A story to tell your teenage driver

The young man was a new driver, out driving with a friend on a Thursday late afternoon. Weatherford, Texas is a country town suburb to Fort Worth. The teens were on a two lane winding highway. My friend, who lives in the area, says witnesses reported he wasn't driving exceptionally fast, he was just driving impatiently and made a stupid choice to pass cars that were driving a little slower. Maybe it would have saved five minutes.

Instead, he and his girlfriend burned to death, trapped upside down after a head-on collision caused by his poor judgment. The rescue workers could not extricate them from the crushed car and had to listen to their screams as they died. The other driver, a father who had recently celebrated his remission from cancer, died at the hospital.

So please, guys, treat the machine you're driving as a great responsibility. We love you and want you to live long and prosper. In this case, at least three families are devastated and the rescue workers are haunted.

Here's the story......

Weatherford Democrat

September 2, 2011

Wreck becomes triple fatality

Christin Coyne
Weatherford Democrat
WEATHERFORD — Three people lost their lives Wednesday night in a fiery tragedy on Zion Hill Road.

Two teens were pronounced dead shortly after 7:15 p.m. at the scene of a head-on collision in the 3800 block of Zion Hill Road, and a man flown by air ambulance from the scene died at Parkland Hospital hours later.

Driver Jorge Flores, 16, and passenger Alexandra Elizabeth Hernandez, 13, both of Weatherford, were pronounced dead after the Mitsubishi car they were traveling northbound in crossed the center of the road and struck a southbound Dodge pickup head-on, DPS Senior Trooper Gary Rozzell said.

The driver of the Dodge truck, William Harlon Moore, 53, of Weatherford, was pronounced dead shortly before 11:30 p.m. in Dallas after being flown by air ambulance from the scene with serious injuries, including significant burns.

A witness said the Mitsubishi had been passing cars on the road.

He said the truck caught fire, and while he and others were trying to rescue Moore from the cab of the pickup, the fire spread along the dry grass to the overturned car where the teens were trapped.

Hernandez was born in Weatherford and an eighth grade student at Tison Middle School, as well as a former student at Hall Middle School.

A memorial service for Hernandez has been scheduled for 6 p.m. Saturday, at the Galbreaith Pickard Funeral Chapel.

Flores, a former Peaster ISD student, had just started his sophomore year at Crosstimbers Academy in Weatherford.

Sandra Pearson, counselor at Crosstimbers, said she spoke with students during the afternoon assembly and the school is offering counseling to students.

“Right now, it’s difficult for a lot of them,” Pearson said.

Even if some students didn’t know him well, the school is so small that everybody had been in contact with him, Pearson said.

Moore reportedly worked in the oil field industry and was on his way to pick up his daughter when his vehicle was hit.

Back to Basics

After an eventful month, I am back.

In fact, it seems like deja vue all over again.

The boys, Ricky and I took the Florida vacation we had scheduled a year ago, before my blurred week of colon cancer diagnosis and surgery forced its cancellation.

The rest of the month has been filled with getting Ricky ready for thirty days in India. In fact, he should be pulling back from the tarmac right now, headed with a group of seventeen educators to catch a fourteen hour flight from Chicago to Delhi. He will leave Chicago about 4:00 pm today and land about 5:30 tomorrow afternoon Indian time. India is ten and a half hours ahead.

A year and a half after we married, I spent three weeks on a business trip to South and Central America - no cell phones, no internet, no employer budget for personal communication. Ricky and I had two prearranged thirty minute phone calls, all we could afford. The following summer he had internships in Texas while I continued to work in Chicago. Without a doubt, that was the longest twelve weeks of my life, even with spending all his summer salary on my plane trips to Texas every other weekend.

Now he's gone again, and I am home, but this time not alone. In the intervening thirty years I've accumulated two dogs, three cats and three kids to help hold down the fort. The fourth child and spouse live nearby.

While I was in South America Ricky grew a beard and moustache. It was so pitiful he shaved it all off before picking me up at O'Hare. I only have pictures. This time he shaved his head before leaving, something I'd seen and admired before. (You can see a picture here.)

Last time we were apart, communication was sketchy. This time, whenever internet is available, we will chat on Skype. We will email and update our blogs. He paid the $8 for ninety days that will allow him to use the internet to call any phone in the United States. The longest we will go without talking will probably be today. He has left his cell phone home, so I won't hear from him until he is settled in his Delhi hotel. The communication blackout may happen again as he moves around the country and stays in less modern hotels, but maybe not. We'll see.

Last time apart we were young adults still learning each other. Now we are marriage veterans able to have extensive conversations with few audible words. Then we filled the empty spaces with worry and perhaps a little jealousy. Now we just rely on each other with confidence. He is going to have a fabulous adventure without family worries and responsibilites. I will get the same adventure by proxy and will make myself do some things with girlfriends usually deferred for family reasons. Ricky gets a month without having to clean up cat messes, put dogs to bed, wake up kids or work on his "honey-do" list. (While he's gone I have farmed out the cat and dog assignments to the kids and will pretend to be childless as much as possible. After all, the youngest is sixteen.)

I have totally enjoyed watching Ricky prepare for this trip. For the past couple of months, anticipating our separation, he has been particularly sweet and attentive. What fun! And I've watched with amusement as he worried over trip details. Ricky wants to KNOW the plan when he's traveling. This is the first time in his adult life he has no control or choice regarding his schedule. He will have no control over home while away, either. He has worried that we won't be able to function without him. He has worried that we will be able to get by without him. Funny man, my now out of control husband.

