Cross Country in a Car

Darcey's are again traversing the country. It's number forty or fifty or some such astronomical number. We're stopping in Ruskin for food storage... then headed to Rushmore to see the Lost City of Gold (Nat. Treasure II). We're all pretty excited about that.

This time it's sans Dia.

This was not going to be about Dia... at least not yet anyway, but I'd better get writing quickly to face that issue. It's going to take pages and pages of vituperative raging to come to terms with a daughter going off to college. I expect a fall break-down. In fact, I'll schedule it now.

Anyway, Dia is staying at home, mediating the cat fights and trying to keep the two of them from tearing each other apart and peeing throughout the house. Everytime the big cat preys on little cat (names are too much work) and hides around the corner to jump her and tear asunder, little cat wets her pants. Totally understandable, but ripping through the house with a loose bladder compounds the cleanup and makes trouble for the rest of us.

I know, too much information... anyway.

bad seque back to Dia...

We knew this day was coming and now that it's actually here, that makes it even harder. She's all grown up, with a job, a life and responsibilities that do not include being squished and smashed into a two-by two space for 20 hours with her brothers.

We will miss her. But she will get her own turn to again go cross-country when Dave repeats the trek (love that trucking blood) with her in August hauling her west to school. She is certain that she will never return. Holidays will be spent there with family or with us on our vacations there and so she will probably never again return to Oklahoma. We will miss her.

Okay, now for less moribund thoughts, family are all there, all 75 of them either first or second degree relatives, giving her the third-degree. Cousins, look out, she'll be there now 24/7 and looking to be entertained.

So, Wagons Ho and off we go!

T.

Birthdays

It's the son's birthday. Again this year. I don't do birthdays well. I don't like them. Everyone could stay the same age, year after year, and that would be fine by me. Years ago, I once again opened my big mouth and said in a fit of pique, upon feeling the burden again of having to outplan the previous birthday party again and again every year, "It makes me wish everyone had never been born."

It's tragic that I have such distaste--that it's a burden and I don't like thinking about change and everyone getting older and change and older and P.U. I just know that the never been born comment is something everyone will remember for ever. Yuck!

The first son is turning 16 and this is the banner year. The most important birthday in a young man's life, as was last year. I know driving is important... to most teens, but this one is ambiguous about that and at this rate of enthusiasm, he'll drive in the early turn of next century. We too are not real excited about adding 1600.00 annually onto the insurance bill. YAY!

His gifts were odd, things that Dad wanted for him... I might guess that they are things that Dave might want for himself if he again were 16. Headlamps, backpacks, and new hiking sandals. Ian seemed thrilled. He's such a great put-on artist.

I seem to remember that Ian's birthday is most always spent on the road. His birthdate is near or on the time when we traverse the country... so he's shorted a little... okay a lot. We yawn and holler happy birthday as we drive through Wyoming, and that's about the sum total of it.

I'll bake a cake at midnight and drag it out on the road tomorrow. Maybe that will make up for the underwear I got him.

Me,

I AM

I'm not what I think I am.

I'm not what you think I am.

I am what I think, you think, I am.

And that is wrong.

Yikes!

I've now leaped back from the crevasse (where I nearly stepped off into intellectualism,) and I'm back to the familiar, stable, comfort of being wrong. Whew.

Twice yesterday I was reminded that acting based on what we assume other's are thinking is a fools errand. Yet, I still do it.

And although I hate quoting the nastiest person on the planet, my old boss, who was a conniving, cheating, grifter of the highest proportions, he did make one true statement (although, I'm sure he stole it from someone else) in all the years I prostituted myself and worked for him. (maybe I'm still working through those shame issues, ya think?) Here it is...

"Assuming only makes an ASS U & ME."

Okay, it wasn't that profound, but he was a grifter, and what you do expect when all of his brain cells were being used up cheating people. (issues...)

Today, I am going to do what I need to do to allow me happy. I am going to stop living my life based on what I think others think, or once thought of me.

I DO NOT HAVE ESP and my thoughts have BEEN PROVED WRONG repeatedly in the past.

I've come to the conclusion that it's just better for everyone if I don't bother to think.

That works.

On with our day, Talleyho!

Hail, Hail, The Gangs All Here

Second hail storm affecting us this year. During the first, we marveled at the danger of being outside in one of these. Cursed words.

So Dave was out in this one. The Tulsa Tough started out as an innocuously nice ride and ended up shattering Dave's bike helmet, popping him four bad blows on the back and arms, and nearly breaking his hand. Racquetball sized hail can cause lots of human damage.

Just See for yourself!

Brake and Blink--Teen Driver II

Yikes, here we go again. It's the brother, same as the other, driving the mother... nuts.

First day, back roads, seems easier than the sister. Could it be the guy thing, or am I less worried because it's the second kid and see how well the first one turned out? There is nothing to this drivers training thing. I did a good job last time, and there have been no insurance claims--ever (that were the teenagers fault anyway, the walnut, the porsche and the hailstorm were all "acts of nature".)

Heck by number three, I'll have the youngest driving home from the written test with only his learners, on the main roads. He'll have to, because I'll be a senior citizen then, banned from driving due to poor vision and recurring incurable road rage.

European Bed Bugs

The jetsetters are back! The two teens enjoyed every moment.

Ask us, go on, ask us, the parents, when we have ever been to Europe? Never? That would be about right. We were in our twenties before we took our first plane ride. But the children, the children are all different. London was fabulous, Paris was wonderful, Switzerland was beautiful, Rome was marvelous and Italy was full of bedbugs!

I heard this fact as a casual aside the next morning after they had dragged in and unpacked all their luggage the previous night. "We stayed up all night sitting upright on the beds because we could feel the bugs crawling on us. Look at these bites all over us."

Yikes! I shun and shudder and transport everything back outside, repacked in black plastic to fry and sizzle in the blazing sunshine. The children have been deloused and fumigated from their tips to tails and still, I shudder. What if?

Yuck!Every pore is tingling with imagined crawlies! What a great gift? We went to Europe and we brought our parents back...

Oh well, here we go again, That's Life.