I care very deeply

I am still here, people.

I'm just popping in to tell you that I saw a headline of a blog post on a blog I occasionally pop over to read. The title was, "Who cares about the Periodontal Ligament?"

I want to go on record by saying: I care! I care deeply about the periodontal ligament!

There. I said it. Thank you for listening (reading). Back to everyone's regularly scheduled evenings.

How well can I type at 6:30 a.m.?

I'm up again at an unholy hour of the morning, although sleeping until 5:19 was technically sleeping in. Thank you, seminary, for skewing my perception of time.  If I had told my college age self there would come a time in my life when sleeping until 6 a.m. would be enjoyed and even considered heavenly, I probably would have shot myself for thinking future me was an alien in disguise. As a teen, I never could understand how in the world my mother could get up at these weird morning hours (when technically it wasn't even MORNING yet because, hello, there was no SUN peeping over the horizon) and do housework (and really all I can see now is getting up early isn't so bad; the actual doing of housework I still don't understand. How can I do housework when I have to catch up on emails, cute kittens, and people of walmart? I'd be willing to bet if facebook existed when my mother was in her 40s, she'd have been parked in front of her Apple 2e instead of downstairs grinding wheat at 5 a.m.),

I am considering physical movement this morning. I had intended both Thursday and yesterday to take a walk, but promises were made regarding food for parties and I cooked and baked instead of ambled. Today there are no food considerations. I have used up my allotted time in the kitchen for the month and we must subsist on leftovers for the rest of November. So I can spend that time I would have been cooking getting the feets moving so's I can  burn off about 40 million calories.

Thanksgiving Day Two was all I was hoping it would be. There was good food and interesting means of cooking it. Thank you Jake, for cooking the turkey in what looked like a lobster tank. 

And we played several rounds of Werewolves of Miller's Hollow. That just might have to become a tradition.  Thanks Marissa for bring the game and suggesting that we play it. I moderated most of the rounds, but finally got Hayley to take over moderation so I participate. Thanks to my brothers for playing along. I wasn't sure any of them would, and then when the first round was over, none of them dropped out. Jake, Mike, and Dave willingly kept playing. My mom even played.  There was a sister-in-law who didn't feel well and didn't play, but she kept little ones busy while we played. Next time, though, we'll get her in the game.

Thanksgiving abundance

This year I get two Thanksgivings. Yesterday we ate with friends. Today we eat with family.

No, I don't celebrate Black Friday.  All the pushing and shoving by the thick angry crowds repel any thought of even setting foot in a non-food related store on the Friday after Thanksgiving. EJ got home from his shift at Boxmart and said it was a people-filled night shift. The customers were cranky, and he is used to working in a quiet store. The sales started at 10 p.m. last night, and customers getting to the store at 10 had already missed out on the deals they were there to cash in on.

We drove home from the friends' house at around 10 last night and saw the long line of cars waiting to get into the parking lot. When 10 p.m. driving is more backed up than rush hour, I'm not participating.

Anyway, we had a good time with the friends. The husband is a friend of Jim's since high school and he and his family moved to MN almost two years ago. They have children roughly the same age as we do and the two groups seem to get along really well. We hadn't heard much from the kids at all, except during dinner, because they were having such a good time.

Time to go on a walk. And then time to make the stuffing.

Thankfulnessability or gratitudinous

Ten things I am grateful for (and I'm gonna try to be honest and serious, instead of being silly, like being thankful for children who misbehave because then I can meet the recommended daily allowance of yelling for 10 minutes at 110 decibels, which allows a parent to operate under the illusion that they are really in charge)

1.  ...........

It's hard to be serious.

Really. Everything I come up with devolves into some sort of joke. Either that or what I'm thankful for sounds trite.

Of course I'm thankful for my family. Most everybody is. They bring happiness and joy and (and here I start to think "and blah blah blah, it's all been said before, even though it's true")...

