Music Class

I went to music and—grrrrr! I’ve decided to give my professor a challenge. That wench infuriates me. I got up to sing a song that is easy, the one that she implied is easy and that I sing. I did not get past the first two words notes. For five minutes in front of my class, we worked on that and then—she dismissed me to my seat and to go home and work on my song! Right after me, the three very best singers in the class who are truly talented (one guy is from Jamaica with this baritone voice that you feel more than you can hear) got up and chose to sing it! Why on Earth are they singing what is easy? These singers can sing anything and make it gold. She beams when they sing. They got to sing the entire song and everyone laughed—I enjoyed them, too, but there was no challenge for them. We have a recital coming up-- my husband will see them sing it and compare me to them in the car, “You weren’t like Lisa, Erica or Michael, but you were fine. You did better than I could do!”

After class, I went up to the accompanist and showed him a song that I love, written by Rorem, one of the 20^th century’s greatest composers who is still alive. I like the song for the poetry but I knew it wasn’t easy. It almost sounds Jewish. The music is haunting and it never leaves your soul. There are syllables that have two notes to them; "Mike" is hitting eight keys at once in some parts. Mike is an accomplished pianist-- the song is complicated for him. The Professor asked if I wanted to sing the song for the final and I said that I do. She and Mike both told me how hard it is and tried to talk me out of it. I reminded her that she said she would not let us sing anything that wasn’t in the book and that, “this song is in the book, is it not? You said that you’d not tell us what we should sing so that puts me in the driver’s seat.” We made eye contact and I stood up straight—she cackled but said that she will help me. If Barry Gibb could sing all his songs in falsetto with the BeeGees for 20 years, I can croak out my song for three minutes! I am grateful to Dave.

The song that will be central to my life for two months is called I Never Knew. It goes like this: I never knew how much loveliness lives in the bare and leafless trees/ Nor that gold and silver lovingly weave themselves into bronze webbing in which buds dream of coming, spring-drunk exuberance/ I never knew these best gifts strewn before us/ I never had time, could never rest, was always driven like a hunted animal/ But now the hunter is my quarry; I’ve caught what hunted me—Time-- and today upon its wings it have renewed my world.

Doesn’t it almost seem haiku-ish? It doesn’t rhyme and my audience won’t be smiling or laughing with me like I am used to when I mimed and did humorous speaking, but I’ll hit the high notes. I compared the music to a drawing that I am doing and Mike said, “But you are an advanced intermediate artist! This song is a great goal, Tea. . ." I liked watching my professor struggle with the words when she sang it-- the focus was off me screwing up and we got through it, then Mike wanted to go back and play with me singing and just go through it. It put us closer to working together. She didn't care if I got through the easy song, she could get testy over one note. With the complicated one, she was determined to get through it-- I happened to be there so she was working with me. Mike wanted to run through it again, "Tea, sing as best as you can and I'll just play and cue you in." Why didn't they just do that with the easy song?

What does it matter if I don't sing this well? I won't sing the other song well, either and I can't get past the first bar. The more advanced singers should be challenging themselves. I sing before class (I think) just fine. I don't think that my teacher knows me well enough to care much for me or put in energy to not like me. My five year old daughter said that she wants to be a pirate singing cowgirl, where she'd capture people on the ocean, tie them up, then get on her horse who'd be on her ship and she would sing to them. I may need to modify my daughter's ideas to get my teacher to tolerate me singing!

I'm swamped with school work and we have a student show next week for the art classes. I have to burn my pottery tonight.

My Hands

I have to get a Kodak-type account to post pictures. Today I was working on my pottery and I realized that I identify myself more through my hands than my face. My work isn't great, OK? I paint and draw pretty well, and I feel like I am on the cusp of breaking out with my drawing. I did some mail art to a friend on Friday and my husband said that he wishes that I was mailing things to him and that he inspired it! LOL

Anyway, while I was working on my pottery, I asked Peaches to do some snaps of it and she took a few of my hands and I said no, no, let me put this down and she said it was more interesting and kept shooting. How is it that my hands caked with clay (and India ink from yesterday) are closer to my self image than my face? My fingernails are dirty.

