To Disney, and beyond

I took my computer with me on the Disney trip, but I was way too bushed by the time we got back to the room every evening to even think about opening it up. During the time it took for the computer to boot up, I would have fallen asleep anyway. So I have no contemporaneous descriptions of our experiences, but it’s not like I need to reliably recreate a crime scene from memory, so no loss, but if I hadn’t needed Mapquest that weekend, hauling the laptop around the Western US would have been a completely useless activity.

So, quick trip recap:

We left Thursday morning and drove through to Las Vegas and checked into the seminar hotel and walked into a room bigger than our back yard. The girls thought they were finally in surroundings worthy of their heretofore unrecognized status as descendants of Kings.
Wow, who does excess like Las Vegas? On Friday, my best friend’s brother, SIL and teen-aged niece threw themselves into non-stop girl entertainment while I attended the seminar. On Friday evening , after getting the full run down about the day’s activities, bowling, hot-tubbing, decorating Halloween cookies, board games, dress ups, Disney Channel (big treat, we don’t have cable) and hours of Capture the Princess, I started to get a little worried that Disney would be a huge let down for them. The girls loved their day in LV and I can’t ever thank Phil, Mary and Megan enough. Ever. Not to mention the bags of incredibly cute and hardly ever worn hand-me-downs from Megan. I can’t even begin to calculate how much I will save in not having to buy blue jeans alone. So glad I drive a van. We're talking BIG bags of loot.

Speaking of driving a van, on Saturday morning we left LV and headed out for So. Cal. We hooked up with the Ellison family just outside of LV and I followed them the rest of the way until I peeled off in Anaheim (they were staying the night a litter further south). I tell you kid, that’s the only way to drive, I just sort of drafted off Stephen the whole way down. He picked the lanes, when to pass, the freeway links and I just followed in my ovine mini van. So relaxing, the only way to fly.

It seemed like I blinked and we arrived in Orange County on Saturday afternoon, so we had time to check into our hotel room and then zoom over to Newport Beach so the girls could put their toes in the sand and say they’ve seen the Pacific Ocean. This was YuYu and Nora’s first glimpse of an ocean, that I know of anyway.


YuYu could have stayed all evening and gone back every day. The next big vacation will have to be beach oriented for my YuYu Bee. She just loved it.

The kids had a GREAT time in Disney. I had fun having fun with them and sharing their Disney Character, live, in the flesh, euphoria.








Nora was pretty good, for Nora. When she went through turnstiles, she kept purposefully trying to wham whichever kid was in back of her with the turnstile, like no one would notice that she was aiming and timing the twist. After the third day of that, and many calm warnings and always trying to grab her to go last, I finally lost my temper with her on the Disneyland train stop in New Orleans Square. A fine scene for everyone waiting for the train to see: overwrought Mom hissing in small, tired, hot daughter’s face until she cried. It wasn’t so much the whamming that made me so angry, it was the insincere apology she bit out to Mimi that made me fly apart. Nora, as always, was only sad that she got caught, not that she was leaving bruises on her sisters every time she managed to get in front of them in a turnstile. But after herding four kids under ten years old through Disney single handedly without ever losing any of them, if that was the worst of it, I think I should get the freaking mother of the year award.

I tell you kid (my mom has a friend that peppers her conversations with “I tell you kid,” even though they are both over seventy now), the constant vigilance of keeping track of them wore me down to the nubs. And I do mean constant, “C’mon Meems, fast feet, fast feet,” “Nora Bud, if you can’t stay by me, I’m going to tie you to me with a rope, I swear to God,” “YuYu Bee, please please please keep up,” “Girls stay together, stay together, please, keep me in your sight,” “Ellie, thank you little friend, I could NOT do this without you, you are the best.” It is just very very tiring, but all the Disney moments, “MOM!! That’s Ursula, she’s REAL!!,” made it completely worthwhile, although we won’t be doing Disney again soon, I need a spiritual rest. And the girls need to run A LOT of excess adrenalin out of their systems.





We met up with with the Ellisons in Disney on Sunday afternoon (THEE CHI family (you kind of need the local cultural reference to understand that one, e.g., Thee Church, and be conversant in Chinese WC adoption lore)) for a really nice party at the home (well the g’parents’ home, but oh, wow, so nice, what a treat) of a So. Cal CHI family in Encino on Sunday afternoon.


It was also a very real pleasure to get reacquainted with So. Cal Super Parents C and D and meet the two children they’ve brought into their family since the first time we met a few years ago here in Zion.

