Rozi's updates on Max and life.

or at least, today was very "me"....

Woke early
Did work (for that paying job) till the kids got up
Made breakfast for them
Cleaned the kitchen while they ate
Did more work till 1pm, in the barn so I could give Brokk a hand whenever he needed me. He's working on two projects that are supposed to be joint between us, but he's been gracious enough to just let me help.
At 1pm, got ready for fencing practice.
Ran youth fencing till 4, cleaned up till 4:30
More work in the barn till 6
Made supper for the kids and whipped up my own version of a cassoulet (tuna-based) for myself, using 6 ingredients (5 if you don't count the olive oil) that I found in the pantry, fridge and freezer. Uber-yummy.
Now, back out to the barn to plane all the boards for tomorrow's project: list rope stanchions. With my cassoulet in a bowl so I can snack on it while the boards run through the planar.

I don't cook much. I don't make the time enough for it. But I must admit a certain level of pride at being able to whip up food for myself (no-one else in my family would necessarily love this - there is hope yet for my daughter but my hubby and son are way too meat-and-potatoes for the type of food I like). It's tasty, and usually made from found ingredients.

It's turkey eating season. While I am not a big fan of turkey, I love soups. So I took our first turkey carcass last week and turned it into 7 rather large servings of turkey-potato-carrot-onion-mushroom soup. Seasoned with parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. (It's not a song, it's a recipe). I have been dutifully bringing one serving each day for work. Today, day 3, I I added Korean seaweed to my very anglo soup. Because I could.

However, it took the fairly watery soup to a whole new level of messiness, likely exacerbated by the fact that all I had was a dinky little plastic teaspoon to eat said soup with. I ended up slobbering some on my chin.

And I had no papertowels or napkins or tissues in my office.

This necessitated a walk down the hallway to the shower room, where we keep our stash of tissue boxes (whew that the company still provides those - other than coffee, we've been pretty low on perks here the past couple of years). I hated to leave my soup, but really I can't stand soup on my chin so off I went.

I located the tissue boxes and tried to pull one down. Darnit, they're encased in plastic wrap and I'll have to separate them out. Keep in mind, that the bottom of the case is about 7 feet off the ground. I can reach it, but barely. But reach it I can, so I pry the case forward. I figure I can even let it drop to me; I can catch it safely enough; it's just tissues. And.... that's where I went wrong.

Somebody had apparently decided it was a good idea to stack bars of soap on top of the case of tissues. INDIVIDUAL bars of soap. Not a case of soap that I might see tottering above me, but individual bars of soap that let go and rained down on my face as I tried to pry the tissues loose.

Ouch.
ouchouchouch.

Now I am staring up at a half-dislodged case of tissues, with some unknown quantity of soap bars still on top of it. I reverted to plan B: I cut the case open as it was, 7 feet above the ground, and let two boxes fall out. I caught one. Then I picked up all the soap that had fallen down and put them on the shelf next to the tissues. There was a good 4' of shelf that was unused, further increasing my incredulity that the bars were put ON TOP OF THE TISSUES.

But now I had two boxes of tissues. My coworker who doesn't know about the stash and who came in despite a bad cold was the lucky recipient of my second box. I wiped my chin and finished my soup.

The soup, BTW, was delicious.

Gah; it's happened again. I find myself once again in the middle of OhMyGodTooMuchToDo. My to-do list just gets longer every day. I am blessed with several commissions for my metalwork. Two have a deadline that is approaching way faster than I'd like. Work is insane; I forgot about a deadline so I realized I had to give up my Sunday to work on it.....

but.... (and of course there has to be a but)

tomorrow (Sunday) went from being empty to having TWO commitments in EACH of these time periods:
8-9
9-10
12-2
and only one in each of these:
10-11
2-4
Leaving me, exactly, 11-12, and 4+ to do all that work.

I caved. I broke. I canceled youth fencing practice (one of the two regulars can't make it) even though it breaks my heart to do. I have to punt on obviously at least one of the activities in each of the double-booked time slots.

And right now, yes right now, I need to get back to work.

This too shall pass, as it always has before. It just doesn't get any less painful each time these logjams happen :(

Fencing Sunday, then 5 hours' sleep.
Fencing Monday, then 6 hours' sleep.
Not nearly enough sleep last night.
I feel old :p

But on an unrelated note (that was ironic, that) I will be attending Pennsic, albeit briefly, this year. With many thanks to the kind people of Folkvang (did I spell that right?) I will crash there for three days. I'll arrive Tuesday of war week and stay through Thursday. Not sure if I'm driving through the night on Monday/Tuesday or what. Leaving Pennsic Friday morning right after marshalling youth heavy list and fencing. I have to drive to a business meeting on Friday night in Baltimore. Fun ensues.

