thinking

i've been doing a lot of that, lately.

thinking about how crazy people can be. prime example. liam is in band camp (and no, he's not playing ANYTHING that would go near that whole line.), so while he's there for 2 hours every morning, sean and i go entertain ourselves. we've been going to a nearby park, and borders, and walmart. yesterday, we were running behind, so i was taking a short cut. i was waiting at a stop light, when i heard a tap on my passenger window. an older woman (maybe in her 50's (god, that's not so far away!)) with bright orange, wildly cut hair, a blue tooth thingie in her ear, and enough jewelry to make Mr. T jealous (if you don't know, you're not old enough.), asked me if i could give her a ride to shopko just down the street? WTF? ride the bus, lady! put on sensible shoes (i didn't actually SEE her footwear, but the rest of the outfit made me think mules with maribou on them), and walk! weird, i'll tell ya.

thinking about where this whole fiber journey is taking me. i won't say i've lost my knitting/spinning/crocheting mojo, but i'm less motivated t han i was. dulaan deadline is coming up, and i want to finish all my projects by friday (god, that's two days away!) so i can wash them, and have them dry over the weekend, so i can pack them up and mail them early next week. the deadline is july 1. i've got 3 hats (one just needs ends woven in), 1 pair of socks, and a sweater to do. i wonder sometimes if i overcommit myself. i've got 3 pairs of socks going, and only one going easily and well (the simple socks i work on in the car. they're worsted weight, and going swimmingly). the other two? well, one i just kinda lost interest, but want to do, since it's for my sockpalooooza pal, and the other is for my SIL. i want to do some diaper bags for this month's AC4C project, like i did in march, but can't find the motivation to get them started. i also saw that the camp that the Pettys sponsor (if you know NASCAR, you know the Pettys) likes to send afghans/blankets home with their kids (i think they're cancer survivors/sufferers? someone correct me if i'm wrong?), and want to make blankets for that, but. . . . everything is meh.

thinking about wishing that we could settle into some sort of summer routine around here. working for miss vi is great, and now that liam can stay home, much easier. she's a saint for putting up with sean, i'll tell ya! i don't feel comfortable leaving him with liam in charge, cuz i'm su re they'd KILL each other. it just doesn't work well right now. sean and i had a talk last night, while we were walking (we walk to the gas station and back, which makes it about a mile, and try to do it 3 times a week), about how he's almost 13, and needs to work on trying to be his age, and not someone much younger. i know that is hard for him, but considering how far he's come since last summer (remember THAT insanity?), i know he can do it. he agrees. so i just remind him once in a while. he's doing pretty good. he really wants to be able to stay home if he wants, instead of getting dragged from pillar & post.

the unsettled part is this whole band camp thing. it's going for another week after this, and this week is kind of trying. my mother has a doctor's appointment at the same time he's supposed to be at the school tomorrow, so he'll have to get dropped off earlier. this means that we have to get up earlier, which means i need to go to bed earlier. i haven't been to bed before 1130 since school got out, so it's hard. friday, mark is having minor outpatient surgery, so i have to take mark to the surgery, then go get liam from my mother's (we decided since mark had to be there so early, it would be easier to have my mother watch the kids overnight), take him to band, then scram back to the hospital until either mark is ready to go, or liam is done. oy. now, liam is enjoying the hell out of this band thing, because he gets to try a new instrument (trumpet) and he LOVES it. we had told him in the beginning that we would buy only one instrument, so he's torn between saving up for a car and (believe it or not!) a trumpet. oy! mark loves it, cuz if he ever gets playing again (he hasn't touched his bass in months, sigh. nothing he's looked at interests him (yellow, red or black only, indeed!), so he's drifting right now), he wants liam to lay down some horn tracks for some of his music.

but until band is over, no sleeping in. ugh.

thinking about the loved ones i miss. my dad's passing happened 6 years ago on june 4th. i actually got through the day ok (it gets easier every year, is that bad?). a few friends have recently had losses of their own, and i can empathize. i actually helped one, because of medical issues. it still pisses me off that the doctor & nurses kept saying "oh, he'll be alright, he'll be fine, he's doing well" when he was anything but. first indication that things weren't going very well was the day he died. the social worker from the hospital called me, and we were trying to figure out where to put him. he wasn't doing well enough to be on the rehab floor in the hospital (yes, carin, yours), but because they'd had him in restraints to keep him from pulling out things like his feeding tube out of his stomach, or the ball catheter (yes, he pulled that out. even as a woman, it makes me want to cross my legs), and most nursing homes wouldn't take someone who had been in restraints. then i got the call 3 hours later that he was gone, and that when he'd pulled his tubes again that same morning, when they tried to put them back in, he told them he wanted to die. (ok, hang on, i need a tissue). THEN, after he was gone, the doctor (whom i had never met) called and spoke to me, and told me that 75% of people who have his kind of stroke never recover. i was in shock. and the death certificate said he died from diabetic complications. apparently, what they were feeding him in that tube had such a high sugar content that it put his body into a diabetic state. but they couldn't treat that because they were dealing with the stroke issues. FUCK.

