my mom & i have a lot of fun together. she's one of those delightful humans who thinks i'm pretty funny sometimes, so of course that just encourages me to do and say even wackier things. i know it's been a really good day for mom & i when one of us wets our pants.
i don't know how many of you remember my little post about my beloved pablo, the metal tooth picker, but he's become something of a family legend since i fell in love with him about a year ago. you can go HERE to read of my twisted, but devoted and on-going love affair with pablo.
yesterday when i was visiting my parents house, i inadvertently left pablo at their house. i didn't realize it until i was home & munching popcorn last night. i nearly had a panic attack, but then found my spare picker, which was sufficient, but not as satisfyingly pointy as pablo.
early this morning i got a text from my mom's number. it said,
"I've got Pablo.Leve$5 million in small unmarkd bills behine the dumster at red lobstr b4 midnite tamorro.After I have cownted the $ we will negoshiate his retrn."
after i had a giant, unexpected early morning guffaw, i texted back,
"oh my gosh, that's hilarious! i realized i left my sweet sweet pablo behind. i could flog myself."
but mom wasn't done yet.
"this aint no jock lady. Pay up or he dis."
me, "please, please don't hurt my beloved! i can't live without him. I'll pay!"
mom/gangsta, "hes safe here 4 now but he gets no food. hes a winer so you bedder hurry up becuse i hat the sownd of his wining and i mite looz my pashints with him."
me, "what will you do to him if he whines?"
mom/gangsta, "Start fileing his point til he shuts the heck up."
me, "oh no, not the point! that's his best feature and he has body image issues. i'll give you some publicity if you want, just leave his point intact. i'll blog about you & send out your message. anything you want!"
mom/gangsta, "Tell evrybuddy the mony is being donaded to chairity. And tell them i mene bisness. This littel winer is geting on my last nerv so herry up."
mom/gangsta again cuz i was slow in replying, "I jist had sumbuddy offr to take him off my hands for $1 million today. Now you hav til 11:59 tonite to pay or luze."
me, "i'll pay but only if his point is whole and sharp. don't rough him up!"
mom/gangsta, "He shut up wen i tuchd the file to his winy littel tip. Now hese just quivring like a cowerd. I hate thees jobs."
me, "most guys would shut up if you put a file on their tip. Pablo's no dummy."
mom/gangsta, "Wimp. Jelyfish. Keesh."
me, "you picnappers are all alike. uneducated thugs just looking to ruin someone else's life with your casual disregard for the things others hold dear."
and so ended the ridiculous pablo saga. or maybe it's not over yet. i'll go over tomorrow to attempt to ransom my precious pablo and i'm hoping he hasn't been damaged. maybe i'll find him in a tiny, locked box with file marks around the edges & nary a hole through which to breathe.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Sunday, June 26, 2011
grandpa
i can hardly believe that june is almost over & this is only my 4th post of the month. i've never been so dry for so long. i've seen other bloggers go through dry writing spells & thought it would never happen to me. i'm such a foolish, naive girl sometimes.
my brain is dry like sand paper. uncooked pasta. my mouth after eating a scoop of chocolate milk powder. deserts. a fence post in the sun. my skin after too many zit cream applications. . . . i've got nothing else & those weren't even particularly colorful. i'm just dry. parched. drained. arid. depleted.
my grandpa died thursday. it's been a long time in coming. he was suffering and had so many things wrong with his body at the end that i'm sure it was a relief for it to end. i believe he's in heaven now and he's probably running around on the leg that he lost last year, happy to be mobile and energetic again.
the last time i saw him was about a year and a half ago and he was still riding around on his scooter, quacking to the ducks at the pond. he'd roll up and start quacking & ducks would come flying straight in, like they were his own personal pets. brooke loved riding with him on his scooter, around the mall or the botanical gardens or the neighborhood. he always made funny noises and did silly things to make the kids laugh.
my brain is dry like sand paper. uncooked pasta. my mouth after eating a scoop of chocolate milk powder. deserts. a fence post in the sun. my skin after too many zit cream applications. . . . i've got nothing else & those weren't even particularly colorful. i'm just dry. parched. drained. arid. depleted.
my grandpa died thursday. it's been a long time in coming. he was suffering and had so many things wrong with his body at the end that i'm sure it was a relief for it to end. i believe he's in heaven now and he's probably running around on the leg that he lost last year, happy to be mobile and energetic again.
the last time i saw him was about a year and a half ago and he was still riding around on his scooter, quacking to the ducks at the pond. he'd roll up and start quacking & ducks would come flying straight in, like they were his own personal pets. brooke loved riding with him on his scooter, around the mall or the botanical gardens or the neighborhood. he always made funny noises and did silly things to make the kids laugh.