Okay, maybe it’s just me, but bombing down the Hollywood Freeway with exit signs for all the great streets of song and film flying past, it just gives me a tingle. I also had the privilege a meeting an efriend in the flesh: a calm and fun single mom from the Bay area and her darling, darling, precocious is the understatement of the century, child L, and if I get her permission, I’ll post some pictures and a link to their own blog. D and I mistimed Monday evening and didn’t get around to feeding our kids until 9:00 pm at the IHOP on Harbor Blvd. YuYu, my waif, almost fell asleep on her pancakes; she just does not have a very deep well to draw from when she’s low on sleep. So maybe that admission nixes my mom of the year trophy, but, hey who knew only two of four logs were running on Splash Mountain? And once you’re inside the mountain, tough luck brother, you’re stuck, ride or die.

And, of course, the Highlight with a capital High: The Princess Lunch at Ariel's Grotto. You can't put a price on princess love, unless of course you're Disney, but a chance to meet the "real" princesses, priceless (Is VISA/Mastercard/evil consumer credit lender still running that contest for a write your own ad? I might be onto something).







We trick or treated on Tuesday evening at California Adventure and that was pretty fun too. Lots of characters were out and about and the Disney people had treat stations set up around the park and my kids who were worried about missing out on Halloween if we didn’t get back home in time the next day, got pounds of candy that night. Those Disney folks covered all the bases. That’s what makes them great.






I drove straight through from Anaheim to home on Wednesday; can I say thank you thank you and a few Hosannas to the gods of ceiling installed DVD players? and still made it back home in time to trick or treat on Halloween (not bad time, I drive fast, but safe, fast but safe). But it went something like this: Pulling into the garage at 7:30 pm. “Girls, quick, get your coats on, run downstairs, find a crown in the dress up box, grab your treat bag (already full from the Halloween party at California Adventure) and let's RUN! before it gets too late.” I tell you kid, after hitting all the houses on our street and the circles, we got back to the house around 8:45 pm where it finally caught up with me. After driving them like cattle for the past many days, not enough sleep and 12 hours of continuous driving, I was actually shaking from fatigue. The girls, on the other hand, slept a lot of the way back, were wired on candy and PST (to them it felt like 7:45 pm), and that was a bad combination. I made them brush their teeth and go to bed even though they were not ready or even tired, and I fell into bed, splitting head, and tried to sleep. Kind of an anti-climatic end to a really fun vacation, but such are the physical limitations of single parenting.

We're here, we're here

Just a quick drive by to end any needless worrying by our internettie friends over our health and/or well being. We are hale and well, but technology is conspiring agains my middle-aged ass, I crowed too loudly about being hip and with it. The universe is letting me know that I am neither and that I must take a smack down.

Somehow, someway, the DSL connection on our home computer punked out. I know the DSL line still works because when I drag my laptop home to work into the wee hours, because that's what lawyers do, don't know a one that doesn't work long hours and if you do, let me know because I want to practice in that area, I have no problem connecting. I need to call Daniel the computer geek guy who fixes my messes over to the house to fix it, but then I think, well, as long as I have to pay for a home visit, why don't I drag the other extra tower home from the office, make space, get another station ready for him to connect to the little home network because God knows I'm incapable, but then I don't because that would take effort and I'm low on effort/energy whatever it takes to do much more than clean an occasional bathroom, occasionally.

So the days go by and I think about things to blog in my head, there are things that are reportable in our lives because, after all, we just got back from the Disney pilgrimage AND a pipe burst on the third floor of my office building (my office space is in 1898 school building, really cool, exposed brick and all, but recently sold and set to be entirely renovated for an entirely different purpose and I'm moving in 23 days anyway) and I got flooded out of my office (gross, yuck, so discouraging) and that was really fun yesterday, not to mention anytime you try to get away from your office when you're self-employed, it takes a truly Herculean effort to nail enough flapping ends down so that you don't commit malpractice or neglect during the time you are gone and that kind of contributed to the blog silence. Plus, I'm feuding with my erstwhile law partner, jackass, and that is emotionally draining me more than I like to admit, jackass.

And Nora has been spitting on other kids. She had a bad week in October, there was a flurry of yellow and red behavior write-up cards flying out of her back pack every evening, but she pulled it together and strung several "green card" days in a row, I fussed and made a big commotion over her good behavior, but this week, she's spitting, disrepecting, not listening, disrupting, again. If there was ever a kid that should have come with an instruction manual, this is the kid.

So, I'd love to share the Disney photos, pictures of true princess love, and I'll take my laptop home this weekend, if only to protect it from any other mishap in the last month I have left in this building, and do a little uploading.

