorts, and I am still crying from time to time thinking about it.  What a pure joy that concert was.  The sound!  Oh my.

Earlier this week, I was thinking how I was going to see the Pops, and had a sudden twang of pain of missing my Mom.  I wanted to tell her that I was going to see them in concert.  I wanted her to know.  It dawned on me that my Mom had inspired me a lot more than I realized, music wise.  I remember the time she came home from shopping with my Dad with an album in her hand for me.  It was the Disney soundtrack for "Johnny Appleseed" with "Pecos Bill" on the flip side.  I played that record over and over and over and over.   I memorized it.  This was when I was around 8 years old, I think.  We did not have a lot of money.  What possessed her to buy me that record I have no idea.   As I pondered this, I could recall the words to the Johnny Appleseed song quite clearly in my head ... "The Lord is good to me, and so I thank the Lord, for giving me the things I need, the sun and rain and the apple seed, Oh the Lord is good to me..."  Then I remember that one by one, she bought me all the albums in a series from Disney with the musical soundtracks to many of their movies.  Maybe she subscribed to a music club back then, but I had a ton of albums.  I remember the smell of the records when they were first opened.  When I was older, around 12 years old, there was the time I asked for something for Christmas.  I don't remember what song or group I had asked for, but I know that Mom couldn't find just what I had requested, so she got me Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass album instead.  (I do recall it had the song I wanted on it, just Alberterized.)  All that music was an inspiration.  All those songs committed to memory.  All the stories and happy endings.  Sigh.  Kind of cool for a little kid.

Guess I'll go catch up with my housework.   Just because I saw the Boston Pops doesn't mean the laundry will stop reproducing in the hamper.  Funny how that works.

December 21, 2002 -  There is one part of the movie "It's a Wonderful Life" that just tickles me.  Near the end, where people are bringing George money to save him with Mr. Potter after Uncle Billy lost the $8000 deposit, Annie the housekeeper comes running in with such gusto and enthusiasm and when she puts her money in the pile, she's says, "I have been saving this money for a divorce if'n ever I get a husband!"  I love how "alive" she was with the pure joy of helping someone.  I wish we could all run around like that all the time throughout the year.  I tend to run around like that a lot, it dawned on me the other day, when I was building a snowman outside and talking to it as I stuck it's arms on.  The arms kept falling off, so I was apologizing to the little guy.  It dawned on me that I like how odd I act.  I like talking to snowmen.  I am a lucky woman.  I hope I can always go through life, saving my money for a divorce if ever I get a husband.

It's the weekend before Christmas, and all through my house, the kids are acting as if they have a direct I.V. of pure sugar pumping into their arms.  Sigh.  The joy of it all.  For my youngest, it's more of a greed type thing - he wants Christmas NOW!  For my daughter, it's because we are off for two weeks and can go see the Lord of the Rings movie.  For me, the joy is that I do not have to put on a bra for nearly two weeks if I don't want to.  All is merry and bright.

I was thinking the coolest thing that could happen to any of us for the New Year is to dance like nobody is watching.  Wouldn't that be grand?  People who find it necessary to point out other people's faults would no longer feel the need - they would just be gettin' down with their own groove.   People who are already dancing would have partners.  I wish you all a Merry Christmas and I wish the world a huge disco ball of love.

December 23, 2002 - Why do I enjoy the agony my children go through in the anticipation of Christmas?  Why?  Why do I love to watch my youngest contort on the floor like frying bacon as he laments the fact Christmas is SO many days away?   Why is this fun for me?  It's like the feeling I get when I tell the kids "this won't hurt" then pour alcohol on their open wounds.  Did my parents get this much pleasure out of our suffering as children?  If they did, I cannot say I blame them.  I get a kick out of it.  Must be some kind of 'revenge' thing we all harbor in our parental souls.

We are going to see the new Lord of the Rings movie today.  My daughter is ready to blow a vein, she's so excited.  She has been doing nothing but reminding me about this movie since it was first advertised many months ago.  She was puking her guts up with the stomach flu on the day it was released.  That was the ONLY day I did not hear about it.    She jumps up and down flailing her hands and screeching, "I ... CAN ... NOT... flop, contort ... WAIT ... FOR ... bounce, bounce ... THE ...  LORD ... OF ... THE ... RINGS ... spring, prance ... IT... WILL ... BE ... SO ... COOL I COULD JUST DIE!!!!!

December 31, 2002 -  I was alone at Meijer shopping the other day.  As I was pushing the cart, suddenly I was overcome with the distance between myself and my destination way on the other side of the store.  The people and the lights seemed to become too bold and loud for me to deal with.  I found it hard to swallow and breathe.  I relied on the cart to hold myself up.  I am not sure if that was a form of a panic attack, or a sugar imbalance.  I could not remember eating breakfast, so I bet it was a sugar thing.  I made my way to the Pop Tarts best I could, took the first box I could grab, opened it and ate a Pop Tart.  I put the opened box in my cart and went about my business of getting groceries.  I felt better after a while, but that was the closest I had come to actually fainting in a long long time.  I wondered what would happen if I had fainted in Meijer?  They would have called an ambulance, no doubt.  I would have most likely come to my senses before the ambulance got there, and I would have been forced to lay there by the manager of Pet Supplies.  I would have felt embarrassed for clogging up the aisles.  People would either be staring at me in wonder or ignoring me completely and walking on my purse and legs in the hustle and bustle, and I would have no doubt landed so the crack of my ass was showing above my jeans.  Lesson learned - always eat your breakfast.  No exceptions.  Clean underwear is important, but eating breakfast is higher on the priority list, as well as knowing where the Pop Tarts are kept.

This is the last day of this year.  I cannot believe it's passed by so quickly.  We saw the "Two Towers" movie so my daughter could calm down.  It was long and I liked the battle scene.  I am re-reading the J.R.R. Tolkien books now.  I think I like the movies in this case better.  Not that the books don't create a wonderful fantasy in the mind to enjoy, but the movies have kicked butt as well.  They are not accurate in many things, mind you - not true to the book - but  I have enjoyed them.  I finally decided to drop my inner anger at attempts to make movies of Frank Herbert's "Dune" books.   I was so fiercely loyal to the books vs. film that I refused to watch them without complaining the whole time.  I guess I have to open my mind a bit, aye?  We also went to see the Harry Potter movie, and that was long and good.  I have consumed so much popcorn in the last two weeks I couldn't begin to describe the amount of floss needed to combat the kernels.

I got some non-alcoholic sparkling Welch stuff for tonight, so we can toast the New Year if we stay awake.  I could go to bed right now, to be honest.  I am living life on the edge, baby.  Hold me back!   Sigh.  What happened to the crazy wild Sandy I knew?  Where did she go, and is she coming back to get her stuff?  My cousin asked what my New Year Resolutions/Predictions were.  I told him that I have none.  I want to wake up alive everyday, that would be nice, but other than that - I have no major goals or aspirations.  (Man, now that I'm typing, I wonder if I need my medicine dose upped some!?  Where has my zest for life gone?  I'm about one step away from sitting out on the porch yelling at kids that walk on my grass.)   Sigh again.

Happy New Year to all.

Now get off my lawn.