Updatey Stuff

Yes I did go to the volunteers meeting at the theater. Sproing asked me why I had to go out. I told him I need to meet other adults. I don't think he understands. Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

The meeting was fun. I was the only newby. I saw a couple of people I have known from around town, seen before, or have otherwise been remotely associated with. Most of the folks there I'd never met. Somewhere between 15 and 20 people were in attendance. I had the best talk with a very elderly gent named... I forget. Cliff, maybe. He was quite engaging. Another fellow I just saw from across the stage (we met up on the stage) had what I believe is a Scottish accent. Don't know his story. He and his older teen age (or early 20s) son were there together. The second in command of this operation is a slight thin man, approaching middle age. It's difficult to tell his age. I'm sure I've seen him from time to time, but can't remember where. He is the only one who pegged my gaydar meter. Kinda swishy, but subtle. We shall see. Seems nice.

I signed up to work with costumes. This is community theater. If you know anything about community theater, you are aware that they desperately need volunteers to help out in just about any and every way. I heard some task descriptions that I could probably do well, and others in which I would like to gain experience. I restrained myself from volunteering for anything besides the sewing. I figure as I get more comfortable with the people, with the way the operation works, and my limitations, I may step up and help in a few other areas. I just didn't want to jump in over my head at the first meeting. I have been known to do that, believe it or not.

Diva was under the impression that I was going for a job interview, that I would be getting a new job, for pay and everything. I had to disillusion the poor child. Then today I talked with Sproing about it. He seemed flabergasted that Iwould do something like this and not get paid!!!

Sproing did much better today. I slept through the entire morning routine, not waking until they had been in school for over 2 hours. So I didn't see Sproing pitching any kind of fits before school today. And I didn't ask. Ignorance is bliss.

I picked the boy up early from school to take him to his therapy appointment. We only had a half hour slot. We needed much more! We have another appointment next Tuesday for an hour long session. The therapist also said if things get as bad as they were earlier this week, I should call the office and she would squeeze us in somewhere. She was perhaps a bit distressed that I hadn't called when things were falling apart early in the week.

There was a lot of discussion between the therapist and me. Sproing was not very active in the session. He talked to me more afterwards though.

I want to tell you about our discussion, but I'm too tired now. Deity willing, I will elaborate further in the next day or two.

Appointments and Disappointments

You know I don't get out much. This town doesn't have a very large or active cultural community. I've mentioned before that I would like to move away from here. My therapist is trying to get me to find the local community in which I can be comfortable. Her reasoning is since I'm stuck here for now, I might as well make the best of it. The best of it can be much better than what I currently know. The idea of attending Lander University is part of that plan. I have yet to fill out the application. I'm gonna do that soon, really. Ask me about it. Keep me accountable, please. That's one of my shortcomings.

A friend of mine forwarded an email to me yesterday notifying me of an opportunity to get involved in something interesting. It said:

Can you pass this on to anyone who might want to be part of our sewing team at the GCTheatre? I am working with some of our volunteer leaders and would love to have you involved. We are having a Volunteer Party and a short planning meeting at the Theatre tomorrow night (Thursday Aug 21) from 6-7ish/7:30ish. Please drop by if you can.

I believe I'll go. I like to sew, am fairly good at it, and don't take the opportunity to do it very often. And I think this will be very good for me. My friend said "...if you don't already know her, bet you would LOVE [the artistic director]. She is really smart, funny & down to earth, like you!" This is about as much theatre as we have in this town. If I want to meet local gays, this is probably one of the best places to do it, eh? ;) More than that, though, it will get me out of the house, away from the computer, and force me to interact with people! (Not that you aren't people. I just need to see some other live faces occasionally.)

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Another harbinger of fall: spiders. Superman and the kids were cleaning up some of the junk in and near the back yard yesterday. They turned over a large piece of something and Superman found a huge black widow spider! He reports she was at least 1.5 inches across. He gently picked it up (with a stick, not with his bare hands) and relocated it to the very back of our lot, behind the old tool shed. I wish he had told me about it before he moved it. I would love to have taken a picture of her.

You may wonder why he moved her instead of dispatching with her altogether. Spiders can be very useful. They eat other undesirables. Black widow spiders are not aggressive, but tend to leave people alone as long as people leave them alone. And if we tell the kids there is a huge black widow spider behind the tool shed they are more likely to stay way from there. Hey, maybe I should "put" spiders in a few other places around the house, just to keep the younger ones away from my stuff!