I'm grateful that the big boys got up and went to play football. Why? Because they are doing something they will remember as "having had a good time" for the rest of their lives. They are practicing being adults, living without their parents. And I am practicing letting them go. It's a good thing. Sure it's a little sad that the little boys I once had aren't around anymore (and the big boys don't like to think those little boys ever existed), and I wish I could hug those little boys once more, but I'll be fine even if my wish couldn't possibly come true. I am grateful that those little boys did disappear and were replaced by these hulking figures sprawled on my couches. How sad it would be if those little boys never got to grow up.

I'm grateful that sometimes my children don't take my advice. Why? Because it means they will be independent someday and I have managed to avoid raising little "me" clones. Plus, I'm not always right. They may not be right either, but without mistakes, very little learning happens.

I'm grateful that the worst injury I suffered this year was a sewn finger. I have some lingering nerve damage, but nothing that drives me crazy.

OK this is getting a little easier, but the urge to be facetious is still VERY STRONG.

I'm grateful that there is a word "facetious." Without silliness, I would find this existence very boring. I'm grateful for laughter.

Is it legal not to give thanks for one's spouse? (ok I'm indulging in a little bit of waggishness) Jim has always been here. We haven't always agreed on things, but he's been here to disagree or agree or clarify or show his ignorance. He's been here. He hasn't ever left. I can't really put into words how much that means to me. I will just say it again. He has always been here, and I only just now learning what it means to know that he always will be here.

I am grateful for daughters. They've never been "pink and frilly girly girls" but I needed to have these two here in my house for as long as they were and are here. I hope they need each other as much as I needed my own sister (to fight with, to commiserate with, to roll our eyes at each other, to lose horribly at Monopoly to Julie together, on occasion to be surrogate parents to the boys together, to roam parking lots looking for change and bottle caps together.)

I'm grateful for difficult times. They've flavored my life. How bland would my life have been without bullets to dodge (OK, I've never dodged a bullet. But I have dodged a moving vehicle. That was scary).

And I'm grateful for Matt. Sometimes I don't know why, but I am.

Now that I'm on a roll, it's hard to stop. But I'm going to, right....now.

We Wang-Chunged to a different tune

There were no board games on our anniversary overnight because we forgot to pack them.

But Friday morning, I saw a link on one of my favorite websites (Satellite News--which is a fan site for MST3K). The site announced that two of the guys from MST3K would be appearing on a radio show on MPR (Minnesota Public Radio) called Wits and that John Hodgman (the PC guy from the Mac commercials) would be there too. The link said "If you happen to be in St. Paul this evening..." and I thought WHOA. I'm going to be in St Paul this evening! (That's where we stayed overnight) We had nothing planned but board games and movies. I got to thinking about going to this show, and then obsessing about it. When Jim came home, I cautiously presented the idea, not knowing what his reaction would be. I didn't know if he would really care to go to a live performance of a radio program that had little to do with music, which he loves, and focused so much on personalities that I liked.

I shouldn't have worried. He was keen on the idea, unlike when I suggested that we go dancing the week before.

Because it would take to long to recap the radio show in five paragraph essay form (and I would easily need twice that to do proper justice), I'll just distill my thoughts down to a ten things list.

Ten things I liked about going to see Wits: a Special Edition with John Hodgman

1. The people behind Crow T Robot (v 2.0) (Bill Corbet) and Tom Servo (who we named the cat after)(Kevin Murphy) were there and they participated in the show, onstage and off...

2. and at one point, they teamed up with Neil Gaiman, whose children's tome "The Graveyard Book" I adore.
3. John Hodgman is very funny, a self-proclaimed deranged millionaire. He read two passages from his newest book.
4. The host John Moe was very funny too while explaining his theory of the Butterfly Effect.
5. The Fitzgerald Theater is prone to tipping people over as they walk through the theater
6. We, as an audience, were encouraged to use our cell phones and iPads through the performance; we were encouraged to turn the sound off though.
7. We were especially encouraged to "tweet" before and during the performance (do you know about Twitter?) about what we were seeing and hearing.
8. During the pre-show time, the sound ladies projected the tweets about Wits on the screen.
9. Kevin and Bill read some of the tweets during the program.
10. Through Twitter, I learned that we were not the only couple in attendance celebrating our anniversary, but we were celebrating the most years together

I forgot to mention that there were hipsters aplenty in attendance. I saw lots of strange hair, strange glasses, weird scarves, repurposed clothing, arty leggings paired with odd footwear, funky hats, and many more evidences of hipsterhood. Lots of tweets mentioned the high concentration of hipsters.

