Grail cat

The offending bird returned this morning to taunt the cat, who was sitting in the kitchen window.













Our cat just performed the King Arthur role in the "French Taunting" scene from Holy Grail. She was out on our deck and the birds who live in the trees on our property were having none of it. One in particular—a mockingbird who was doing his impression of a Blue Jay—found it his job to taunt our cat. He (the bird) sat on the edge of our roof and clucked and chortled at poor Saffy. At one point she dared to try to get closer to him by jumping up on the handrail near the edge of the house, which only egged him on more. He flew from one point to the other along the edge of the deck, always enticingly close to Saffy, yet oh so out of reach. And he clucked and clucked at her, tilting his head to one side, then the other. The Reenactor and I both found it endearingly like Grail. Our poor cat is really frustrated.

bounty

Here's what I have purchased today....all grown in this county, or in the neighboring county!

quilters

tball hell

For those of you who haven't had kids in the rarefied air of children's organized sports, we've had our first official hellish entry into it. We signed both kids up for T-ball at a local non-profit t-ball/softball association. We had been told by many parents that it was a great organization and the coaches and games were low-key (no yelling or screaming coaches). We primarily wanted the kids to get the feel of being on a team, and to have FUN playing some T-ball. Simple, right?

We should have left the day we went to sign them up. There was no way of knowing before forking over $40 per child when they were going to practice, or when they would have games...just a vague..."oh we'll let you know in a couple of weeks." Oooookaaaaayyyyy. So about a month later we find out that kid no. 2 has practice on Friday evenings; and kid no. 1 has practice on Sat. mornings. Still okay, but we don't have any set schedule as to when the actual games are going to be. Then last week we get a call on Wed. informing us that our kids were going to be in a "tournament" sometime in the next two weekends, and oh, by the way, we need to pull our time volunteering in the concession stand during the tournament, one stint each for each of the kids teams.

The Reenactor did his stint last Friday night. It was supposed to be for an hour and a half; he ended up staying over three hours. The kicker to this was that at some point in the evening one of the association "honchos" came in and started barking at all the volunteers about how they were doing things wrong. For those of you who know The Reenactor, you can well imagine how much this was appreciated.

Sat. a.m. kid no. 2 had his "game" which we were told would be strictly held to 80 minutes, and no score would be kept. I had a previous commitment that both kids were supposed to attend that day, so I took kid No. 1 to that, and showed up in what should have been the last 20 minutes of No. 2's game to watch him play...but that strict 80 minutes somehow went to nearly two hours. Now think about this....No. 2 is a preschooler. How well do you think a bunch of preschoolers did with standing in the hot midday sun for 2 hours?

We finally got a message last night containing the "official" schedule for NO.2's upcoming games. Of the ten games scheduled, nearly half are 8:30 P.M. games. As in a half-hour past his bedtime. Another two are 6:30 p.m. games...which means even if they DO stick to the "strict" 80-minute rule we will still be doing good to get home for a reasonable bedtime.

We don't even have the schedule for No. 1's games, although her coach has it. He says we can see it this weekend.

My "slacker mom" instincts are kicking into high gear at this point. What started out as us wanting our kids to have some quality playtime enjoying a sport they both like with other kids, has turned into scheduling hell. We're probably going to yank them from the program and just get them together with the children of our friends...who are also pissed about all this...to play an occasional game.

My message to anyone who is responsible for organizing this sort of activity...PLEASE take into consideration that young children need to be home at a reasonable hour, and so do their parents or caretakers. There is simply no reason this had to be so disorganized or confusing.

And here's the really sad part to me. Both kids are actually good at this sport. We love to watch them play because they seem to have some natural talent for it...and they are enjoying it. Both of them have good coaches too...and it is so nice that they are clearly doing the coaching to allow all the kids just to enjoy it. But the umbrella organization seems to be on some sort of power trip to make this a much bigger thing than it needs to be. This ain't The Show, people...it's tball.

recyling stuff

In honor of Earth Day my kids, who really have heard the lessons of the Three Rs at various venues this week, found ways to recycle some trash. Packer took some foam packing that came with some office supplies The Reenactor brought home and created an "Eiffel Tower" out of them. He is now making them into car parks, boats, airplanes, and various other imaginary places and things. The oldest child made a frame out of one, putting a drawing of herself in the hole in the middle.