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There seems to be a theme with me and Chicago. It goes as follows: I want to go to Chicago for some specific reason, but I am unable to get there. Yes, it has happened again. Superman and I were planning to go to Chicago the second week in September. There's a biennial trade show in town then, one that he's been to almost every other year since the 1980s. Every time he goes he says "I wish you were here with me, I (saw, did, ate, etc.) the most wonderful things!" This year was going to be my year to go. But alas, our plans are foiled again.

Part of the prohibitive issue is economic. You all know the story, and are living it yourselves. Gas prices are up, along with pretty much everything else. Yada yada, whatever. There is an even more pressing issue, though. Sproing. Oh, boy.

This is my lovely son. He is very special.

I mean that in a number of different ways. Some days he is short bus special. That's the way he's been acting ever since school started on Monday. Monday morning he woke up in a bad mood. This was not an ordinary "I don't want to do anything you say" bad mood. No, it was an "I'm going insane and taking you with me" bad mood. There was screaming, irrational thrashing, complete melt-down at the very idea of putting on shoes, for example.

And it keeps going. He was like that Monday after school. And Tuesday before school. And Tuesday after school. Yesterday morning Superman completely lost his temper after dealing with it for about half an hour. He (Superman) came into the bedroom, totally dejected, and claimed to be a failure as a father. Oh, do I ever know that feeling! I called Sproing into my room and had him sit on my bed. He couldn't sit. He sprawled, he thrashed, he dug his head under the covers. He was complaining of being too cold, of his finger being infected (it isn't, although he has a small but painful scrape on his pinkie knuckle. He then refused to let me put a bandage on it.) He thrashed around like a fish on the dock. Nothing I said could calm him down. I was very calm, addressed each issue he mentioned with a low, even voice. I told him I love him, offered a hug and a back scratch, neither of which he accepted. After about five minutes he said he wanted to go see Dad. I wouldn't let him out of my room until almost time for Superman to drive them to school. He flailed a bit more because I wouldn't let him loose.

Yesterday afternoon he was a little more under control. We talked calmly, and I told him how much I liked his calm behavior. Everything went well until we came to math homework. They are reviewing things he could do well last year, but his skills have gotten rusty over the summer. Since he doesn't remember exactly how to do it, he's frantic. It's impossible to help him when he gets frantic like that, because he can't hear a thing I say.

I'm not sure I am portraying his behavior adequately. When he does this thing, there is no getting through to him. He can't hear. Nothing makes any sense to him. It's ultimately frustrating! I fear there is something chemically or physiologically wrong with him. Twitch and I were wondering if he has a brain tumor or something. It's such strange behavior.

And I can't leave him with anyone when he acts like this. A substitute care giver would need to be a behavioral health professional to deal with this crap. Hell, I need to be a behavioral health professional to deal with it! (He sees his therapist tomorrow afternoon) We left Light in charge when we went camping a couple of weeks ago, and that worked out moderately well. But Light goes back to college this Sunday. Besides, Sproing was not freaking out like this two weeks ago. I'm not sure I would even leave him with Light right now. Light, I am positive, doesn't want me to!

We will talk to his therapist tomorrow. I plan to ask her if we should take him to the physician for a thorough check up. He used to see a child psychiatrist, but the only one in town moved to the Midwest this summer, so we no longer have a psychiatrist for him. I suppose we could go to one of the large cities within 100 miles of here. That would be a real drain, but we will do it if we have to. We shall see.

As a result of all this we will not be going to Chicago next month. ::Sigh::

The earliest signs of fall

I've been moaning about how long and hot August is, despairing of fall ever arriving. Well, the Bradford Pear tree out front is shutting me up. Today as the late afternoon sun was lighting this side of the tree I noticed two small spots of red among the green canopy. Behold my first hint that summer will be over, fall will indeed come to the middle of nowhere, South Carolina.

Our temperatures haven't been as high this week, either. We didn't even see 90F degrees today. It was miserably humid. Sweat poured off anyone who exerted himself outside. But it wasn't quite as hot. Still, I'm glad I am not driving the bus now!

Bliss

The children are at school. Ahhhhhh!

I got these gooey chocolatey caramel rolls to celebrate the day. Light is still here, but she sleeps late and is quiet and helpful. I shared one of my celebratory goodies with her. She is also very glad her siblings are at school today.

