The Bipolar Express

College World Series, aka Nightmare on 13th Street

The College World Series is in town. Whoop doop dee do. Why they have it in the sticks of Nebraska, I will never understand.

I like baseball, I really do, but this town is insane for 10 days or so. I always forget from year to year what a traffic-clogged nightmare it becomes.

Every hotel is packed, gas prices have gone up 10% since this time last week, "family-style" (read: upscale fast food) restaurants have 2-hour waiting lists at supper and 1-hour at lunch.

The worst part is that it is always the week of our "half-a-versary." Now, before you gag at such nonsense from sensible middle-aged folk, consider that that means our anniversary is in December. Aaaah, December in the Plains. What a wonderful time to... to... to do NOTHING because there's nothing to do. So every June we try to do something special; usually take a vacation that we spend the rest of the year paying off. :-( In the spirit of our new (attempt at) fiscal responsibility, we are staying in town this year. There's nothing to do here in June either, unless you are an Oregon Beavers baseball fan. (Yes, that is really their nickname.) Kevin Costner comes every year to see Cal State Fullerton, and that's about as exciting as it gets. (Not that we've met him or anything. Not that he's made a movie in years that a majority of people have seen. It's just that, except for the filming of "About Schmidt" six years ago, that is as close as we come to greatness around here.)

So, Jack and I celebrated our half-a-versary with martinis and seafood last night at one of our favorite decidedly-not-family restaurants. (No kids menus, no high chairs, and nary a french fry in sight!) It was nice. Not the Rockies, or Vegas, or San Diego, or even Chicago, but nice. Tonight we had cheese and wine for supper.

I really miss the boys when they go to their father's, but there are some perks.

Busy, but relaxed for a change

Strange combination of terms there - busy and relaxed - but it's how things are going right now.

We finally got the house into a condition in which it could be appraised. Ok, we hid three garbage bags of laundry in the garage and one full of clean socks in Andrew's room, but hey; it looked good.

There are still some decidedly iffy areas due to the fact that two of the remaining three children in residence are changing bedrooms. Raymond's is almost done and looks great. I give it a week. We stacked all our extra stuff in Andrew's new room, so he can't do much until that's gone and Raymond moves the rest of his junk out. I have a distinct feeling that there is at least as much left in his closet and under his bed as he has downstairs in his new room.

Michael is staying in the room he's shared with Andrew. Michael claims that it will be much neater when he is alone in there because he likes everything just so. Huh? When did that start??

Andrew and Michael have these massive oak dresser/desk/loft bed monstrosities that are space efficient - a good 6.5 feet high - but also about 4 feet wide. To have them both in one bedroom makes it look like a bunker, but with four kids, two parents, and "only" four bedrooms, something had to give. Now they will each have their own room. Andrew and Michael will have to label the inside of their shirts so I know whose goes into which room. (Andrew is going through a "sometimes I forget my deodorant" stage, so Michael is understandably not interested in sharing shirts with him!) 12 years old = deodorant, I don't care how cute he thinks he is!

Leigh is settled into Julia's house (Craig's mom - baby's grandma) and baby will have his/her own room too. Our baby gift to Leigh was to purchase the crib. My idea - kind of a family tradition among the women on my side of the family. She found a piece she really liked and took us to see it. It was $250 for a crib/toddler bed/twin bed combo with an attached three drawer dresser. It was crap. I should've kept my mouth shut :-) but I steered her to the store my boys' cribs came from; actual wood and everything. Thrice the price for a crib and dresser, but well worth it. It wouldn't surprise me - if they were well cared-for - if mine are still in service somewhere. Last I knew they were in my old church's nursery.

I know I'm drifting here, but... I cannot believe that Raymond is going to be a junior in high school. He already has a class ring, and today I was pricing letter jackets. He's already earned two letters - band and choir - and will likely earn an academic one this year. It feels like about a week ago that his father and I were assembling his crib. 6lbs 8oz of baby blue bundle is now 5'5", 165 lbs of intelligent, articulate, compassionate, talented, handsome young man. It just boggles my mind.

Back to topic: so, now that the house nightmare is almost over - Jack and I still have to properly put away all the stuff we scooped into drawers and closets when we were running out of time - it's time to kick some butt on my online class.