My goals for this year's Pennsic:
- become a youth heavy list marshal, or at least be most of the way there.
- attend (help judge) an A&S tournament (been falling down on my duties as King's champ of late)
- marshal and teach youth fencing
- visit with friends
- maybe attend a party or two
- shop. I need a couple of shirts, and I'd like to look at something interesting for my baby cousin's wedding in October. Not sure what yet. But the ability to go shopping without worrying about a partner or kids should be a treat in itself.

Some number of years ago (the exact figure is debatable) my spouse and I reached an agreement - I would bring home the bacon, and he would cook it. This isn't so much a statement of role reversal as it is of his ability to cook (well, bake) bacon. This past weekend I found myself lamenting to a third party that it has been a while since bacon has been cooked at my house, and what with the weather turning hotter, it would likely be several more months before I got to enjoy more land-salmon.

So imagine how pleasantly surprised I was to walk in the kitchen door tonight after work and see the bacon pan was out, with cooked grease in it! On top was a plate, with carefully laid paper towels. And on said paper towels was.... a pile of cinders in the shape of gnarled bacon strips.

I'm guessing these cinders started out their life as bacon, and then the kids became a distraction.

But as of now, I am still bacon-free.

Sigh.

I have come to love hostas. They are everything that was advertised - hardy and dense and, did I mention hardy? My current house came with a lot of them. And I do mean a LOT. They were planted about a year before we bought the house, probably to make it look appealing to potential buyers. Now that makes them about 4 years old and since they seem to love where we live, each plant is a little overly dense and a touch large. This is not necessarily a problem - I successfully divided one earlier this season and replanted one third of it and gave another third of it to a local plant sale. I was (and still am) inordinately proud of myself for this accomplishment and more appreciative of these plants (I mean, really, if *I* can transplant them, then they must be amazingly hardy.

My question is: is NOW too late to divide and transplant them? What if I admitted that where I want to transplant them is at the base of well established trees? Is this a case of "if you can dig a hole big enough for the roots, then the hosta should make it?"

I have had the pleasure of mowing the vast lawn twice already this year (I do mean pleasure - it's fun, and with all the noise the mower makes, I get to ride around like a madwoman singing at the top of my lungs and noone really cares). We have many trees and several outcropping of rocks. Some trees have a nice ring of hostas around them. One tree has a hateful ring of lillies around it. It might not be so hateful except that it's the tree that forms the close end of the dog run. Which means I am constantly losing the end of the dog lead, or the entire dog, in the long thin leaves of the darn lillies. Plus later in the year I'll be overgrown in tall lillies that come up to my armpits as I try to attach the dog to the run. Sigh. The trees that are ringed by hostas are waaaaay easier to mow around than the naked trees, so I have come to appreciate the beauty of a nice base ring of hostas. My plan is to measure the turning radius of my mower, measure out a circle around each tree of the associated size for easy mowing, divide the plethora of hostas I have growing in lieu of a hedgerow in my front garden, and plant said hostas in said circles around said trees. The hostas are already nearly a foot tall though. Do I have to wait till next spring? (I know they won't fill the space this year, but if I can do this now they'll have almost a whole year to grow)

I am very excited.

Tomorrow morning, I get to:
- drive the kids to school
- read poetry to my son's class
- talk to my daughter's class about the Sonoran desert (and do a craft with them!)
- start building a chicken coop with my hubby
and, if all goes well, the chickens will actually arrive tomorrow as well!!! (we have three weeks to build the coop, by my estimation, as they will live indoors for the first while)

I get to do a fun thing with each member of my family tomorrow. I do have a meeting at 2pm, but that's a fairly fun one as far as meetings go (and I'll take it via skype)

“The bastard is dead. Ha Ha The Bastard is dead”.
Yuck.
That sentiment is SOOOO wrong in my ears.

I woke up this morning to the news about bin Laden. Our alarm clock is set to NPR, so thankfully I got to hear just the dry news first. I took my shower and in those few quiet moments got to reflect on the way this country would generally react to such news, compared to the culture I grew up in. I decided that this was one example of what I’m *proud* of about America – that we would in general not run rampant through the streets celebrating a death, no matter how hateful a person died. That perhaps others would realize that his death could instead martyrize him, whereas rotting in prison would humiliate him.