She's flashing a bit of thigh, there. Controll yourselves, boys and girls. :)

School starts tomorrow!!

It has been a long summer. I am fit to be tied with my two youngest children.

Where did that expression "fit to be tied" originate? I have no idea. I learned it from my parents.

I'm trying to learn how to keep my emotions under control. Right now I am tempted to lose all patience and decorum with Diva and Sproing. They have been instructed to clean the living room and the kitchen. I was there with them for a while, trying to point out what needs to be done. I ended up just fussing at them.
Good mommy points:

• I did not scream. I kept my voice firm and commanding without screeching or getting too loud.
• I didn't touch either one of the. The temptation to spank was strong, but I kept my hands off of them because I am too angry to control myself

Sproing is grounded for all eternity because last week he stole money from my wallet, went across a busy 4 lane highway to buy himself some candy. He then lied to me about where he got the candy. That was last week.

Yesterday the two of them got into my truck, which was parked in the driveway. To give you perspective, our driveway slopes gently toward the back yard, and I back the truck into the parking spot. The kids said they wanted to sweep the driveway and needed the truck moved. That might be true, but they lie a lot. They got into the truck, released the parking brake, and were incredibly surprised when it began to roll. Diva jumped out of the truck and ran behind it to try to stop it. She's not very bright. Light happened to walk out the back door about then. Sproing heard the door close, so he jumped out of the truck and ran around to the front yard, removing himself from the scene of the crime. Light saw the empty truck slowly rolling toward the back yard. She jumped in the cab and set the parking brake.

Did I mention that school starts tomorrow?

But wait, there's more! Yesterday afternoon Diva went to spend some time with a friend of hers who lives about a 10 minute drive over toward the lake. She called the house late in the afternoon to ask if her friend could spend the night over here. Daddy said NO! The friend's dad brought Angel home around 8:30 last night. Somewhere in the chain of communication a lie slipped in. Angel and her friend told the dad she was able to spend the night. We didn't realize it immediately, because they sneaked in the house while we were otherwise occupied. The kids started getting ready for bed, told us they were fine and didn't need us to come check on them. I'm so naive. We gave them kisses and they went off to bed. It was only when they got loud half an hour later that Superman went to check on them. Lo and behold, who should he see in the room but this other sweet little girl!?

To complicate matters, as if they aren't complicated enough, we had a violent thunderstorm last night. We all like the lightning and thunder. It's energetic and thrilling. Of course this little uninvited guest is scared spitless. What a wonderful excuse to take the child home! Superman tried to call her home, but no one answered. So she ended up spending the night.

The darling's dad picked her up around noon today. He and Superman discussed what had happened with the purposeful miscommunication. I think Tinkerbell might be in some trouble, too. But let me tell you, Diva and Sproing are both in deep trouble! Sproing was in on the deal, and actually did a huge chunk of the lying when he talked to Diva on the phone yesterday and told her that Dad said "yes" when that was not, in fact, true. No sleepovers for either of them, here or at someone else's house, for the rest of the year. They are cleaning the living room and kitchen now and for the rest of the afternoon. I'm working them all day today. Bedtime is 7:00. I hope they had fun last night and this morning, because that's the last bit of fun with friends either of them will have for weeks. Grrrr.

But I didn't hit either of the, and my voice has remained at an almost normal conversational volume. And I had about 3 glasses of wine. We might take a nap this afternoon. :)

And school starts tomorrow. We'll get up at 6:00, get bathed, dressed, and fed. At 7:15 I will take them to the school. Happy joy!! They will walk home in the afternoon, probably not getting here until almost 3:00. Isn't that wonderful? I'm very excited.

I am blessed

An old friend of mine sent one of those "pass it on" emails to me. I never pass these things on, especially if they implore me not to break the chain. Occasionally I will forward something I find particularly funny. But the message I got today was sappy with strong religious/political overtones and I deleted it. However, out of morbid curiosity I read the reward/warning message at the end of the propaganda.

Pass it on to everyone and pray. Something good will happen to you tonight at 11:11 PM. This is not a joke. Someone will either call you or will talk to you online and say that they love you.