The class is on educational technology. It's supposed to be a survey course, and there is no prerequisite, but the 8000 series course number should've been a tip-off. (4000 series are undergrad senior classes, 5000 series begin graduate work, etc.) There are nine modules to complete, each with approximately 6 activities. Of the nine modules, I am confident of four. We (mostly Jack) finished module 1 tonight. It was all techie stuff which I have no idea how any ordinary teacher of my age bracket would know. Aargh.

Because I'm planning to have scar revision surgery later this summer, and because the local university's teacher ed classes were full, I opted for this class. Online seemed like a great idea. Unfortunately, one of the areas in which I do well is classroom participation. I usually have good ideas and fairly insightful "takes" on things. I try hard not to be an ass, but it's against my nature. Plus, these classes are populated by
20-somethings who are taking their first grad classes so they can start to move across the pay schedule. I'm usually closer to the professor's age - hell, my mom was 33 when she got her Ed.D., and my dad was 36!

Anyway, a survey class this thing is not! I have to do a power point, use a database to merge contact lists, and a myriad of other things I haven't done. There are a couple of modules that are more common sense education-related topics that anyone with my years of experience shouldn't have any trouble with. I have 3 weeks and 5 days to complete 8 modules. Yikes. Oh, and if I don't finish, I can't just drop the class, I wouldn't be able to TEACH next year because I need these hours for recertification. Paychecks are good. Eating is good. Lights, heat, water, house, car - all good.

Somewhere over the past 20 years, I have lost my jazz musician internal clock and "gained" that of a teacher. The evil mainstream world has turned me from a happy night owl to a grumpy lark. (Almost typed 'lard.' Funny.) So, time for bed.

Hope all's well in your world!

Where's Samantha When You Need Her?

Wow, what a weekend. And not in a fun way.

Jack is refinancing the house for a shorter term so that it'll be paid off before he retires. Good financial planning, right? Right. There's only one little complication. Because it hasn't been appraised since he purchased it in 2000, it has to be appraised now. Inside and out. Couldn't settle for a drive-by look-see, could they? Noooooo. Have to see the inside too. We found this out on Thursday. It's been cleaning/repairing mayhem around here ever since.

Jack is doing a little painting, replacing baseboard that I had tried to paint white over dark walnut finish - yeah, brilliant - AND he's been getting paged from work about every 10 minutes today.

Raymond is cleaning the "computer room" which should actually be called "The Place Where Useless Crap Goes to Die." He's been at it for about 6 hours or so and you can now actually discern that there is carpet on the floor.

Speaking of carpet: a few weeks ago Andrew cut himself on the outside of his ankle. It bled prodigiously and he freaked. I was down here surfing, so he came screaming downstairs, dripping hemmoraging all the way down the stairs. Did I mention we have white berber carpet on the stairs and in the basement? Oh yeah. It looked like a scene from CSI. The gross factor was completely obliterated for me by the "how the hell am I gonna get that out of the carpet" factor. Yes, I did check the "wound" first. He had somehow managed to scrape it against a hinge on the door (?) and it sliced a nice scratch about two inches down the outside of his ankle. You would've thought the Manson family had attacked him. We cleaned up the blood -off him - put on a couple band-aids and he went cheerfully back upstairs.

Still CSI. I put cold water in the shampooer - hot water sets blood, or so I'm told - and tried to clean it up. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. White berber carpet.

Now, who in the hell puts white sculpted carpet in a fricking WALK-OUT basement??? I don't care if you don't have kids, dogs, cats, guinea pigs... if even one person is going to use the stairs frequently - the laundry's down here - and ever go outside, it is the stupidest choice in the history of interior decorating. (Leigh is moving her stuff out, and we got a 2x3 glimpse of what the carpet is supposed to look like when she moved her small china hutch; the only piece of furniture in there that hasn't been moved in 7 years. It's pretty. Still stupid.)

I've shampooed the stairs four times, used a special cleaner for blood, used cold water, hot water, put bleach in with the carpet shampoo. Nothing will budge the spots. Am I doing a remake of Macbeth and no one told me? I'm not even getting union scale! Carpet: done as it's going to be.

Clutter: Funny word. So small and innocuous-looking. This house was cluttered when the boys and I moved in 5 1/2 years ago, and we've certainly done nothing to change that. Two parents, one teenaged girl, three boys, two dogs, four cats, two full-time jobs, and no housekeeping help. Having an "Alice" all these years would've been nice, but what I really need now is "Samantha" in high-speed mode. I've wrinkled my nose repeatedly, to no avail.

