Thursday, April 26, 2007

My new favorite parenting quote...

Frankly, I want to duct tape his ass to the wall and feed him Adderall out of a Pez dispenser.




from Karyn - which she left in response to a post over at My Tiny Kingdom

I would love to nominate her for 'real mom of the week' or something like that - you know complete with a little badge she could put on her blog - but hey, I just don't roll that way, I say what I want, I don't go search it out.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Thursday Thirteen - icky icky

Thirteen possible ways to make ‘one square’ work:

1. buy special paper the size and thickness of a cloth dinner napkin
2. use a bidée (and a dryer)
3. use one square of toilet paper after using half a package of wipes
4. shit in the shower
5. keep a broadleafed plant in the bathroom, replace it as frequently as required
6. use washcloths and up your laundry (soap pollutants/electricity/gas use) by about triple
7. don’t bother at all and lose all social life (and up your laundry for the “skid” marks)
8. go nude and hope for erosion
9. use a colostomy bag
10. let’s just put it this way… my son says “the dog doesn’t even use one square”
11. stop eating and thus defacating
12. grease yourself up with Vaseline so everything will slide out without leaving traces behind?
13. go to Sheryl’s house and ask her to ‘kiss your ass’

Funny Butt...

I was getting ready this morning, putting my moisturizer on my face (you know, as if that’s going to slow the process down much anyhow – my sister took every bit of youthful collagen from my mother and left me with this skin that began to age when I was about 7. She is 11 years older than I, and people ALWAYS think that she is the younger of us – Bitch. Anyhow, I was putting on my moisturizer – call me old fashioned, stuck in a rut, ridiculously behind the times – or call my mother and my grandmother geniuses, before their time, progressives, etc. – I use the same moisturizer that both my mother and my grandmother used. Not that all three of us haven’t tried other products from time to time, but we just seem to keep going back to the old tried and true – not greasy, not sticky, not heavy, smells nice but not perfumey, etc. Oh and before you ask, that youthful bitch, my sister, uses much nicer products, often, washes her face religiously, hasn’t allowed the sun to touch her skin for the last 50 years (yeah she’s that old), does all the right stuff. I wash every morning, sometimes with just water cuz I’m too tired to drag my crap outta the shower to the sink – you know that 3.5 feet is a killer – and ONLY in the morning, almost never in the evening, unless I have on a full face of heavy evening make-up and I didn’t drink Manhattans and get too loaded / tired to care about all that make-up seeping into my pores for an additional 7 hours or getting all over my bedding – or if I’ve been out at a particularly nasty windy dusty ball game and I can actually feel the grains of sand burrowing into my pores - so let’s see, that means I wash my face in the evening about 4 times a year. I don’t even remember the moisturizer every day – if it’s one of those stay at home all day days, I probably will not even think of it until about 4 oclock, at which time I am already late for three things and actually finding the car keys is all I can be bothered with. I almost never do a mask, get a facial, or remember that I bought some of that super-duper this crap will unwrinkle Keith Richards face if you just remember to put it on – so I generally have to throw it out, because when I remember it, I open it – and well it smells sort of like I would imagine Keith Richards smells, then I buy more – use it once or twice and forget it again until that moment when I realize that I am beginning to look like Keith Richards and I really must do something about that. This is generally accompanied by my own rendition of ‘I see a mirror and I want to paint it black’. Well as usual, I have digressed – so I was putting on my moisturizer this morning, after having waved a wet washcloth in front of my wrinkled face, and I got a little too much, I was walking into the bedroom trying to force the skin on my neck and hands to absorb the excess when I swear my grandmother actually reached down from the heavens and moved my hands to my elbows – a move I saw her do EVERYTIME she put on hand cream or face moisturizer, and really her elbows did look pretty good. So, I said thank you to her.

This has me thinking about her, and I really must tell you about my grandmother. – and before she reaches down and slaps the shit outta me, I should probably stop referring to her as that ‘g’ word that she detested so much. You see she got kind of an early start on the old family business, and well my mom did too – but really that’s what they did back then, they got married and made babies – so she wasn’t the youngest ‘g’ word on the block, but she felt it. She was a musician, a wonderfully talented, fantastic Jazz pianist – and she was so freakin smart – you know scary smart – MENSA smart in fact. She hated to be referred to as anything even remotely close to the ‘g’ word, and so we called her booh – I dunno where that came from, I don’t know why it had an ‘h’ on the end – all I know is we didn’t dare call her anything even resembling the ‘g’ word. She had this wonderful sense of humor, very irreverent, and pretty high-brow, but she was funny. She taught me some racy limericks before most of my friends had even discovered there was any such thing as clever witty poetry, let alone dirty! She also loved to recite this funny little poem about the sphinx:


The sexual life of the camel
Is stranger than anyone thinks.
At the height of the mating season
It attempts to b****r the Sphinx,
But the Sphinx's posterior passage
Is blocked by the sands of the Nile,
Which accounts for the hump on the camel
And the Sphinx's inscrutable smile.