Thanks for the concern, I'll get back in the swing of things some day, maybe, or not.

ahead of the curve

I'm middle-aged and unhip in the bad way as opposed to unhip in the good way like moonboots on Napolean Dynomite. I unintentionally turned up a top 100 tunes/album/whatever the hell list when I was clicking around the web the other day and I kid you not, I did not even recognize ninety percent of the bands/artists/whoever the hell on the list. I exclusively wear comfortable shoes and we don't even have cable. But as I type, I just realized that regardless of my age, middle or otherwise, I have never been hip. A quick search of the memory banks and wildest thing I can come up with on the fly was the time I sneaked into the back door of a "The Knack" concert at the University of Hawaii student union when I was 19 because my surfer dude friends Howie and Lucas dared me and I didn't want to be left standing around like a loaf outside for a couple of hours. But I couldn't even enjoy dancing (there weren't any chairs, just the band on a short stage above a gym floor, obviously booked way before they had a number one hit) to My Sharona because I kept waiting for the tap on the shoulder and the bums rush out the front door when someone in a position of authority discovered our devious scheme. I'm so pathetic that way. And, really, age does have a lot to do with it too: I'm always the oldest parent at back to school or driving on field trips, always. And, yes it causes me no small amount of heartache that I am a dull reflection on my bright and energetic children. They did nothing to deserve being stuck with an old AND unhip mom but when you don't start building your family until your, late, ahem, thirties, someone has to pay the price.

So you can imagine my glee when my urban dictionary word of the day popped into my inbox:

Brick

High five, mini celebration, yay me. I turned my laptop into a brick and used the right word WEEKS ahead of discovering that I was using the freshest jargon, slang, argot, the lingua franca of the times, shall we say, to describe it. I'm hip, that's right I'm hip. Although using a term like lingua franca and admitting to being 19-years-old when I saw The Knack perform My Sharona at the height of the band's popularity probably just off-set my hip credits and now I'm back in the unhip column, brick or no brick, oops.

When Macoun met Honey Gold

It was magic. I'm spoiled for life. I don't want any other apple. I just want to be left alone with a crate of these babies. Oh good hell, it's like eating cider except that it is "explosively crisp." The Honey Crisp are back in the local groceries and life is good. Buy some now. They won't be back until next fall and you should not live another day without crunching up one of these gems. I often, more like constantly without ceasing, fantasize about finding my life's work: the job that would fulfill my destiny and my best purpose in life. If I could stand by the apple display at Albertson's and hand out samples of Honey Crisp apples all day long, I think my prayers would be answered: a shill for the apple industry, heaven. I could be pushing Honey Crack, um, Crisp apples on the uninitiated. I can see it in my mind's eye: sad sad shoppers would taste these amazing apples and throw their arms around me and thank me for showing them the light and the way and for filling their small desperate little lives with hope again. I'm just saying, these apples are fine and could possibly be life changing. Buy some now.

the tooth fairy is bleeding me dry

But that will be nothing compared to what the orthodontist is going to do to me. Back when I was dentally naive, I thought Ellie's teeth were going to be trouble. The two top incisors look like they're trying to escape each other and are running for the hills in opposite directions. I took her for the orthodontist consult and was told to come back when she lost the rest of her baby teeth and four years later, I still have no reason to schedule the next appointment. And even after the little pearls finally give up the ghost and drop out of her mouth, the permanent teeth take their own sweet time to make their appearance on the gum scene. And I mean drop out; there is NO way this child would ever assist a tooth by the normal methods, e.g., wiggling and worrying it until it's ripe for the pulling or just wrapping string around it and a door knob and letting your older brother help nature take its course. No, no, no, Ellie's teeth, loathe to come out in the first place, get no encouragement from the management. So, yeah, she'll need spacers and braces, but no biggie really, no major renovations.

But then the three littles came along and my orthodontic innocence evaporated. All three of them, oh good hell, it's like total tooth soup above the gum line. The x-rays make you shiver. The toothy confusion is truly truly frightening for a parent to see. And on top of the scraggle tooth thing Nora and YuYu have going on, Mimi's tiny pretty head isn't big enough to house more than 10, maybe 12 teeth tops. I just live in dread of the money that I'm going to have to pour into their mouths by way of the orthodontist's boat loan. Boat, nah, with their teeth? we're probably talking Ferrari payments more like it since they'll all three be in braces at the same time . . . and college at the same time . . . and driving at the same time. What was I thinking, I would really like to know, I'm a crazy woman, but that's not news, more about the teeth.

