HalfAsstic.com

Would you believe me if I said that I’ve been cooking, baking, and cleaning non-stop for the past few days?  No?  Well, that makes you a smart little cookie, doesn’t it?  If I had a gun to my head and some yo-yo telling me he’d shoot if I didn’t account for my time, I’d be a dead, domestic failure…rather than just a domestic failure.  I guess I’m saying things could always be worse.

I did manage to get a few things done today.  Sweeping the kitchen, breakfast area and utility room and doing my version of mopping to all of those freshly swept areas.  This entails walking around with a spray bottle of one sort of cleaner or another and a handy wipe, bending over spots, squirting, wiping, and moving on to the next spot.  Hey, don’t laugh.  My floor is clean…er.  I put things away left and right that have been slowly piling up for ages and cleaned the kitchen, and did several loads of laundry.

Got H on the bedpan not once, but two times for a grand total of two poos.  This normally throws her into a tailspin.  As I have discussed here before an unscheduled poo, or U. P. is a force of nature to contend with in this house.  She was reciting some panicky sounding prayers the second time I put her on, but other than that she handled it well.

John worked a “close” today and will be home about 11:00 or midnight.  He is enjoying his new boss and things are going smoothly so far.

Yesterday I asked him if he had chased any shoplifters through the parking lot lately and he replied, “No, I’m too fat and old for that.”  To which I immediately responded, “Your not fat.”  He groaned at me.  Seriously though, he’s getting older everyday, but he has lost a lot of weight lately.  He says he’s getting down to his “fighting weight”.  heh, heh, heh.

Pop is going into the hospital next Tuesday to have a defibrillator implanted just under the skin in his chest.  It is a battery operated thing that has two little wires that will be attached to his heart and if it stops beating or falters it will shock it into rhythm.  I don’t know much more than that about it.  Mom will ask more questions, I am sure.  I am wondering how long the batteries last and what changing them entails.

I guess that is all I’ve got to report at the moment.  I haven’t been doing much of anything or feeling like doing anything.  Very blah.  I haven’t even been Plurking.  I have also been neglecting reading the blogs!  And that is very bad of me, for shame and all that stuff!

I’m gonna try to get my shit together and get back here sooner!  Promise.  And I’ll try to have something to say.

Greetings all.  I am up early this morning with many things on my mind and I am quite sure that it will be this evening before I can make sense of it all enough to get it down in a post.  Then I will re-read it and think, “So why was that so hard to say and why did I think I had so much to say?”  I suppose just because it’s been a while since I was good about keeping up here.  I’m not apologizing, cause shit’s been happening.  And I don’t even meant he bedpan variety.  No.  Real, documented and undocumented, shizzle.

Where to start….?

Pop is in the hospital and, actually, is scheduled to get out today.  He told me on the phone yesterday that they told him he could leave this morning so he said he was going to get up at about 3:00am and go.  I told my mom he said that and she laughed and said she hoped he had a ride cause she wasn’t going to get him at 3:00am. He is such a character.

He has emphysema and COPD problems that got a bit of fluid in his lung.  “Pneumonia”, I thought.  “No”, the doctors said, “just some fluid in his lung”.  Huh?  Oh well, my understanding is not pivotal to his outcome, anyway, thank you God.

John got a new boss to work with and it is a vast improvement over the last one.  Oops, he isn’t supposed to be there until Monday, so I suppose that’s jumping the gun.  No it isn’t, cause anything would be an improvement.  Plus he’s worked with this guy before and he’s a pretty good one.  So that’s all good.

Henrietta is getting a new caregiver provider and she starts Tuesday.  They called and asked me if we would mind someone who mostly speaks Spanish and I said no, I didn’t mind and so did H so that’s a go.  As far as I know the hand gestures for indicating you have to poo are a fairly universal thing.  Well, that and H throws in some really good facial expressions leaving no doubt as to the amount of urgency/amount of poo ratio.

Got the first semester bill for older child’s college tuition and that was a nasty little shock.  It was something like $2400.  OK.  Well that sucks.  And that is after her scholarship was deducted.  Shit.  Then a day or two later we got an email saying that there had been an error and everyone had been charged $345. for a…something, can’t remember what they called it, but anyway that was an error and they were going to remove it.  So, OK great.  We looked at her bill and they had deducted the $345. for each of her 4 classes  so that just about halved her bill.  Yea.  Can you say “good news”?  We are college tuition bill virgins, (in this millennium) and had no idea what to expect so we were really anticipating having to spend about two and a half thou on it twice a year.  Next, text books.