I suspect that until I actually understood the dang thing, the part I enjoyed most was using a word like ‘inscrutable’ – then of course one day I realized that it was about sex and had a whole new reason to enjoy the little ditty.

Anyhow, she knew hilarious poems, had radical opinions on politics, thought strange little bits and pieces of things were terribly funny, played the piano and organ as beautifully as anyone ever has (really, she was as good as any star you ever heard, and better than most of them – she did a lot of studio work in New York in the 50’s and did a lot of big band stuff here and there over the decades), she was an amazing cache of accurate data on dozens of subjects, did the most outstanding needlework/sewing you ever saw – heck her backsides of things were lovely enough to frame, and when she tailored a suit, it was perfect, she had a HAM radio license and assisted in the rescue efforts after the huge earthquake in Seward, Alaska in the 60’s from her little home in Nebraska, she traveled around the world, lived abroad, wrote an opera, was a potty mouth, and had very lovely elbows. I do miss her on occasion, and today is one of those occasions.

Monday, April 23, 2007

Bits from the weekend (ish)

Do you think it strange when people have a party with only odd brands of beer (not microbrews either, just unusual brands)?

My kid pitched last week, hit a kid (from a school in the N. end of the county) that only a handful of kids from his school (in the S. end of the county) happen to know is recovering from cancer – but my kid is friends with several kids on the n. area team – and he found out he actually may have broken the kids ankle because his bones are a bit fragile from the cancer treatment – now he’s feeling all kinds of guilty. I told him that he should be happy for the kid because last year at this time no one was sure he would ever play ball again, and that the kid is probably thrilled to get hit with a ball, because it means he stood up at the plate with bat in hand; and most kids in the county would never know that he was anything but another player and it wouldn’t phase them that they hit him. Am I wrong to try to make him feel better?

The Red Sox hit a bunch of homeruns last night (and I missed it, I was cooking or something dull like that)

My youngest went to a Mary Kay party yesterday – I was very proud of her, she came home with only one item that she wanted.

My oldest is going to Prom this weekend – I don’t even want to think about that, EVER.

I loved the scene in the Sopranos last night on the boat – really got my blood pumping

Church was boring yesterday – but I did find out that (at least according to this asst. minister) 6 year olds laugh 300 times each day – average adults only laugh 15 times each day – suddenly I feel much closer to 6 years old than 40 – doesn’t that rock?!?

I am constantly amazed that every year there is a team that pitches the hell outta some kid against us – I mean really this is High School ball – WTF – how do they not know the risks of that????? So for anyone who is possibly not aware (how that happens mystifies me, but I’m going to take a high road here and try to provide information instead of judgment) Coach this weekend pitched this kid 127 pitches and then put him at Short Stop (that’s right 127 pitches did not = a complete game). This is WAY TOO MANY pitches, and then to put them in a fielding position where the arm cools down and then they may have to make a hard, fast throw is an even bigger risk of injury. Coaches at ANY level of kid pitch baseball (please do not get confused if your daughter plays fastpitch softball, the motion is not at all the same) should be keeping an accurate pitch count, that includes foulballs. They should be aware of the appropriate number of pitches for their age group and should only allow a pitcher to throw that number of pitches. Parents of pitchers should also be aware of these limits, and if they are unsure if their coach / scorekeeper is keeping that count, they should keep count themselves and insist that their kid be pulled when he has reached the limit. ASKING THE KID IF THEIR ARM IS TIRED IS NO INDICATION – THEY ARE USUALLY NOT AWARE OF IT UNTIL AFTER THE DAMAGE IS DONE. Please if your son/daughter pitches baseball, acquaint yourself with these limits and the damage that can be done – you do not want to cripple your child for a little youth baseball glory.