So Nora's bottom center incisors popped up behind her firm and secure baby teeth about two weeks ago and I was wisely counseled to be patient, to wait and see if nature would give an assist to the desiduosity (word?) process, and it did. She pulled out her first tooth yesterday and today, she just wiggled, worried and finally offered up the second tooth to be yanked by me because it was bugging her so badly. She is the only child of mine that doesn't winge and whine and clamp her lips shut so tightly that they disappear from her face when all I want to do is just want to take a look. And I even remembered, without prodding, to leave the money under her pillow last night. I hope I do as well tonight, but you never know, the fairy has proved to be fairly unreliable in the past.

The tooth that came out of Nora's head this morning was stained on the back side. I tried to use the stains as motivation for her continued efforts at good dental hygiene. "See," I said, "why you need to keep brushing your teeth bud? That's from when you were in the orphanage." "Yeah, that's why they shoulda boughted me a tootha brush." Even in an event as universal to child rearing as losing teeth, the adoptive parent is handed another poignant reminder that your child spent the first 4.5 years of her life without so much as her own toothbrush not to mention comfort and affection. Poor little sprite.

Cool Hand Luke

Dell Technical Support person: Now that it is in safe mode, does it still have the same problems?
Me: Yes, no keyboard and the touchpad mouse just froze up. I've turned it into a brick.
Dell Technical Support person: You have a brick on the screen?
Me: No, there is no brick on the screen. Metaphorically speaking I have turned the laptop into a brick.
Dell Techncial Support person: What does the brick look like?

What we have here is a failure to communicate . . . and a brick. Crap.

Don't Cha

Okay, probably not the most appropriate pop music reference I could find to illustrate why I think my pre-teen is the best kid in the universe, that song kind of sexualizes everything it comes into contact with, but don't cha wish your kid was just like mine? What kid does this? how did I ever deserve such a great kid?

I did not direct her or ask her to do this. I did some ominous glowering and deeply frustrated sighing and she just read between the lines. My ten year old Ellie, sensing an imminent parental unit melt down last weekend over the dvd cases strewn amongst the kid clutter and food wrappers her heedless little sisters had left all over the sixties home handy man basement TV room that nearly makes me cry every time I walk down the stairs even when the room is tidy, took it upon herself to organize and label the dvd's by genre: ogre, talking animals, real people, not real people, Barbie, princess, Lindsay Lohan, etc. It might just be me, but I think that's hot.

And yeah, there are a lot of dvds, but we don't do cable. And we don't don't have cable not because I want to protect my impressionable kids from being exposed to the wrong kind of stuff (although that is a fortunate side benefit). We don't have cable because I learned, way back in the day, that I will stay up to watch absolute crap into the wee hours of the morning just because it's there. I can't imagine what a coma lady I would turn into now if I could watch people cooking things with butter and cheese 24 hours a day. I would. never. stop. watching. mmmmmm, cheese.

Oh yeah, and I just noticed that there's dust all up in that air intake vent, but cut me some slack. I'm not much of a housekeeper, but hot damn, the dvd's look great, don't they? Focus on Ellie's dvd racks and it will be easier to look past the filth and I've already uploaded the pictures and starting over after I take the time to clean would really kill the moment.

Labor Day labors

I had hoped to get energetic enough to get us on the road this weekend, but, instead, I buggered up the 50-year-old timer on the pool pump, you should see this thing, it's ancient and ugly and it only took me two years to make it useless after many lifetimes of service. And why would a buggered up timer keep us in lock down? because the (cess)pool can't sit there and stew in its own juices for three days, so here we are, manually turning the pump on and off every day. Okay, I'm back, forgot it was getting late and I just slipped out to flip the switch. Help, I'm being held hostage by my pool, hmm, that feels like deja vu all over again, better go check for scum.

So, since I'm shackled to the old homestead this long weekend, I thought I would be productive and sort through mountains of kids' clothes to see what fits, or not, maybe plant some perennials that are in danger of over-wintering in the same pots that they came in, clean my room, mop the kitchen floor, that sort of thing. But no, I have not achieved these lofty goals because I was a computer drone and followed a link to a slideshow software vendor's site and spluck, I got stuck. These good people, in a cooperative venture with Satan, produce a little product that lets you turn your sloppy My Pictures folder into a full blown video presentation, with music! So I clicked, and clicked and clicked some more and too many hours later, I gave up on my real purpose of making a video for Nora about her adoption trip, and just created something for me. I found I just needed to reinforce the concept that this deal is FOREVER so keep those sleeves rolled up, there's no turning back, pitch in, do the hard work and reap the big rewards. If this kid isn't shaving my corns when I'm 85, so help me, there will be hell to pay.