And then there is the discussion of the younger daughter moving to Decatur, Texas to live with Nana and Pop for her last year in high school.  Strangely, she wants to do this.  She is disillusioned with her friends right now and hates her job and is worried about Pop and Nana both, mostly because they just plain need help.  Young, limber, strong backed help.  Family help.  Adorable, beloved, grandchild help.  The only thing keeping her from jumping at the first chance of going?  New school.  I really can’t say that I blame her.  I was always adamant that she and her sister never have to change schools if there was anyway we could help it and they never did.  K-12, same school.  I guess I wanted this so badly for them because I have attended 6 different schools in my life.  I didn’t know I was crippling them with an inability to flex and change.   No, I can’t blame her for not wanting to do it.  Very scary stuff, walking into a new school for the first time and trying to find your way around feeling like everyone is staring at you.  The New Kid.

Of course one of the friends she is disillusioned with is out with her right now and they are getting spray tans, eyebrow waxing and manicures.  How really bad could it possible be?

Besides, I am pretty sure she would miss me too much to stay gone for months at a time from me.  Yeah.  That’s the way I am hoping thinking it would go down.

We’re trying to die in this heat.  And not because it’s hot, but because we refuse to be and our light bill is run up to a whopping $600 last month.  NOW we’re being hot because that thermostat is turned way up.  This house is like an oven in the rooms Henrietta is in without the ceiling fans on.  When we are all in the living room and we are getting hot I stand up and turn it on and she looks a bit frantic for a second, (she’s convinced the, “wind will make me sick”), but she doesn’t say anything cause I am fanning my shirt and saying how hot it is.  If I get her a light throw or something to wrap up in she says no, it’s too hot for that, so I know she’s not cold.  Just weird and full of old wives tales.  What can I say, she’s an old wife.

I haven’t been to a movie in years and then about a month or so ago John and I saw the Indiana Jones movie.  Really neat.  Then again, when he was on vacation last week we went to see the new Batman.  Well, Wednesday a good friend of mine came over and we watched The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants #1 on DVD, and made plans to go and see #2 at theater yesterday.  We really enjoyed it, also.  So I have seen three movies in the past couple of months and before that I bet I hadn’t been in 4 or 5 years.  How weird is that?

While John was on vacation, my brother was home from Italy to visit and finalize the adoption of my brand spanking new nephew.  Older child had to work and could not attend the family reunion, as it were, but younger girl, John and I met up with Nana, Pop and Cam in in a park in the small town of Buffalo, Texas.  We hung out and ate at a near by resturant.  It was good to see him and I never know how long it will be until I can see him again.

Here he is with Keelan.

Well, here it is, Saturday and John’s vacation is almost over.  It has flown by and I’d like to say we got a lot done.  No.  We really didn’t, but we relaxed and did the things that HAD to be done.  The rest of the time we just chilled out and all was good.

Today we went to see Batman and really enjoyed it.  It actually had a good story line and people were dying  that you didn’t think were going to.  Not just this lame, totally predictable movie that you would expect from a comic book hero.  Heath Ledger absolutely needs to be nominated for some big award.  His Joker was the best!  Very quirky and believable.   yeah, yeah, Christian Bale is kinda cute.  Maggie Gyllenhaal seemed to look a bit like a puppy dog throughout the movie.  Her face and eyes seemed drawn.  Poorly done makeup?  I dunno.

After the movie we proceeded to run some errands and made our way to CVS pharmacy to return some diapers that John had picked up the other day that were the wrong kind.  We came in and lo and behold!  There to our left on the floor right in front of the other door was a condom.  Apparently someone had worn it around in the parking lot stuck to their shoe as it was used and quite dirty to boot.  Being the ever resourceful soul that I am, I whipped out my new Chocolate phone and fooled with the buttons and vastly confusing dials for 30 minutes before figuring out how to take a snapshot.  John was off to find a manager and tell the guy to wear a rubber glove and eventually I overcame my possessed phone and managed to take a picture worthy of a professional.  OK, maybe not.

