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Last night I informed john that we would need to make something exciting happen tomorrow in order for me to have some sort of reasonable blog fodder.  He immediately responded, “Have sex?”.  I then told him,  1) I don’t usually write about our sex life on my blog and 2) My mother reads this.  His swift, cocky comeback was reduced to, “Ooooh…”.

Today has been a bust.  The caregiver provider was supposed to show up at 1:00 and let John and I run out and madly dash about doing things together willy-nilly until we had exhausted our three hours and had to return to take care of H.  She never showed up.  Now remember, this is the “new” provider that is, not the same one that had trouble showing up a while back.  So I called the number we had for her cell phone and, surprise, surprise, no answer.  I next tried calling the company that was sending her out here.  The lady told me that she had called her and told her that she didn’t feel well and that she had called us and left a message for us telling us that she wasn’t showing up.  Left a message?  Why on earth would she lie and say that?  That makes it sound as if I WAS ABLE TO LEAVE THE HOUSE AND NOT ANSWER THE DAMNED PHONE.  Ahem…  Anyway, there was no message on the answering machine and we had been here all day.  Waiting.  I was not a happy camper.  I told the lady so and she said that maybe I should call the… “provider’s” home number and she gave it to me and, of course, no one answered.  I called the company back and told her I want someone else and it’s not that she was feeling poorly, it’s that she’s a terrible liar and that really chaps me arse.  So tomorrow afternoon some new chick named Maria is supposed to show up and we will see.  John works a half day tomorrow and so we should get to do something.  I have an exciting list, too.  Let’s see… post office, Lowe’s, grocery….oh gawd…

The exciting thing that happened today is that my wonderful husband has figured out how to get the pics in the memory of my camera onto the memory card and onto the pooter.  Actually, I got them onto the pooter, but he did the rest.  He may get some booty tonight…

On Sunday, August 21st, the same day Henrietta came home from the hospital, Kes came running in to get John and I early in the morning.  I mean DAYBREAK.  She had gone out to the garage to investigate what on earth our little dog, Kissy, had been barking at.  It was a stray cat.  Don’t know why the cat decided it wanted in our garage.  There is no food in there or anything like that.  While she was looking at it something flew across the garage and landed, spooking her no end.  It was this little bitty owl.

Now I have quite a history with owls and I will update you on all that in my next post, given something earth shattering doesn’t happen in my life to supersede it, i.e. H has a blowout that completly dissolves a diaper or the provider care person shows up and John and I have sex for three hours in some seedy motel.  Don’t hold your breath, cause H is finished with her antibiotics and is no longer suffering with diarrhea.

I just read this to John and his first response was, “Are you sure your mom can read all that?”  I said, “She knows how to read…anything. “  He looked a bit desperate and responded, “YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!”

Is it a baby or just a small breed?  I dunno.  But now that I have the pics on the pooter I will try to look it up.  Tomorrow.  John wants my attention now and I have to go…..

Hello again.  This is Krissa, not her brother, Cam.  I have sent a hit man out looking for Cam and will update as needed.

H is home from hospital, though for how long I can’t say.  Her UTI seemed well under control when she left on Sunday and her urine was clear and light colored.  She still feels bad and is very tired and her urine is quite dark again.  They sent us home with a Rx for more antibiotics and she has been taking them as prescribed.  Oh well.  I am betting she will be going back in the next couple of days.  God, I hope not.

On the up side!!!

Kes and Keelan had their first day at college and as senior in high school on Monday.  They both really excited about the upcoming year.  So am I!