I highly recommend doing something unconventional for anniversaries. What is unconventional for us may be ho-hum for you and vice versa, but whatever you don't normally do, do.

Yay for fun!

Everybody Wang Chung tonight

Hey, Paul just came home in the middle of school. He says this quarter he has an open period and lunch right together AND a hybrid class that meets only three times a week. So on Mondays and Fridays, he has classes until 11:30 and then not again until 2. Lucky dog. He came home with a big old smile on his face, saying, "It feels really good to not have class for a few hours. I'm gonna go for a run." And yes, as I have been typing this, he has put on his running gear and has just left the house. Strange child. If I were off school for a few hours, I surely would NOT go out and run around.

On to my plans for the weekend: Tonight is DATE NIGHT! Jim took the night off of his pizza job.We're going to spend the night not going to a dance club. (sad face. I want to go dancing)

Because Jim won't go dancing with me tonight, I'm making him go walk underground with me tomorrow to look at geological formations.  We are going to a place that I have always wanted to go to but never got around to it--the Wabasha Street Caves. They do walking tours and I am chomping at the bit to get in there and have a look. I want to hear the history of the caves (and not the geological history necessarily either--outlaws used these caves as hideouts during Prohibition. Or something like that).

Anyway, I do plan on having fun tonight too, despite not being able to go out dancing. I think there will be board games involved and some non-alcoholic bubbly. And no plans for me to cook anything. That makes me happy. 

22 years and 363 days

...and counting.

It's almost anniversary time here in the shoebox castle. On this Saturday, Jim and I will have been married 23 years.

In 23 years, we've:
Lived in 5 states
Lived at 13 different addresses
Had almost as many landline phone numbers
Raised 5 children
Bought three mattresses
Had 4 dining room tables (all used, by the way. We don't go buying new dining room tables left and right)
Owned 8 vehicles (all used. All of them. Two we drove to death. One almost to death. Another back on to the lot for a trade-in and got $200. Three are still with us and one is with Kate. Kate's and one of ours are nigh unto sleeping in the vehicle junkyard)
Bought 3 new couches (and had 4 used ones). We're tough on furniture.
Owned three electric skillets (I still miss the first one)
Repainted the bathroom of our current living space once
Taken many many road trips together.
Cleaned up 12 feet of vomit at 2 a.m. on New Years Day once (thank you EJ for giving us that experience)
Hit each other never
Had maybe a handful of shouting matches (and I'm the one who shouts. Jim never does, but he will defend himself if provoked to extremes)
Held hands as often as possible
Called each other at lunch time nearly every day
Never regretted getting married to each other.

Teenagers have the power to make or break the day of the parent

I was feeling curmudgeonly this morning, if not downright cranky.

But Hayley has the ability to turn a phrase just right to make me laugh and forget that I was feeling mean and poor and lowly of spirit.

Taken out of context, the words she uttered seem so preposterous, which is why I laughed.

She said:

"When I talk to him, I talk to him facing the chickens."

and most recently, she said:

"Let's keep the breath clouds outside the house."

Thanks Hayley for making me laugh.

West Side Matty

I'm behind with the blogging. Again I have to blog about events from last weekend.

The kids participated in a church activity called "Saints on Broadway." Each group did 1-4 dances to songs from a Broadway musical. Our ward picked "West Side Story."

The 12-13 year old boys got to do a dance all by themselves to the prologue and I found it very entertaining to
watch Matt "dancing."

Paul and Hayley participated also, but that video is much longer and I didn't get good views of either one. So you only get to see Matt. My favorite part is where the four "bad boys" hassle and bully two much older and much tougher guys. In real life, those two "pushovers" would have pounded these four little punks into the ground without even breaking a sweat.

All the kids had a great time, including those, like Paul, who have never ever desired to be on stage.