i miss my grandma. i'll have to see if i can find a pic i can scan, and maybe you'll understand a little more. she was a class act. she was known in her church as the little lady in the black hat. she ALWAYS wore a hat. when i was a child, she had some precancerous spots on her face frozen, and the doctor told her she couldn' t go out without a hat anymore, and she took him seriously. if only a baseball cap, that lady wore a hat. in fact, when we cleaned out her house, we donated the black hats to the county museum, because she was so well known for them. the rest of the hats came home with me, and they decorate my kitchen.

she was a pioneer. she and her family moved to wyoming when she was 13 years old. this was 1917. i'm sure it wasn't easy. we found pieces of wood, where, during WWII, they didn't have paper, but she insisted on journaling anyway, and she wrote on those. we donated those as well. why is it NOW that i realize i got my yen for writing from her? i got SO much from her. my face shape is similar to hers. my hair is graying as hers did. a fierce love for my family. (what kind of love can you have, that you do the unimaginable, and put your 6 year old on a train, because you know you can't educate her there, and the best place for her is 700 miles away?*) she wrote to my mother EVERY WEEK. rain or shine. illness or health. every wednesday, she'd put a letter in the mail, and we'd get one every monday. my mother would put her letter in the mail every friday. my mother would even make notes, so she could remember what to tell my grandmother. i miss those letters.

thinking about music that i've gotten away from, even though i loved it so fiercely. Queen. I've been gaga for them since the 5th grade. that's when i first heard "we will rock you/ we are the champions." i've been sitting here listening (and watching) videos of queen on youtube. i so sincerely wish i could have seen them live. we miss you, freddy.

thinking i am so going to have to kick steph's ass. i don't know what she did, but my computer is fucked. it's 7 months old! she's been in my house for 2 weeks! damn! of course, i found out she was trying to upload software so she could use her webcam. the one some guy sent her. huh? i think i may have to have a d iscussion with her. on top of that, i don't think they've done the dishes since they moved in, and while i do need to get my stuff out of the bedroom, stacking it on the front porch is not kosher. hell. to include the box of good china i got when my great aunt passed away so long ago (my grandmother's sister). and, of course, trying to get the cable t urned back on has been a trial and a half. they claim that it's active, but nothing we do gets it back on. i think it's soemthing in the switch that they flipped to turn it off last fall.

thinking i need to blog more! i didn't realize it had been almost 2 weeks until i logged on. i've had no gumption for that, either.

thinking that i wish the boys wouldn't fight me so much on some stuff. i got their grades, and liam passed the 8th grade by the skin of his teeth. and i think part of it may have been that the language arts teacher felt a wee bit sorry for him. she had told me that if he could pull a D for 4th quarter, she'd give him a D for the second semester. well, apparently, he pulled it off. I got sean's grades today (he'd lost a book just before the end of school, and we had to turn it in before we could get his grades) and the only class he didn't pass was language arts. soooooooooo. this summer is a writing summer. every time they ask me to dvr soemthing, i'm requiring a paper out of them, when they watch it. the first one was Dogfights/ Guadalcanal, on the history channel. neither one of them was happy about writing, but they did it. liam got a full page, but it was kind of incoherent. sean could only get 4 sentences. definitely something that needs work. and now liam is mad at me because i told him that once band camp is over, i'm requiring that he write one page about the experience. mark had a talk with them about it this afternoon, and they said "yes, dad." why can't i get those kinds of responses. i get 'MOOOOOOOOOOOOM! that is so unfair! this is summer! i'm supposed to be having fun!" then stomp, stomp, stomp up the stiars, to pout, and read, and fall asleep, so that he cant' sleep at night when i need him to. ugh.

thinking about how my arthritis is affecting my life at this point. it's inherited. my mother has it (she takes celebrex). my grandmother had it. i had to take my mother to the dentist yesterday for a check up, and since this is the dentist who doesn't have a signing hygenist, i had to tag along to interpret (i go anyway, as she doesn't drive, but still). as she sat in the chair, gripping the ends of the arms, i looked at her hands. as different as her hands were from my grandmother's (my grandmother had, at one time, relatively graceful hands, while my mother has. . . work hands. only way to describe them, lol. for such a small woman (she's 4'8", and was never over 5', even in her heyday), she has large hands. her wedding ring was a size 8 1/2. my wedding ring is a 5 1/2)), i could see my grandmother's hands in hers. the enlarging of the knuckels in just such a certain way. the shortness of the nails (i can't grow mine to save my life, and apparently, iv'e passed it on to steph).

i've been listening to queen videos, and i just played "it's a kind of magic." there is a bit at the very beginning where freddy snaps. i coudln't snap. it hurt. i can type alright, and knitting doesn't bother at all. spinning gives me fits if the fiber i'm working with is particularly slippery, but usually is ok. but right now, at the end of the day, when i should be doing relatively well (i always have the lowest hand strength when i get up in the morning, makes it interesting), i cant make a fist tight enought o make nail marks in my palms.

ok, i've worn myself out with all this thinking.

see ya.