Apparently this is National Dance Week or something – I really should do some research. I think maybe I will try to find a clever cookie cutter and make my daughter some beautiful cookies to take to all of her dance classes this week – wouldn’t that be fun?!? (says the mom who has no fucking clue where her cookie cutters or her rolling pin are)

Thursday, April 19, 2007

It's Thursday -

Shit that makes me laugh…

1. My oldest daughters laughter – it is SO contagious
2. Stuff my grandmother would say (would make most grandmas blush or raise an eyebrow)
3. My son’s impressions – he has a gift really
4. Memories shared with my best friend – OMGosh we did some stupid and very funny shit
5. Visualizations
6. Politicians
7. My mom – she is truly very funny
8. Myself – I laugh AT myself a lot, not sure what that means
9. Laughing at other people – I pretend it’s ‘with’ – but it’s really ‘at’
10. 12 year old boy jokes – farts, burps, animal poop, boobs, etc.
11. My Youngest Daughter's one-liners - she's finally getting the hang of it, and she is GOOD
12. Irony, Puns, Double Entendres – especially when people don’t catch it
13. People taking themselves too seriously

Monday, April 16, 2007

Just say no to sensational media!

It is absolutely (expletive) absurd for the people in the media to pass judgement on government agencies such as the Virginia Tech police. The majority of the questions asked by “reporters” at the press conference had NO purpose other than to attempt to ask the leading question that would give the best news bite – not inform the public. There seemed to be NO condemnation of the shooter, NO Sympathy for the victims, NO concern for the survivors – only blame. Perhaps their actions were not ideal – tell me honestly though, had they locked down the entire campus and cancelled classes for a domestic squabble that ended in tragedy – and not a massacre – don’t you think the media would be spending this evening bitching about that also? I am certain they would – the media does NOT REPORT the news, they sensationalize events and use them as bait for whiney assed Americans who are looking for something to whine and bitch about. This is absolutely a tragedy, but the media coverage is a travesty – I am ashamed that I share a country where freedom=lack of responsible behaviour for so many – including those with the power to affect the opinion of the masses.

There is NO REASON to report information pre-maturely – and the idea that people don’t think that the University acted quickly enough is close-minded and illogical. How many times have you fussed over a child with a scratch because things looked worse than they were? Likely, many more times than you ignored a serious injury because it didn’t look as bad as it was (which is also not that uncommon).

Please join me in condemning the current media mindset that doesn’t serve to provide accurate news to us, but to compete for the most sensational story of the day – when at all possible, please boycott sensational news – otherwise our networks and newspapers will continue to slide toward becoming the Daily Mirror –a sad prospect indeed.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

WOW - the shit you can find on google that makes you smile

I wanted to add some links, or pictures, or just browse around while I eat my lunch... and I came upon this for Takin Retards to the Zoo the song that I posted in my own post because someone had the J. Geils song I started with. The song cracks me up, it's not a good song, but funny... but the video rocked my world!!! You have to check it out!

****UPDATE****UPDATE****UPDATE****UPDATE****UPDATE****
**you need to click on
WATCH THIS MOVIE for full impact**

Thursday Thirteen - sort of

Thirteen lessons I wish I could learn FOR my kids…

1. How much to drink is too much
2. That broken hearts do heal, and you are usually stronger for it
3. Truth, while sometimes painful, really is the best first response
4. Sometimes people you love just suck
5. You can’t always win just by being right
6. Sometimes winning is allowing the other person to believe they have won
7. Even good friends will tell your secrets at the wrong time, in the wrong place, or to the wrong person
8. Some fantasies need to always stay fantasies
9. Never ask a question if the answer could hurt you aka some things are better left unasked
10. Even the biggest mistakes can be forgiven, and forgiveness is worth it
11. You can’t do anything so bad that I won’t be there for you
12. NOTHING is 100% wonderful or perfect, even your favorite things
13. Follow your instinct, it usually is the right thing, even when it doesn’t make sense

One of you thursday thirteeners really needs to hold my hand so I can do this the right way.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Piss On The Wall…

My son had a unique opportunity yesterday to visit a major league ballpark – including the visitor clubhouse/locker room. Among the interesting (and colorful) things he had to report (we’ll skip that the boys ventured to guess what former opponent had left a dookie in the toilet – just visualizing the entire group traipsing through to have a look kind of left me fettered) was that they had so many iTunes songs that they filled 3 laptops – I find this remarkable in several ways, but that’s all technical gobbledy gook and that’s not what this post is about.