I can only imagine what Google searches are going to lead here now…

On April 23, 2006 my father-in-law, Marcos, passed away after being on hospice for a few months.  He had lived with us for about a year and seven months.  It all started when Henrietta fell in their home on the way back from the bathroom in the middle of the night.  We got a call from Marcos saying she couldn’t get up and we jumped in the car and raced over there.  Their house is about 30 minutes away.  I called the ambulance on the way there and we made it in about 15 minutes.  This is mainly due to no traffic in the middle of the night! *Mental note: have catastrophes  in the middle of night, ALWAYS.*  So we got there and H had, basically, broken everything.  Well, it seemed like it.  Tibia, hip, humerus, she was in bad shape.  So the little old lady with the severe osteoporosis went off to the hospital and Marcos came home to live with us.  John and I and our two teenage daughters in a three bedroom, one bath house.  With Marcos.  Together.

We got the hell out of that house as soon as we could and moved into a 4 bedroom 3 bath ASAP.  This helped a lot, but Marcos was starting to slide into a depression that he never really came out of.  I fed him an antidepressant everyday and we tried to keep his spirits up.  H stayed in the hospital for months.  Marcos went more and more downhill and his mental state deteriorated.  He couldn’t be left alone for any length of time.  He started falling.  He had a walker and refused to use it for the longest time.  The things that he determined were his duties, such as making coffee or going out to get the newspaper, became impossible for him to master.  He totally screwed up, I don’t know how many coffee makers.  Made HUGE messes in the kitchen attempting to make it multiple times a day and at various odd moments all night long.  He’d get up during the night over and over and attempt to make it outside to “get the paper”.  When I’d point out that it was dark out and night time, he was always very surprised and in the beginning he would voluntarily return to bed.  But, eventually, it became harder and harder to convince him of anything.

I got one of the cowbells that H uses to ring for me and and tied it to his walker with a plastic cable tie wrap.  That way, combined with the baby monitor there was absolutely no way he could make it out of his room with out me knowing at night.  I started jumping out of bed when when I heard him get up and running down the hall and closing the door at the end of it and holding it closed so it would seem locked when he got there after he had used the bathroom and was trying to make it to the front door or kitchen.  I remember him standing there kicking the door and fussing, while I was on the other side just praying for him to go back to bed.  At first he would.  Then it became a matter of he was going to find a way out and do what he wants.  The ruckus became bigger and bigger and John would come and try to convince him to go to bed too.

We had always just kept the front door keys in the door, (on the inside, of course),  and he would just head out anytime he wanted day or night.  So I took the keys out and we started keeping the door locked.  All. the. time.  He searched the house and even went through my purse until he found the keys.  It was like trying to deal with a highly intelligent toddler.  The scariest thing going and SO tiring.

The truly strange thing is he didn’t have Alzheimer’s.  Just old age senility combined with a HUGE overdose of old fashioned Mexican machismo.  That poor little old man had stubbornness in spades.  He was slowly dying and it was just not nearly fast enough for him.  He got to the point that he refused to take a bath and was only doing so about once every 10 days to two weeks under duress.  At some point John was the only one who could convince him.  This wouldn’t have been SO bad except he had become totally inept in the bathroom and would end up with shit everywhere.  Including on him.  He really did try, bless his heart, but he just didn’t have the strength to do anything more than just barely get there.  The commode seat and numerous other things in there were routinely smeared with poo.  I cannot tell you the amount of latex gloves, paper towels and spray bleach I went through.

By the time he died he was a little dried up husk of a man and I could pick him up in my arms like a baby and carry him to bed.  I did this the last time we changed his bed.  H was in the hospital with a broken hip from a totally unrelated incident and the continuous care hospice nurse suggested we put him in her hospital bed.  It was a good idea and we were changing his sheets anyway.  So I just picked him up and put him in her bed.  It was the strangest sensation.  This larger than life man that had always seemed so dominant was no where in there.  I think he died two days later and he had been so ready for so long.