Thinking about Ricky's worries reminds me of his dad, Jim Balthrop. Jim, a hungry teenage boy during the 1930's depression, ran his adult life around mealtimes. We, his children, mocked him for arranging his meals by clockwork and for setting his travel itineraries by the highway locations of Stucky's and Denny's Restaurants. Ricky has spent the month of June preparing to be hungry in India. Here's the email he sent me a week ago when we got back from Florida:

     With a week to go before I go a half a world away, here are some things that sound good for stocking up my stomach.

          Mexican Inn
          Lasagna
         Chicken chunks
         Kinkaids
         Outback (or other steak place)
         Italian restaurant (either Italy or Cafe Sicilia)
        Barbeque (at least once thats not Spring Creek)
    Those are probably the biggies. Chocolate cake maybe sometime?

Unfortunately for him, I only had a week to "make my weight" at Weight Watcher's, so we didn't get to the lasagne. I remembered Tuesday night to make his favorite chocolate cake and it turned out all right. (Since I weighed in after dropping Ricky off at the airport this morning, I can now have a piece, too!)

His other preparations included shopping, a favored activity barely second to eating. He bought the Ipad he's been pining for and a nice mid-sized camera with lots of zoom we both wanted. He has a new Eddie Bauer backpack and monsoon worthy shoes and lots of beef jerky. So now he and all his preparations are in the air.

What will I do while he's gone that I don't do when he's here? Grocery shop, make my own coffee, decide what and when to eat. (I had Ricky buy ground coffee yesterday so I can keep my coffee bean grinder-free track record intact.) I will have to pay the few bills he could not pay in advance and may actually learn how to use the various TV remote controls. Brian is covering the pool maintenance, I made Wiley learn how to operate our robot floor cleaner, neither of which I have ever done or will do. I'll have to make sure the trash is set out, the cars are gassed and the house is secure when things go bump in the middle of the night. I will have to turn on the bedroom celing fan myself, then turn it off, back on, off, on, ....... (Remember, I'm fifty-something.) And I'll find out how to do all the other things he does without thinking or me noticing.

When the boys and I head to Colorado for a few days in July, I must study the route, book the hotels and make sure we have more than the usual $5 or so of cash I usually carry.

And he's worried we won't notice he's gone? I already said he's a funny man.

If you want to follow his India adventure, he has a blog at http://rickysplace.wordpress.com/

Day 4

At least the dogs enjoy the weather. After three days of ice, with temperatures staying in the teens, a layer of snow arrives to top it all off.



It's another day of school closings. Never in my fifty something years have I had four straight days of school closings. But it's the right call - the school parking lots and drives are still covered in thick sheets of solid ice.

My boys have gone a little stir crazy. Brian actually went to work yesterday, but the office was virtually empty. In desperation, today he entertained himself with the remote control to his new ceiling fan, running around the house to see how far away he can be and still turn his light off and on. His room is designed such that the regular light switch is outside his door. Now he can get in bed or sit at his desk and control the light. Sometimes it's the simple things that mean the most.

Wiley has gone for walks and enjoyed taking his car on short errands. We even let him drive a couple of blocks.

But mostly we're trying to appreciate the change of pace and ignore the endless Super Bowl hype.

A week for the record books, that's for sure.

About to eat the frog

Believe it or not I am updating my blog.

It's not like there haven't been a dozen things to celebrate or commiserate over.

But there was a series of unfortunate events right at the end of the year, none of them unbearable, but lumped together, quite wearing.

I kept meaning to write, but always had an excuse........needed to upload pictures, needed more time, didn't want to spill any beans, too tired, out of town, or just general obstinance.

It was always tomorrow.

And the longer it has gone, the bigger the (writer's) block. I could have written whole chapters by now. Each day I said I would reward myself by putting up a new post and each evening I've gone to bed making the same empty vow for the next day.

Dug in to a hole of my own making, I am now climbing out.

One of the things I got to participate in a couple of weeks ago was the aptitude testing my son did. It was a two day process of testing for him and then I sat with him as he received the results - an assessment of his abilities, interests and work/learning habits.

The counselor recommended a particular book designed to help people like him (and me) stop procrastinating.



I'm going to get it, soon, really.

Mysteries

A week ago I was getting ready for our trip to see my friend inaugurated as governor. As usual, I was compelled to get caught up on laundry. I can let laundry pile up for weeks, but a looming trip sets a hard deadline. I can't overcome this odd compulsion, so just go with the flow.

Part of the clean laundry included a pair of boxer shorts, a style and color worn by the men in my family. Which pile? The tag shows "XL." No one in the family is an XL. No one can explain.

Of course I had to do some shopping for the trip, just some hose and makeup. Buying makeup required me to actually look at my face, though, and see the freckles that are now spots, the new and deeper lines and the wild hairs.  I would smooth the eyebrow hair sticking up and then smooth the one sticking down. I finally figured out it was the same hair, most of the time sticking straight out. How long has that been going on? I've trimmed it (the shampoo lady at the salon says don't pull it as the hair won't grow back when you're this age) and will be vigilant against future outbursts.

On a positive note, six months after surgery, I finally feel back to normal. A couple of weeks ago, the low level pain and exhaustion were gone. One day I was still recovering and the next recovered. Just like that. Just before Christmas, too.

Eventually, I will tell the stories of the "Great Christmas Surprise" and the "Family Drama" of the week after Christmas. It's nice to have 2010 in the rear view mirror.

2011 is starting with a bang. Happy New Year!

Back to normal

There is no normal, none at all.

You think it is waiting for you just around the corner, but instead there is only more craziness. Eventually you realize there is no set pattern for weaving through life.

I think I thought some day I would have the stress free lifestyle of Claire Huckstable* - with a professional career, a great sense of humor, a rich and entertaining husband, a gorgeous (clean) house and children that "oohed and aahed" over the wisdom I imparted.