There was a time when I kept my nails beautiful all the time-- up until I was pregnant with TeaCup and my husband got laid off, I had kept my fingernails manicured every week. My manicurist was from Vietnam and he was brilliant and had an engineering degree from over there before he came here. He would tell me how much he loved seeing me and he'd hand me an article about something like crime rates in our state, a recent business story or whatever and I'd read it before I saw him. We'd talk about anything other than what you usually hear in a beauty salon. I never missed those appointments for eight years! It was therapy but I wasn't talking about me-- I was smart for that half hour that he saw me!

Anyway, I never went back to getting them done after I had TeaCup. When my husband resumed working, we were just weeks from losing the house and we had to play catch up for six months. It never seemed right going back. My hands are far from ugly-- but they are useful now. I never have all the terra cotta out from under them, or the ink stains off my skin.
They do not look as full of character as I think they are, but I think they are fascinating-- I think that everyone has fascinating hands. . .

Argh

I took the test Monday. I stayed up late Sunday night to 8 am Monday morning reading. It helped. I think I pulled a C-- I'll be surprised if it's any higher or lower. I got a decent understanding of the material but didn't have time to go over every little thing several times. I started taking the test, got done-- I was the third person to get done and left the class thinking that I'd have some time to wait until my husband got me. I started walking toward the lunchroom, then realized when I got my cell phone that it was almost time for class to be over. I had locked into the topic and didn't sit there thinking about how little I knew and time flew past me.

Sometimes life gets so overwhelming, then it is not that bad. I panic one minute and think I can never get something done but I somehow do. My husband can be supportive, but other times he is not-- but that is living with another person. Being married to me is not an easy thing!

He called me today and sent me some funny messages. I love it when he does that.

I took my eldest at home to parent teacher conferences. We had fun. She gets in trouble for talking in Japanese but she is making an A. Before we went in, she told me to ask her Japanese teacher if she has any friends. We sat down and started talking and I said, "I'm concerned about her A."

He said, "Mrs. Crumpet, I can assure you that your daughter is making the best grade in the class and she is one of my best students ever!"

I said, "OK. Grades-schmades. What I care about is her social life. She has no friends, no one ever calls her on the phone at the house. How is she socially? I mean, isn't this what high school is all about?"

He was so worried and not sure what to say! Peaches' jaw dropped, "I do too have friends!"

I went on about how anti-social she has been. . . SHE IS NOT ANTI SOCIAL IN THE LEAST-- IF THIS WERE TRUE I'D HAVE NOT SAID THIS. SHE KNEW THAT I WAS JOKING. . . how I am just worried, that maybe we needed to get her involved in some clubs. (She is super-involved in lots of things and lately some civil things with people who are older, doing things that she really enjoys.) I named off some clubs that I know "preps" do. She was going, "What?! I do not need to join ____ Club!" She was keeping a straight face while her teacher was perplexed!

"N-n-n-n-no, Darling! We will get you involved with lots of kids like you, just like you, I'm sure they feel just like you do!" I gave her a patronizing smile and pinched her cheek.

I started laughing then Peaches started laughing but her teacher was very confused! Peaches is not insecure by any means-- I'd have never said it in front of her were she insecure or had she no friends. Once he realized we were pulling his leg, he said she was a very talkative girl who interrupted his class with her discussions! He started laugh and said that he could see from where she got her sense of humor!

All of her teachers were great. We went around and chatted everyone up. They all seemed to like her and they were surprised that I came in with her as it's usually the kids with problems whose parents need to be there. Her English teacher was great and told me about her degrees-- she has a history teacher who lives and breathes history and was happy to hear that she talks about his class at dinner. Her science teacher is inspired-- and she has a math teacher who I just adore who also coaches. No dumb jock there!