Poor Henrietta was in the hospital and even missed his funeral.  When we told her she took it very well.  She said she knew he wasn’t going to make it much longer, and I’m sure that’s true.  He had a 21 gun salute and honor guard as he was a decorated WWII veteran who was wounded and permanently crippled in the rush on Iwo Jima.  He was someone to contend with…even before things were going downhill.

Hello intertubes!  I am back with a quick update!

Nothing too spectacular has happened since the last time I announced the goings on here at the Nut House.  How bouts a quickie update?  Too bad, here it is:

• John was off yesterday and we ran amuck.  The caregiver provider stayed here with H and we were muckyrunning aaaaall over the place.  For gasoline to be so freakin’ expensive, we were WILD!  heh heh.  We made it to Macy’s to see if there were any good deals to be had and sure enough, John’s ultra sensitive nose for economical spending steered us to a few new ties for him.  His butt cheeks made a squeaking noise as we walked over to where the tie sale rack sits.  He is always needing new neck-wear, as he isn’t that easy on his ties.  We got three $45.00 Donald Trump ties for just $5.63 a piece.  He wore one of them today, but here are the other two.

They look a little pink here.  Actually they are dark red.

Here is the proof!  With tax, $18.28 for three Donald Trump ties.

The trick at Macy’s is to find the stuff that’s on sale and take it over to the price checker thing and start scanning anything that you are remotely interested in because they are really good/bad about either mispricing or just not putting correct signage out for the sale products.  And the prices are SO good that I think they are probably just making mistakes when they are pricing, but it works out great for us almost every time we go.  My sweet little miser husband pulled out his dusty, cobweb covered wallet and paid $18.28 for all three.  Good deal!

• Hurricane Dolly made landfall sometime yesterday evening, I think, and we finally started getting some much needed rain from it.  It is still raining off and on.  Woo-Hoo!

• My brother in Italy isn’t.  In Italy, that is.  He arrived last night at my parents house in Decatur, Tx and I am hoping we will be able to meet up with all of them on Wednesday for a visit.

• Henrietta is still catheter-free and letting her hoo-hoo rest.   I asked her how it was getting on and she pulled a super serious face and replied, “Oh, it’s doing very well, thank you!”, and then burst out laughing.  Last nigh she asked me if I would close the blinds for her in her room and I said sure and was doing so and she said, “Now make sure they’re closed up tight…”.  and I said I thought they were and no one could see in that little slit, and she replied, ” I might be able to get out through there, tho…”.   I said, “You?” To which she looked sly and said, “Krissa, I don’t have any bag to hold me back, now!  You don’t know what I might do!”

• Be on the lookout for a catheter free little old lady in a nightgown.

• I just totally told off a lady who called here from Dell Computers asking me if the problem we were having last Sunday was resolved.  I told her no, we still haven’t been able to get it to recognize the disc drive.  She said something like, “Oh.”, and immediately changed the subject a bit by asking me how it was doing otherwise.  I told her, “Actually it’s running slow.  My husband and I were discussing it last night and he and I have both tried all the little tricks that used to make a difference in the past with no luck.”  (Keep in mind that it’s a year old next month.  In other words, THE WARRANTY IS ABOUT TO EXPIRE AND NO MORE “FREE” TECH SUPPORT)  She came back with, “Well, I see here you bought it with only 2GB of memory and that really isn’t enough to support Vista.”

This is where I got ticked off.

“No.  It supports Vista just fine and has for almost a year now.  It only started running slow just lately.”

She proceeded to tell me that if I ever wanted to get it to run well again I needed to purchase some RAM from her.  Now.  On the phone.  Or forever be delegated to computer hell.

“No one told me it was insufficient to support Vista when I bought it.”  She comes back with a snappy, “Oh, uh, well?”

I told her no thank you we’re not sinking any more money into it because we’re getting an Apple.

That got her off the line.  She was originally calling to sell me another warranty.

• I am taking this opportunity to apologize for the lack of substance in this post.  THAT is the state of my life, lately.  Substance free…and applesauce free.