Ha! Those TV shows and commercials and movies, they're all fakes. Even the more realistic shows can't mirror any one family's life, and certainly not mine.

I have almost eliminated the bad habit of assuming things will be simpler in the future.  I appreciate the classic story of "The Station," believing you just need to reach  your destination to have it made, but then realizing that the trip, the journey, is the actual destination after all.

With us, it's thinking that our schedule will get easier, more manageable.....after our jobs settle down, our kids can dress themselves or drive themselves, or after we've run out of life's surprises.

My first three kids are four and a half years, five school years, apart. I knew that as they moved in a pack through middle and high school that our lives would be hectic, but by the time our fourth child came through six years later, it would be a piece of cake. Right?

Now our baby is in high school. We've just finished marching band season, three months of 7:00 am rehearsals and extra evening and Saturday practices. And when your child does not drive, his schedule is your schedule, in addition to your own. In a two week period we made two round trip trips to San Antonio, several community rehearsals and performances and ended up last weekend for the final competition in Indianapolis. The band leaves on buses on a Wednesday night and arrives in Indianapolis Thursday evening after stopping for  a three hour rehearsal in Illinois. I flew up Thursday night, Ricky came up Friday afternoon. The band performed Friday morning and scored well enough to advance to the next round on Saturday. Saturday's performance put them in the finals on Saturday night. They finished third out of ninety plus bands. Each performance was better than the one before and Saturday night was awesome. After their final performance, the kids loaded up buses, leaving Indy about three in the morning.

Ricky and I floated back to our hotel room, pleased with the results and pleased with the end of band season. Life would once again be normal after our flight on Sunday.

At 1:30 a.m. the phone rang. Our son back in Texas had arrived home to his apartment to find the door kicked in and his electronics gone. Pretty devastating for a kid whose whole life is, or was, stored on his computer. Thank God he is safe and it was only stuff that disappeared.

Later in the day we got home (with only one TSA full body screening,) looking forward to no more 7:00 a.m. rehearsals. So the dog decides to go wonky on us. Winston, feeling ignored, quit sleeping peacefully through the night in his crate. It escalated during the week until Friday night, when I ended up rubbing his tummy for an hour, punctuated by putting him back in his crate, going back to my bed only to be summoned by his shrill, ear piercing yips. I ended up spending the night in the recliner, not that uncommon for me except this time I had a dog leashed to me. Unbelievable.

Now it's the weekend and holy crap! Thanksgiving is here! When did that happen? Obviously when I wasn't looking.

We made our major grocery runs on Saturday, the bird is in the house. And out of nowhere, a fabulous holiday is shaping up. My married kids had a change of plans so they will be able to share the day with us. My parents are heading down from Oklahoma. My older, single kids are a joy to have around, sharing in holiday jobs and dog duties. We are privileged that our older son is going to hang out here for a while, where it's safe and he can be secure while planning his next steps.

So life is back to our normal - a wonderful, wacky, wildly unpredictable normal.



* The first one of my kids to comment correctly on who Claire Huckstable is wins a prize.

Salute

It's the end of band season and we are in Indianapolis for the final competition. Wiley, a trumpet player, has performed tremendously. Below is a link to the band's performance last week. Since then the band has added a beginning, changed some music and drill and changed the ending so that there is a band member kneeling before each headstone while Taps is played and the colorguard forms around the American flag. It has been a great season honoring our veterans.

Reflections

Anticipating my thoughts at the end of December, I believe I will look back on 2010 and consider the first couple of weeks of June one of the best times, if not the best time, of my life. So far.

I received my colon cancer diagnosis on Tuesday, June 1. Ricky, out of school for the summer, was with me. The next day we were able to meet with the surgeon and schedule my surgery for Friday afternoon, June 4.

The three days in between were busy, telling my children and parents, getting work and home squared away. There was no panic - just mild disgust that my body had betrayed me this way. It really is creepy to know that something wild with its own agenda is growing inside you. (And you won't be giving birth to it!)

But mostly I was smiling. Not sleeping well, I spent those three nights on the couch, going through the possibilities. I couldn't come up with a bad outcome, though. Even if it turned out the prognosis was grim, I have had a great life. And absent dying on the table, a quite remote possibility, there would be time to wrap things up in a good way.

So for those first couple of weeks of June, the mundane aspects of life slipped away and we were focused on the important, our relationships. Recently, our pastor, as part of his series on "the family," told a story. A husband, constantly annoyed by his spouse's clutter, considered what his life would be like with a neat house, but no wife. The clutter peeve vanished as he realized how much he cherished her.

The demands of daily life are so pervasive we usually forget to cherish each other. You get a reminder every now and then - the birth of a first baby or a child's wedding, for examples - that loving each other is what it's all about, and little else matters.

I am pleased to report that our wake-up call is still working. We have replaced thoughtlessness and indifference with an active thoughtfulness. I can misplace keys every single day and it's okay. He just grins and goes on (after finding the keys, of course.) He thanks me when I follow up timely on medical procedures, and I choose to do so because I know it relieves his anxiety. We are more considerate of each other's schedules. We are seeking ways to spend more time together.

The scars and pain of recovery are a small price to pay for this renewed sense of purpose and optimism. It has been a very good year.

A True Story

In the spring of 1995 my grandma died. A few days after the funeral my dad and mom, three of my dad's four sisters and their spouses gathered at their mother's senior citizen apartment to sort through her lifetime accumulation.

My grandma lived into her eighties and had a number of hobbies and interests. There were many items to reminisce over.