I noticed all around us that most kids and parents were not chatty or having fun like we were. That was sad. I felt quite fortunate.

I took her to a Democratic meeting. THAT is not going over well here. My husband is not happy about that. He's happy for her but not for me-- Democrats are not into mega government like they seemed to be years ago. (That has slowly turned into a Republican thing!) I am pro-choice on abortion-- I hate it, but I have always felt that it is a symptom rather than the actual problem and i met with like-minded people. (I mentioned my stance with the Republicans and they were furious with me-- how could I support it! They don't make laws to protect children in custody battles between parents, they don't look at solutions for issues that concern me.) I have fallen away from my Republican friends in the last year. They didn't like someone I was supporting, telling me that she should "stay at home with her children and be a wife and mother--" while they were supporting someone who was corrupt. Those friendships sizzled which was sad as they were my friends and support.

My husband and I may wind up agreeing to disagree. He's not active with any elections unless i drag him into them-- I have fun getting involved with whomever is running. C'est la vie.

TeaCup is almost potty trained. Six months from now she will be completely dry. No more diapers for the first time since my husband married me almost 11 years ago when Sunshine was a year old. Amazing. What will I do with all that money? LOL I have enough bills-- but so nice to be not throwing money at something that will be thrown out!

What was I thinking?

I'm up late studying. I have a test that is a quarter of my grade tomorrow. It's linguistics. I love languages and linguistics, but the truth is, I just don't have the time. I need to sleep-- eight hours or I am not pretty and I turn into a beast. I feel doomed for the test. I put the kids to bed early this evening and started studying. Of course Sunshine needed help making a friends a birthday card, Peaches was interested in telling me how her weekend went-- I don't mind, but it's draining. Her weekend at a relatives' home was good for her.

My husband told me I am getting bad about snapping at the kids and giving them A Look (psychotic tiger who wants to eat her young-- ROWR!) and that I needed to stop. I said I'd stop but he needed to get them to not make me have to tell them things more than once if they are over 10 years of age. One of the kids proceeded to be told something and I had to remind that person several times, "Honey, I don't want to have to just walk in and order you out! You need to stop when I ask you to."

"But you usually do and I thought you were going to just tell me again when you were ready."

I gave her the Snappy Comment and the Look. It lasted four hours with me not doing that. Grrrr. I don't do it to improve my looks! They don't' want change. They want consistency.

I've been getting up to do some Pilates and yoga every half hour. I need to do that more. I haven't' felt so good at 2AM in a long time.

There is no way I can be the editor of my college paper. I am so worn out. I will still write for them though. Maybe I will see if there are any easier classes I can take.

On the good aspect of everything-- the kids are asleep. My husband is not on his work computer. No one is whining for the TV to be on. I have Pandora Radio on and I am taking breaks from my studying and getting laundry folded. It's been months-- seriously, months since I folded it. I often tell the kids to get it and they just recycle it into the clean clothes. We need to turn that BS off more often. So what if I am listening to Helen Reddy, Charlene, Shirley Bassy, Melissa Manchester, and Captain and Tennille and other artists who mostly only my gay friends appreciate! They will have to listen to it. They don't want a nutty mommy and they can put up with what makes me happy and serene so I get things done and don't have to ask them, and still feel like studying.

Panda Doctor (not to be confused with Ropi's Panda Girl.)

Panda Doc has a great story about patients. He's an ER doctor. You have to read this. Fortunately he has a great sense of irony, but I don't know what stops him from putting people out of their misery other than that it would be illegal.

Pottery and Saturday Chicken Soup Day

Last night I fired some pottery and the sawdust hadn't been burned in the middle. This morning I got out to do a firing before the wind got bad. I realized that firing might be hard as it was deeply cold again so I had the brilliant idea to toss the sawdust with lighter fluid to make certain that all the sawdust burned. One of my steel cans for firing exploded. I felt very stupid. Had one of my children done that, I'd have yelled at them. I proceeded to go in and tell them what I did. Thank goodness I wasn't doing fireworks.

