Sleep Deprivation

Last night I went through what has become my sleep routine, sad as it is. I took a tiny knock-off Benadryl tablet to help me become drowsy, read a book until my eyes felt grainy, then nodded off for a couple of hours until the pain in my hip woke me. At that point I went to the bathroom, took something for the pain and hoped to fall asleep within the next hour. Sometimes I fall back asleep quickly; other times I sit up, stretch my hip and resume my book until the pain medicine kicks in. In a worst-case scenario I will take a second Benadryl which seems to have an equal chance of either putting me back to sleep or wiring me until dawn.

When I returned from the bathroom at around 1:15 a.m. I fell back asleep quickly. As I dreamed that Katie's school was burning while her pants hung in the school window, I felt a strange tickling on my forehead. I brushed it off of my dream self, but it continued softly scratching until I awoke to find myself brushing my real-self hairline. The irritating culprit scrambled away and I almost fell back asleep before my brain could kick in. Almost.

What was that?! What if it was a spider? What if it was a brown recluse?!

I sat up as quickly as I could and turned on my light as a huge rush of sleep-squelching adrenaline surged through my system. Beside me on my green duvet cover was the evil tickler, a cave cricket like the one in the picture above. I flicked it off of my bed, immediately wishing I would have crunched it with my hardback book. Ick!

I've had enough trouble sleeping due to typical sleep stealers like pain, racing mind, too much caffeine and lack of exercise. Some people imagine that bugs are crawling all over them. In my case, they really are. I don't need this.

I need sleep. Deep, uninterrupted, non-drug-induced, long sleep.

Our Fall Festival

It was a beautiful morning for a run. The clear dawn air was 63 degrees cool and a fine mist hovered above the river one hundred feet below the bluff where we set up our registration and hospitality tables. Today was the bazillionth annual Oswegofest, but only the FIRST annual Oswegofest 5k Run/Walk, which my friend Sheri organized and at which my family (as well as several others) helped.

Carl loved telling everyone that his job was to stop traffic (he did, indeed, stop traffic so the runners could cross a specific intersection safely); Katie, Hailey and Jenna (Sheri's daughter and the girls' friend) sat at another intersection to ensure the runners turned the right direction; and Hannah and I worked the registration table and tabulated the final results. It was a roaring success, if I do say so myself. I'm already excited for our second annual 5k.


Hannah earned a gold medal--I think just for being so darn cute:

I'm particularly proud of our community. People are friendly. The park is beautiful, especially today with the extra mums and fall decorations arranged neatly throughout. On days like today living in a small town feels idyllic.

One vendor boiled eggs, drained them, then refilled them with confetti and taped them closed. Kids purchased the confetti eggs for a quarter each (yes--PER EGG) and had a ball smashing them on each other and throwing them at just about anyone. Katie got nailed--I wish you could see all of the confetti in her hair.



In addition to the first annual 5k we watched the first annual, absolutely hilarious wiener dog race. Sheri and I were concerned that more wiener dogs entered their race than we had in the 5k. Since we had twenty walkers and runners and they had eighteen dogs, our dignity remained intact. Even though the wiener dog race organizers shortened the track from 100 feet to 75 feet, the dogs ran about halfway, then became confused. Some pups returned to the starting line, some sniffed the spectators and one feisty pooch barked at and intimidated his fellow racers. What a RIOT! This picture of the starting line of heat #1 was taken about twenty seconds after the beginning of the race. Remember, this is NOT the finish line.



Hannah spent over an hour at the petting zoo while Katie and Hailey jumped on an enormous inflated thingy. Because the boys very young men operating it didn't appear to have any rules or guidelines, I'm surprised no one suffered broken bones or other injuries. The girls have a couple of burns, but otherwise they clearly enjoyed themselves.



I'm not complaining by any means. I could have--and did--have the girls quit playing on it when the bouncing-children population exceeded the population throughout the entire park.

These are a few of my petting zoo pictures. Thank you to Robin for providing this chicken picture from her camera phone. I wish my camera phone took pictures like this.



Two of my favorite people in the world....




Is there anything cuter than kids and bunnies?