To quote the boy “I’ll be you can’t name a song that they didn’t have” – well of course I immediately named one from my own iTunes (and in fact I pride myself on having LOTS of songs that I’ll bet no one else has)… the song that I named, which is not by any means the most unique song on there, because it is afterall from a WELL KNOWN group… ‘Piss on the Wall’ by the J.Geils Band.

So to my 3 or 4 readers and any other poor soul who stumbles across this… I challenge each of you to post a reply indicating the first song that pops into your head from your own iTunes (or equivalent music collection) that would fit the bill… [not on the huge ballpark collection that actually takes up 3 laptops]. And also to comment if any of the songs named by others are in your collection… and let’s be honest peeps… I could name a hundred weird ass songs that I don’t have, because frankly they suck (not that I don’t have some songs that suck, I actually have hundreds of songs that suck, but occasionally I find myself wanting them for some sort of reference, etc.) I would ask that you not actually use ‘garage band’ songs… because after all that is a little unfair, they should really be songs that would be available if any of us really wanted to have them – and maybe even a recommendation… let me tell you Piss on the Wall is a rather good drinking song, as are most of the J. Geils Band songs (excepting of course those top 40 singles (Freeze Frame; Centerfold) they put out in the early 80’s that is what most of you know them for). While I am on my J. Geils kick, let me also let you know that THE BEST LIVE ALBUM OF ALL TIME has to be J. Geils Band – "Live" Full House – my mom just got me a copy on C.D. because well, I killed the vinyl, I don’t have a 8-track player anymore, and my cassette is scratchy and my previous CD must have been stolen by some beer drinking pal that discovered just what a fucking kick ass drinking album it is! Yes I have owned multiple copies of this gem, because if I had to take one album to a deserted island, it would be a front runner – not saying it’s the one… but it would damn sure make the short list.

heres a crazy assed link I ran across when I googled Piss On The Wall caveat, not for the faint of heart or people who aren't parents of boys

Monday, April 09, 2007

I've been tagged

Well I’ve been tagged – I might be beginning to feel like a real blogger with an audience now (thanks baseballmom). 7 songs that run around in my head – geez and I heard such a funny term for this a couple of weeks ago, but thanks to the mental-pause, of course that is irretrievable now. So to this list… (apologies in advance if this causes you to scream out later that you must must must get this song out of your head)

1. Mickey – I can barely hear the stupid word/name Mickey without this gem getting stuck for days on end (it will be stuck now for sure)
2. (I am) Ironman – of course only the chorus, and not even all of that!
3. Oh Pretty Baby or Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You (can’t get a for sure title here) – REMEMBER I HATE love songs – my husband will get this puppy stuck in his head run around singing it for days and then pass the curse to me.

Geez this sucks, everytime I finally get far enough through the song to figure out the title… then it’s stuck and I can’t get it out to get a new song

4. Ohio (Come Back to Texas) – sort of ironic for a Colorado girl

Now I’m booting up the iTunes for a quick read of the songs there, because I know there are at least a couple dozen songs that play on loop in my brain – and it’s just not coming to me today.

5. Steve McQueen – and I do like to have a fast machine!
6. Ruby Tuesday – there isn’t a good reason, except that I say choose-day instead of Toos-day and it makes my kids giggle at me **update from link adding... rofl @ Mick lookin all sexy, ewwwwwww**
7. (the Shit) Hollaback Girl– (Gwen Stefani) – does this really require explanation? B-A-N-A-N-A-S
8. Eminence Front – absolutely the best of the 80’s Who
9. Crazy Mama – J.J. Cale (this one you might need to check out – I used to sing it to my mom on Tuesdays after she had been out with the Tuesday Girls drinking Martini’s and playing cards)
10. The Marine Hymn
11. Comet – you know the Comet song

Comet, it makes your teeth turn green

Comet, it tastes like gasoline

Comet, it makes you vomit

So get some Comet, and vomit, today





12. Will the Circle be Unbroken? (I listened to the Opry a lot growing up)
13. Rawhide

Oops… it was supposed to be 7, but I can’t possibly edit it now that I’ve done the work for 13 and I know there are so many more. So, the only cure for me is to actually find the damn song and listen to it all the way through, this can present difficulties if it’s a song I hate… but I have managed. Occasionally I can drown it out by just simply listening to constant music (not much of a problem actually since I tend to pretty much have music on all the time anyhow – but there are times when I’m stuck with someone who is intolerant of music in general, strange very strange.