I made chicken soup today as it is cold and everyone is getting the flu again. I roasted a chicken and separately boiled the vegetables (sweet green peppers, onions, celery-- which is salty) for a half hour to extract nutrients and flavor, instead of boiling them all together then straining. That was brilliant of me. When the chicken reasonably cooled, I pulled the meat off and strained the vegetables and put them all into the cauldron. There were no overcooked bits of vegetables or mushy chicken. I blended a bag of carrots in the blender and poured that in, which thickened the soup up. I normally hate carrots, but well blended, they add great texture. I probably cooked that all together for another half hour. The kids loved it and asked me to make it again. I didn't need commercially prepared stock for the first time, and that was nice.

My husband and I were grocery shopping the other night. I saw strawberry marshmallows and felt sick-- I don't like marshmallows except for a couple a few times a year when we camp. We saw giant containers of something that looked like cheese puffs. One of my sons saw it and said, "I want to get in that and just. . . sit and eat!" He then made some funny, "om, om, om" noises. He was cute but he hopefully wouldn't have more than a handful if we indulged him! I asked my husband who'd buy that crap and we just shuddered. I used to work at a retail super store and knew who, and that stuff flew off the shelves and some even ate as they shopped. A little while later we saw who would buy it, chatting up the cashier. There were a couple of stereo-type women, overweight, with rude children. I saw the blood sugar test strips on their conveyor belt which indicates diabetes. My funny son saw the junk food and the women, too and turned to me and asked, "Can we just get some apples for lunches instead of the potato chip variety pack?" He and my husband ran and got some.

The cashier looked at my own choices and asked how I cooked. I told her that it's really just as easy to chop stuff up and make a healthy dinner as it is to do a microwave dinner. She was apparently a sister to one of the women we'd seen with the bad stuff. How bad are we that so many are so far removed from their food sources that the notion of coring an apple or zapping a potato seems like a lot of work? We occasionally eat pizza puffs and have processed food, and I always have a frozen lasagna in the freezer, but if you have a lot of that stuff, it's as bad as eating at McD's every day. These ladies were not the type who were just too busy to cook, like execs or even active soccer moms-- they looked more like Welfare-mom types. What would they do with the time they saved from cooking?

Art Class, Editing

The effort it takes for me to go to art class is amazing. I love drawing almost more than I love anything else. I go in and it is almost meditative. Except for one person. She is always saying something "sassy"-- but she's not funny. She makes cutting remarks to me and she irritates the hell out of me.

Yesterday in class, my teacher asked me to discuss my latest drawing. I said, "I need to take a thirty seconds to share a story about this." The teacher was being stupid and tried to be funny by yawning at me and looking at her watch. I told her that I needed to share my story so she wouldn't cut me off. The classmate turned to me as I tried to focus and said, "She is teasing you." I ignored her and moved away from her.

The classmate is always making some remark though. She doesn't seem to get on anyone else's nerves as far as I can tell, but I doubt that anyone can tell how much she annoys me. When she makes her remarks to me she subtly pushes her chest out which is a sign of aggression. She is always saying things to sound "smart" and seems to like to stand near me during critiques. When I told a friend about this, he asked if I am doing well in the class and if she has kids. Yes on both-- he said, "There is your problem. She's singling you out. She's grating on you and she knows it. You are good, you have kids, she is seeing you as someone to work."

As I listened to her talk while we were doing our class assignment (that is so fucking annoying while people talk from across the room to each other about something inane) I realized her sense of entitlement. Our lone guy was telling her how he was with his brother at some restaurant and got a free meal because they didn't cook his burger. As he told his story, I thought, "She is going to say that she gets things for free."

As it turned out, she said, "I get things free all the time. I'm sensitive and they have to make things special for me." I wanted to say that surely she doesn't accept food free from restaurants where they make their living preparing food for people, but I don't like to talk to her so I said nothing. As she conversed, everything was, "I get that too!" "That happens to me, too!" Only it supposedly happened more often and worse to her, whatever was being spoken about.