Now this is one ugly chicken....

We had a "sanctioned" kiddy tractor pull. I don't know anyone in the picture, but look at all those trophies in the background!

You could take a ride around the park in this antique fire engine.






The library sponsored a pumpkin decorating contest. I love the library.



We even had a Guitar Hero contest. Rock on! I don't have pics of that because no one in my family knows how to play Guitar Hero. Yet.


We were all tuckered out, so I took some final pictures at the park's entrance. I wish I could better-describe what an all-around beautiful day we had. Life is good.

Newest Family Member

This is Katie's birthday present, Pippin. Pippin the parakeet.

I'm definitely a dog person and definitely not a cat person, but I refuse to own another dog until our fence is completed and will contain the dog. Since that refusal we have killed owned two guinea pigs, possessed and flushed one goldfish, briefly kept a cat (only because Hannah responded to it verbally before she was verbal), and stored numerous turtles, crawdads, frogs and toads. Pippin is my favorite so far.

Katie and I selected and purchased a large, white bird cage on e-bay which we erected in the corner of the living room, having been informed that Pippin will be more likely to talk if kept in a high-traffic environment. We can certainly provide a high-traffic environment.

So, here's my question to you: what should we teach the bird to say? I'm looking for something unique, not the usual "Pippin wants a cracker" or "Pretty bird." I was thinking maybe "Wanna margarita?" Or how about "Welcome to the funny farm." Surely you witty folk can come up with something better than that.

No profanity, please, but leave me some good ideas in the comments. OK?

M a t

Hannah read her first word! Mat. I have some Bob Books ("Bob Books" is linked, but my brown background doesn't show it) saved from the days when I taught Katie and Hailey to read. That in itself is worth posting: that I still have the books, that they are still intact and that Katie I was able to find them. Truthfully, I thought I had disposed of them years ago, but Katie proved me wrong by retrieving them last night.

I was somewhat surprised when Hannah knew the sounds that each letter made. Involved mother that I am, I didn't realize she was learning that. I certainly didn't teach her.

Her attempt to read the word went something like this.

Hannah: "Emm...ay-aaa...tuh-tee."

Me: "No, Hannah, you just say the sound. You don't name the letter. Like this. Mmm...aaaa....tuh."

Hannah: "Mmmmm...aaaaa....tuh-tee." Close.

Me: "OK, put them all together." And eventually she did!

This jolly fellow possessed the next name she read.




And this is how she read it:
"SSSSSS...aaaaaa....mmmmmmMMMMAT."

We're getting there.

Opening Day

Yesterday marked the beginning of bow season for deer hunters in Kansas. It wasn't until the last few years that I knew there was such a thing as bow season, or any hunting "season" for that matter. My marriage to a hunter has given new meaning to the phrase to everything there is a season. Kansas even has a squirrel season, with a possession limit of twenty squirrels. Consider this an open invitation to any hunter who wants to shoot a few squirrels, as I'm pretty sure you could reach your limit on my tiny 80 x 100 foot piece of property. Just be careful of the neighbor church's stained glass windows. OK?

We even have a crow season.

Enough of that. I swear Carl was born in the wrong century. If he had it his way, we would live entirely off of the game he brings home and we would plant a garden and preserve its contents so that we could subsist off of it through the winter months. If he could figure out a way to "live off the grid," we would.

I, on the other hand, enjoy the convenience of store-bought bread and fruits and vegetables that have been canned en masse at some far-away factory. I have no desire to ever milk a cow. My experience with vegetable gardens has been tortuous since childhood when mom sent my brother and me out to weed our enormous garden, then hauled us to help grandma in her even-larger garden. Don't get me started on the evil of hand-picked cherries and apples. I'm certain all of that hard work developed character within me...somewhere.

I've ambled far from my original thought's path. Hunting. Where was I...? Oh yes--Carl.

Carl has been slow and steady at honing is hunting skills. He purchased the "Big Buck" DVDs, read through various catalogs and magazines and sought the advice of successful hunters. While Carl found the DVDs dramatic and informative, I saw them as the highest form of comedy. I literally laughed out loud at the tense whisperings of the camo-clad hunters perched atop their climbing tree stands: "Look at that buck. It's a BIG buck." Adrenaline and testosterone practically dripped out of my television screen.