Well, there is more excitement here at the Nut House.  Last night when I put Henrietta to bed, her diaper was wet.  Not just a little, but soaked,   Great.  The catheter had failed during the day sometime.  Just a little bit of pee in the bag.  Sometimes moving her around and repositioning her gets it to start working again so I was keeping my fingers crossed that it would fix itself over night.  No.  This morning she woke up swathed in wet sheets and nightgown.  FREEZING, of course.  Everything was soaking wet including a diaper full of shit.  I ran in and threw a towel in the dryer and got John to call the nurse while I started trying to strip the bed with her in it and get a dry hospital chux under her.  Got the sheets, blanket and mattress protector off the bed and another chux under her, ran and got the towel out of the dryer and put it over her while I went and ran water in a basin and got washcloths and then bathed her off.  I was answering questions from John for him to answer the nurse on the phone.  He hung up and shouted down the hall that she would be coming at 3:00ish.  M’kay, fine.  She showed up and DID NOT BRING A NEW CATHER WITH HER.  This was a new one for me.  She said she thought she’d just wiggle around the old one and see if she could get it to work.  She explained that she would need to go back to the office to get one.  Well, I had already deflated the old one and removed it, I mean it was just in the way and doing nothing whatsoever.  So no way it was going back in.  She went out and rummaged around in her car and finally found a kit.  I happened to have an extra catheter.  So we poked around and never got any urine back and had no more to try with.  She left and I scheduled Paula to come and give it a shot after she left the office at the home health care place.  She brought 4 catheters and several kits for me to have on stock and we used all but one of them and never got any urine back in the tube.  She said it was time to let H have a rest and she’s coming back tomorrow.  woo-hoo…

Aren’t you glad I don’t have pictures with my post today?

John wanted me to call this diaper incident F.L.  Full Load.

How uneventful could this possibly be?  Well, let’s see.

John worked the late shift today and left for work shortly before 1:00PM.  Henrietta was up and fed, pooped, diapered, dressed and in the wheelchair by 1:45ish.  You’ve got to remember that she stays in bed until she is done on the bedpan for the day. (Hopefully.)  The “Big B.M.” is almost always around 1:00 to 1:30.

I just re-read that last paragraph and can see where there are some problems.  I used the term, “You’ve got to remember…”.  Actually, you don’t have to remember anything having to do with H’s poops.  I do, though.  *sigh*

OK, back on track!  I was attempting to communicate how uneventful this day has been.  After I got her dressed she asked if I could cut her hair for her as it was below her collar and bugging her a good deal.  So I got her in the chair and rolled her in the kitchen, threw a sheet around her and stopped to make the child a sandwich before she left for work.  Done. Back to H.  I sprayed her hair and chopped it off around the bottom, just as always and she was good to go.  About that time, the phone rang and the Housecall Dr. said she would be here in about 20 minutes.  So I muted the TV and gently swiveled H’s little head around so that she was looking at me, knelt down and screamed into her face that the new doctor was coming out to visit her.  This was met with the expected amount of horror and panic, as she simultaneously crossed herself, started muttering a hail Mary and felt for her own pulse.  I explained to her three or four times that, “She is just coming to meet you and get acquainted with your case so she can be your doctor!”  All at a decibel level approaching sonic boom.  I swear, this wears me out.  It is so hard to be constantly reassuring her about… everything, and having to scream it over and over and answer her questions because she is so panicked she isn’t paying attention.  And she is SO freakin paranoid.  Oh. My. Gawd.  You cannot begin to believe all the paranoia that we deal with on a regular basis.  When she first came to live with us, we went round and round with her about all the windows being locked.  There was just about no way to convince her that this was all done except show her that you were checking them.  The front door needed to stay locked all the time and she was just hoping and praying that the back one was.  It wasn’t quite as important as the front to her because we had a huge family dog.  In reality we never locked it and Hailee, (huge dog) slept at the back door and would have eaten anybody that came in the yard.  Very nearly did, several stupid meter readers that disregarded the warning sign.

She has slowly gotten better and now does not insist I lock the front door when John is at work.  However she pays entirely too much attention to the news on TV and the newspaper.  EVERYTHING is threatened by the evil somebodyoranother.  She is forever telling me that the reason the nurses ask her all the questions they do is because people try to “trick them and defraud the Medicare.  They have to make sure we’re not trying to trick them, so they ask us questions to see if we know how to answer.”  I swear, there is nothing tricky at all about the nurses visits or their questions.  “Appetite OK?”  “Blood pressure good?”  “Bowels moving?”  Oh, hell yeah.