I suppose that there will always be people that I do not like. I kept thinking of my ex's wife during a court battle that lasted for three years and how I never let on that she was getting to me.

For my assignment-- I had to do perspective. I drew my church for the assignment. I don’t go to church very often. The night before last I wanted to quit my art classes and slide through, not really putting any more effort into the classes—they cost money and time and I am short on both. My husband said that Art is necessary, that it allows us to express ourselves and to relate to our environment and that other people can relate to this. He had me get that picture and I was amazed by what he read from it. I sketched him prostrating to the Theotokos (the Mother of God) while Boom-Boom lit a candle to St. Basil, and a mother who looks a lot like me with several children around her and hanging off of her and she was standing near a side wall with six icons looking on. He pointed out to me that the man was engaged in honoring Mary, that Boom-Boom was meditating to St. Basil and the mother figure was dazed and not really there, but the saints seemed to be looking at her. He said it spoke volumes on my mental state about church, not to mention how pretty the church is. I need to learn to draw with light but this may turn into something fantastic that I will enter in an art show later this year.

I may be up for editing my college newspaper next year. That was exciting news. I have two stories coming out in the next edition. I spoke to a "real life reporter" who comes in from the local paper to run ideas with us and I told him about my other class in writing that is driving me batshiat crazy. I told him that I wanted to swear off adjectives and he told me to not use adjectives but to use quotes from people and let those color my articles.

The newspaper adviser got his Ph.D. in technical writing and has advised me to go into it. It pays well so I may take a class in that.

Life right now. . .

A good friend had surgery the other day-- she had four children and she needed reconstructive surgery on THAT region. I am sorry for gushing this, but she is 70 years old, widowed and dating an awesome guy, and she told me how it would "enhance" their lives, if you catch my drift! I hope that I will be 70 years old and still having an active romance life. They live in another state and her boyfriend got a hotel room in the city near the hotel two days before and they spent fun time in the city, went on a hike, checked out some plays-- what a terrific life! When her doctor found that he had to do more, her boyfriend got the room for longer and he sits with her all the time. When this dear lady's husband was in the hospital dying, he got MRSA possible from unsanitary practices (a nurse dropped a catheter and was about to reuse it-- grrrrr-- when I was there and you wonder why I have issues with medicine!) He was allergic to shell fish so they used iodine (derived from shell fish) on him for an MRI at least once in spite of red warning stickers all over the place, he was allergic to lactose so they kept delivering him not only milk but tempting milkshakes! Anyway, her boyfriend is there to make sure nothing happens to her of that nature. If she "goes" before he does, she has made sure that her children won't leave him alone as he has no children of his own and he is divorced.

I'm excited for her-- she was locked onto the ranch that she shared with her late husband. She has no regrets, but she seldom left it as they had a bazillion horses that couldn't be left alone for more than a couple of hours. This guy takes her places-- not just fun senior citizen venues but to Rick Rockhill-type hotels and cruises. They have a blast not as "cute seniors in love" but as any other tourist paying for amazing vacations. Golden years? No! They are Gilded years! What a wonderful time for the both of them. He loves being her host and she is seeing all that she'd wanted to. Her husband was bound to his horses-- they were his art and his passion. A few months before he got sick, he'd been telling one of his daughters that he knew he'd not live for forever, but that it was killing him knowing that he needed to thin down his ranch to less horses with every new diagnosis.

My classes are crazy. I am taking an advanced writing course. It's painful. There is a huge difference between how people of science writers write and educated non-science writers write. I am a non-science writer as are my classmates. I have to read my classmate's work. IS mine painful to read? This class is like reading the garbage of tenth grade creative writing classes, only the students are on literary steroids as they have amassed better vocabularies. "Descriptive writing"-- the crap that comes of of their keyboards, the crap that we are supposed to read and must emulate, is crap! Science people are direct. I keep reading my classmates' work and I am on my computer at home yelling, "Get to the fucking point!" They are masters of run-on sentences. Am I this bad?