The preparation for a morning of hunting is unbelievable. The same man who refused to see the benefit in helping his daughters find their shoes, lay out their clothes and bathe before bedtime suddenly became a preparedness guru. He showered with scent-neutralizing soap and shampoo, ran his hunting clothes through the dryer with a scent-neutralizing dryer sheet, packed same clothes into a plastic bag along with a scent-free towel and laid them all out the night before along with his hunting gear. He awakened before dawn, drank a little coffee, drove in his civilian clothes to the hunting site, changed into his scent-free camo and set out for a tree stand.

This next part is true, though it didn't happen yesterday. Carl made himself comfortable and invisible in his tree stand and waited. And waited. Within the hour the sun peeked over the horizon and Carl could see his breath in the cold morning light. No big bucks. The only nature calling to him was the result of the coffee he drank, but peeing wasn't an option unless he wanted to erase all the scent-removal he had so tediously accomplished.

More waiting.

Did I mention Carl is a smoker?

Still waiting.

No buck. No anything. Carl "held it" until "it" caused physical pain, but could not forego a cigarette. He lit up. Still no buck (imagine that). Finally recognizing that A) he wasn't going to see a deer that morning and B) if he waited any longer he would pee his pants, Carl loaded up, practically fell down the ladder and relieved himself on the tree. It's really not a good thing to urinate under your tree stand.

Needless to say, Carl came home empty-handed that day. Yesterday as well. But yesterday he departed without so much as a sip of coffee and with a nicotine patch pressed firmly to his butt.

Only 100 days of bow season to go.

Collecting Memories

Note several days later: the end of this post is rated R--for both "Restricted" and "Risque". I've changed the original wording, but still caution any new readers.

I have kept a journal ever since my tenth birthday when mom and dad gave me a cute bound book with Precious Moments on the faux leather white cover. I began by writing about my friends, about whatever boy I had a crush on that week, about all things pre-pubescent. I graduated to writing of my dramatic high school teen angst, about my idealistic philosophies, my goals and my rants. Because I analyzed absolutely everything, the page became my therapist.

A few years ago I caught a friend of mine burning her journals outside in a small fire. When I asked her why, she said that she was married now, that the journals contained information about a previous relationship, that keeping them would be disrespectful to her husband. As she threw the pages individually into the flame, we watched the written memories blaze, then reduce to ashes and blow away in the breeze. I considered my own box of memories tucked away in the attic waiting to whisper my secrets to anyone who sought them or even accidentally happened upon them. Were the stories of boyfriends past, the documentations of mistakes I wished I hadn't made, somehow secretly poisoning my marriage? What if Carl read them? Should I burn them before they burned us?

I decided no. Those journals contained no secrets from Carl or from anyone for that matter. Sure, I made some decisions in my youth that I would change if I could, but burning a page does not destroy the past. I realized that Carl probably knew all of the "big" things contained in my diaries and that he was strong enough to handle those that he didn't. I have since learned that he is disinterested. Either that, or he would rather not know. Whichever it is, it's fine by me.

As I live farther and farther in time from my earlier entries, I become less embarrassed by the stupid things I did and more chagrined by my overwhelming self-absorption. Some things never change.

I just realized: destroying my journals would also eliminate the good memories contained therein. I'll leave you with this anecdote, one about which I wrote and stashed away up there somewhere. If I could find it easily, I would re-read it for accuracy. As it is, I'll have to depend upon my memory.

The summer after my freshman year of college I went to San Francisco with a high school friend, Nancy. One morning we walked from our hotel to an outdoor restaurant near the Golden Gate Bridge for some breakfast. The morning air was cool and foggy and we enjoyed a freedom we didn't yet know to appreciate. As we leisurely ate our breakfast and watched people go by, we noticed a lady walking from the bridge in heels. One of her heels was broken, causing her to limp. Her hair and makeup were a mess and her clothes, though new, were disheveled. She hobbled to a pay phone, tried to place a call, hung up and looked right at us. To our surprise, she invited herself to sit with us and began to tell her story with a distinctly Irish accent.