Yeah.  Wonder what’s on TV tonight…

Has anyone noticed anything new about my blog?  Anything missing, or not in place?  Aside from the moving of some buttons and the addition of MeMarieLane’s button?  Nothing?  Not like two missing posts?

I present to you exhibit A.  The younger child, (known for reasons soon to become obvious as “Positively Insistent Sarcastic Sister And Not Thoughtful”, or PISSANT), took it upon herself to rectify a situation that she disapproved of.  She, apparently read my post about her behavior and decided to delete it.  I have the computer set up so that when I open up any of the things that I need there are no passwords or locked doors, or secret handshakes to get in.  It’s my computer, (my loving husband would probably like for me to point out that it is also his and he can use it anytime he wants…well, when I’m not on it…), and I don’t see any reason to have to go through a gauntlet of crap to get to where I’m going.  So, really no secrets there.  She did not like me saying anything negative about her and I guess, in retrospect, I can see how it might be disturbing and if I had to do it over again I might not have left it where she could read it structured my sentences in such an unflattering light, HOWEVER, I am not talking to her friends, or anyone she is likely to ever even meet.  PISSANT, on the other hand, blasts me out of the water every time we have a fight verbal altercation to all her pals on her MySpace page who come over to the house.  I am face to face to these kids who, no doubt, believe I breathe fire.  On her.

The really weird thing is that when I found out she had done it, I wasn’t just mad.  I was devastated. I felt so totally betrayed and violated.  I’s so weird, I had no idea this meant so very much to me.  And she had left some comments on the posts before she erased them that I removed, (edit, edit, edit), that said things to the effect that I should not be “talking shit” about her and it’s stupid for me to be so worried about her giving money to her friends and at least she HAS friends and not just pretend friends on line.  Yes, she used those words.  Made me furious.

I calmed down a bit and told John who is a soft shoe with the kids, but was alarmed that she had done it and said he was going to talk to her about it.  I crossed her path in the living room when she came in and stopped her and told her “Do not ever read, comment, or touch my blog in any way, shape or form again.  I don’t go snooping around on your MySpace and have fits about what you write about me.”  PISSANT didn’t say anything and I think, for one brief moment we had a meeting of the minds.  She did look contrite, so maybe she got it.  I think she did.

I talked to Cam, (brother dearest), and he pointed out that friends are people you care about and talk to and get and give advice to, so if my blog buddies aren’t my friends, who is?  Good point, Cam.

Now, that is out of my system and she can go back to being My Darling Keelan.  However I am going to have a hard time making a good accronym out of MDK.

How do you explain my readership going up on the days that I have nothing to say and the post sucks.  Yesterday, for instance.  I had a good deal more people on here and a lot of new people, (that I am sure were wondering why they bothered), and I have no idea what brought this on.  Except it was to make me feel guilty for hashing out writing such a shitty post.  That’s “shitty”….not “witty”.- Like I had to explain…

Is it just me or is Grey’s Anatomy getting more and more whiny and obnoxious.  I know it’s off season and there are no new ones on right now, but I gotta tell ya’, I stopped watching consistently about half way through last season just due to over all whining.  That Meridith chick, in particular.  She’s a whiny little squirt and she walks like a man.  Unattractive, overall.

Henrietta is in her room just chatting up a storm.  I am going to go see who she thinks she is talking to.

I’m back and it was the movie she was watching.  Fool’s Gold.  She is….an active participant in anything she is watching, whether it is the news or a movie.  She talks to the tv about everything she is seeing as if she is explaining to someone who can’t see or hear what is going on.  And she asks questions, of the tv, as if she expects an answer from it.  This is why it is so hard to watch a good movie with her in the room.

I am sweating my ass off down here and I just went upstairs and those girls have their thermostat set on 71 and it is freezing up there.  I don’t know why cause 71 down here is enough to bake you.  They are digital thermostats, is it possible they are that inaccurate?

Anyway, I turned it up to 74. Heh heh heh.

John is off work today and he decided last night that he was going to cook breakfast today and we were having  bacon, eggs, and gravy.  I don’t ususally do “breakfast”, I do “coffee”.  About noon I break into a bowl of Honeynut Cheerios.  I am intrigued as to what this is going to bring.  Hopefully not retching.  No, he really is a good cook, so I’ve got no worries.