I have a linguistics II class. I am not a languages person. Why did I ever think I could do languages? It's too involved for the time I have.

Reading with my guy. . .

I have a son with special needs-- it's Guy. He is a cool person. Each of my kids are fantastic people for different reasons. Guy is just a complication who demands to be taken simply. I write real letters and I had a revelation after I wrote one this weekend where I told my friend about him. He is almost at grade level for math but like a first grader at reading. He doesn't speak very well at all. He was screeching at a young age as we just couldn't get what he wanted. Speaking makes us human and it was very frustrating for him. He was in speech therapy at the age of 6 months and then I just thought that the people who did that stuff liked him and wanted to work with him so I was like, "Sure!" I thought he'd be out by the time he was a year old. Not quite. As time wore on, the difference between him and his younger brothers, born 54 weeks later then 100 weeks later, became obvious. For a while I was blaming myself-- I'd had A BEER before I found out that I was pregnant and was encouraged to see if he had FAS. The doctor was mad that I'd felt so bad for so long-- he was six or so then and I'd wondered for years. They had posters up all over the hospitals, "Just one drink can cause FAS!"-- KVETCH! The doctor said that one drink has to be a pretty big drink and mine was an 8oz gourmet beer that was probably good for me. Guy did not have FAS. Guy had pronounced delays and no one knew why but he was a great kid. The doctor told me to just be the greatest mom I could be.

Guy's teachers tried to get him to sign. He'd not-- he wanted to be like everyone else. He was five and motioned to the phone and asked in his extremely hard to hear but easy to understand way, "How can I talk on the phone?" They tried to tell him he could use the computer but he said, "What if I want to call my girlfriends?" Hey-- he was planning. He'd not sign. He'd say, "My mother can understand me and so can you." That was the one thing I understood!

When he was in first grade he came home excited and told me about star fish and I heard, "cell regeneration" quite clearly. He then explained with miming and sounds how fishermen would cut starfish up and not understand how they kept having a problem with even more starfish! That told me something was happening-- not-so-bright people don't say things like cell regeneration in first grade!

Anyway, he still struggles but his speech is improving gradually. Tonight we were reading and my husband was playing Weird Al and he started singing his school book to Al's Anakin Guy song. He started reading to the rhythm to the song. He was getting it. How does the mind work? I got out my song book for my music class. He sang with me and read the words and stopped me when I deliberately messed up the words. He moves when he reads. He'd not fidgeting. One moment I feel like he will never be "normal"-- the next I feel like he is beyond it. He is a good guy, has the values we like to instill in our children for honesty and hard work (OK, he is a boy and often does as little as possible but he'd just being a kid!) and he likes to tease his sisters.

If he was at his lever for reading but was behind in math, our lazy society would say it was fine because "math is hard"-- reading is a problem for him. I'm glad that it's reading as that has to be worked on. With the math, they'd give up once he hit seventh grade level.

He wants to learn several languages, be a doctor for children and a musician and sing to his patients. He knows we all can't understand him very well, but we are getting better. Tonight he said, "Who knows? Maybe I'll find a language and all the speakers in that country will say I sound like I was born speaking it!" He has a sense of humor over it even though he finds it frustrating. We focus on the humor and keep looking up for how to make it better for him. I don't think of him as being delayed any more but rather that he is like everyone else but his problems are more obvious. He's not lacking as a person.

He didn't latch on very well and breast feeding was horrid for me. One of his speech teachers asked how he nursed which shocked me and relived me-- so many militant breast feeding people at the hospital and the midwife's office had me in tears, "Everyone can breastfeed!" Well, no, if every pregnancy is different then. . . not every body is the same. I even thought his delays were due to my problems breastfeeding as my older children latched on easily! Guilt trips are terrible once you become a parent!

Anyway, I continue to do whatever we can.