The weekend before school started Keelan was at a friends house and a… small herd of boys showed up at the front door to see her.  I was quite busy doing something or another and met them at the door before they could ring the bell and set the obnoxious dog off barking.  They asked if she was here and I said no, she was at Anna’s house.  They left and I called her later when I wasn’t so tied up doing things and told her that some boys were here and did they call her on her cell?  “No, who was it?”  Er, I didn’t know…  “What did they look like?”  Tall, skinny with stringy hair.  (Hint, all the kids she knows look like that.)  “MOM!  What color was their hair?”  I don’t know, brown?  Blondish?  “Mom! was it ____?  Or _____?”  I dunno, Keelan.  They all look pretty much the same to me and I didn’t really pay any attention cause I was in a hurry.  “Gawd, Mom!  What if one of them was my future husband?”  I dunno, what if all of them were your future husbands?  “MOM!”  KEELAN!

Later she let me know who they were and that there were two of them and not three as I thought there was.  Also that one of them had pink streaks died in his hair.  I said something like, Huh?…pink? Really?

I then promised to be sure and ask any boys that come to the door while she is out if they are her future husband.

“GAWD MOM!”

Sometimes you just can’t make people happy…

Last night, Kes was walking, (barefoot), through the kitchen on her way to the living room when she stepped on something.  She yelled, “Oww!”, and limped over to the couch to examine her foot.

“MOM!”

“Yes, dear.  I’m right here.”, I deep sighed… (I guess I should know where she gets it.)

“Ohmigosh Mom!  There’s a piece of glass in my foot!”  She glances up and says accusingly, “You left glass on the floor when you broke that glass cake pan the other day!”

You know how Pyrex shatters, eight million gillion pieces, give or take 6 or 7.  I am STILL finding chunks of it two rooms away as it fairly exploded when it hit the ground.  Not to mention the worst part was I was taking a batch of brownies out of the oven when I dropped it.

She plucks the offending shard out and shows it to me.  “It’s huge, Mom!”

She begins to tease now, “You left it there to stab me!  I’m bleeding Mom!  Quick get me a band aid, Neosporin, and hydrogen peroxide.  Hurry, Mom, HURRY!

I am laughing at the fuss she is making and go to the bathroom to get the stuff.  While I’m in there I hear her flip open her phone and start madly texting.  She finishes up pretty soon after I get back and doctor her toe.  I asked, so, who were you texting, and she replied, boyfriend.  What did you tell him?  She flipped her cell back open with the ubiquitous deep sigh/eye roll and read,

“I don’t think I can cook dinner for us nonight, as I am wounded.  Mom has stabbed me with a piece of the pyarrhea cake pan.”

Swear to God, she flipped the cell shut and looked me straight in the face and said “WHAT?”

I couldn’t stop laughing.  And even when I told her it was Pyrex, not pyarrhea, she still didn’t see what was so funny when she thought she was just being a litte silly.

Well, I have been taken to task by my itty, bitty, baby brother.  Calling him that made him furious, years and years ago.  I am thinking now, it’s just dandy. Anyway, yesterday was his birthday and I didn’t even mention it.  I DID remember and called him and all that, but, reporting on the U.P. just seemed to be foremost in my thoughts because, I suppose, I felt like I needed to explain, partially, why I hadn’t been keeping up with this blog.  Not that a U.P. is more significant than his birthday, or even an S.P., but over here in this household you just get caught up in all the excitement of the bowel movements.  You understand.  Sure you do. YESTERDAY, baby brother, Cam, turned 37 years old.  I go back and forth between thinking my teenagers are aging me faster and then I think it’s gotta be him.  He will catch up someday, but for now he’s eight years younger. I remember when he was born, and that’s saying a lot because I have very few memories of childhood.  I was roused in the middle of the night and taken to my auntie-poo’s house to stay while Mither and Pop trailed off to the hospital.  I don’t remember visiting in the hospital, but I’m sure I did.  This was back in the day when a 3 day maternity stay was the norm.    When he finally came home I LOVED that baby with an intensity I assumed only a mother could feel.  He was MINE.  I wanted to do everything for him.  Well, almost everything.  I remember him as a toddler so well.  He was adorable.  I took him everywhere I could with me.  We were living in Lafayette, La. and the subdivision we lived in had a local 7-11 store several blocks away.  My friends and I would walk down there regularly.  I dearly loved pulling my little brother behind me in a wagon outfitted with pillows and a blanket if it was cold.  In the store, I always bought him some candy and then we’d set out towards home.  We took baths together and had tons of fun in the bathtub.  I am sure we splashed an entire ocean of water on the floor. Any time he got into trouble and was being punished or scolded, I cried longer and harder than he did.  He called me “Ya-Ya”, and if he was being put in a time out in his room he’d sit in there and call for me until I convinced our mom to let me go in to see him. And then one day, it happened.  He soured for me.  He was no longer The Golden Boy.   I believe he was 4 and I remember telling my mom that “He is SO spoiled!”.  And the funny thing is that I had absolutely NO idea how he got that way.  Mom says he still worshiped me and I just didn’t think any of what he did was acceptable anymore and he was acting like a baby.  He was 4 and he needed to grow up. The problem, I can see as I look back, was not that he was 4 but I was 12 and about to be a teenager.  (Oh Lord, thank you for giving my parents a stalwart nature more suited to an adventurous pioneer and, consequently, the ability to let me live.)  Oops, was I praying?  Er, yeah, sorry ’bout that.  The mention of the word “teenager” frequently brings on an involuntary fervent prayer response.