In among the bathroom towels, they found an unidentifiable object. It was perfectly round and smooth, looked like it was made of metal and had a large safety pin sticking in it. The consensus was that it was some sort of hot potato game kept around to entertain grandchildren (and great-grandchildren.)

One of the sisters tossed the game to my dad. "Here. You're the smart one. You figure it out."

My dad looked at it, turned it over in his hands, and pulled the safety pin out.

Orange smoke started fizzing out of the ball. Dad knew he was in trouble and ran toward the front door. He made it three steps before the ball exploded, covering the living room and everyone in it with a film of yellow and orange.

The concussion was powerful. Dad's palm and thumb were bruised so badly that blood oozed out the back of his hand. His stomach was peppered with fragments. His smart aleck sister Gwonda, who had tossed it to him, was bleeding from the face and neck. Everyone in the room was gagging and blinded.

Fortunately, two of the brothers-in-law were outside loading stuff when the bomb went off. My dad, mom and Dad's sister Jean piled into one car with Jean's husband Ted driving and Vadie, Gwonda and Gwonda's husband Lee made it to Vadie and Bob's car.

Heading to the hospital, my Uncle Ted was affected just by being in the car with them. He had to drive with his head hanging out the window, straining to see the center line. The other siblings took turns opening their eyes at intersections to yell out "red" or "green, go, go!" On the way to the hospital they drove past my cousin at work, who had never seen his dad drive so fast.

Arriving at the hospital they poured into the emergency room. Not for long. Soon the emergency room personnel were wheezing and coughing and had to shoo everyone outside, my dad and aunt on guerneys. Stripped and rinsed off by nurses and doctors in outside portable showers, the brothers and sisters could finally see again. My dad and aunt took a few weeks to recover from their wounds, but there were no serious injuries.

Everyone ended up in hospital scrubs, their own clothes ruined. Hospital staff wanted to burn the clothes, but couldn't because of the wallets, cash and other personal items. Back at Ted and Jean's house a few hours later, they set the bags of clothes on the lawn. The lingering fumes seeping through the plastic were still so strong it quickly killed the surrounding grass.

Lee, Gwonda, Vadie, Jo, Ted(dy Mac), Jean

So what the heck happened at their mother's apartment?

The bomb squad from nearby Fort Sill ended up calling in experts from Oklahoma City to determine that my dad had pulled the pin on a Korean War era tear gas grenade. Found in my grandma's apartment in small town Oklahoma. Nestled in the bathroom towels.


It turns out several of the grandchildren, now grown, remembered playing with the grenade. But Grandpa had told them not to pull the pin out. He had bought it at an Army surplus store, intending to set it off underneath the house to kill the bugs and spiders. For some reason he changed his mind. Wow. 


There are several lessons here.


First......
Boys will be boys. This seems to be a recurring theme among my posts. My grandpa was probably in his fifties when he bought the grenade. I'm sure he enjoyed telling his friends about it. And I expect he intended to use it eventually, because explosions are fun.


Second.........
Husbands should give their wives all the facts. Something tells me Grandma did not know she had a live grenade in her home. Keep in mind that Grandpa died twenty years earlier, so the grenade had been around for decades. He had told her it was important and to be careful. She carefully moved it from home to home and room to room. So men, even when you know it conflicts with the first corollary above, admit when you have something around that is dangerous.


Third..........
Do not think of your parents naked and in an outdoor shower.


And, finally (this is for you, Dad)...........


Find the instruction manual before you pull the pin. 

Whew!

What I've done since September 8........

Helped my daughter celebrate her 25th birthday, with a trip to the jewelry store to pick out charms to replace those she lost along with a bracelet her friends gave her when she finished chemotherapy nine years ago. That makes for a great celebration, along with (Ricky) making her a traditional Balthrop birthday cake - a yellow cake with cooked fudge icing. We sent her home with the cake intact, much to Wiley's complaint.

Garrett, Wiley & Lindsay (Garrett helped give the original charm bracelet.)

Open house at the high school - checking on Wiley's teachers, grades and behavior. His history teacher returned to me the toy airplane confiscated earlier in the day. Sigh. Boys.

Met my 6th grade boyfriend, my first kiss, for coffee during his two hour layover at DFW airport. We only knew each other for that one school year. I found out he really liked me when he gave me a fancy Valentine's Day card signed "Love, Robert." We corresponded - with snail mail - through college. He spent the night in our Chicago apartment one time when he was passing through. (On a cross country motorcycle trip, he stopped in the south side of Chicago to call us and ask for directions. It's a wonder he's still alive.) Bottom line - hadn't seen him in about thirty years. That was fun. I am old.

Attended two high school football games - we won both games and the band did great.

Kept up with America's Got Talent. I only missed voting on one episode. I'll defer further discussion until I've been to the AGT Live Show on October 13. I can't wait - singers, dancers, magicians, illusionists, daredevils and acrobats, oh, my!

Watched Wiley play soccer.

Started our symphony season ticket series. We used to do that, pre-kids. It's been a while.

Finished my September 15th work. September 15 is a big deadline - the final deadline for corporate, partnership and trust returns. I'm averaging 70 hours a week September through October 15, the final deadline for individual tax returns.

Had my first official colon follow up. Not much to it - I just needed advice on how to deal with the rumbling and grumbling. We're trying some different things, but the bottom line is that recovery takes TIME.

GOT A HAIRCUT!

Closed on our house refinance, dropping from 5.375% to 3.75%. That will help us be done with the whole thing in just a few more years.

Worked around the clock the last six days finishing up (an hour ago) the tax returns for an individual client who is running for Governor. So sometime in the next couple of days his tax returns are going on a public website.....with my name on them. Talk about pressure! He is someone I really admire, but unfortunately can't vote for, as he does not live here in God's country.