Then I got into the car and listened to more radio news, and heard that indeed, many people had been out in the streets celebrating. And I was disappointed. I was particularly disappointed in the shores of the US (like Boston). Ironically I found myself half-expecting it from the more fundamental middle. Fundamentalist, I have found, is strangely little different than the fundamental anything else they rail against in their knee-jerk extremism. I have, however, consoled and comforted myself by this thought: that it was largely the college-age crowd that was celebrating, and that this was understandable. I mean, here’s what they’re facing:
- an uncertain job market after graduating with the highest debt load of any generation
- finals THIS WEEK for most of them
- they are immersed in a culture that will take any excuse to celebrate
These three things sort of prime them for celebrating such an event. But then, to that, add this:
- they are young and haven't learned better
AND, most importantly:
- 9-11 happened when they were 8 or 10 years old. Which means that to them, bin Laden is the boogey-man who will orchestrate the death of anyone he finds displeasing. They were old enough to grasp the concept of mass murder, but too young to feel they could control the situation or their own reactions to it. Have you ever really thought about what that would do to a 10 year old? Of course they’re celebrating – to them bin Laden wasn’t a man, but the Monster in the Closet. So I will forgive them the celebration for the moment, and choose not to join them. A death is a death. And to the thousands who died on 9-11, I also add the many more thousands who have died in OIF and OEF since then, and I cry.

The definition of venting is to let off some "steam" before the pressure buildup becomes critical and you explode all over some unsuspecting stranger... OK maybe that's not the original definition but it's the one I need right now.

so, teachers of boychild M have been on our case about him being "different". He can't sit still, he can't control himself, etc. They have latched on to "he has ADD-hyperactivity type" and want him medicated. Of course they do. It GALLS me to no end that they are completely dismissive of the fact that he has symptoms not just of ADHD but also of autism and sensory integration disorder but so be it; they are teachers and will look through their narrow lens at the world. i.e. they are not professionals in exactly what type of behavior issues are present in children, or how to treat them.

So Brokk goes to try to make an appointment with the specialist in our doctors' group about this sort of thing for M. They have an appt at the end of April. OK so far. Then Brokk mentions, fairly, to the doc that M's mom (that's me!) is against her son taking these sorts of medications, and is unlikely to go that route. To which the doctor replies something to the effect of "then what's the point of bringing him here".

SAY WHAT?!!!!!!!!!!!! How the hell can he possibly be serious?! Is he that poor of a medical practitioner that the only tool in his medical kit is medication? He (the doc) was smart enough at least to suggest that since I feel that way, I should bring the child in for the appointment. That's smart. Maybe he can convince me. So Brokk pointed out to him that I may be swayed by scientific studies that show benefit and no harmful long term effects of these drugs. To which the doc's reply is that well, these studies exist, but he doesn't have them at his fingertips. THE APPOINTMENT IS 6 WEEKS AWAY. What the hell kind of quack is this jerk who will medicate children to shut them, their teachers, and I suppose their parents, up, without consideration of the patient (you are not considering the patient if you think a one-size-fits-all-solution will work. It don't work for pantyhose it won't work for medicine).

Thank you for allowing me to vent. I'm hoping that by venting here I won't blow up at work, and maybe I can collect myself in time for this supposed doctor's visit. However, I am ALL EARS about where else to go with this wonderful child who does indeed have issues being aware of his body. Because really, right now I just want to quit the world, take my children and go live on a patch of land away from everyone.

Came in to work feeling unmotivated.

Gave myself a needed kick-in-the-pants and decided I *will* run a bunch of data analysis that has been sitting unattended to for weeks.

Then, the day broke loose.

Ornery coworkers (and therefore helping my beleaguered boss perform damage control), Angry Birds (yes it’s addictive), weird personality conflicts (none that involve me personally, thank goodness, just ones that send poop flying about my head and cause me to lose time) and even small pieces of good news all colluded to result that that data remains as yet unanalyzed.
That’s where my day went.
It’s past three o’clock now and I am planning on going home; pick up my daughter and take her shopping.

One piece of good news – finally, after 7 years, my first patent has been issued.

I’m also going to get a small bonus. (Yay bringing in lots of money for the company).

Which will be needed, because in the several years since I had to buy pewter, the price has SHOT UP to $20 / lb !!! GAH!!!!!! I used to think that $5/lb was steep. To buy 50 lbs (which is how much I used to buy) I will need $1000. That’s THREE ZEROS. Bonus, what bonus?

Shell shocked. That’s about how I feel right now. Even the good newses have only added to that feeling :p