We have filled four 45 gallon garbage cans with detritus of such an array of sources it's amazing. Cancelled checks written in 1975 by a woman (Jack's 1st wife) who's been deceased for 11 years. Boxes, packaging, etc. from every toy, game, picture frame purchased since Christmas. Don't normal people throw these things away? I do know what happened. I told the boys they could play with their stuff after they put the rubbish away. Moron. How long have I been doing this gig? 17 years? They shoved all the junk under their beds so they could play/game/listen/watch with their presents.

On a positive note, I finally got rid of the black enamel metal three-way bulb monstrosity of a floor lamp that Jack had here when I moved in. It is the last piece of "I just got divorced and I have no taste" funiture. Woo hoo!

Michael had decided - around Easter or so - that it'd be a good idea to clean out the garage, so he pulled everything off shelves, out of drawers, etc., so he could "organize." He may finish before Friday when this person comes to peruse our house. Easter to Flag Day. A reasonable window, apparently, for a 12 year-old.

Andrew will only work if someone is standing over him. The child is going to be a school administrator someday, I swear. He comes up with so many reasons why someone else, usually Michael, should "take care of it" that it is unreal.

Finally, this is the week that Leigh had decided to start moving her bedroom things over to her new "place" in her maybe-future-mother-in-law's house (note: need a name for Craig's mom.) So her crap is all over. Well it's in two piles: give away and throw. Unfortunately I can't tell which pile is which, so I have to wait for her to get it out of here. Not a biggie in the grand scheme of things; should be done by tomorrow.

Oh, and I start an online class so that I can recertify to teach for fall. Kinda important. I kinda like getting paid every month.

Back to cleaning. Happy, happy joy joy.

A (GOOD) downward spiral

Life is interesting around here. No two days are the same, that's for sure. And still, I suck at blogging. I realized this because I forget my password every time. Typepad sends it to me and I slap my forehead because then I remember it. Duh...

Leigh had an ultrasound on Saturday. Her HCG - human something something - pregnancy hormone - was high and they wanted to make sure her due date was accurate AND that there was only one baby in there. As a mother of twins who HAD a husband when they were little, I was terrified and speechless at the idea of her dealing with twins alone while babydaddy finishes college 60 miles away. But, all is well. All the hatchling's parts are where they're supposed to be, although some parts were hidden, so the gender remains a mystery. (I'm hoping for a girl for the purpose of pure revenge in a decade or so. bwahaha.

Jack and I had an awesome weekend. I dressed up - why do guys never dress up - including a new pair of cheap - inexpensive AND sleazy - heels and a blouse that is enough too tight for me that in spite of my breast reduction actually provides cleavage!

We went to a Mexican restaurant and had a jumbo margarita each. I don't know what this place uses for mix, but these are the smoothest margs I've ever had. (They're also 11 bucks apiece, so that won't be a frequent watering hole. Plus, if it tastes that good, the mix must be really sweet.

Speaking of sweet, I've been off sugared soda for 10 days. Giant "yea!" for me. That was a really stubborn monkey on my back for a really long time. I can't say that I actually like diet soda, but if there's no Crystal Light or the like, or if I need some caffeine, it will suffice.

Not coincidentally, I have dropped 8 pounds in that 10-day period. Cool.

I'm having my abdominoplasty scar redone. The surgeon - who shall remain nameless so I don't get busted for libel because he did such a crappy job! - pulled the skin too tight, or didn't suture it right or something, and it stretched. (This is the vertical, upper abdominal scar.) In a couple of places it's over an inch wide.

Aesthetics notwithstanding, it pulls and even hurts sometimes. I have an appointment with my DS surgeon this afternoon to schedule a scar revision with him. Since it's a fairly minor procedure, unless he finds something weird under there, I don't think it'll be a problem to get this scheduled fairly soon. I'm excited - mostly for the aesthetics. Part of the scar is textbook. It is a very fine line, barely lighter than my glaringly white belly. So I know this isn't some bizarre flaw in my skin. It'd be pretty weird to have perfect scars everywhere else on my bod and have this one be disfigured. The guy screwed up: plain and simple.

I dropped my legal assistant internship because I don't know how long I'll be recovering. The guy I was going to intern with is a complete ass anyway, so I'm not shedding any tears over this development. I wasn't going to finish the course work until winter anyway, so putting this off a year isn't a big deal.

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Jack and I did the budget last night. Waaaaaaaaaaay depressing. Enough said there.

So I'm going to put a budget together now. I'm way excited. NOT!

What a way to spend the afternoon, huh?