A few days old.  Fat ass weighed 9 lbs. at birth…

His second Halloween… hard to tell if his cheeks are full of candy or….  No.  He’s just fat.

Playing with a puppy at our grandmother’s house.

Looking adorable in the backyard at our house.

Here he is with “Baby”, his constant companion.

And a scarecrow for his third Halloween.

Four years old and for the LONGEST time that hat never left his head.  He even wore it to school everyday in Kindergarten.   He’s snaggletoothed here because I ACCIDENTALLY kicked his tooth out.

Loved playing anything outside.

Four or Five years old and was already interested in music.  He now plays a guitar quite well.

Special thanks go to our dear Mither who scanned and sent these pictures after digging through thousands and getting all mired down in “Oooooh LOOK!…AWWWW, he’s soo CUTE!  OH, I’d forgotten all about that!  Look at how sweet!…”

I can’t get the song Snowbird, by Anne Murray out of my head.  Been singing this in my little head for a couple of days.  WHY?

Yesterday Keelan spent nearly $300.00 of her hard earned(?) money on an iPod Touch, and an iTunes Music Card.  I think she slept with it last night, and she won’t let anyone else touch it.  Not even me.

Twitter is not working.  I don’t know what to do…What am I if not a Twit?

Wonder why those little frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches John buys are so much better than ones I make myself?  I told him that buying them was the stupidest thing in the world when you could just make them here, fresh, and it’s at least the same thing.  Then he made me try one of the store bought kind.  Yum!  Weird.

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Tonight I ran out with Kessa when she got home from work to shop for a few things that she’s been needing.  It was nice to get out and we usually have a nice time shopping together.  We do NOW…not always.  Anyway, I was standing in the space outside her cubicle in the dressing rooms and there was a mom and daughter a few doors down from us.  I couldn’t hear exactly what was being said, but it was rather hushed, stressed tones.  In a few moments the mother came out of the dressing room and stalked past me looking at the floor with her hands balled into tight, white, little fists.  She proceeded out to the waiting area with the sofa and chairs.  she turned the corner and stopped.  I could hear almost all of the exchange with the husband/father:

Mother: “I spent $57.00 on shoes and all kinds of other crap for her last week!”

Dad: “mumble, mumble, well, yeah…..I know…Mumble…”

Mom: “I DON’T CARE!  I am sick and tired of her treating me like shit!”

Dad: “Mumble, mumble…voice down…”

Mom: “I AM TELLING YOU, I AM THROUGH BEING AN EFFING DOORMAT FOR HER!  She treats me like shit and I am nothing but someone for her to just use and abuse!”