I sent all of the trip flotsam and jetsam, tapes, snaps, picture disks (pre-digital, it was barbaric) from the first three China excursions to another adoptive parent at Pergamon Productions. In exchange for my $$, Ann made three truly wonderful keepsakes for Ellie, Mimi and YuYu. Very stylish, with video and stills woven to make a real story. For example, she wove Ellie's data together to make it build from shy, stunned baby, to laughing happy love bug during the time it takes to listen to two pop songs. In my memory of events, however, I have the idea that Ellie was a bug of love from day two, but for dramatic effect, I like the way the video builds to the belly laughs.

I have just not pulled my act together to get all of Nora's trip data in one spot and mailed to Pergamon, but I really meant to, difficulty bonding or no, Nora deserves her own trip video. But, what the heck, I followed the link and thought, oh give it a try, it doesn't cost very many $$ and it might be fun too. Well, I did it, but it wasn't that much fun. I forgot that I'm not creative and, therefore, do not need a creative outlet, it was more like work, but I did one too. Warning, even though it may not seem like I tried, I could just barely keep it under 7 minutes, so don't click if you're reading at work. No way someone in a position to disapprove is not going to walk by during this epic.

This WILL NOT be Nora's final video, I was too eager to get going and none of the video footage is in the computer, and it will be so much better when that is included. This turned into a story writing exercise for me, to remind me that she started out prickly for damn good reasons and if the prickles haven't yet worn off, and may never, she comes by them honestly. It reminds me to love her the way she came, to accept her for who she is and help her smooth out the rough edges that make her sad and angry and feeling excluded. Tacking these pictures together had the double bonus of reminding me of how incredibly beautiful my little soldier is all the time. I swear, she hardly ever takes a bad picture, me, on the other hand, well, I was having a very bad hair year.

because I changed the screen saver

to shuffle through the "My Pictures" folder, I just walked into the room that is laughingly called a home office, home armpit is more accurate, and I saw this . . .




then this . . .



then this . . .



The anniversary of Mimi's sixth adoption day was last week. Thanks to Uncle Stewart who brought over everthing we needed for a hamburger cookout picnic, we had a better way than our usual Panda Express dinner to celebrate the occasion (it is the siren call of deep fried chicken bits in orange glaze that gets them every time, every damn time). Uncle Stewart is my long time friend and a brave good man who traveled to China with me for both Mimi and YuYu's adoption trips. He is not an uncle by blood, but an Uncle, capital U uncle, by love, just like my daughters are daughters by love, so it all works out, it all works out pretty damn good.


I didn't see this one on the screen saver, but found it as I was searching for the others in the junk pile that is the "My Pictures" folder and if I can't get the physical plant in order, do you wonder why the data storage is in shambles too? don't wonder, I'm a data storage loser. But I thought I would throw it in for a bit of a damn cute baby bonus. I tried to tell her that she is a natural beauty, that she just doesn't need all those cosmetics, but she just wouldn't listen.

Back to School Sidewalk Sale

They don't do that anymore do they? shame. I have fond memories of downtown Bountiful, hot pavement, bad selection, picked over sizes, milling crowds and marked down ugly Buster Browns. Oh, on closer inspection, those memories aren't of the fond variety, but remembering the sidewalk sales takes me right back to my elementary school daze. The sixties, nothing like 'em, good times, good times.

Today was the first day (or first of four half days of school, really, why bother?) and the race is back on or, a more apt metaphor would be the gerbil is back on the wheel for another academic year. The only school shopping memories my girls will have will be centered around ripping open the Land's End boxes on the porch. I fear that point click UPS delivery just won't be as evocative 30 years from now of the first days of school as the words "sidewalk sale" are for me, shame really.

However, how do I feel about school starting up again?: If I had half a clue about computer stuff, I would know how to find some zesty graphics or clip art of a tiny defenseless person just about to be swept away by a tidal wave of paper to illustrate how I feel this evening. Having four in elementary school at the same time and keeping track of homework, homework folders, reading assignments, reading charts, spelling lists, menus, student profiles, student supply lists, teacher and classroom supply lists, field trip sign ups, poetry folders, and various ME bags is feeling a bit much right at the minute. So instead, I figure why not update the blog because even though I'm feeling decidedly flat and unamusing this month, writing a blog entry is much less daunting than the pile o' crap waiting for me on the kitchen table. Really, I must be nuts. I really need my head examined because it's not like any of my children were "accidents." This was all planned, I knew exactly what I was doing when I sent in each adoption application, there were no oopsies in the bunch unlike my youngest brother Clark, he was a definite oops, but I really like him so that worked out okay in the long run. So I only have myself to blame, but when Nora's teacher said "I just don't know how you do it?" I replied, "well you're about to see first hand how I don't do it very well sometimes, and only just adequately the rest of the time." I should have added: "Please have patience with me and try not to resent me too much when everything you send home gets lost in the roaring vortex of homework/announcement/half-page permission slip of paper doom," but how do you do it is more of a rhetorical question and I didn't want to overstep my answer.