She and her boyfriend had gone to a party together the night before. Though she gave us quite a few details, I don't recall them. I only remember that she and the guy had a disagreement or an all out fight and he left her at the party. Still in our late teens, Nancy and I listened with shocked amusement as the lady told us that she got trashed and passed out at the party and that her walk across the bridge that morning was her hungover trek home. Boy was she pissed! As her story continued she became more animated, waving her hands as she explained that she had tried to call the boyfriend before leaving the party that morning and had tried again to call him from the pay phone, but he wasn't answering.

Her story surprised us more by the fact that it came from a complete stranger than by its content. That is, until the final sentence. With uninhibited candor she concluded her tale by informing us in her Irish brogue, "I don't know what he's thinking, but I'll tell you one thing for sure. By God, there'll be no bleeeep tonight!" We nearly fell out of our chairs.

It wouldn't matter if I burned that journal entry--the memory is forever seared into my brain.

Open Letter to the Distracted Driver at Second and Wisconsin

What the bleep bleep bleep were you thinking?! At exactly 7:53 this morning you ran the stop sign at the intersection of Second and Wisconsin streets, a mere three blocks from the grade school. Had I not been paying attention, I would have entered the intersection at precisely the same time--just in time for you to ram into the driver's side--my side--of my little white Hyandai with your big black Dodge Ram (aptly named) at approximately 50 miles per hour.

With your cell phone smashed firmly to your right ear by your right hand, you glanced over at me from the center of the crossroads. Your face barely registered recognition of the fact that, had I been on the phone as well, had I chosen that city block in which to look for something on the seat next to me or to glance over and change the radio station, had I been doing anything other than giving my complete concentration to the road, you would have crushed and killed me. Killed me.

The corner is a blind one, you idiot. What could possibly have been so important that you drove at a ridiculous speed in the direction of a grade school, so close to the grade school, a mere seven minutes before school started and failed to even notice a stop sign?! What if I had been a ten-year-old truckin' it to school at the last minute on her bicycle?

Use your brain, get off your cell phone and pay attention. At least get a Bluetooth or a hands free headset. Or give up your right to drive. You sicken me...but at least you didn't kill me.


Barely still breathing,
Angela

Bank of America Rant

Wall Street word of the day: LARGE. Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc. has filed the largest U.S. bankruptcy. American International Group (AIG), the largest insurance company in the world, threatens to crumble. Bank of America, which has the largest number of deposits of any U.S. bank, is buying out the world's largest brokerage, Merrill Lynch. Egads.

We had a foretaste of this in March when JPMorgan Chase bought out Bear Stearns with a little help from the Fed. I suppose that since Bank of America is doing its part to bail out America without the Fed's help (as it should be -- and should have been-- in my humble opinion), I ought to be singing B of A's praises, or at the very least saying nothing.

But I'm not. On the large scale Bank of America is the good guy, though don't think for a minute that I'm suggesting the Merrill Lynch buyout is purely humanitarian. On the small scale, I'm personally miffed with Bank of America.

Yesterday, when the biggest news on television was still the Sarah Palin-Charles Gibson interview and Hurricane Ike, I logged on to pay my Bank of America credit card online. Due date: Monday, September 15. You would think that when dealing with one of America's largest banks, complete with Internet banking, I could enter a payment on September 14 that would post by September 15. This is the age of instant everything, right? Wrong. My payment would not post until September 16, resulting in a $35 late fee plus interest. Their site informed me that Express Payment was available for a $15 charge.

Now, I wasn't completely ignorant yesterday. I've waited until the last minute or simply forgotten my payment date before. In the past I've paid the fifteen bucks for Express Payment or taken a beating with the late fee and interest. One time I even spoke with a customer service "manager" who finally agreed to void the late payment and interest fees only after lecturing me about how I shouldn't wait until the last minute and couldn't expect them to do this again. Yeah--whatever.