I also want to say that the biggest problem I have is getting a hook/riff stuck and then I can’t remember exactly which song it belongs to because it’s not the lyrics just the music!


I guess the appropriate thing now would be to tag someone... so Moosema and Jen, you are both tagged! (I love this, two other musicians, they should come up with some dandies)

Friday, April 06, 2007

I yelled at your mom because that's how I play...

uncanny how accurate these things are???

I stole this from Jenny HaHa (I'm jealous because she has so many readers who tell her how hot she is on a very regular basis)- and it's dumb, but it made me giggle.

While we are plugging new blogs - check out Never A Dull Moment (I totally relate to a lot of her posts because we are geographically close together - and I get thinking you live with Calvin - though in my case it's my husband that acts that way) and My Tiny Kingdom (how can you not dig someone who uses the pseudo-surname 'Glamore')

Pick the month you were born. Pick the day (number) you were born. Pick the color of shirt you are wearing. Now type out the sentence you made using the answers below:

Pick the month you were born:
January----------I kicked
February---------I loved
March------------I punched
April-------------I swam with
May--------------I choked on
June--------------I murdered
July--------------I did the Macarena with
August-----------I had lunch with
September-------I danced with
October----------I sang to
November--------I yelled at
December--------I ran over

Pick the day ( number) you were born on:
1----- --a birdbath
2-------a monster
3-------a phone
4-------a fork
5-------a Mexican
6-------a flamingo
7-------my cell phone
8-------my dog
9-------my best friends' boyfriend
10------my neighbor
11------my science teacher
12------a banana
13------a fireman
14------a stuffed animal
15------a goat
16------a pickle
17------a squirrel
18------a spoon
19------myself
20------a baseball bat
21------a ninja
22------a snowman
23------a noodle
24-- ----your mom
25------a football player
26------my sister
27------my brother
28------an ipod
29------a permanent marker
30------a llama
31------a zombie

Pick the color of shirt you are wearing:
White----------because I'm very pretty.
Black-----------because that's how I play.
Pink-----------because I'm cool like that.
Red------------because the voices told me to.
Blue------------because I can see the future.
Green----------because I love to boogie.
Purple---------because your mom's cool.
Gray-----------because the voices in my head told me to.
Yellow---------because someone offered me 1,000,000 dollars
Orange--------because I tripped over my house
Brown---------because I love my pillow.
Other----------because I'm a ninja.
None----------because I can't control myself.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

weirdness

I used to think that this blog would be a great outlet for my rants and my strange humor that so few people seem to actually get. That hasn’t really been working out for me lately – but then a lot of things haven’t really been working out for me in ideal fashion. I just picked up a voicemail – and the lady thought my name was something that it isn’t – and she says “Please call me back and I can send this to you and we can get this ‘resolved’ – I like that word – ‘resolved’” – WTF does that mean, all I said was (paraphrased) ‘My boss can’t make this file work, please email to me and then when I have had a chance to look at it we can talk intelligently and resolve this issue’ – is that such a unique statement/request – wth else would I say? You know reading it in writing doesn’t do it justice – she said it as though she had never in her life heard the word before, or the concept or something. Maybe this company is accustomed to taking care of problems in some other way??? It was weird, really it was – if I could figure out how to send the vmail to my computer and then upload a soundfile to this blog I would actually let all of you listen to it and then you could judge for yourselves. Maybe I’m being touchy? It seems like frequently what people do lately kind of rubs me the wrong way – I keep blaming it on menopause. Though, I think that I am more patient in traffic – go figure, me the queen of get all your venting done during traffic and on strangers that can’t hear you – I find it cathartic to call the jackass in front of you that just changed lanes while slamming on brakes and not looking some hideous long string of names, including but NOT limited to jackass. Perhaps I should revisit this – my mother convinced me that I was having road rage – at first I told her I felt no rage, just mild irritation that I liked to spew about – but somehow she convinced me that I should try to tone it down. That’s not actually correct, she never convinced me I had road rage, but she did convince me that I was at risk of something awful – not sure what – and I toned it down. I think I will go out at lunch and drive on the freeway and just go wild calling people names and making up terms for their idiocies – maybe then I can be nicer to my husband, children, etc. And maybe it will energize me to do something other than sit on my ass after I get home tonight. I did do a load of laundry this morning – but I left the kitchen in total disarray, and my desk looks as thought a bomb went off – I still can’t find my replacement debit card – this is probably saving us money though, so I’m not enormously concerned about it – I’ll just keep writing checks and sending husband to the store – he’s not nearly as spontaneous as I am for buying things like ‘white cranberry juice popsicles’ – you know the things a family just has to have.