VD, Monkey Kentucky

Valentines Day (VD) is coming up. For the kids, the teachers make a huge fuss about how the kids need the exercise of writing names out and doing them. I was looking at Valentines last week at the store (we always wind up making them) and Dash said, “I don’t want to give out anything with hearts on them. No pink.” Guy Smiley and Superhero chimed in their support and beat their chests, “We’re men! Yeah, we hate pink! No hearts! Nothing that smells pretty!” I stopped them before they started pumping their armpits! I bought a packet of printable business cards and my husband is helping them create cards with jokes on them and Darth Vader with a Daisy graphics and in the “from line”, each dude’s name. No personal Valentines. We’ll punch holes in them and slip them over the stems of Tootsie Pops. I don’t like New Year’s or Valentines Day—they are Mandatory Fun Days. Peaches went to Costco and bought some candy bars by the gross and Zsa-Zsa is making her home school friends some cupcakes. This makes me crave raw broccoli. All this sugar! (Am I sounding like Willy Wonka’s dentist father?) Dash commented how nice it would be if Mandarin oranges were still in season and he’d put stickers on them saying they were from him. You know—I don’t like VD. I have always had an aversion to it and I’d rather go to bed on 13 February and wake up on the morning of 15 February having escaped any form of VD.

Happy Chinese New Year—this is the year of the rat! I don’t get into astrology but I still enjoy reading the descriptions at Chinese restaurants. I’m a Capricorn Monkey. Speaking of monkeys—have you heard of Hannah Montana? Billy Ray Cyruses’ daughter plays her in a show that is actually cute. Anyway, I told Sprite that he is Monkey Kentucky. He ran to Zsa-Zsa and declared his new name and said, “Ook-ook-ook!” He is four and likes to harass her. “Moooom! He’s ruining my show!” First Boom-Boom could do the dance with High School Musical (making it uncool) and now we have Monkey Kentucky.

I cannot be confidential and say what I also want to say other than that I am raising some great kids. I am the mother to some really great kids. While I was spazzing out at my 18 year old's stage, she is like a rock, steady in making the right choices.

He Arrived! The Plumber Arrived!

I don't know the damages-- it was expensive though. But the house is warm again and the kids resumed running around!

The Water Heater isn't Working

The plumber is coming today. He gets paid overtime. Why does this only happen on Friday mornings when my husband insists he can fix it, then gets home at 4:30 and says he can't so he calls the plumber who of course can't make it till late Saturday afternoon?

To the kids this means bottomless mugs of hot chocolate and snuggling under blankets. Life is good!

Exhausted

I am so damned sleepy!

The cold is almost over.

It is -38 right now. It is freezing.

I went to music class today. I am really going out on a limb and exiting my comfort zone with this class. I feel exposed.

I am not a linguist. I am already failing LING II. I suppose as we grow we also set aside things that we are not good at and pursue other things. That was partly why I was relieved for Steve to suggest that I drop Russian. It requires concentration which I do not have time to do. I love the class. I love breaking down sentences-- seriously, it is amazing to break them down and see why they mean what they do. It just requires time to sit and think about the rules and how to apply them. I will never bother my husband again about "doing nothing" when he says he has been thinking about some math equation.

I went to my first caucus the other night. It was a blast. I was sick but I was glad I was there. I changed parties. I am writing a story about the event. I have the utmost respect for the organizers-- they expected 200 at the most and got ONE THOUSAND people. We had to go across town. It was interesting-- they think the press is against them. Just like the conservatives think that. What if the one newspaper in our town just has bad journalism due to a lack of competition?

Connection Down!

My husband went out on a business trip the night before last. Within a few minutes of him leaving, the internet connection was broken, then the furnace died and the house got really cold. He is a computer geek and creates software. Things break in his wake even though he does a good job with them. I wonder if he is like that spoon bending guy who bends spoons with his mind when he leaves tables while my husband perhaps breaks things, but he counters that he is such a great guy that people break things right after he leaves just to get him to go back!

I was in withdrawal until they fixed the connection this morning. Communication makes us human and I was less human for 32 hours.