This went on for a minute or so and I got the feeling the daughter was taking longer than necessary to come out of the dressing room.  She finally emerged and looked up at me as if all the world was her oyster and gave me a kind of polite little smile as she strolled by and I SWEAR IT WAS ALL I COULD DO NOT TO STICK OUT MY FOOT AND TRIP HER AS SHE WALKED BY AND THEN RUN OUT AND TELL HER POOR MOM WHAT I HAD DONE.

This time in their lives?  I remember it soooooo well….  Mine almost didn’t live through it, only they never knew how close to actual death they came.

John is working late tonight and Henrietta wanted to be fed something that no one else will eat.  Done.  I am not a very big supper eater.  Kes is 18 years old and just read me the riot act about not getting supper done early enough to suit her.  I looked at her blankly and said, “Supper?”  To which she grabbed her purse and stormed out muttering something about going to get something to eat.  Clearly, she is steamed at ME.  I think this is unfair.  This is just me sawing away in a frenzied manner cutting the apron strings a bit. PLUS there is always the chance that she will think that if she’s not going to stick around and eat any food I may or may not produce, then maybe she shouldn’t accept any money for her college education….  Yeah, right.

Poor older daughter has now contracted the evil virus that has marauded through this family. The elderly, delicate immune system of H didn’t contract this plague. Kes did. Go figure. After John and I did. I have to take the credit here for starting the entire epidemic.

The poor child is very susceptible to sinus infections and is trying hard to hold one off. I like to think she inherited only good things from me. I lie to myself about this a lot.

Yesterday when I went with her to Walmart, I picked up a thing I’d been toying with trying for a while. It’s called a neti pot. I had seen Dr. Oz do a demonstration with an unsuspecting audience member on Oprah. It looked very easy and he said it’s been around for hundreds of years. Also, the lady that tried it suffered with sinusitis and she really liked it. So I mixed it up and walked slowly cause I am so freakin old ran upstairs to try it out for the first time to show Kes how to do it and have her try it. It worked just like it was supposed to and so she did it and finally got some flow going through. A LOT of impacted snot came out and she felt much better. She could even breathe through her nose. Click on the link and watch the video and you will see why I went up there knowing I would need to demonstrate it’s use before I would ever be able to convince her to try to use it. It seems like it would hurt immensely to me, just because it hurts so much when you get water up your nose. But, it really doesn’t and it feels sooooo much better when you are congested. Or have allergies!

I am convinced all of you people on the intertubes should get one and use it the next time you feel snotty. Snotty, not snobby. Well, I guess you could use it if you feel snobby…but why?

John called from work and said the dickhead in charge there wants a current copy of his resume, could I please email it on over. Uhh, YES. Am I wrong or is it only a good thing if he wants to see this?

WordPress doesn’t acknowledge the word “dickhead”. Or there is another spelling I am unaware of. Apparently WP has never met this guy.

Mo’ later.

Well, I got up this morning and left with elder daughter to go to Walmart to get her a new battery. She wanted me to go with her as she is a pansy and scared to do anything like that by herself. I think she will be able to handle it now. TWO HOURS later they are finished putting it in. I mean “installation” is free, but, my gawd, she could have done it a fraction of the time, I know I could have.

Anyway we came home and I fed H and younger daughter left for work. I knew my SIL was coming today but she told me she had no idea what time when I talked to her on Friday. She usually only comes to visit her mom, once a week for a couple of hours and she only lives about 35 minutes away. So when H rang to get on the pot I put her there and was delighted when SIL showed up with her “significant other”. So it is written that she has to get her off the pot, clean her up, (that’s putting it delicately), dress her, put her in the wheelchair and roll her in. Actually it is not written but that is, by gawd, the understanding. And it’s one that I like. She does this on an average of once every 4 or 5 months because she manages to get here late enough in the day to miss out on all of this kind of activity. And this irks me no end. She is not good with money at all and used to ask for gas money when she was about to leave to go home because she didn’t “have enough to get home”. However when H first moved in with us she would come to see her at least 3 times a week and actually spend time with her. Now? She shows up last thing usually on Sunday night and stays about 2 hours, sometimes 3 and is on the computer almost the whole time.