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| grandpa feeding brooke snacks before a wedding in 2006. |
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| sitting together in the garden in 2009. |
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| his final moments. holding his daughter's hand. |
i'll be leaving in a few days to drive the 13 hrs with my parents & the brookster to attend the funeral and visit the relatives. when we get back here, we'll be back to trying to find our new normal. everything seems to be shaped differently now.
we'll miss you, grandpa.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
sperm donation for father's day
i don't usually like to write a post that follows perfectly with whatever holiday we're sitting on, but this is a story that seems to be perfect for father's day. i've been thinking about writing it for ages & it finally seems like the right time.
when chris & i had been married for about 2 years we sort of decided that we were ready for kids. and by that i mean, i was frantically craving babies and he was thinking about how he liked the way our life was, but was willing to consider that maybe a baby wouldn't ruin everything. we "tried" for a few months with no offspringy results, so i went to see a doctor to see if there was something wrong with my girly bits.
as it turned out, there were some problems in me, but the doc thought we could overcome them with drugs. that didn't end up working, but before they would take the next step with me it was decided by the medical powers that be that chris needed to go through some testing of his own.
most of you probably have a mental picture of how that goes for men from seeing movies or sitcoms where some guy goes to a sperm bank donation center and provides his deposit after viewing some choice pictures or videos in a little sterile room.
that was not what happened.
we were told that they provide an easier way for the men to "deposit" by allowing a sterile cup to be taken home, filled up and returned to the clinic within 30 minutes of filling. that sounds nice, but we lived a minimum of 30 minutes from the clinic & that was barring any traffic delays. and if it took longer than 30, the process would have had to be repeated with a new cup.
we thought about that for a time, trying to figure out a way for chris to be able to do his duty and still get the cup to the clinic on time. hmmm... we had no friends who lived closer to the clinic (plus, that might be a bit much to ask of a friend). maybe we could drive part way there and pull over on the side of the highway for a car quickie. but that might contaminate the specimen as well as get us arrested. we could attempt to collect the deposit in the back of the parking lot right before our appointment time, but that didn't sound like a good plan because again, there was the risk of getting caught by security when doing such things in a public location. and i'm sure that my giggling at the situation would have been a "downer" which would not have been a good thing in that situation.
the appointment was at 8am, which is truly a stupid time for such an appointment. i mean, what man is feeling spermy and deposity at that hour of the morning? we finally decided that we would need to drive to the clinic a little bit earlier than our appointment, go into the building & find a bathroom where we could take care of business & still get the cup turned in on time.
we arrived and found a bathroom, but it was right in the lobby of this medical building. and there was no family/handicap bathroom into which we could go together in order to make it a team effort at collecting the juice of fate. so into the men's room he went, with a look of grim determination on his face. he was going to have to go it alone. no wife. no pictures. no videos. no sexy nurses. just a public bathroom stall. at 7:45am.
i waited outside the bathroom for about 20 minutes. i paced and wrung my hands, glad that there weren't many people around to give me the hairy eyeball for loitering outside the men's room.
he finally came out & plopped the little cup into my hand, lid screwed on tight. i stared at that wad as if my fate lay within it. i was trying to be like a fortune teller with tea leaves, but i was a sperm reader with a plastic cup. i checked it out from different angles, held it up to the light & then stuffed into my purse and headed for the office door where we would turn in our offering and then wait a few days, hoping for good news.
the news, in the end, was really bad. they said that with our combined issues, we had about a zero percent chance of conceiving the old fashioned way & would need to go straight to in-vitro and even then the odds weren't in our favor. we didn't have the money for such things. so i started reading about ways to naturally increase your fertility with no drugs or doctors & low & behold, it worked. we've only got the one, but she's a good one and she came about the old fashioned way after all. it took about a year of careful observation of cycles and days where booty duty was a high priority even if we weren't in the mood. but the end result was worth it.
and that is my father's day story.
 |
| this was us during the time this story took place. |
when chris & i had been married for about 2 years we sort of decided that we were ready for kids. and by that i mean, i was frantically craving babies and he was thinking about how he liked the way our life was, but was willing to consider that maybe a baby wouldn't ruin everything. we "tried" for a few months with no offspringy results, so i went to see a doctor to see if there was something wrong with my girly bits.