And it's those half-page sized dealies that are sure and certain to be important as in please mark your calendars or please sign and return before yesterday that are sure and certain to get lost/recyled/used as scratch paper, never fails.

And yes, last spring I made the decision to hold Nora back and within two days, I had changed my mind and let Nora graduate from Kindergarten with her sister. Nora started first grade today. She is tall and competitive and too smart to be held back. I had to process and accept the fact that Nora will struggle to learn and regardless if I made her repeat kindergarten, she would still struggle to learn because that is just who Nora is going to be, a different learner. I can't protect her from the struggle even though holding her back felt like I was protecting her. I wasn't. I was only protecting myself from watching her flail and fail and feel hurt and "less than." And I have to admit that holding her back also protected me from the the extra effort it will take on my part from now on to help Nora do her best in school. It has now become my struggle to find out how to help her learn without so much struggle and tears and shame.

I've had it so easy with the oldest three. They may not ever be Rhodes Scholars, but they won't make me worry about how in the world they will ever make a living or support themselves. I have to come to terms with my Nora, who, in addition to being a child who is an emotional challenge to raise, is also a challenge to teach and learns differenlty than her peers. I can't sit back anymore and just beam with pride like I have for the past five years since Ellie started kindergarten. I have to learn how this whole public education system works and how to make it work better for Nora. And did I mention that I'm lazy? to the bone? and beaming with pride is easy, but learning a whole new language with it's own special jargon and pushing for the right extra assistance is hard and, on the whole, I'd really rather not? But, apparently, that's what other parents do and now I need to do that too. But while I'm doing that, there's nothing says my kids can't look damn cute on the first day of school. Not only do I beam well, I burst buttons pretty good too.

and before you know it, it's August

First, I really must figure out all those slick slide show gizmos because it just took for freaking ever to upload these pics and that will teach me to be a schlump and not update the blog for vast time periods. But here's July is a picture essay.

The Big Dig, SLC version. The whole reason I bought this house was for the proximity to the Jr. High where I envisioned my wholesome teens walking home within minutes of the last bell, cracking the books the second they walk through the door, finishing all of their homework plus the extra credit before starting dinner and tidying up and making me a proud proud mama. It could happen and I bought this house to ensure that it would, but be careful what you ask for because to take my delusions up a notch, the school district granted me a brand new junior high school. Unfortunately, they chose to build right next to the old junior high so the kids don't have to be uprooted during the school year which means the new school is being built in the space that used to be the sports field and heavenly buffer between my back wall and the old school building. No more, they've torn out the playing field and excavated many many feet, I want to say 30 feet down, but what do I know, it could be 20, but however much, it's a ton of dirt and . . .

a great portion of it ends up on the bottom of the pool that shall spurn all covers every damn day. If you can't dope out this picture, those are the tracks in the crud left by the pool vac on a typical day after the diggers have done their damnedest to churn up every piece of grit they could get airborne during their shift. The fellows at the pool supply know me by my new nickname, the Phosphate Lady, and what does algae love to eat more than anything? that's right phosphates. What a big wide pain in my big wide ass this pool has been this year. . .

except for when it's not and the kids are having a blast and frolicking to beat the band and making my heart high.



We drove up to Cache Valley for Grandma's summer birthday although she hasn't been alive for the last two summer birthdays, it's still a great reason to go to my Uncle John and Aunt Elaine's grandkid Neverland (they have a ton of grandkids) to ride Chocolate and Chip, the go carts, the riding mower turned into a wagon train, the little play house, the big amazing water slide built into a gully and powered by a hose dropped into the creek, the girls love love love it up there and I always pick up a great recipe or two from the potluck, so it's a hit for every generation.





Then came Nora's birthday, she turned six this year although it feels like she's still emotionally not quite four yet and I have to admit, my blogging reticence is in large part related to my still not warm and fuzzy feelings about Little Miss Firecracker, it is still hard work to be her parent and it may always feel like this and that's still a hard concept to which I must adjust. But, for her birthday, I sacrificed my comfort and sanity for a day at the local amusement mecca and we hit Magoon (Nora can't remember Lagoon and in 100 degree heat, it feels more like a Magoon) with all pistons firing . . .

with some of this . . .

some of that (click this one to enlarge, does it look like being spun against the outside of the ride over and over and over is a good time?) . . .

a little more of this . . .

and some more of that . . .

and they still were strong after the second log flume ride, the wet invigorated them . . .

until all of the this and the that and the oppressive heat finally wore my Magooniacs down and I convinced them it was time to go . . .

to Grandma's house with all of Nora's gifts in the back of the van and my brother tasked with bringing the cake and ice cream up to meet us. Grandma still too weak and tires so easily that it is by far easier to bring the party to her than to expect her to come to us and it was a good day and I don't have to go to Magoon for a whole 'nother year, yay me.