Today she got here at 2:00, which is good for her, and stayed until 4:50 which is very unusual, but it’s because I put in a movie that I knew she would stay and watch until the end. I told her the computer was “down”. I swear I don’t mind her using it, but she will stay in there on it and not visit with her mom at all if she can. She hasn’t asked us for $ in a long time and she better not, either. She let it slip that she and her “boyfriend” were in Galveston this morning and none of the gift shops were open. (Well, I guess so. It’s SUNDAY!) I said, “Galveston? What did you have to do in Galveston?” She said that they just “…drove all over and then went aaaaaall the way up on the northeast side of Houston and circled around,” (wide arm gestures), “and then came over here.” She spent all day riding around in a car when she could have been here visiting her mom and relieving me from…”care duty”. It wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t know she is going to ask us for gas money sometime in the near future.

When H first started staying with us she would just show up unannounced and walk in like she owned the place and I remember one time she surprised me and I said “Oh, (SIL), I didn’t know you were coming today.” and she said, (I swear this is true), “That’s the whole idea.” She stuck her nose into every little aspect of her mom’s care and talked to her in Spanish right in front of me about what I was doing and if she was getting good care and what not. I could tell enough about what she was saying to know that. Well, as soon as she decided everything was going well and I knew what I was doing, she dropped us like a hot potato.

Well, I have gone on and on about it and it is not a Father’s Day subject at all. BUT IT JUST CHAPS ME ARSE!

I am sorry there was no post for “Fecal Friday”. I was not here and, truth be told, I dealt with no poo yesterday. How did I escape the poo? I will tell you.

I left with my daughter about 6:00AM to drive to downtown Houston for the second day of Orientation. AND I am happy to report that I didn’t get separated from the herd. However things didn’t go smoothly to start off. We were running on schedule and Kes went out to start the car while I collected my purse or put on earrings or some such thing. She came back in looking stricken and said, “My car won’t start. MOM, MY CAR WON’T START!” At this point John, (who was sleeping in and trying hard to get over the virus I gave him), woke up and came outside. “Kes, are you sure it’s in park?” Check. She tried to start it and it was evident it was either the battery, the starter or alternator. You know that noise…errrrrerrrrerrrrrerrrrr, nothing. So we looked under the hood and saw that one post on her battery was completely covered with corrosion. I ran in the garage and got a wire brush and came out and attacked it. With the first stroke of the brush a tiny, evil particle of…corrosion? battery acid? whatever, flicked straight into my right eye. OH MY GAWD! I have never felt anything burn that bad in my life. Not in my eye. Anyway, while I am in the house rinsing my eye out, Kes and John come to the conclusion that Kes will drive us there in John’s car and he will take our pickup to work. We were running a tad behind at this point and Kes was having an apoplectic fit to leave. (Have I ever mentioned that she is a bit… high strung? Tightly wound? Oh hell, she’s a stereotypical, type A personality. Not a lot of fun to live with sometimes.) So I run out and climb in the car with ALL the eye makeup missing from my right eye. I swear, she glanced at me, started to comment, made this microscopic head shake and started the car and backed out almost all in one move. I waited until we were almost there and the burning had subsided somewhat, to reapply some mascara. The red, swollen eye combined with my chapped red nose from the SINUS INFECTION FROM HELL, had me looking particularly…what…hungover? disgusting? I am not sure, but it was bad.

I should have taken a box of Puffs Plus with me because I sat through hours of one professor after another stress THE EXACT SAME THINGS, OVER AND OVER, while I repeatedly blew my nose into a red paper cocktail napkin. (UH Cougars, colors-red and white.) By the end of the day there was no way to tell if my nose was red from constantly blowing it into sandpaper a paper napkin, or if the color on said napkin ran and stained my nose. I lived though. Maybe because I knew that by the time I got home John would be at work as would younger child and H would have already been pooped and diapered, washed and dressed, drug into wheelchair and rolled into living room. OH! And fed!

