Who are these people?

...and why are they smiling? It could not have been the weather. 102 in the shade and I'm not sure the parasols count. This brief moment was inevitably followed by a a desperate need to lie quietly in one of the air-conditioned rooms. Curtains were hung across the stairs to keep that conditioned air from falling into the rest of the house.
  Since Grandma couldn't make it further than the bathroom at the top of the stairs it didn't seem to matter too much. Naturally as the weather got set to cool we left. Except for the Grandma of course and my baby girl.
 The actual baby of the family told us as we left how terrible we were always taking him away from his sister. The sister called us 10 minutes out to say that Grandma wanted to see a doctor immediately and they would have to call the rescue squad.
 They didn't. We kept driving. Bad weather was on it's way etc. etc. By the time we got home the storm was just hitting us (oh, did you think I was being metaphorical?) and those left behind were without power from their own storm (now that could have been metaphorical but it wasn't). Frantic phone calls and then the power came back and our storm blew over. Metaphorically speaking.
  No real point in trying to convey the content, or context or anything of all the calls the next 48 hours. Phone calls while I was driving on 95, phone calls while in Walmart, phone calls while trying to find my email (another story). Where is your daughter? Why can't Grandma get up? Why should Grandma get up? What to do? Isn't this the same blog I wrote a week ago?
  Not quite the same because this time my beloved husband is/was fixing the dishwasher (saving us money) as I type. Until I have to stop typing and find the breaker for the pump and open all the valves in the house. Then I find alot of towels. Then I turn back on the pump and close valves. Mostly. I ask the 7 year old to turn off the ones upstairs. You know that sink never drained well? Then my husband rediscovers after 29 years of marriage that I don't know my left from my right so the valve he thought I'd shut under the sink to the dishwasher I'd opened so in fact all the excitement was un-necessary. But the loyal little one told him he was a much better "fix it guy" than the man who came here yesterday because nothing so exciting happened then. Then my husband went to bed -and discovered the sink that still had the faucets open. To give credit where it is due I am the one who figured out where all the water was going and placed the buckets in the basement, 2 floors below.
 So who are these people? Well not great home health nurses and definitely not plumber's helpers. And they are smiling because they were living 2 days ago.

Warnings can be so helpful...

 If only yesterday had come with one. Like this one in Walmart which I so appreciated because I had actually been about to light up right there since I was tired of smoking in the pet food section.
 We sent the little one off with his sister a few days ahead of us to Grandma's. He wanted to be with his sister who has been traveling. She was going down to take care of Grandma in Grandma's own house. We were planning on spending the 4th through the weekend there. I needed some undistracted time to work on some research grants. No swim lesson for another week. The perfect plan. Honestly it only hit us at dinner time that we had no one else to feed but ourselves and could do pretty much whatever we wanted. Not quite alone but the eldest is happily computer gaming too much so we might as well enjoy it. Then the phone rings. Before we'd even called the Chinese restaurant.
  Grandma has fallen and she can't get up. ...and she won't let her very offended grand daughter help her up. So for some 4 hours we are back and forthing on the phone. Rescue squad? Rescue us? Pain meds? Where's the little brother? How much T.V. has he watched? Don't be mad at Grandma! Don't be mad at your granddaughter!
  Finally everyone was settled for the night -but us. That took a few drinks and some pie. And some old Chuck episodes. Which meant it was really late when we went to bed -which in and of itself should have alerted us to the fact that we would have an early morning call. Why doesn't your daughter hear me calling (that would be because it is 7am and the window AC units)? What medicine should I take? ...and many more  questions for her son-in-law the doctor. It's just unfortunate that he's an electrical engineer.
  We have still resisted going there and tried to get the work done we stayed home to do -but the whole wow-we-have-time-alone thing is pretty much shot. Tomorrow as early as we can we'll drive on down and spend the next 5 days in a house with no AC except in the bedrooms, and a miserable old woman -and Grandma too. Visitors welcome... but you've been warned.

Fairness

Nothing is fair.                    My mom doesn't say it's unfair exactly but she certainly doesn't sound as if she thinks it is fair that we can still walk and bend and see with both eyes (well more or less). Or that I went to college and she didn't, or that I'm not a widow. Sometimes I actually have asked her if she would want me, at my age, to be in the same condition she is?

  The 7 year old has been whining that it is not fair that his dad and I watched tv without him several nights (don't tell Social Services  but it's true -we did watch tv without him -unless you count the whimpering from the balcony).

 The twenty-somethings find it unfair that we have our own computers and cameras and food-supply. Or at least I assume their attempts to redistribute these things more evenly indicate such a finding. Also they've actually told me it's "not fair" that their father and I were already together when we were their ages. Or something like that. Sometimes it's a bit difficult to sort out but it's clear that while they are glad we have a happy marriage it probably isn't fair.

 The one offspring who you'd think could complain the most about fairness rarely does but his exceptions to this rule are generally quite impressive.

 So if you haven't picked up on it by now I'm not feeling all so fairly  my self. Grandma is at her home being cared for by her grand-daughter (my baby girl), who is being relieved by her brother so she can come back to spend time with a friend who is spending the rest of the summer out of state caring for her grandmother -and guess who is being asked to help with gas and food and etcs?  It's hot, I'm tired, I lost my temper twice today (1st with the debt collection company trying to collect a medical bill I don't think we owe -but it's a long story, and 2nd over inefficiently washed dishes -not so long a story but certainly as silly (did I mention the dishwasher is broken?)) (the double parentheses; my favorite). 