The second photo is of an "M" we made from a piece of wire hanger we found laying on the side of the road when we went for a walk in our neighborhood. I had just been telling the kids about finding ways to reuse things we throw away, and this illustrated our discussion in a nice way.

true confessions, and a great idea

I must fess up here that I've actually darkened Wally World's artificially bright stores recently. Once was in St. Louis, while my son was ill and I was desperate to find a few supplies....clean pjs (you can imagine how his others were); some crackers, ginger ale, and something to entertain me and his sister. WM was the closest, most convenient store where I could find all those things in one stop (not a Target to be found where I was, darnit!). More recently I went in the one locally to get milk during one of those evenings where I was faced with the choice of driving to the other side of town to get one quart of milk; or just suck up and go get it at WM.

And finally, this week, after truly trying to shop at other local stores, and simply NOT finding the product I wanted, I purchased a shredder (paper shredder) there. My only other option was to buy it online from a site like Amazon, and pay extra $$$ for shipping. I'm already pissed off enough that I need to buy a product to shred all the crap that I get in the mail (unsolicited, I might add) so that some lacky doesn't steal my identity.....I don't want to have to pay someone to ship it to me as well.

So...I was confessing all this to our friend J.E. yesterday, and she also is a WM boycotter....has been much longer than me.... and she said that it was okay to have the occasional foray into the stores, but never get a cart. Wise advice. I had actually thought of that myself, and had refused to get one during recent trips, knowing full well how easy it is to fill one up without even thinking about it, but hearing her actually voice the idea made it more clear to me. There's only so much you can carry to the checkout, and you are far less likely to impulse buy if your arms are full.

Big WM boycott points to J.E.!!!!!

And on a 100-mile-diet note....I have a source for locally grown hydroponic tomatoes! They are yummy too!

hospitals, and other dreary observations

For those of you who are faithful blog readers you know that the last week has been pretty crappy for our family. The Reenactor kicked off the week with a huge dose of strep throat, aggrevated by a skin reaction to an oxygen mask he used during a sleep test the weekend before, which caused the whole right side of his face to swell up. While he was recovering from that my son developed a sick stomach, then two and a half days later my daughter also began barfing....unfortunately she started her sick episode at a youth event at our church, and some extremely patient and kind women got her all cleaned up before we arrived to pick her up. Kudos to any adult who cleans up the sick stomach of a child other than their own.

Then it was my turn. For those of you who know me who read this, you already know the WHY of why I spent last weekend in the hospital, so I won't go through all that again, and for those of you who don't know me, it is immaterial as to why I was there....I just was.

I was in the rare position all of Sat. afternoon to observe the workings of an ER. When I arrived there weren't many patients in there...mostly elderly folks with chest pains, or stomach complaints, and me with my weird symptoms, which immediately baffled the nurse, and the doc. Within an hour two auto accidents had sent people into the ER, none of which seemed to be serious, thankfully, but with these people came huge groups of family members milling around and fretting. One of the accident victims was put in the exam area next to mine, and clearly the injuries weren't serious enough to forgo the weekly family belching contest. Are my faithful readers seeing a theme here? Do you remember my observations from the school parking lot recently? So I was laying on my truly uncomfortable gurney listening to the Family Gass entertain each other next door with their belches and Lord knows what else. I guess my summary after seven hours spent there, mostly waiting to be seen for less than one minute by a doc, and one CT scan and Xray, is that the folks who work ERs are really earning their paychecks...I wouldn't last one shift with the chaos, the stress, and just the emotions that are everywhere.

The second observation I will make is that when you are getting an MRI and they offer you the choice of listening to a local radio station, or just getting earplugs, think carefully about your choice. The MRI I was given takes about a half hour, and as I am somewhat claustrophobic, the notion of being in a very small confined space with a lot of noise going on around me (MRIs are VERY noisy for the uninitiated) wasn't appealing. I opted for the headphones, and chose the local country station as opposed to the local rock station, which the last time I listened to them was still hellbent to play all-Britney all the time. Anyway....country was my choice. They gave me the headphones, scuttled me into the MRI tube, and turned everything on. At first the country station was playing commercials, which they usually run in 6-8 minute blocks. So I layed there listening to local commercials, trying to remain calm, clanging going on all around me. Then, the commercials ended and WHAT came on???? Anyone? A flippin' NASCAR race. Sunday morning, in the mid-South, and OF COURSE the local country station is playing the pre-race commentary for that day's NASCAR race. I damn near pushed the panic button they give you to use if you are freaking out. I didn't realize I could just say something and the tech would hear me, so I laid there listening to the unintelligible garble that is NASCAR commentary trying to think happy thoughts. And I swear to you, it sounded like a SNL sketch of what a pre-race interview show would sound like. The best line I heard was when one driver observed that sometimes "he feels the stress real bad" so he has to take a few drags on a cigarette to calm down. No doubt he drives the Marlboro car.