About God's country - went to the high school homecoming parade.

Met as part of a newly organized financial management team that is going to work with high net worth clients. It required some preparation, but all in all went well. I wondered what I could possibly add, but when you live long enough, you just end up knowing stuff that other people don't know. And I've also learned that if you speak clearly, others assume you know what you are talking about! I am used to high profile work, but it's usually done anonymously from the comfort of my home office. I actually had to bring the suit out of the closet this time.

Went to my daughter's in-laws' anniversary dinner across town.

Had a CT scan with contrast dye to make sure there are no cooties. And I thought I'd already had every test run. I knew I was in trouble when, at scheduling, they started asking me if I liked apples or bananas or berries. Try none of the above. They found a mocha flavored barium cocktail that I drank the night before, then again the morning of the scan. $650 later, I'm waiting on the test results.

The worst part, besides lack of sleep, is being on a reading kick with Ricky. We're reading through the same series of futuristic murder mysteries - crime solving by a sexy, rich and talented married couple. He's one book ahead. So lots of justification going on between us. The house is a wreck, meals are spotty, work is on the edge - but we're living it up vicariously.

And no, this is not me and Ricky.

Working for a living

I am a CPA, but as the cobbler's family has no shoes, I neglect our family's financial planning. That is starting to change, start being the operative word.

We have recently changed our primary bank, gaining some flexibility and better interest rates on car loans, but Ricky has had to do it dragging me along. The new structure involves personal checking and savings accounts, business checking and savings accounts, debit cards and new credit cards with different "reward" programs. It is more than my tiny mind can manage.

For twenty-five years we have run our family with one checking account. We don't have to consult the other before using it, either. And it has worked. All we've done over the years is raise the unspoken limit of how much one of us could spend without consulting the other. It started with $10, living as students, but of course has increased over the years. Long ago we reached the point at which one of us could buy a car without "checking in" first. That's kinda' where we've left it......at least I think so.

We both hate "budgets." Instead, we have developed our own system. I usually make the deposits and keep the operating funds divided between checking and savings. Ricky pays all the bills. Our tasks are so divided, I have never used a debit card.

I assume he will spend everything we have and so I keep as much as possible tucked away. He pretends not to know whether we have enough and spends what he thinks he can justify (knowing that I input all our expenses into Quicken after the fact.) He only knows how much we "have" by checking the balance when he makes a cash withdrawal.

Our system has worked, probably because we're both competitive. Neither of us wants to disappoint the other. With new banking procedures, though, and some other changes Ricky has made in monitoring our long term savings and retirement accounts, we each need to be more involved with both the ins and outs of our finances.

I guess that means we get to be on the same team. I'm rather looking forward to it.

Tomorrow we - Ricky, Kelly, Brian, Wiley (when he can) and I - are starting Dave Ramsey's course on Financial Peace. Lindsay and Eddie are doing the class at a different location. I hope each of us will get some benefit.

I usually dislike structure, i.e. having a plan. But I have never turned down a shoe shopping trip, and that's all this is, right?

Call of Duty

Tomorrow is the first day of a new school year. Wiley the student has been in six-days-a-week, nine-hours-a-day marching band camp for the past three weeks. Ricky the teacher started back a week ago. Monday, an easy class day, will actually be a respite for both of them.

I usually dread the starting of school because of the exponential increase in laundry. Wiley shifts from wearing his pajamas all day, every day, to real clothes, while Ricky switches from shorts and a t-shirt to long pants and long sleeved shirts in addition to his shorts and t-shirt when he gets home.

But this year is an exception. With summer band, club soccer and rock work around the house, my boys have been sweating through two to three sets of clothes a day. Monday begins a respite for the washer and dryer, too.

Wiley also had to finish his summer reading and class assignments over the past few weeks. He has always done well in school, but high school steps it up a notch and I have been concerned how he would fit band, soccer, homework and sleep around his busy X-box schedule.

My prior efforts to minimize gaming time have been futile with both Wiley and his older brother. I have tried setting timers, keeping logs, or arranging rewards to get the boys to self-limit.

When that inevitably failed, I have unplugged or disconnected the TV or limited time spent in the den. But I have not had the stamina to follow through and enforce any of these schemes. Once my head is down working, the TV is on and a kid is in front of it. If I don't nag or yell, my silence (or grumble) is taken as implicit permission.

But with Wiley's understanding and agreement, I may have found the ultimate solution. At least it has worked for the past two weeks.

Brown paper and packing tape, that's the trick.

My goal is for us, Ricky and me included, to consciously choose when we watch shows or play games, rather than making the TV a companion to everything we do.

I have tried limiting the accessibility of the kitchen television as well, since that's where the most mindless TV watching occurs. I have been putting a pillowcase over the screen and hiding the remote control, but so inconsistently it hasn't mattered.

This parenting stuff wears me down. But that is what moms are called to - responsibility. And when we can't say "no" one more time, God answers prayer. The kitchen television died a natural death last night.

Now if He would help me out a little with the internet connections on our Ipods, computers and cell phones, my duty would be done.

Winning the game

Last week was such a blur - coming and going and spinning in place.

It started with a computer hard drive failure Monday morning. And I had such high hopes for my efficiency that day, too, wanting to focus on jobs that had to be done as I roll into the second stage of busy season 2010. Instead, I spent five hours at the Apple store, backing up my computer and paying the hundred dollars for priority service so I could have the hard drive replaced the same day.

The rest of the week included, besides work, supervising eighteen year old boys breaking rock in the front yard, setting up an ipod with appropriate music for my dad's birthday gift, worrying about my son's marching band audition, dealing with dogs on drugs, last minute packing and a plane trip that included a three hour unscheduled stop in Richmond due to bad weather that made us miss both lunch and supper.