Yesterday I'd had enough. I've had this credit card for fifteen years (though Bank of America only bought out my previous credit card company a few years ago). I know good and well that Bank of America could get their money by the due date if I posted it twenty-four hours in advance. In fact, if I pay my other credit card online by 5:00 p.m. on the due date, I'm considered current. That other credit card is owned by the American bank with the largest number of assets. Surely B of A could compete. But why should they?

Full of righteous indignation, I called Bank of America's customer service line, punched in the last four digits of my account number, listened through sixty seconds of unrequested, automated account information and several different menus before being connected with a human being named Lenny. Seriously--Lenny. I immediately pictured this and couldn't get it out of my mind:



"Hey, Lenny, I want to pay my credit card online." And how are the Squigtones? I wanted to add. Remembering my experience with the previous "manager," I added, "The only way I can avoid late fees at this point is to make an Express Payment, right?"

"Let me look here." While I waited I mentally rehearsed my I-want-to-cancel-my-card-this-is-ridiculous speech. Lenny continued, "Yes, it's due tomorrow, so you'd have to use Express Payment. Or you can go to myeasypayment.com"

"What? Where's that? Is that website given on the Bank of America page I'm looking at?" I asked, incredulous. Had I been missing this all along?

"No. It's just a website people sometimes use when they don't have a Bank of America checking account."

"Why isn't it listed there next to the $15 Express Payment option?" I asked. Of course he had no answer. He's just lowly Lenny at the bottom of the Bank of America customer service chain. I went to myeasypayment.com a little fearfully, expecting to find a never-before-heard-of company that would ask for all the information I didn't want to give like social security number, birthdate, mother's maiden name.

But, no. The first picture to download to my screen was the well-known Bank of America logo. Myeasypayment.com was directly affiliated with Bank of America! Why was I just now learning of this? Was I the only ignorant Bank of America customer? Why didn't the earlier "manager" tell me about it rather than chastise me like a tardy kindergartener?

I didn't know and didn't care. I didn't give the megabank the benefit of the doubt but instead assumed that this was their greedy method of extracting $15 or more from thousands of other procrastinators just like me. I cancelled my card and insisted that Lenny document the reason behind the cancellation, certain that the large financial institution would take notice of little ol' me who pays her meager balance in full every month. I expected a letter of apology along with an offer for 0% interest over the next twelve months. Ha!

Anyhow--take that, Bank of America.

Friendly Visit

I posted here and here that summer 2008 would be my healing summer-- physically, spiritually, relationally (is that a word?). I made some minor headway physically by procuring a prescription for the antibiotic protocol (AP) and purchasing the supplements my AP doctor recommended. However, neither the supplements nor the antibiotics prove efficacious unless I actually ingest them. So, I give myself a C-minus in Physical Health Improvement class.

In those same posts I stated that I wanted to heal lost relationships with one person in mind: Bob. My grade in that class? A+. Bob visited Monday through Thursday this past week for the first time in several years and I was sad to see him go. You would never have known that we had lost touch prior to this summer.

While he visited we enjoyed the freshly ground coffee and a pan of the most decadent, chocolate brownies imaginable, both brought by Bob. Knock that Physical Health Improvement grade down to a D-plus. One afternoon we sat outside in the sunshine for an hour or two and talked about subjects as diverse as health issues, relationships, traveling and ideologies behind books like The Secret. Bob's IQ is in the 150s, so visiting with him is comfortably challenging, though not pretentious.

To the outsider ours appears an odd relationship, though less so as the years pass. Bob is in his seventies, while I have just turned forty. Whether it's a result of the arthritis or simply my nature, I find it easiest to relate to older people. Their years provide for a genuine understanding of what holds authentic value in this world and our generation gap eliminates most--if not all--competition between us. I can simply "be," especially with Bob. At the same time, Bob's friends are all under the age of fifty. We're naturally drawn to each other.

As an added bonus this week the French Door Room was officially company-ready! I spent Sunday unpacking the blue bedding I had purchased a year ago, making the bed, sweeping up spiders, moving furniture and even driving to Wal-mart for last-minute necessities. Having a guest room has been MANY years in the making as you already know. The only thing I couldn't control was the neighbor's yipping dog.

