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.

Glug, Glug, We're drowning

This week’s “severe” weather has finally moved on and the sun is peeping out. We’re once again scraping up in the detritis of more storm damage.

It’s another bleak day in the Tulsa for insurance adjustors. We were awakened again at 2:30 a.m.., Monday night, by tornado sirens and the reverb of gunshots on the roof. Persons of a military ilk, would have a better description of the size and caliber, but this sound was not like the familiar sound of branches breaking during the ice-storm, (one big cannon blast with a long shimmy and then followed the echoing, reverberating thump). This time it was more like machine gun fire blasting the roof, the windows, the skylights.

Dia snuck out during a lull in the ruckus and salvaged a hailstone. It would have been the perfect size to shoot 18 holes. Our roof could be a 9 hole course. And, yup a sky light is blasted out. The one in the boys bathroom has a big hole and the roof guy says that rooves (plural like hooves) one quarter mile on both directions from my house are totaled. Yay, hurray, one more thing to add to the repair list.

The trees ravaged by December’s ice storm had just about recovered, so it was only fair that they should again be annihilated. There are no blossoms left, and the ground is piled with pollen and whatever branches remained.

However in better news, the hackberry sustained no collateral damage. We’ve spent $1500 on it in a slow and methodical amputation process and now with one trunk and one auxiliary branch, cabled together with state-of-the-art prosthetics, it should be good from here on out.

I spent yesterday pumping eight inches of flood water off the pool cover as it had collapsed in onto itself. The cover filled up and sunk in because all of the water bladders that held the top taut were punctured by hail. Not pinholes but circular rips the size of golf balls.

The black car has $6,700 worth of hail damage. We’ve had it two months and the damage has again exceeded its 60% market/replacement value and may again be totaled. Dia is two for two now, “I can’t believe this storm totaled another car!” *@(*&)(*%$* or nasty words to that effect. (as profane as Dia gets).

The last car was totaled one day after the other ice storm. With Dia’s vehicular luck, she really should consider moving. (Oh she already is?). These have yet to be her fault and she struggles with the no-fault, but total misery anyway learning curve. Her windshield is smashed also, and Dia has renamed the lovely pittance, (referring to it’s current value and it’s pittedness) the black pox. We had put on the car cover, but mere fabric is no deterrent for that size hail. Only one side got pelted, to the east and the truck was against an east fence so it got hit less.

The truck has some damage, but not enough to matter, after all it is a 4x4 Ford and in Oklahoma that much damage can result from one good off-road mudding.

I’m getting ready for the next deluge. The roofers and insurance guys will be pummeling me again. I wonder how much more of a pelting I can stand. Wednesday and Thursdays storms overflowed every saturation point and the school one mile away was closed. Buses can’t drive through two feet of water. There are cars swept away, major intersections closed and the bridge down my street sank (or sunk).

Water, water everywhere. The attic is most and soggy and Dia can now shower outside her shower under the air vent. In my experience, the deluge doesn’t stop just because every crevasse is full and overflowing. I don’t need emails saying, So move.” I’ll let you know how things go when the pits dry out.

Childrearing Secret

My friend had a difficult child.

At three it was apparent that he was bright, but would have development issues. He couldn't follow three simple instructions in a row, his mind wandered from task and the mother was constantly berating the child for his inability to perform basic functions, simple tasks that should have been age appropriate. He had impulse issues, disassociation, it was sad. He was just too flighty, forgetful and hopeless.

Over the years their relationship deteriorated and by the time he was seven she despaired that he could ever "turn out normal." The parents invented treatments, saw therapists and psychologists, changed schools and made every effort to fix this kid. Then something changed.

They gave up.

That was when she and her husband made one change in the child's treatment and it affected everything. What changed? One basic thing, a hug. They learned to participate in the hug that the child had once upon a time so desperately offered whenever he goofed up. It seems that his cousins (the best counselors) had decided that as a group they needed to hug their grandparents more often and so the child decided to set aside the previous years of rebuff and took it upon himself to reach out and hug his parents more.

Almost instantly, that dysfunctional relationship changed. He is now adaptable, confident, yet still different. While he still struggles with bein different every day of his life, he is happy, comfortable and I love him more than ever. (oops, the mother loves him) This bumbling teenager is sensitive, enthusiastic, exciting, interesting, challenging, brilliant and insightful. And did I mention Happy?

Need another testimony? My close girlfriend was having danger moments with her teenaged daughter. She saw behavior that was life threatening and worried about what to do. She prayed and was told, Hug Her. She did in spite of the physical rebuffs, she persisted lightly and over time things changed. Withholding touch is cruel, yet it is a common punishment. We tell them, "Go away, and leave me alone."

I promise you that even though it is so hard to learn to love an alien, it is not impossible. I know that babies separated from human touch die. How could I not understand that basic principle for humanity, children, teenagers, the elderly? Hug. Hug. Hug. How many times have you hugged your child, your husband, your mom today? Find a way, Institute a law--once a day--HAVE THEY HUGGED? If not, they have to get out of bed to hug someone! Be bold! Start and even though they may push you away (trust is hard to regain) keep hugging! ! ! ! Institute group hugs! It will make all the difference.

Speaking as a former non-hugger, consider yourself hugged today, Terina