Gol' Daggit

Let's get in the ol' time machine and travel back to last Sunday. Why? Because that's what I'm gonna blog about today. Nevermind that I did not actually witness what I'm blogging about. The reason I was not in attendance at this particular event was that I went and signed myself for a work-related conference the next day without consulting my calendar. When I realized that I would be traveling to attend the conference when Paul's Cross Country end-of-the-year banquet was scheduled, verily, I was distraught.

Jim went to the banquet with Paul, under strict orders to take photographs and keep me posted on all goings on so that I could feel like I wasn't such a loser mom. I also knew that one of the other parents would be taking pictures so in case Jim forgot or couldn't figure out how to use my camera, I could still be assured of seeing some form of printed evidence of Paul at a banquet.

So to pictures.

Here is the CC senior boys table. One of the guys is wearing the official PLHS CC t-shirt for this year, which says, "We play Cross Country." It makes me laugh. One year their t-shirts said, "Real athletes run miles, not yards."

They are about to do "cheers." As in "cheers to us for we are studly men." Because that's what all senior boys say, right?

These are all the seniors on the team:

The pieces of paper they are all holding are their letter certificates. This makes #7 for Paul, 4th letter for Cross Country. Yes, I might be bragging. I have to make up for having only lettered in Band when I was in high school.

Three coaches and two captains:

There should have been three more boys in this picture, but they chose not to follow rules and got removed from being a captain. J. and Paul were good boys. 

The last photo of the bunch was kind of a surprise. There is an award given to the team member who exhibits exemplary sportsmanship while participating on a Laker team (meaning each team gets to chose a team member to receive the award) and is voted on by their teammates. It's called the Daggit award (named after a beloved former softball coach who died unexpectedly a few years back) and it's supposedly a big deal. It was awarded to Paul this year.

He got a plaque with his name on it.

I was even more distraught upon hearing I missed seeing Paul get an award, and it wasn't so much that I'm a loser mom for having to do work things instead of attending stuff my kids participate in, it's more that I missed out on the experience where I am sitting at an uncomfortable lunch table in the high school cafeteria at a kind of overlong CC banquet and hearing the coaches talk about this award that I have heard of before once or twice and not paying much attention because J. H. or J. W. was gonna get it and I'm fiddling with my program and wishing I had another cookie, and....did they just say Paul's name??  Oh Em GEE (which means "Excuse me? Say that again?") they DID say Paul's name. He is an award-winner! People think he's some kind of Sportsmanship Superhero! Whee! Yay for Paul! And I missed jumping up and taking a ton of pictures of him toting his little plaque back to the table o' testosterone and seeing the other boys high five him.

And I missed seeing him (as one of the captains) hand out gag gifts to the rest of the team. I missed seeing and hearing He Who Does Not Speak At Home use a microphone and try to be a comedian.  A talkative Paul is a rare thing, and I missed it.

Lasts

I have two lasts to post about: Paul's last high school cross country race, and his last first high school band concert of the year. 

The start of the last race.

I like watching the start of these races.  All the boys are in one mass, like migrating birds. It's cool to watch them undulate across the golf course.

Then they spread out a bit as they move through the course.

This is Paul at the end of his last CC race. I am proud of this kid. Four years of running a lot is not something most kids find enjoyable, but he did. He was good enough to be named captain, and smart enough to remain captain (three boys lost their captaincy because of poor choices on their part).

And here he is two seconds away from the finish line of his last race. He completed the course in 17:50, not too bad of a time. He's had better twice, but considering the previous two races, he ran over 18, he was glad to go sub 18 for his last race.

It's time to hang up his spikes. *sniff*

Then we have his last first band concert. A note regarding this band--they are the juniors and seniors who either didn't want to be in marching band or couldn't fit it in to their schedule.

As you can see, it's a small group. Mr K, the director, called it sort of a chamber band. They are instrumented well, no overabundance of any one instrument, nor a lack of any group. Paul is the only french horn.

Ever the social butterfly during band concerts

I still can't get over how a little tow-headed boy with a few speech impediments, a love for his Immy (his white blanket) and scant understanding of social customs, can grow up to be this person. Paulie, you done yer mam proud.