Bob arrived on a cool, sunny autumn day. A light rain fell as he drove away Thursday. I know it's cliche for a writer to make the weather imitate emotion, but in my case it actually did.

Happy Birthday, Blog!

My infant blog has made it to birthday number one. See the confetti fly! Hear the noise makers squawk, rattle and ffffttt! What began as a creative outlet doubling as a means for collecting memories has transformed into a minor obsession.

Now that I have completed the requisite festival description, I'll get down to reality. I don't actually hear noise makers; I only hear a distant train under a quiet rain shower's tapping against the leaves and sidewalk outside. Carl has taken Hannah to help the Knights of Columbus prepare a breakfast for the town's city-wide garage salers and the house is blessedly silent...and orange. In spite of the clouds caused by the shower, the sunrise is casting a beautifully odd orange glow into my living room. It's magical.


These real-life sights and sounds are better than any meditative CD and have made me introspective. This past year I've learned that this blog has similarities to my own children. When I give it lots of attention, it thrives. When I tire of it and avoid it, I feel guilty. Consistency provides better long-term results than hyperattentiveness followed by a major crash-and-burn. As with everything in life, balance is the key.

Last year marked the beginning of my girls' public school career as well as my own entrance into the public school system as a mom and volunteer. I felt as green as I was. Now, sensing my own seasoning, I'm experiencing a little discontent, a mild sensation of Now What? For the first time in twelve years I have free, uninterrupted time. How shall I spend it? What do I want to be when I grow up?

When I mentioned this to Carl he said, "I thought you'd want to be a housewife." Nothing against housewives, but YUCK! My immediate, uncensored thought was what a waste. Not only that, but I stink at it. My dislike of cleaning is magnified by the extra effort and arthritic pain required to accomplish it. I enjoy cooking...when I feel like it. I have excellent decorating ideas, but my abilities stop there.

Before you judge me a spoiled brat, realize that the previous, succinct paragraph summarizes twelve years. That's 624 weeks--4380 days (not calculating leap years)--of meal planning, laundry completing (only to begin again), toilet scrubbing, bed-making (OK, I don't actually make beds), and cleaning, on top of the more-than-part-time job of bookkeeping for our family business. Those years include the planning of twelve Christmases and forty birthdays for my husband and children. In the summer those same years incorporated mowing, planting, weeding, spraying and whatever-else my yard has needed. My point is NOT look at everything I've done. My point IS: I've done those things and I've done them mostly sometimes occasionally??? happily. Now I'm ready to consider something different.

But what?

I've considered completing my degree. I have more than 125 hours of college credits under my belt in music and accounting, but I have no degree to show for them. I started to explain my limitations in finishing those fields, but realized I was merely making excuses. The truth is, they don't appeal to me any more.

What does appeal to me? Writing. I like to write. LOVE to write. If I could complete the college degree of my choice, it would be a creative writing degree. How impractical is that? Nevertheless, I've downloaded the forms necessary to transfer my college transcripts to a local university, just for kicks.

One serendipity of arthritis is that my "someday" is as limited as my body. You know, someday I'm going to ____________. If I don't do things today, I may not get to do them at all. I don't have the luxury of waiting until I'm eighty to finish a useless degree. I need to waste that time NOW.

So, happy birthday, blog. And happy BIRTHday future.

Hurricane HannaH: Downgraded to a Tropical Storm

As I watched Hurricane Hanna swirl counterclockwise through The Bahamas and towards America’s eastern coastline earlier this week, I couldn’t help but consider the appropriateness of her name, even if it was misspelled. School began two weeks ago and I’m cautiously optimistic that my own Hannah will imitate meteorology.

Let’s back up a little here. This is Hannah’s fourth year of preschool. Though she turns six in November and is thus old enough to begin Kindergarten, we have chosen to hold her back one more year. We made this choice primarily because, though she is the oldest in her class, she is also the shortest (genetic testing, anyone?). Maybe by next year she will be the same height as her classmates and will avoid the stigma and constant questions surrounding her short stature.

OK. Not really. I mean, yes she’s that short. No, I’m not that ridiculous…except in my imagination.