Right. The thing is, I have people in my life who tell me they love me all the time. The people I live with, even the frustrating ones, tell me regularly that they love me. In the past 24 hours I have received personal emails, comments, and chat messages from a lot of different people, almost every one expressing love to me. Ironically, this old friend who forwarded this bit of tripe didn't add a personal comment at all, much less an expression of love or friendship. If I were really jaded I'd mention that she is a Christian, but I may be above that. Or not.

I am truly blessed. Blessed with a loving family and so many far-flung friends who have touched my life and my heart with love. To those of you; you know who you are - thank you.

A needful meme

I saw this over on Uncle Zoloft's blog, and decided I need to see what I need. This is fun. Go ahead, try it yourself. Just go to Google and enter "(your name) needs" and see what pops up.

• Java needs an overhaul - Is it that obvious?
• Java needs closures - closures or closure? Either one works, I think
• Who needs Java anyway? - Ha ha ha ha!! I'll let others answer that one!
• Java needs more fertilizer - what, I'm not already full of enough shit?
• Java needs to be open sourced - sounds kinky
• Java needs perspectives to grow - a truer truth I do not know
• Java needs a CRUD framework - look, it's nasty enough around here already
• Java needs a Barista to join the team - obviously
• Java needs to escape Sun's clutches - it has been too bright out here recently. My nose is sunburned.
• Java needs our help! - Amen, brothers and sisters!!
• Java needs all the help [she] can get - again, it's obvious
• Java needs to be augmented with a distributed object infrastructure - huh? I don't know how to refute this, or even if I should.

Using the name "Java" makes this all the more interesting. I state my disclaimer right there in my profile in the sidebar that Java refers to coffee, not that geeky computer thing. A lot of the Google results of course are for the java computer language. I don't understand any of it. Java is also, as I mentioned, a slang word for coffee. But Java, especially when capitalized, is an island in Indonesia. There's a little bit of everything present in these results. I could have added a bunch more. There were about 898,000 results of my search.

Glad to be home

A list of reasons I'm glad to be home:

• Flush toilets in real bathrooms: At camp we had port-a-johns


• Hot and cold running water


• Shower facilities: I washed off with warm soapy water and a wash cloth, but had no shower or bath for 5 days. Ick.


• Shampoo: Did not wash my hair the entire time I was gone. Double ick.


• Climate control: Though it was quite nice, there were times in the middle of the day when it got a bit too hot. The sun was intense. It got quite cool at night, cooler than we prepared for.


• My own mattress: memory foam, not inflated plastic. Big difference.


• Scrambled eggs


• Internet access


• Reliable cell phone service: Verizon was the only service that had any signal, and that was spotty. Thankfully we use Verizon.


• Eating from my plate without sharing with yellow jackets

The debriefing

Well, we seem to have survived the camping trip.

Actually, for the most part it was quite wonderful. The weather was fantastic. Oh, and my tooth stopped hurting. I don't know what the deal was with that tooth, but it seems to be fine now.

We didn't arrive at camp until after dark on Wednesday. It's kinda tricky finding a spot to camp in the dark. This was not a commercial camp ground. No, it was a large field on the side of a mountain, surrounded by woods with sparse clumps of trees here and there. Shade was abundant and there were lovely open areas of meadow where one could bask in the warm sunshine. Except at night. At night it was just dark. It was dark the way nature is supposed to be dark. You know, with very little light pollution so watching the night sky was pleasant. I could see the thicker star clusters of the Milky Way. On Friday night I was outside for a while and saw a few meteors as well.


(These photos of the Conestoga on the truck are from my camping trip a couple of months ago. I didn't take any pictures this trip.)
When we arrived Wednesday night around 9:30-10:00 the sky was clear and the air was comfortably cool and dry. One of Superman's friends had arrived the day before, so knowing the lay of the land he helped us find a good spot to set up. We got the Conestoga assembled with a canvas drop cloth over it and one blue plastic tarp covering part of the canvas. I asked two of the fellow campers if they knew whether it was supposed to rain. Both of them looked up at the stars, looked back at us, and said "No." So of course it rained that night.

Yes, we got wet, but only our feet. Thursday morning we got up early and spread out another couple of tarps to keep our camper dry. It rained off and on most of Thursday. That was a bummer, but by the end of the day it cleared up, cooled off, and was beautiful the rest of the week. Thursday night was so much cooler that we were shivering under our sheet and thin blanket. On subsequent nights we used the canvas drop cloth folded in fourths as an additional blanket. That was warm enough.

