July 28, 2008

Today my Oldest Son sat on the summit of Mount Fuji and watched the sun rise.

After a long bus ride to the fifth station, they hiked for seven hours in the dark, through the clouds until they reached the summit.  He said all they could see was clouds and the top of the mountain which is actually a dormant volcano, but is the highest peak in Japan.    Then he said the sun rose over the clouds.

I feel tears come when I think about it.  It's better than if I were there myself, though had I the physical capability, I would have gone with him.   It's the kind of experience you *want* your child to have, to experience. 

I am bursting with pride and with some inexplicable feeling of fulfillment as a parent.

July 22, 2008

Ah Karma.  Blueviolet seems like an appropriately karmic color for today's story.

Youngest son went to spend the night at his friend Ethan's house.  My last words to him as he left our house to walk down to Ethan's was "Do Not Leave Ethan's House".

There are a group of bad kids who roam the neighborhood sometimes and I don't want any of ours to take the blame for something they did.

After he left, I never gave it another thought.  After all, Youngest Son was the Good One.  The one we never had to worry about because he always behaved or was smart enough not to get caught.

Youngest Son appears late Sunday morning looking like he'd been in a fight with a wildcat and lost.

Of course I'm about to have a cow because Youngest Son's beautiful face is blood encrusted, swollen, and has a big gouge out of the area between his eyes.  There are bloody scratches on his cheek as well.

"WHAT HAPPENED?"

He shook his head and said, "I disobeyed you two and Karma turned around and bit me in the butt."

It seems that they went to Katie's house to play flashlight tag.  Keep in mind please that we know Katie's parents and if there were a place we would have allowed him to go, this would have been it as they have a large back yard and permission from the neighbors to play across their yards.

In the dark, Youngest Son had a confrontation with Katie's parents' badminton net.  Youngest Son lost.

Of course Badminton Net now has a hole the size of Youngest Son's head in the middle of it, but he pretty  much clotheslined himself.  The netting chewed chunks out of his beautiful face.  The goof.

But as he said...karma bit him in the butt.  

Karma does that sometimes, you know.

July 19, 2008

Happy Birthday Leslie!

When I found out that it was my bestest Aunt Leslie's birthday (remember this is the aunt who taught me to quilt VIA EMAIL), I wanted to send her a little surprise.  I knew she had a friend named  Ann who owned a quilt shop, so I called my Mom to find out the name of the shop. Mom had visited the shop with Leslie. I thought I'd call and have Ann give her a gift certificate for me.

Mom was clueless.  She's been to the place, but had no idea of the name.

SO I googled the names of all the quilt shops in North Carolina and found one called School House Quilts which seemed to be near their home.  I IM'd Mom and asked her if that sounded familiar.

I kid you not, this is what she said:  "No, it wasn't in a school house,  it was in a strip mall."

*headdesk*

I said, "Mom, you're allowed to have a quilt shop named School House Quilts in a strip mall.  You don't have to be a stripper to shop in a strip mall, either."  heh heh.

So I called School House Quilts.  The  lady who answered the phone said that  Ann would be in after ten and she'd have her call me.

I didn't hear and didn't hear, and had about given up on surprising my gold-digging Aunt Leslie....really....she digs for gold.  She just got a new dredge and sluice.

Then finally about 11 the phone rang and it was Ann from Ann's Cozy Quilts.   The other Ann had called and found the correct Ann and we were able to hurriedly fix Leslie a gift certificate for a surprise, as Leslie was on her way to pick up Ann for a girl's afternoon of cavorting and general revelry.

I do believe the surprise was successful.

And I do wish my Aunt Leslie who has been SO very patient in teaching me to quilt via email and who even drove all the way here to help me fix my first quilt, a Very Happy Birthday.

July 14, 2008

My Aunt Leslie called last night to fuss because I hadn't put an entry in any of the blog areas in a while.

I explained that it had been a hard month, what with the uterine biopsy, then the pulmonary embolism tests, and now testing for a stroke or where Sjogren's may be mimicking a stroke.

I was told in no uncertain terms to "buck up and quit your whining". LOL  

I loved it.  I can depend on her to tell it like it is.

Well, to add insult to injury, part of one tooth crumbled away.  Where my salivary glands have been attacked by Sjogren's and I don't make enough spit to wash the matter away, it just happens.  The dilantin had caused my gums to recede, but n ow they're coming back down.

The neurologist grabbed my upper lip and looked at my teeth and I remember thinking "I am not a horse."  But he said the gums would come back down.  Of course, the damage is done, but hopefully it will be slowed considerably.

The trip to see She-Dentist who revelled in my horror at her wicked dance about the dental chair, brandishing her scrapy instruments, was notably traumatic.  She gave me so much novacaine my sinus cavity was dead all the way to my eye and my left nostril was dead so I was breathing in my right  nostril much better than the left.  Poor little nostril.   As if it hadn't had a bad enough week when it got one of those really sore whiteheads right in the inside where you can't reach it to pop it, and when you finally do manage to get it popped, it's as sore as the dickens.    But let's face it, we can't go around with big squishy whiteheads in our nostrils, now can we?

I've been to PT where I worked out like a crazy woman because of the big solumedrol dose they gave me in case I had an allergic reaction to the angiogram they did when they were looking for the pulmonary embolism.   Honestly.

Mom and Dad took Youngest Son and Youngest Niece to Gatlinburg for a few days.  Oh to be a fly on the wall.  Youngest niece doesn't hush on a normal day.  Wound up for vacation, she's really going to be talking up a storm.

Coming in from PT and not having Youngest Son waiting to help me in the house was very strange.  He always watches for me  because he knows when I get done.  He usually comes to the car to be sure I don't fall.  It felt weird to get myself in the house...and  no I didn't fall, and if I had, I think I could have gotten up.

Even Miss USA falls...see the Miss Unverse pageant from this past weekend.   So I'm in good company.

July 2, 2008

How is it possible that this year is half over?  It seems like time is flying faster and faster. 

I remember as a child, when time seemed to crawl, my mother talking about how time went by faster as you got older.  Of course, I knew that time didn't do that (though now I know that time is fluid, but I doubt that quantum physics has anything to do with this particular observation)

There's so much more to do when you're grown.   So much more responsibility, worry, everything.  Children have so little to occupy their time.   I remember laughing when my high school aged children would talk about their stress and workload.

But to them, their stress was real.

Tomorrow is Doctor Day.

Tomorrow, my stress will be real.