That’s right, people. Behold. The power of the federal government, finally put to use for good and not evil. It is paying for a company named Home Health Providers, or HHP, to send a “Caregiver Provider” to our house TWO, (2) times a week! Note the title says “caregiver provider” as in providing ME, the caregiver with help. LOVE the concept. This lady does the same thing the aide for Home Health Care did as far as the bath and dressing, twice a week, BUT! WILL STAY FOR THREE, (3!) HOURS WHILE I LEAVE AND GO WHERE EVER THE HELL I WANT. WOO-HOOOOOO. So don’t call me on Tuesdays or Fridays between the hours of 1:00PM and 4:00PM. I WILL BE GONE. Probably. At the very least I will be in the bathtub. FOR 3 HOURS!

First, (and most importantly), Cecilia seems to have…recuperated. Apparently she reads my blog and while she obviously doesn’t have very good taste in literature, she makes up for it in coffee brewing skills. It must have scared her to see how unhappy I was with her performance of late and that I was considering tossing her and getting a new one to be named Roberta. She did not stop immediately after I posted that one about her, yet she immediately began to behave better. I am happy to say she has not had to be restarted in a few days now. I realize that by posting this I have not only tempted fate, I have, I am sure, challenged Cecilia and she will feel compelled to misbehave again. But it won’t last. Not when there is Roberta standing in the wings just waiting to step in…

Secondly. (Oh! Let me warn you, I have been reduced to discussing the weather here.) It finally rained and we might get some more this weekend. WOOHOO!

Thirdly, I have been taking antibiotics since Sunday. Is it a bad sign that my snot is still yellow? I don’t think it should be. I am feeling much better, but I get the feeling that when I finish this amoxicilian (sp?) it will all come right back. I am taking it religiously and correctly, too. JUST TELL ME NOW…AM I GONNA DIE WITH THE SNOT NOSE!?

Fourthly, my older daughter, Kes is at her college orientation this morning with John. (John now has the virus I had that gave me this wonderful sinus infection.) I wanted to go, too, but alas, no one to stay with H. It continues tomorrow and I will get my turn then. I have heard from John a few times since they got there and Kes once. John updated me on what they were telling the parents about the importance of the kids networking and asking questions and joining clubs, etc. In other words, Make the most out of the college experience. They stressed that a 4.0 GPA won’t be worth much if that is all they can say about their college work. Building a resume starts on day one of school. Yadda, yadda, yadda. OK. Point well taken. Now how do we beat this into her little head without causing severe visible bruising? She is pathologically shy. Stating that pains me no small amount as this surely means that I brought someone else’s baby home from the hospital. No. She is not her father’s either. And Jeez, she looks just like us. What are the odds….

John told me they parted the herd of parents and students pretty much right off with the parents going one way and students another. They had crossed paths a few times and waved or sat together. I hung up with him and in about 3 or 4 minutes Kes called and I told her I had talked to her father and she started asking where he was. As if I should know. She then went to the other line and talked to John and came back and told me he was lost because he strayed from the parent herd “so he could talk to you”. Gawd! I’m not even there and everything is my fault! So this means that the whole going to college thing does NOT guarantee she is grown out of that phase. I am beginning to think the gazillions of dollars this whole college thing is going to cost MAY not be worth it if I can’t be guaranteed I won’t be the designated bad-guy for EVERY SINGLE CATASTROPHE. MAJOR OR MINOR.

Hopefully, by now a parent wrangler has found him and roped him back in. My fondest hope at this point is that there is a P.A. system and they will say something like…”ATTENTION: COULD KESSA (insert last name here), PLEASE RAISE YOUR HAND, WE FOUND YOUR FATHER AND HAVE BROUGHT HIM BACK TO THE HERD.

My fault, indeed.

Stay tuned! Tomorrow is “FECAL FRIDAY!”, where there will be lots of fun and prizes! oh joy.