We’ve held her back for several authentic reasons. First, kindergarten is an all-day affair, five days a week. Preschool lasts three hours Monday through Thursday. Given Hannah’s inability to focus last year, kindergarten promised to be a form of legal torture for all involved and certainly not a learning experience of the good kind.

Second, at the conclusion of the past school year Hannah could only be understood by those regularly involved in her life, and even then she frequently required a translator, even for me. Woe to those who could not translate, again even for me. ESPECIALLY for me.

Third, I’m not certain Hannah was emotionally ready for kindergarten. Then again, I’m not sure she wasn’t.

I only question my decision to retain Hannah in preschool when I consider her intellect. She’s one smart little girl, a fact often disguised by her inability to express herself easily. Not only is she intelligent, but she is the most persistent, determined child I know. But enough of my subjective mommy boasting.

Over the summer Hannah’s speech improved to a level at which strangers could understand her approximately 75% of the time. It progressed so far that I no longer found it easy or cute to imitate on this blog, though that doesn’t mean I won’t. At home her meltdowns decreased, her attention span improved a smidgen (a technical term meant to be intentionally vague) and she remained accident-free (of the potty-training variety) about 85% of the time, nighttime excluded. I have high hopes for the school year.

Now we can return to present-day. My three daughters each attend a separate school, so when it’s time to pick them up at the end of the day, I zoom across town—clear across town (he he)—to three separate schools, beginning with Hannah’s.

Let me digress here and say that I learned on day one that Hannah must make a trip to the little girls’ room before leaving her school. Her bladder will not hold through the subsequent two stops and my hip joint refuses to walk the fifty yards to the building then down twelve steps to the Katie’s middle school rest room. Thank goodness I had a Pull-up in the car (bad mommy, bad mommy).

Why am I boring you with these details? To explain that I haven’t had the opportunity to chat with Hannah’s teachers after school. Consequently, I heard no bad news. No news is good news, right? Truthfully, I asked no questions and departed from Hannah’s school so quickly each day that I wasn’t certain that no news was good news. Until Tuesday when Miss Ann said that Hannah had been doing a great job so far paying attention at seatwork time.

WOO-HOO!

However, Tuesday evening at home Hannah imitated a category 5 hurricane when I relegated her to her room as punishment for picking on Hailey. While in her room she dismantled her thankfully-empty potty chair, emptied her underwear drawer, sock drawer and several off-weather-clothes drawers, and pulled the sheets off of her bed. Sometimes punishing one’s children results in worse punishment for the punisher. Did you get that? I think it really did hurt me more than it hurt her.

Despite the home hurricane incident, Wednesday I practically strutted in to get Hannah. Well, as much as one can strut when leaning on her cane. Anyhow, when I entered the school, kerPOW! No more strutting. Hannah had pottied her pants. Twice. Bummer.

Thursday passed without incident and here it is Friday. With two weeks of school behind us and only one bad day, I believe my own Hurricane Hannah is downgrading to a tropical storm. We’ll probably experience our own equivalent of high winds, flooding (hopefully not of the “number one” kind) and possible power outages, but I believe the worst is behind us.

I’m forecasting a good year.

Feeding the Home Improvement Beast

I spent my Labor Day feeding taking advantage of Lowe's twelve-months-no-payment-no-interest beast offer. I accomplished more than I could have alone because I paid Katie to be my shopping buddy. Yes, I paid her. Seven whopping dollars, for the entire day, not per hour. I can hear the judgmental voices already: You shouldn't pay her, she's your daughter. She's SUPPOSED to help you. However, if the people articulating those words knew how many times daily I interrupted the girls to bring me this or get that from a shelf, they might decide to keep it to themselves.

I hear some Billy Joel coming on (yes, I'm old) ...

I don't care what you say any more
'Cause it's my life
Go ahead with your own life
Leave me alone.

Once Katie and I agreed on a price (Me: "I need you to help me shop in Joplin today. I'll pay you seven dollars." Katie: "OK."), we loaded my chair, the leftover Pergo flooring I needed to return, and lots and lots of measurements and drove east.