Finally, arriving in Charlottesville after dark, we had to find our daughter's particular University of Virginia dorm parking lot. That last task was complicated, as Ricky was driving while I queried Lindsay on her exact location. Since Lindsay did not know that Ricky and my parents were also in the car, I had to repeat her instructions out loud so that Ricky could hear......."Okay, I need to turn around and come back because I went too far. Okay, it's not this light, it's the next light. Then I need to turn right, okay, I think I've got it......"

I have to admit, though, that I managed a most successful surprise. For months I had known we were all coming to her graduation, while she thought it would only be me. I nearly slipped up earlier in the week, mentioning something about taking the dogs to my friend's house, quickly covering my gaffe by saying it was to give Ricky a chance to sleep late a couple of days. But all's well that ends well, and she was stunned and delighted.

The funny (not in a ha-ha, but in a sweet way) part was the anxiety the ruse created for her husband, who was aware of our plans. He stressed over the details and fretted about keeping it from her. If you've seen the TV series "Chuck," he was "Awesome" to her "Ellie." Next time, I'll save him the agony and surprise them both. (Those are they things you have to learn when an adult joins the family. Sorry, Eddie, I didn't mean to make your summer more difficult than it already was, separated from your wife for twelve weeks.)

But the week was great, punctuated on Saturday with Lindsay's excellent commencement speech and an uneventful flight home.

The name of the game? Survivor!

Queen for (half) a day

We did have our garage sale a week ago Saturday. Our soccer team raised nearly $1,100. We sorted items the night before, having to wait until the temperature cooled some. It didn't cool enough, though. I ended up awake most of the night with chills and fever from heat exhaustion. But that's okay. It made it easier for me to justify sitting in my camp chair throne all the next morning, confirming prices and holding the money, while other parents did the hard labor.

Our signs, put up before dawn on Saturday, said the sale would be 7:30 -1:00. On Craigslist we posted sale hours as 8:00 - 1:00. Our first customer showed up at 6:45. By 11:30 we were virtually sold out and closed up shop.

We had an unbelievable amount of traffic stopping by, sometimes with ten cars in our little court. It helps when you have good publicity. It really helps when you have fifteen year old boys able and quite willing to direct traffic our way from the nearby intersection.

The boys used signs, hand motions and general hilarity to great effect. At one point they came back to the house for more poster board and markers. They made signs advertising hugs for a dollar. It worked, adding five dollars to the pot. Most of the customers appreciated the good humor of it all. Some curmudgeon didn't, though, and called the police. A cop gently (we think) reminded my son, the guilty one, to stay out of the street.

Whoever called the cops might have been from the family having the garage sale down the street. Our boys had been setting up in the intersection to hide their sign, which pointed the opposite way. That's definitely why we had an anonymous young man sitting in a chair across the street from our house, holding a sign to get customers directed back towards them.

The best part of a garage sale is pricing the items. We tagged the larger items, but everything else was subject to whim, the particular customer and the time of day. People in the first hour paid "full" price. As the morning wore on, the prices dropped.

Since I had the change and was most familiar with the inventory, I generally got final say on prices. What power! I sat in my chair and ruled. For the little girl who wanted a book and bag of crafts, the price might be fifty cents. It's such fun to see a little one deliberate and finally choose and carefully pull out her own money. One woman spent $134 on clothes, dishes, shoes ($2 a pair and we sold about 80 pairs during the day), bedding, a chair and a washer and dryer. My older son, with his pickup and another parent, delivered the items to her nearby apartment. It turns out she had recently moved here and has a husband in a wheelchair and needed everything she bought from us. That was sobering.

Another early shopper bought lots of clothing at $1 an item and then wanted a better deal because she was buying clothes to "send to Mexico." I told her no, this was a fundraiser to help boys afford competitive soccer, but I could make a deal at the end of the sale. She called me at noon and I offered all the clothing we had left, several hundred items, for $50. She agreed. Of course, when she got here, she suggested $40 should be enough. Nope. (I was still queen.) I told her the minimum was $50. Otherwise I would donate the clothes to our school district's clothes closet where I knew they would go to good use. She paid the $50 and we completely filled her car.

Now why was there so much clothing and shoes? Just think about all those fifteen year old boys who have grown 4-8 inches and three shoe sizes in the past year. We sold a lot of boys' and men's items.

My favorite negotiation of the day involved a well dressed couple driving an expensive car. They had stopped by twice, annoying me each time, arguing over a dollar here and there on their purchases. The third time they came by the woman was interested in a lap blanket designed like an American flag.

"How much is the blanket?"

"The blanket is $5.00 and I'll throw in the American flag pillow for free."

"Will you take $4.00?"

"No."

"Well, I don't want the pillow, so how much is just the blanket."

"It's $5.00"

"But wouldn't it be $2.50? I don't want the pillow, I just want the blanket."

"The blanket is $5.00, I'm just throwing in the pillow if you want it."

She paid $5 for the blanket, and I guess she did want the pillow, because she took it, too.

Garage sales can be a lot of fun with the right attitude. If you need to rent a queen some time, just let me know. I work cheap.

So True

"The best behavioral control you can have is a wife."

- Rush Limbaugh

Who wants to disagree?

Generations Ahead

My grandpa was born in 1893. He and my grandma had ten children, one at a time over twenty-eight years, and twenty-one grandchildren, only four of whom are younger than me. The only one I never knew was my aunt, their first born, who died of cancer at age thirty-eight.