The two girls and boyfriend left at 7:00 AM and made it here at 2:00 PM.  They report not running into any traffic at all and only taking one wrong turn, (of which I am very proud of them because they navigated a different way to get to the freeway with the map instead of turning around and looking for the missed road).  Plus, they are all terribly excited to have discovered that “up yonder”, (I have raised nothing if not a bunch of little hicks), they have convenience stores with Monster Slurpeeies.  I don’t mean  just large Slurpeeies, I mean nasty Slurpeeies made with Monster Energy drinks.  Black ones.  Eww.  But nothing delights my brand of little weirdo’s like a high energy, insane sugar, black, vomit-tasting, Icee.

They report having tons of fun and were really not happy to have to come home so soon.  They all go back to work tomorrow.

The boyfriend and Kes went out to Pop’s gun range on the back 40 and shot, well, I am guessing a number of different guns, rifles, slingshots, bow and arrows, anti-aircraft artillery…you get the idea.  Pop reports that he wants to be careful and never get them mad at him because they are both really good shots.  Keelan didn’t want to go do that, we don’t know why.  I guess she was busy getting into mischief somewhere else.

They lit up the sky with fireworks, (no burn ban outside the city limits this year, Woo-Hoo!), and went to my auntie-poo’s house in Burleson where they have been busy installing a GIGANTIC pool.  I keep getting these partial pictures of it and I am having a hard time picturing the entire thing so I asked if somebody couldn’t take a shot from the upstairs balcony.  No, I had already been sent these shots and they are going to have to get some aerial shots to get the whole shebang in a photograph.  It is impossible for me to imagine it, I guess.  I can remember the area it has  been built in quite well.  It has a beach entrance on one end and a built in hot tub, waterfall along with grotto behind it, a vanishing edge and a milliondy-gillion gallons of water.  That link of the vanishing edge is NOT their pool.  I just wanted a good example of one.  I want some good pictures!  My uncle is a pool builder by trade and his son, (my cousin), is in the business with him.  They do all kinds of pools and have many, many years of experience.  The name of their company is Sun-Ray Pools.  There.  A plug I wasn’t really even planning on doing!  But this should help explain how they came about getting a pool with every single bell and whistle known to man.  Anyway, they know what they’re doing.

While I’m plugging my family, my auntie-poo raises and breeds Maine Coon Cats.  They are the largest breed of domestic cat there is and really very beautiful.  Her establishment is called Amerrykoon Maine Coon Cattery.  Interested in a huge cat?  She, literally, ships all over the world.

John and I went to the movie yesterday!  How many years has it been since I went to a movie?  I have no idea.  We saw the new Indiana Jones one and while it was a bit hokey, my gawd, of course it was, it was Indiana Jones!  It was good.  A ton of action and one long, continuous chase scene.  Bad guys and good guys clearly defined by their Nazi uniforms and Russian accent/fedora and American accent.  Harrison Ford is still HAWT!  I guess he will be till he dies.  Anyway, I have to say that the movie experience would not have happened if my SIL hadn’t offered to stay here while we went.  So I am grateful for that.  However, I lost enthusiasm for my appreciation when SIL left the room and H told me to give her $20.00 of her money.  I said, “Why?” and she said, “Well….because she came and took care of me….”  I said, “Henrietta, she is your daughter.  You’re not supposed to have to pay her to come and take care of you.”  I came very close to yelling, I DON’T GET PAID, I’M NOT YOUR DAUGHTER, AND I TAKE CARE OF YOU 24 HOURS A DAY, 7 DAYS A WEEK, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF THE TWO HOURS SIL COMES AND STAYS WITH YOU LAST THING ON SUNDAY NIGHTS, usually.  This week she really came through.  Anyway, she just can’t stand it.  She gets so few visitors that if anyone, even her daughter shows up she impulsively pushes cash and gifts on them before they go.  So I wrote her a check.

Oh, I forgot!  The best part!  The sound was screwed up during all of the previews and once or twice during the movie and someone had to keep going and getting someone to go to the projection room and fix it somehow.  So when the whole thing was over there was a guy handing everyone a free coupon for another movie.  So I have another date, people!  Wonder who I’ll take….tee hee hee