We arrived at Lowe's around 11:00 a.m.--at precisely the same time as half of Joplin. The sunny, warm weather on the unofficial last day of summer evidently gave everyone else the same idea as mine. I sent Katie, squinting in the sunshine, to retrieve a cart on which to place our Pergo, which was like sending her across a Nascar track during the Indy 500. She finally chose to find a cart in one of those cart corrals rather than from in front of the store and trotted off across the asphalt. In the meantime I unloaded my chair using my Bruno lift, which squawks at an embarrassing decibel because the bearings need replaced. Together Katie and I unloaded the boxes of laminate, looking like Laurel and Hardy as we dropped boxes, tipped the cart and generally struggled as we giggled. Finally, finding a break in the traffic, we zipped across the main drive and through the jaw-like automatic doors of Lowe's, where I lost three hours of my life and hundreds of dollars to the home-improvement monster.

When we started the building project, I didn't have a realistic grasp of the number of decisions that would be required of me. For example, at the last minute Carl asked, "Could you pick up a couple of registers for the new bathroom ceiling air vents?"

"Sure. What size?"

"Oh, they're standard. Get a white one."

"Go ahead and measure it," I requested, and thank God I did. Lowe's provided at least thirty white registers: floor registers, ceiling and wall registers, louvred registers, 3-way registers, 2-way registers. You get the idea. Then I had to select the right size, which posed a problem. Carl had measured the rough opening at 4" x 10". Lowe's sold a 4x10 vent cover, but would that fit a 4x10 rough opening, or should I purchase a 6"x12" register? What I thought I could accomplish alone in one minute took fifteen minutes and a phone call.

Next I spent ten minutes choosing a handrail for our staircase (again with the choices!, only to realize a 12-foot rail would not fit into my Tahoe. Moving on...

I carried on a ten-minute conversation with a Lowe's employee about the pros and cons of an electric tankless hot water heater versus a natural gas one. I went against his advice, deciding to purchase electric instead of gas. Because Lowe's didn't have any in stock, I planned to buy one from Home Depot later that day, where they were also offering 12 months of free financing.

I could bore you with every example, but suffice it to say that every item I purchased required three times the selection-process-time I expected. Nevertheless, I left with 90% of the items on my list and drove to Home Depot.

Unfortunately, when Veronica, the Home Depot employee, dropped the electric tankless hot water heater into my cart, I noticed a collection of IMPORTANT INFORMATION written inside a big red explosion shape. Of course, I might as well have been reading the Spanish side of the box since I had no clue what "Volts 240/208v; Amps 120/101 (3 x 40 amps); etc" meant. Veronica called some guy from electrical and by the time I made my decision, four Home Depot employees surrounded me. Home Depot wasn't nearly as busy as Lowe's.

Feel free to skip this paragraph entirely because it's the equivalent of an I-told-you-so-nanny-nanny-boo-boo-you-never-listen-to-me rant. A year ago we contracted some major electrical work to wire in the building project as well as to bring our 1950s house up to code. At the time my brother-in-law, SuperEd, had recommended we have a 200 amp panel (I call it a breaker box) installed. When I requested a 200-amp panel, both Carl and the electrician pooh-poohed me like I was an ignorant female and instead installed a 100-amp panel. Guess what we need in order to power that snazzy electric water heater. That's right. The bright red explosion evidently explained that we must have a minimum of 150 amps--a 200-amp panel. It looks like we'll be hiring a natural gas guy to run some pipe, or whatever the lingo is.

When I told Katie we had to return to Lowe's her entire body sagged and I could tell she thought the measly seven bucks was highway robbery. I promised her some shopping time at Bed Bath & Beyond as well as a stop at Braum's on our way out of town and she picked up her step, seeing the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. When we exited the Tahoe at Lowe's we were flooded with the smells of suppertime emanating from the nearby restaurants and realized we had skipped lunch. Hunger hurried us and we purchased the GAS hot water heater in record time, feeding the Lowe's beast one more time before feeding ourselves.

All-in-all the day was an expensive success. Thankfully we have twelve more months to pay for it.