My grandparents lived in the same home for seventy years, four rooms plus a bathroom, the toilet only added after I was in elementary school. The four oldest sons settled within a mile of my grandparents' home. When I was a kid, the uncle around the corner also only had an outhouse, but the one up the hill had an indoor toilet, but just for "number one" until they added a septic tank years later. At the outhouse you always checked for toilet paper first, or you really would be SOL. These were important things to know as the granddaughter from the "city" who spent a week and a lot of weekends at Grandma's house most summers and could choose when to spend afternoons or overnights with cousins.

During those summers we built forts in the woods and chased fireflies and locusts in the evenings. I helped bring the cows home at supper time, worked in the acre garden, emptied the drip pan on the ice box, brought canned items up from the outside cellar, gathered eggs, shucked peanuts for fifty cents an hour and helped do the laundry with a wringer washer - filling the tub with a hose and soap, washing and wringing the clothes, then emptying the tub to refill with clean water for rinsing and wringing again. I never did get the hang of milking. I watched my grandma with awe as she caught a chicken, wrung its neck, chopped off its head and feet, plucked its feathers (saved to use in pillows) and cooked it for supper.

When I was being ornery, I would eavesdrop on party line phone calls. Two short rings was one uncle's house, one long and one short another, etc. There may not have been electricity in every room, but telephone conference calls were a snap - just everyone pick up their phone at the appointed time. (And that would be phone, singular.)

In the winter, the living room was heated with a wood burning stove vented through the ceiling. I still remember the winter weekend my parents and older cousins ice skated on the pond beside the house while I was stuck in the house with a cold. Resentful, I played in the fire and tossed in kleenexes to watch them smolder, then erupt. I sure didn't go play in the unheated bedrooms.

One time, when I was five, I got to go to school for a day, riding the bus and everything, with my two cousins: Deletha, five years older and Linda, ten years older. The school had an elementary room and a secondary room. I sat and watched the class, making paper chains and paper dolls to keep busy.

When I was growing up, everyone went to Grandma's for Christmas Day dinner, i.e. lunch. No matter the four rooms, probably about six hundred square feet. The house was big enough to hold the fifty or sixty people usually there. Only two of the ten kids ever moved out of the area. The women cooked for hours. The men were served first, the children second and the women last. The women did the dishes.

Those were great times, the bustle of a large multi-generational family. (I don't recall there being much hustle, though, especially during the hot, hot summers.) The four grandchildren younger than me, including my brother, didn't have these experiences. Modernity had encroached by then - complete plumbing, a propane stove, even a window air conditioner.

I am privileged to have been so much a part of the past. I am sorry my children don't have anything like that.

When you are a kid in a big family as I was, someone always comments about you. You've gotten tall or fat or skinny..... You are constantly told who you are the spitting image of. I didn't believe that part at all. I was always told I looked just like my cousin Mona Faye (three years older than my mom!) and my cousin Linda. Well, my aunts and uncles were comparing me to the children they remembered. I would look at my cousins and think "no way." But then I got a little older, and sure enough, I do look remarkably like Linda. I saw that when I was in my thirties and she in her forties. She died of breast cancer at fifty, so I don't know how the trend would have continued. At an uncle's funeral last year, when I was close to the age of Linda when she died, her grown daughters were taken aback by our resemblance. They told me they could almost see their mom one more time.

I probably would have caught up to looking like Mona Faye, too, in another ten years or so. But she died last week. One day she was cooking and sewing and volunteering and enjoying life, the next day she collapsed and they discovered two tennis ball size tumors in her head. She would have been seventy-nine in a few days. I was not quite up to the long drive necessary to attend her funeral. It would have been interesting to see her one more time, a glimpse into my own future.

It is very practical being on the low rung of a long family ladder. I've watched my aunts and uncles and older cousins age from their twenties and thirties to their seventies and eighties. It gives me direction. I know where I'm going and have a pretty good idea when I'll get there. I've watched them navigate the world's technological changes and their own inevitable physical declines. I'm proud to say that in most cases, my family has managed it with grace and humor and no unreasonable expectations, a very good roadmap to follow.

Lost and Found

From time immemorial, Man has been the Hunter. And Woman requires it.

Personally, I consider it one of my missions to make sure the men in my life keep that skill honed, now that they are no longer required to hunt for food.

Let me amend that. Whenever my mom needs an ingredient from the pantry or one of their three freezers, it's "Ted, go find the ........" Same here, except in my house it's more likely to result in Ricky having to go to the grocery store.

My dad, unasked but oh so appreciated, once spent fourteen hours searching inch by inch through the shag carpeting of my childhood bedroom to find a lost earring. That, my friends, is hunting.

In my own home, I only make a perfunctory search before calling in the expert to find my phone, purse, book, sweater, shoes, shirt or the important piece of paper I just had in my hands. It used to be the eternal search for car keys, but now I have two sets and work diligently to keep them either in my purse or on the key rack.

A couple of weeks ago my wallet was missing in action. I had it at lunch with my friend, but by evening realized it was not in my purse. It's a flat, black wallet that easily fits into a back pocket and holds my cash and the six or eight important cards I have.

I looked everywhere. He looked everywhere. We searched the car, both cars, the driveway, the house, the pockets of my clothes. We did it again. We have two bank cards, but daily checking showed no unauthorized activities. I put off canceling the cards and going to the DMV to replace my driver's license (it has the rare good picture!), all the while feeling totally stupid that I'd truly lost my wallet.

It is weird having no credit cards and no identification. I paid cash for everything.

Last Saturday, over a week after the disappearance, I had a message. Someone had found one of my bank cards on the side of the road, near where I had lunch that fateful day. Hallelujah! The suspense was over, at least partially. Unfortunately, the nice man was out of town for the holiday weekend and I could not confirm which card he had and a more precise location of the find.