There were a lot of people there!! This is an annual camp-out for this group, and our second year attending. This year attendance was up from last year.

The food was excellent! We provided our own breakfast and lunch, but dinner was prepared for us Thursday through Saturday. We had hamburgers and hot dogs, beans, chips, etc. on Thursday. It was good in the way hamburgers and hot dogs are good. Nothing spectacular. Until Friday night. The cook, a HUGE mountain of man-flesh*, slow roasted pork all day for some truly excellent pulled pork barbecue. It was roll-your-eyes, stand-in-line-for-seconds good. He roasted chicken quarters for Saturday's dinner. There were sides and such, too, for a complete meal each night. The evening meals were excellent.

We had access to fresh pancakes every morning. We were camped next to a family from Oklahoma. The man had a super sweet kitchen set-up with a large propane griddle. (similar to the one pictured here) He had a huge bag of pancake mix and fixed pancakes for everyone in camp who wanted some. Being right next to him, we had access to the hot pancakes and an opportunity to meet with the people who came for breakfast. It was fun!


This organization holds meetings and informational gatherings at these camp-outs. Friday night was a fireside chat moderated by one of the members. We discussed world events, specifically economics and the decline of the value of a dollar. 'Twas intellectually stimulating!! And you know how rarely that happens for me outside the blog world! I got in on the end of a demonstration of alternative medicine one afternoon and met a fascinating older woman who practices some of this. She's very sensible about it; doesn't avoid traditional medicine when that is appropriate, but tries to maintain general good health, physical and emotional, through healthy diet and vitamin combinations. She and her husband are interested and somewhat knowledgeable about healing touch/massage.

A friend of ours gave a demonstration on bee keeping that I wanted to go to, but I slept through it. I took a nap every afternoon we were there. It was wonderful!

Check this out, y'all. I made a new friend on Saturday. A real life, face to face, not virtual friend. A friend I first met in person, not someone I've ever communicated with online (yet). She (yes, a woman friend!! I don't have many of those) is a year younger than I am, never married single**, works in a college library in the same town (but not the same school) where Light attends college. She's a strong, independent, intelligent woman, a rare find in my experience. Her name is TC. She lives in a small town on the outskirts of Greenville, which is a little less than an hour from here (I think).

There were a few campers from Canada. I spent an hour or more Saturday morning talking to a really nice guy from Owen Sound, Ontario. He's a nurse there, and has done some work in the hospital psych ward, though he's typically on the medical ward. The conversation turned to lgbt and he told me about a good friend of his who is a lesbian. He sounded so much like me in a lot of ways. He loves hanging out with his lesbian friend because they enjoy the same kinds of things, and like to check out the sexy ladies together. He really enjoys watching her cruise the girls. But, like a typical guy, he was quick to point out that he is straight and is dating a really hot girl. Straight guys are so funny.

This is a fairly conservative group of people. Many of them observe Christian religious traditions. However, these folks are mostly gay friendly, at least the ones I've talked to. If not enthusiastically gay friendly, they are accepting and tolerant. For a bunch of conservatives they are really quite nice. Unlike the religious right fundie wackos around here.

*The guy is really big. He must be at least 6 feet tall, and I don't know where he finds clothes that fit. I'd guess he weighs probably 400 lbs. He could only sit on one of those really big 3' wide coolers. All camp chairs tremble with fright at his approach.

**I didn't get a lesbian vibe from her. Not real sure, especially since my lesbian gaydar isn't as reliable (except in obvious cases) as my m2m gaydar.

Adios

According to Weather.com, the current temperature in town is 99F, with a heat index of 104. Poor ol' Superman has been out packing up the truck. He got sopping wet with sweat. Right now he's taking a cool shower. When he's dried and dressed we will head toward the mountains. From here it takes at least 2 hours to get to a high enough elevation to significantly affect the temperature. Of course old Manny doesn't have air conditioning. It'll be a rough drive. The sun is brutal in brightness and heat. I really hope the weather forecast for our camping location is correct. Current temperature there is 83F, heat index 86. Oh so much better!!! Forecast through the weekend is for high temperatures similar to or slightly lower than that. I am really looking forward to it!

News from the camp reports no internet access and very limited cell phone access. This will probably be good for me, a test to see if I can pretend to be normal without electronic connections to the outside world. That's the positive spin. On the other hand I'll miss you all terribly!