Alex, what is Provo Canyon?

I can't think of the right category, though, for the question. Potent potables? But that only applies to half of the question: As the sun sets on Lindsay Lohan and my eldest daughter, where are they both laying their heads to sleep? Yep, in scenic but the willies producing Utah County: there's a whole lot of religion and bad architecture going on down Provo way, makes me shiver. The difference is that my chaste and Polly Purehearted daughter is snoozing away at Girl Scout camp where I delivered her excited little GS self this morning and that other gal, the one who is deeply, deeply troubled, sad and self-involved, is sleeping it off a little further on up the canyon in her new get clean digs.

And how about this for a comparison of extremes. Lindsay leaves a drug rehab center after a month of therapy and heads to Vegas to sip energy drinks, wink, wink, yeah energy drinks, with a whole lot of folks who didn't take any stinking sobriety pledge. She so very obviously values her own sobriety and would never take any risks with her career and health, not that Lindsay, she's too much of a smart cookie for those kinds self destructive high jinks.

As opposed to this moring, when I asked Ellie if she had packed her fanny pack, she jumped like she had been shot because she just remembered it still contained two contraband packs of Trident gum that she learned from her last GS camp experience are forbidden fruit and not welcome at GS camp. She tore into the pack, emptied out the gum and cast it away from her, out devil, out. My girl won't even try to smuggle sugar free gum into Trefoil Ranch even without an aspartame detecting ankle bracelet.

But won't my girl get a kick out of knowing that she and Lindsay spent the week just a few miles apart? breathing the same bracing mountain air, both riding horses along side the Weber River, attending group meetings to discuss the principles of beating addiction though a twelve-step program? Oh wait, that one's just for Ms. Lohan. Ellie will be making boondoggle key fobs, whew, what a relief, much better.

And, yes, I agree that I know too much about Ms. Lohan's escapades because (a) you just can't escape the coverage, it's shamefully pervasive, and (b) my girls want to know what it all means, why is she always getting in trouble?, what does rehab mean? what's a DUI? We have some interesting conversations about how Lindsay just keeps forgetting to say no. So we wish Ms. Lohan the best, but since the true human drama is happening about 150 miles south of Provo Canyon, all my best thoughts and hopes for recovery are for those miners and their families tonight. Sorry Lindsay, you're on your own.

Australia

I want to go there and I want to eat rock lobsters in Perth and keep my eye out for Tim Winton who should be easy to spot because he has a really long ponytail and looks literate. I know I'm probably like most Americans who are, how do we say politely, geographically illiterate, but Australia is all about Sydney and kangaroos and a town like Alice to me. I mean I've heard of Perth, but just thought it must be in the Sydney neighborhood where all Australians are bunched up eating shrimp and getting stung by jelly fish on beautifully dangerous beaches. I just finished Dirt Music and was motivated enough to learn more so I could picture the territory the characters were covering and it turns out there is a whole western edge, with people, of Austalia, who knew? So it should be easy to find Mr. Winton, very little stalking involved, right?

Everytime I read a Winton book, it makes me want to book flights so I can go listen to real Australians speak English instead of the fake Australian accent I have playing in my head as I read his dialogue (while the Outback Steakhouse jingle runs persistently throughout). But regardless what this guy writes about, I feel like I'm there and when I'm done, I want to jump on the plane and really be there to see it like he sees it. Even though I read The Riders probably 10 years ago, I still can't get it out of my mind and on my book judging scale, that's some fine writing.

Althought I love to read, I still go through books like I was in fifth grade plowing through the elementary school library: for transport, not for more information or new skills or god forbid, intellectual challenge. So I love a good rich and dense text that is wonderfully chewy, but I'm a wee bit shallow and under-educated and I'm always aware of the fact that if any message or symbol is layered under the story, I'm probably missing it just like those magic focus prints that were all the rage 15 years ago in which I NEVER saw the damn magic picture even though I stared into the distance until my contacts dried up and popped off my eyeballs. I was listening to the Diane Rehm show (even though her voice, oh her voice, how it makes me cringe and I know she can't help it, but oh oh) on the way to work last week and her book reviewers were working over Like Water for Elephants, a book that I thoroughly enjoyed reading. One of her panelists said that maybe the book's popularity could be explained because it was so one-dimensional: just a good story that was all there right on the surface and there wasn't anything else to dig for, no deeper meaning. I thought, oh, hmm, really? hadn't occurred to me, I just thought I had missed the deeper meaning just like always.