as it turned out, there were some problems in me, but the doc thought we could overcome them with drugs. that didn't end up working, but before they would take the next step with me it was decided by the medical powers that be that chris needed to go through some testing of his own.
most of you probably have a mental picture of how that goes for men from seeing movies or sitcoms where some guy goes to a sperm bank donation center and provides his deposit after viewing some choice pictures or videos in a little sterile room.
that was not what happened.
we were told that they provide an easier way for the men to "deposit" by allowing a sterile cup to be taken home, filled up and returned to the clinic within 30 minutes of filling. that sounds nice, but we lived a minimum of 30 minutes from the clinic & that was barring any traffic delays. and if it took longer than 30, the process would have had to be repeated with a new cup.
we thought about that for a time, trying to figure out a way for chris to be able to do his duty and still get the cup to the clinic on time. hmmm... we had no friends who lived closer to the clinic (plus, that might be a bit much to ask of a friend). maybe we could drive part way there and pull over on the side of the highway for a car quickie. but that might contaminate the specimen as well as get us arrested. we could attempt to collect the deposit in the back of the parking lot right before our appointment time, but that didn't sound like a good plan because again, there was the risk of getting caught by security when doing such things in a public location. and i'm sure that my giggling at the situation would have been a "downer" which would not have been a good thing in that situation.
the appointment was at 8am, which is truly a stupid time for such an appointment. i mean, what man is feeling spermy and deposity at that hour of the morning? we finally decided that we would need to drive to the clinic a little bit earlier than our appointment, go into the building & find a bathroom where we could take care of business & still get the cup turned in on time.
we arrived and found a bathroom, but it was right in the lobby of this medical building. and there was no family/handicap bathroom into which we could go together in order to make it a team effort at collecting the juice of fate. so into the men's room he went, with a look of grim determination on his face. he was going to have to go it alone. no wife. no pictures. no videos. no sexy nurses. just a public bathroom stall. at 7:45am.
i waited outside the bathroom for about 20 minutes. i paced and wrung my hands, glad that there weren't many people around to give me the hairy eyeball for loitering outside the men's room.
he finally came out & plopped the little cup into my hand, lid screwed on tight. i stared at that wad as if my fate lay within it. i was trying to be like a fortune teller with tea leaves, but i was a sperm reader with a plastic cup. i checked it out from different angles, held it up to the light & then stuffed into my purse and headed for the office door where we would turn in our offering and then wait a few days, hoping for good news.
the news, in the end, was really bad. they said that with our combined issues, we had about a zero percent chance of conceiving the old fashioned way & would need to go straight to in-vitro and even then the odds weren't in our favor. we didn't have the money for such things. so i started reading about ways to naturally increase your fertility with no drugs or doctors & low & behold, it worked. we've only got the one, but she's a good one and she came about the old fashioned way after all. it took about a year of careful observation of cycles and days where booty duty was a high priority even if we weren't in the mood. but the end result was worth it.
and that is my father's day story.
Friday, June 17, 2011
where oh where has my husband gone
this move has been crazy. in the process of us getting here, it seems pretty clear that God has worked out a bunch of details that we couldn't possibly have arranged or finagled ourselves. we feel confident that this was the right move at the right time.
once we got here last week, it was time for chris to find a new job. the plan was that he would get a job & i would be able to quit working so i can be a better homeschooling mom. with brooke's aspie challenges, she needs more than i've been able to give her while i was working even though i've only been working 2 days a week most weeks. my goal is to change that and be super teacher/mommy starting in august or september when we resume the necessary evil that is schooling.
we arrived on tuesday night. friday i was contacted on by a mutual friend of ours who was the best man in our wedding, but who we haven't seen in several years. he had a job suggestion for chris. chris emailed his resume friday night. he texted a couple times back & forth with the potential employer over the weekend & he was told to be at an address at 9am monday morning. we thought he was going for an interview.
when the guy showed up to meet him monday morning, he said, "you ready to go to (fill in the blank of a city a couple hrs away)?" chris said he guessed so but he'd need to return the car to the house. he called on his way back here & asked me to pack him a bag. he thought he'd be gone one night. okay, that was monday morning & here it is, the wee hours of friday morning & he hasn't come back yet. i've talked to him on the phone a couple times & we've texted quite a bit, but it's so weird to me that he went for an interview and then was gone for 4 days and counting on a business trip, with no warning. i've joked that he either just got a great job or he got kidnapped. every day when we communicate he tells me that he thinks he's coming home that day or the next day. maybe he'll come home tomorrow.