. o O (I wonder if they make white cranberry juice popsicles, because that sounds damn tasty)

Another strange thing is happening – and… I have always had a rule that I would never write down stuff that someone in my family might run across and take offense to – but as this blog has remained relatively anonymous thus far – and no family members have mentioned to me that they are aware of it’s existence, I think I might be safe. So to the strange thing, you know I mentioned that my Uncle died, and that my mom and I went to the funeral – wow what a strange experience that was. Mom was pretty good, though… I think that it made her feel more comfortable smoking in front of me, which has possibly resulted in her smoking more period. She had a couple of my kids one day last week, and they mentioned that she practically chain smoked the whole time – dammit. So then my aunt died, okay not biologically my aunt, but my mom’s best friend – and WHEN we were young, she was absolutely more of an aunt to me than any of my actual aunts. Then she found herself living in the bottom of a whiskey bottle, and my perception changed some – but in reality – of all my aunts, only two – this one, and my uncles ex-wife have really ever been super important to me. One of my dad sisters was wonderful, and I adored her, but didn’t know her well because they lived in Ohio – his other sisters are a whole nother bag of nuts. And my moms half-sister, well I identified with her a lot over the years because she and I look so much alike, and she’s had somewhat of a cool life – but, I found out over the years and particularly on this visit to Oklahoma for the funeral, that she’s really just a person who happens to share some biology with me. Anyhow… I digressed to give history, which was probably totally unnecessary – so my mom had these two sad losses, and at my aunts funeral mom’s high school sweetheart showed up (they all went to high school together, duh) and she can’t quit saying how great he looked. Well to be honest, he was handsome back in the day – but my dad looks a lot better than him! I didn’t think he looked that good, I thought his wife looked fabulous, but he just looked like an old man with weird little lumps on his face and big ears. In addition to that, mom was married before, and she’s always been open that at the beginning of that relationship she really loved and was very physically attracted to him – but then he turned out to be a bunch of really bad expletives here and was pounding on her and stuff like that – so she eventually found the courage to divorce him. So… strangely enough, mom is like addicted to researching genealogy and reading email (seriously, she never shuts up about it – I find it somewhat interesting, so it doesn’t bother me, but I have noticed her having conversations about it with people who could give a shit less) – anyhow – somehow in all this, her ex-brother-in-law somehow got in touch with her and they shared some genealogy on that line and so this morning she mentions that this ex-bro-in-law sent her some old pictures and “it stirred up some old feelings” – and I didn’t take it that it hurt her to see pictures of the guy that pounded the crap outta her – I took it that she felt attracted again, kinda like when she goes on and on about how great first b/f looked at the funeral. To top all this off, she has been nasty to my dad a lot since the strokes – he can’t seem to do anything right, and if you defend him just a little bit she goes off. She doesn’t want to spend time with him, she doesn’t like anything he does, it’s his fault about what sorts of groceries they have, or if the carpet is dirty, or whatever… and well, it hurts me. I really love my dad, obviously – this doesn’t mean I can’t see the forest for the trees. He does do a few things that would irritate a person after living with him for over 40 years – but… mostly he’s really wonderful – particularly for his generation. He helps out around the house (he can’t do laundry, or at least he couldn’t last time she left him home alone), he vacuums, does dishes, cleans bathrooms, I mean he really helps out. He will go grocery shopping, run kids to activities, indulge little yens, takes her out to dinner a lot, cooks, etc. So this morning, dad tells me ‘mom is slipping a little’ – well, maybe I’ve been an ostrich – but in the past when everyone has been on about how poorly she’s doing since the strokes I think they are not seeing clearly, and refusing to recognize the progress. Now, I think he may be right, but I have to wonder – is it because of some sort of lack of oxygen to the brain? (from the increased smoking?) UGH! I really am not doing well at all with my parents aging – I still expect to go hiking and fishing and dancing with my dad – I still expect to go fishing and shopping and drinking with my mom – and these old tired people are freaking me out. I want my mom and dad back! I guess I really need some church time again – and I think the kids do to. Of course this weekend is out, because it’s Easter and I don’t do that crowd – for many reasons, but lets just blame it on the crowd for now. So next week it is – off to church – boy won’t that thrill the masses.