So I dream about when I'm old(er) and gray(er) and looking even more like a shar pei because they let the senior set audit classes for free or a small fee at my dear old alma mater and I can get the education I missed the first time around. I'm going to sit on the front row of every art and literature appreciation course I can find and give all those kids the benefit of my widsom and experience (e.g. bore them senseless with my endless questions that are really just statements of the obvious). A gal's got to have plans for retirement. My plans are to finally understand all the books I read like I was eating Triscuits for my whole adult life.

But if you need a good read right now, dial up a Tim Winton novel, you will not be disappointed. Then write to let me know was I missed.

loose poop

So, say, for the sake of argument, and of course totally hypothetically speaking, that you had a guest in your home who barfed on your duvet and your deeply discounted, but still brand new, area rug in the kitchen, made your downstairs carpet into a multi-hued canvas in the style of Georges Seurat using the largely over-looked media of loose stool and urine in addition to possessing the ability to create lung threatening clouds of noxious gas wherever she came to rest? Would you let her stay, or unceremoniously ask her to get her skanky dog butt out of your house and hit the mean streets with that business? Or, as I have contemplated, would you secretly put her in a kennel for the remainder of the week and then play it all innocent like when her ride comes to take her back home next weekend?

Oh good hell, Stewart’s dog Gladys is the houseguest from hell. She stayed with us a few months ago and was a relatively good guest even though she was a most prodigious pooper. I had to take the blame for that because I unthinkingly left the baggie full of Milk Bones where she could get at it and talk about adding bulk to a dog’s diet, oh boy. I wasn’t thinking that Gladys would, you know, even get into the bag at all, such bad manners, and I was even more floored that she would eat them all up at one time exhibiting no doggie self-control. My tiny animule dog can make one mini Milk Bone last for days as she carries the increasingly smaller nub from room to room, leaving a trail of crumbs so she can find her way back. Gladys horks down anything in her path and doesn’t ever look back. And after conferring with friends, the horking and gobbling are more typical dog behaviors to which I say, who knew? All I have for comparison is my dainty 6-pound nibbler/bruiser and I just wasn’t prepared for Gladys' reaction to an unprotected stash of Milk Bones. She could have at least saved a few for the end of the week, don't you think? I have no explanation for the current tummy troubles, she hasn’t over eaten and it doesn’t appear that she found any illicit yummies but in a house full of kids, that can never be completely ruled out. She is chipper and Schnauzer-happy, doesn’t act at all ill, I have no explanation for my ruined carpet.

Oh well, I needed to have the carpet cleaners come and deal with the bad stains in the girls’ room, now I can get the three-room and a hallway special and feel like I’m getting a bargain. She sleeps in her crate tonight by damn and her flirty brown eyes won’t sway me. I know she only wants me for my clean duvet cover, skank.

how to void a warranty

Failure to use product according to package directions may void warranty.

Hostable notes

The good good grandma gave us another medical scare this past ten days and it's probably better not to blog when I'm in a high drama dither. She rallied after another couple of ICU stints and is back to the regular ward and will hopefully be discharged tomorrow or Monday. The girls are so flexible. I drag them back and forth from the hostable (Mimi's version of hospital) and they don't complain or balk and I think that's remarkable considering that when they get to the hostable, they can't even go into her room and are trapped in the second floor waiting area with grandpa or Uncle Glenn while I stay in mom's room. When mom is in the ICU with limited visiting hours we walk all over every inch of the hostable on safari to see what we can see and truth be told, there just is not much to see in the average hostable. There are some nice fish in the radiology waiting area, but there are limits to how fascinating fish can be to the average six-year-old for any length of time. All the traipsing back and forth to the hostable, late hours and cafeteria food (which, truth be told, they love and so do I) brings my lack of reliable babysitters into sharp focus. Stew watched them for several hours last Sunday so I could be at the hostable longer and not have to worry about herding the little girls (Ellie is never a problem armed with books and her Nintendo) that was the best gift (not to mention the gratis lawn mowing he threw into the child care package) I've received in a long long time, I am so grateful for such a generous friend. I need to cultivate some teens who don't already have jobs and/or intense social lives and need the money badly enough to watch four kids and not let anyone drown in the ceement pond. When my other brothers arrive solo at the hostable because their spouses are at home in charge of their kids, I do feel more than a twinge of envy, but I get over it. I wouldn't want to married to any of their wives if that was the price for solo hostable visits.