  Not to mention I'm discouraged that a movie about male strippers and another about a foul mouthed teddy bear are filling the theaters while the newspapers are crowing about the president's amazing victory (although to be fair it's not all that victorious).  Who was it who first mentioned trips in handbaskets?  Why is popular rule such a good idea? Oh that's right. It's fair...

 Still we did get our toes wet last week at grandma's. When we got all the way in  we didn't see the snake until we got out. What could make life more fair than that? 

      

Feed me. Feed me.

 I told my mom about blogging that I called her a bad word but added that we had both apologized and she said (exact words here), "Yeah but I don't think either of us meant it." My exact reply, "Yeah I said that too ... because we are so related."

 She is with my sister right now so I was talking to her while shopping in Lowe's and I saw work gloves on sale so I told my mom, "Work gloves on sale!", and with no time to spare she asked, "Is there a man in them?" What this shows you is that one of us is still making witty conversation

"He didn't know beans from buttercups."
-Grandma recently describing some idiot at a plant nursery

But you know this is on her good days. On the bad ones she is not so funny. Growing older (I can't say old since at 94 that's done) isn't so funny. And I'm right behind her.

Just a little fly

Today my eldest reminded me we needed to vote. Someone had given him a brochure and he read it and someone else had sent an email and he had considered and decided. Me, not so much. Also it was raining. But then I discovered the polling place was in the elementary school and it was my turn to pick up so what could be easier?
  The rain was pouring. After my good citizen decided to use the restroom he was at the front door -but no ID. No time (crutches+rain = anxiety) so I decided I'd have to make a 2nd trip.
  That meant waiting until after piano lessons  but at least by then no more rain. The sun is shining.
 At the polling place I immediately see an old friend and as soon as I "check-in"  and get my voting slip (some little piece of paper that I guess says I can vote) I go back to greeting. The voters were few. I and my eldest and my youngest are the only non-workers present. Meanwhile Eldest is awaiting his turn so once I vote I wave him over to the booth.
  But it seemed he hadn't checked in -I assumed he had as I chatted and he assumed I knew what I was doing waving him over to vote. The check in lady got excited, "You have to be registered to vote." I still thought they'd checked him in but were not finding him -or something so I said well he is. She looked perplexed -"Are you voting?" she asks him . No, I think  it was, "Is he voting?" to me. When the answer was yes they all looked surprised but she really looked it.
 Which is when I realized no one had seemed to think he was there to vote so they hadn't called him up to the table. They assumed he was just waiting on me rather than his turn. To be fair  maybe there is some other explanation (but as I've pointed out before this is my blog).
 No harm no foul since he then checked in and voted. So perhaps it's unkind to say the woman looked taken aback at his voting and knowing what was what. But I think it'd true and it startled me. It left me feeling a little bruised.  Did I mention this woman had been in charge of special education when we moved here? She didn't seem to think he knew much then either. I didn't think they wanted him at the table then either (so to speak).  I'm not bitter though. ... Just a little ragged around the edges.

Notable Achievements

  Yesterday, with only 4 days left of being a first grader, my baby held a baby goat. Someone else had to catch it for him so it may not be worth as many points. 

That's OK because tomight he caught FOUR lightning bugs and had them all safe in his hands. He let them go and caught another set. In his pajamas. And with barefeet. And all by himself. He had to stretch way up high to get some. He flew after them.  

There were so many lightning bugs and the gardenia is blooming and the blooms are so white they shine out too.  I caught several fireflies (I like both names) but mine always escaped when I tried to catch more. Bedtime boy was more careful. I promised we'd put some in a jar next time. He wants to keep them forever. So do I.

If you look carefully here the yellow streak on the right is a lightning bug. You can;t really get a picture of it. You have to be there. You really do. But it counts as an achievement. You get a gold medal for catching four at once I'm pretty sure.

Still a bipolar life

I was thinking today how nearly perfect my life is sometimes. How rich and wonderful to have all my family about and all the stages and ages together.
 And then I got home. My grey(ing)-bearded one pulled up right behind me. The little one ran out to meet him -and complain that the next oldest son (which means 18 years older remember) had been teasing him. Then that one came to explain that he'd only been trying to find out why Grandma was yelling. Apparently she was, let us say disgruntled, because the eldest son of mine had brought her very little for lunch and when I leave the house she doesn't seem to leave her bed. I spoke with the old boy and he clearly felt he was being asked to do too much. He pointed out that all activities take him twice the energy it would for an able bodied person (clearly it was a mistake to share with him an article we once saw that said children  with CP burn twice the calories). He was angry, unhappy, put upon. So I went into my mom. She was angry, unhappy and put upon. I went to bed and curled into a very small ball and cried.
 I got up and checked email and read (or to be honest that's the way I read it)  the class I worked so hard on will not be mine again and I know that since it is a core class and I am a limited-part-time adjunct with no research experience to boast of  (and did I mention angry, unhappy and put upon ?) this is perfectly reasonable. Also the professors currently teaching have already thanked me for my "very helpful" Power Point slides and course material* I shared. 
   Naturally the seven year old decided to be extra whiney tonight. The evening was rounded off by tornado warnings postponing our trip to Grandma's house where there was to be a ceremonial changing of the guard - i.e. she spends June with her kinder daughter.
So  that's nearly perfect, right? At least a perfect storm of self pity.
Oh, the bug was in the middle of an otherwise perfect magnolia bloom. My symbology is not subtle.


 
*honesty alert: well, when I prepared those I also first worked from  previous profs' slides and I don't actually know how much of my material anyone else is now using. I just imagine it is alot  because my final slides were beautiful (intellectually speaking) and this is my blog.