And my final observation is that a good nurse is worth every penny she makes, and she probably should make much more. I was lucky to have some truly excellent nurses tending me, and while I wasn't really a critical patient, just a mystery patient, they were all kind, and eager to find ways to make me more comfortable.

I'm glad to be home, and future posts should get back on track with my usual rants.

self portrait

In a fit of creative boredom last week during our stay in St. Louis my oldest child took photos of our hotel room while I was tending her sick brother. Most of them were interesting observations of the details of a hotel room, but I just liked this self-portrait especially because she had to hold up the camera to get it.

Saint Lou-ee Blues

In an effort to be a good mommy I agreed to go with my two kids, and with two other moms and their kids this week for a Spring Break trip to St. Louis. We went on a similar trip last year and had a great time going to the zoo, the science center, butterfly house, parks, etc. This year I was especially excited because I was going to get to spend an extra day over what we did last year...I had my calendar cleaned off so I could really enjoy it.

We got up there midday Tues., and went to the Arch...our first stop. Our friends had arrived earlier and decided to go to the top of the arch, which I opted out of for me and my two kids because I figured we might have some sort of freak out in the little elevator cars halfway up. I've been there, done that, and I'm not in any huge hurry to go back to the top of the arch, what with Al Kida running loose and all. And on top of that it was a really windy day, and I've been UP there on really windy days and didn't appreciate the sway one bit.

So we get there, and it is cold and windy which makes running around underneath the Arch not such a great option, unfortunately since that is one of our favorite things to do. There is a weird karma underneath the arch that affects me, and definitely affects my kids, and it can be great fun on a nice day. We did the museum, with the freaky life-like Westward Expansion robots, and looked extensively through the museum shop while we waited an hour for our friends to come back from the top. They finally arrived and instead of having a pleasant picnic on the Arch grounds, we all huddled in the parking garage eating sandwiches from the backs of our cars.

Then we went to the City Museum...I was excited about this because I've been wanting to take the kids there, but it's never been the right time. Apparently Tues. afternoon wasn't the right time either. Very well-meaning man working there told us to not waste our money on admission for just two hours. Said come back on Wed....spend all day there. We agreed and headed to our hotel. Went out to eat, went swimming, went to bed, ready for Wed. adventures.

Two hours later, my second child was awake and throwing up all over everything in the room. This went on allllllllll night. By morning he was exhausted and dry heaving, and I was just exhausted from being up all night, and his sister was READY TO GO HAVE FUN. Our friends went on to the museum, and we stayed behind, still thinking this might be a brief bug of some sort. We ended up staying in the hotel all day, watching crap t.v. and sleeping and not having any fun. We went swimming again last night, after going out to eat (sick boy ate a few fries and that was all) then decided to go to the Magic House today....surely he would be better. No, he wasn't. Nausea is gone, but he is really tired and not up to doing anything close to the Magic House. SOooooo....we piled in the car and headed home. Child no. 1 is very upset, and rightly so, about her ruined spring break, and I'm tired of listening to complaining and whining.

So folks, basically I just dropped a couple of hundred dollars to stay in a nice hotel room in St. Louis with one sick child, and one impatient child for two days.

Let's just say I'm glad to be home.

Will someone please spellcheck?

There is a street here in my town named "Delaware St." Within four blocks there are two different versions of the spelling, on four different sign posts.

There isn't anything significant about this other than it makes me fear for the quality of education in this county. Of course nearly every child daycare facility has an incorrectly spelled name....Kids Kountry, Pla-Tyme, Kountry Kousins, Kiddie Kare. And the local newspaper has misspelled words sprouting like weeds throughout each edition.

ants

No doubt owing to global warming, we have been overtaken by tiny ants. We've had them every year since we moved out here in the country from our city place a few years ago, and actually had someone come spray for them a couple of springs back, but we've never had them as infested as this year. We had an exterminator guy come over today, and he clearly loves his job and loves huntin' ants. He pointed with glee at the microscopic crack in the foundation under our front brick stairs and said, "there's your problem! I guarantee there's billions of ants living under those stairs."

Yes, he said Billions.

I'm just freaked out about the idea of billions of anything being on my property, let alone ants.

I don't think we have a billion leaves on our trees. I don't think we have a billion dandelions in our yard, although sometimes it looks like it. I don't think we even have a billion crushed Cheerios in our carpet, although sometimes I suspect it.

And don't write snarly comments that the crushed Cheerios might be the reason for the billions of ants....everyone locally is having "ant issues" this spring.