But never fear, my hunter was here! We drove to our best guess of the location. Ricky parked beside the road and we began searching. It had rained nearly every day so the ground was soggy and the creek beside the road was full. I got some comfort that the rest of my cards were likely washed away and unusable.

Then Ricky found my Eddie Bauer rewards card ground into the mud. But that was it. At least we were in the right spot. I waited at the car while he looked one more time, going down a ways, then coming back on the other side of the street.

Crossing the street back to our car, he found the other bank card. Score! Then another card and another. Then the wallet itself, with the remaining cards, including my driver's license and most important this year, my medical insurance card.

My best guess - someone stole the wallet out of my purse during lunch, took the cash and tossed the rest out the window during the getaway. They were probably a little disgusted since my cash was mostly ones. The amazing part is that my wallet lay in the middle of a busy street for over a week and I recovered virtually everything.

Actually, the hunter recovered it. I just watched.

Motto for the year

It works. This is the brownie pan, "as seen on TV," made for the edge lover. The divider, not shown in this picture, lets the brownies cook so that every brownie has edges.

My sweet sister-in-law Sherry gave us the pan for Christmas. I finally used it for the first time this weekend. I only waited six months to try it out.

I used the special brownie mix my other thoughtful sister-in-law gave me. Duncan Hines Chocolate Chunk, since discontinued, was my all time favorite. Susan found two boxes in her grocery store and sent them to me, a while ago. I had used one, but had been saving the other for a special occasion.

What could be more special than celebrating successful surgery? In hindsight, there must have been hundreds of times I should have used that last brownie mix. I had been saving it for years evidently, as it had an expiration date of May, 2006. Time does fly, doesn't it? The brownies were still deliciously devoured.

But that brings me to admit that I am a Hoarder, historically using "seconds and surplus" for everyday, saving the "good stuff" for "special" occasions.

I come by this attitude honestly. After my grandma died in her late eighties, her daughters found dozens of brand new nightgowns and other new clothes in her drawers. She was waiting to wear them until she had to go somewhere. She never did.

I grew up using and re-using. Brown paper lunch sacks, plastic sandwich bags and aluminum foil were used over and over in the lunches my mom packed for me and Dad. Scraps from one dress made the accents for another (or went into a quilt.) I wore my best dress only on special occasions. We had everyday stuff and "company" stuff. That's the background of a lot of people my age, growing up in the sixties with parents who themselves grew up in the lean thirties and forties.

Flash forward thirty years and I'm finally "getting it." I am learning to value my stuff by what it does, not what it costs. Do I have designer clothes I never wear, perhaps even with the tags still on? Now I pass them on without hesitation. I don't have to earn the right to get rid of nice things. Let them be nice for someone who will appreciate them. The same rule applies for furniture and nick-knacks and (especially) gadgets that seemed so necessary. Rather than move stuff from closet to garage to attic - just pass things along. It lets me smile.

And for those things I keep, I am trying to use them! How ridiculous to save a brownie mix for four years.

And for the things (shoes) I truly want, I now give myself permission. Recently, I agonized over replacing my kitchen mixer with a new one in a more modern color. There was nothing wrong with my thirty year old mixer. But how silly to keep something just because once it was expensive and still works.

We're hosting a garage sale next month, a fundraiser for Wiley's soccer team. I've started filling the back porch with stuff - bedding, laundry baskets, storage containers, pet paraphernalia, dishes, books, clothes, shoes, electronics........

Love it, use it or go ahead and lose it!

Did anyone get the license plate number of that truck?

Yeah, that truck that hit me last Friday. Modern medicine and the human body are miraculous, but, this time, it really will take some recovery time. I had a few inches of my colon removed on Friday night. Tuesday afternoon I came home. I have a one-eyed smiley face on my belly now, but all the pertinent parts seem to be functioning. It will just take some time.

Wednesday I spent the day in a friend's recliner, since, to add insult to injury, our air conditioner went out while I was in the hospital.

Yesterday was kinda' fun - did interesting client work that had to be done due to the State of Florida deadlines that are non negotiable. Read a couple of fun books. Went for a short drive.

Paid the price with an uncomfortable night, so here I am, in the recliner, taking life easy a few hours at a time.

I came up with a few numbers to summarize the last week..........

1 - The number of cancerous polyps I had removed by removing that section of my colon. (For some reason, I really, really don't like the work "malignant.")

2 - How many hours I spent in recovery after my three hour surgery. Normally, it only takes about an hour in recovery. However, one of the rules is that you have to be able to talk before leaving the recovery room. During recovery, someone would ask me questions. I would give a thumbs up, or a thumbs down or a shake of the hand, depending on the question, but would not talk. Finally, they sent for Ricky, out in the waiting room, telling him I was fine, but had some "issues" and needed his help. I think finally I said "don't want to talk" and they took me to my room.

3 - The days between my cancer diagnosis and surgery, performed by one of the top rated surgeons in the Dallas area.

15 - The number of family and friends who took over the waiting area during my surgery.

29 - The median number of days between a colon cancer diagnosis and the necessary surgery if you live in Canada.

34 - The number of lymph nodes removed and tested, all of which were negative.

Countless - The friends, family, students, co-workers and friends of friends who have sent prayers, notes, cards, flowers, balloons, food, time, encouragement and support. It has been overwhelming and humbling.

Even without the vacation I was so looking forward to, it's going to be a great summer.

I know my limits

It's lunch time. I haven't eaten in almost two days.

I told the boys they had to go out for lunch.

Too bad I don't have time today to go weigh in for the month of June at Weight Watcher's. "Making my weight" would have been a piece of cake. Ouch.