it's kind of strange living with his parents and him not even being here. i heard on the news though, a couple days ago, that for every job opening available right now in america, there are 4 people trying to push their way into it. so i can't complain that he got a job, he likes it, he's working enough hours that there should be a lovely paycheck in our near future. he didn't even have to hunt for the job, so once again, it feels like a God thing. i believe that, but i hope he won't be gone this much all the time.
once we got here last week, it was time for chris to find a new job. the plan was that he would get a job & i would be able to quit working so i can be a better homeschooling mom. with brooke's aspie challenges, she needs more than i've been able to give her while i was working even though i've only been working 2 days a week most weeks. my goal is to change that and be super teacher/mommy starting in august or september when we resume the necessary evil that is schooling.
we arrived on tuesday night. friday i was contacted on by a mutual friend of ours who was the best man in our wedding, but who we haven't seen in several years. he had a job suggestion for chris. chris emailed his resume friday night. he texted a couple times back & forth with the potential employer over the weekend & he was told to be at an address at 9am monday morning. we thought he was going for an interview.
when the guy showed up to meet him monday morning, he said, "you ready to go to (fill in the blank of a city a couple hrs away)?" chris said he guessed so but he'd need to return the car to the house. he called on his way back here & asked me to pack him a bag. he thought he'd be gone one night. okay, that was monday morning & here it is, the wee hours of friday morning & he hasn't come back yet. i've talked to him on the phone a couple times & we've texted quite a bit, but it's so weird to me that he went for an interview and then was gone for 4 days and counting on a business trip, with no warning. i've joked that he either just got a great job or he got kidnapped. every day when we communicate he tells me that he thinks he's coming home that day or the next day. maybe he'll come home tomorrow.
it's kind of strange living with his parents and him not even being here. i heard on the news though, a couple days ago, that for every job opening available right now in america, there are 4 people trying to push their way into it. so i can't complain that he got a job, he likes it, he's working enough hours that there should be a lovely paycheck in our near future. he didn't even have to hunt for the job, so once again, it feels like a God thing. i believe that, but i hope he won't be gone this much all the time.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
i laughed, i cried. it moved me, bob.
i have been totally MIA in bloggyland for a while now. i guess that's reasonable since i just moved to a new state last week. things in my world have been so hectic and chaotic and emotional and exciting. at least i'm telling myself that they're exciting.... they'll get exciting, right?
whenever you move, putting your new house together is like remaking a puzzle. except, now the puzzle that you've been used to for ages is in a different shape and the pieces don't all fit and you have to figure out which ones to chuck and you also have to acquire some new pieces to fill holes that previously didn't exist. and i think that applies to both houses and other parts of life too. i'm not trying to wax philosophical here, but i'm just trying to figure out how we fit here. and which things can stay & which things need to go.
we moved into my in-laws house. they have a big, beautiful house so there's plenty of space for us, but things run differently in every household and just learning how to live with people, no matter how much you like them, can get complicated. and in being here, we have both more & less space than before. it's tricky, i tell you. and for the first time since brooke was born, i'm not sharing a bedroom wall with her anymore. she's downstairs and we're across the house & up the stairs. i'm glad she's old enough to not need me very often in the night anymore, but it still seems pretty far away. i wouldn't even be able to hear her if she cried.
i'm sorry i'm not funny tonight, but i can't mentally be anywhere other than where i am right now. i just wanted to check in with you guys & say hi & i miss you & i hope to be back into the land of blog before long with new stories and time to read all that's going on in your worlds.
whenever you move, putting your new house together is like remaking a puzzle. except, now the puzzle that you've been used to for ages is in a different shape and the pieces don't all fit and you have to figure out which ones to chuck and you also have to acquire some new pieces to fill holes that previously didn't exist. and i think that applies to both houses and other parts of life too. i'm not trying to wax philosophical here, but i'm just trying to figure out how we fit here. and which things can stay & which things need to go.
we moved into my in-laws house. they have a big, beautiful house so there's plenty of space for us, but things run differently in every household and just learning how to live with people, no matter how much you like them, can get complicated. and in being here, we have both more & less space than before. it's tricky, i tell you. and for the first time since brooke was born, i'm not sharing a bedroom wall with her anymore. she's downstairs and we're across the house & up the stairs. i'm glad she's old enough to not need me very often in the night anymore, but it still seems pretty far away. i wouldn't even be able to hear her if she cried.
i'm sorry i'm not funny tonight, but i can't mentally be anywhere other than where i am right now. i just wanted to check in with you guys & say hi & i miss you & i hope to be back into the land of blog before long with new stories and time to read all that's going on in your worlds.
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