Juggling Life

All Treats, No Tricks

Oddly, at 7:19 p.m. the trick-or-treating seems to be slowing down. No surpise, I suppose, since I am at the end of a cul-de-sac, but there are certainly fewer gremlins than in the heyday of our neighborhood when one kindergarten teacher had four students who all lived within a few houses of one another.

The writing of this post interrupted because a group of hastily-costumed middle-schoolers just rang my doorbell and recognized me as "the really cool sub from last year." Obviously, I gave them extra candy.

Anywhoo . . . the point of the post is that of the trick-or-treaters I have had, I'd estimate at least half are not from around these parts. I live in what is commonly known as a white-bread neighborhood, so most of our neighborhood trick-or-treaters don't speak Spanish. Tonight I would say that half of the gremlins were non-resident.

I know I will hear snarky comments about "interlopers" at some point. Which will really irritate me. How on Earth can you be upset to the point of complaining about it when people who live somewhere where they might not feel safe going door-to-door with their small children make the choice to find a nice suburb where the streets are safe and the candy is free-flowing?

 I don't get it.

Back in the day . . . good times, indeed.

 

 

 

Not That I Don't Miss Him . . .

I've written about how much I miss my husband when he's not here.

And I do.

Then again, I'm not one to set home crying in my beer. It turns out I'm more likely to hang out with friends and sip Prosecco and other assorted beverages.

This past weekend (and my weekend starts on Thursday night, which, really, should be true for all people because it rocks so hard) I had two separate coffee dates on Friday afternoon. Post-coffee my good friend Susan and I did happy hour at my house. Well, it started out as happy hour but morphed into happy-all-night-long.

Susan just took a teaching position in a second-grade class in a low-income school. She was offered the job on a Thursday and started it on a Monday; this is after not working full-time in twenty-plus years. She is beyond exhausted as one might imagine.

She has one student who is prone to outbursts where she yells, "Teacher! Her is staring at me!" Susan's academic goal for this student is simply to get her to yell, "Teacher! She is staring at me!"

You can see why she needed a drink. And what kind of friend would I be if I let her drink alone?

Saturday I kayaked with my friend Heidi, Sunday morning with OMomK, and then Sunday afternoon was book group with Becky, Barb, Heidi and Jennifer.

Though my weekend cake didn't really need icing, the glorious, blue-sky balminess of the weather definitely finished things off in a superlative way.

 I had to tweak my friend Gary on FB when he was moaning about the weekend snow they had in Ithaca.

Gary:

it is a little disappointing, all this SNOW and ARCTIC cold....

Me:

You do NOT want to know the temp here today. Hint: starts with an 8 and ends with a 0.

Gary:

my response to my friends in Cali, vis a vis our SNOW and your hot weather, HINT: starts with F and ends with U :)

 

 

 

 

T.W.O.

Social Butterfly wrote this essay last year. I shared it with OMomK today and she and SB both gave me permission to post it here.

T.W.O

 

            I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know him, and my life has been irreversibly changed since I’ve lost him. He was there for all of the milestones of my first thirteen years of life. He was my best friends’ dad and my dad’s best friend. He was the most self-less, caring and successful man I have ever had the pleasure to know, and the world would be a better place if he was still here. His name was Thom Owens.

            Most of my memories with him took place on our families’ annual vacation in Mammoth, California where we were always accompanied by the Owens’ family. One day in particular that stands out was a day where Carrie (Thom’s daughter,) and I were left behind from a shopping trip and since we were only eight years old and not very independent, Thom stayed behind with us. We collectively decided to drive out to Red’s Meadows and take a horseback ride down to the most beautiful waterfall in Mammoth. We ventured down to the waterfall and were awed at the beauty and power of the water just as the clouds broke and rain started pouring down on us.

            We ran to our horses and headed back up the trail, laughing and shrieking about the unfortunately timed weather all the way back. I vividly remember thinking how funny it was when I watched the last dry spot on my jeans soak up the rain. When we got back we ran to the general store and Thom treated us each to hot chocolate and a big, new, warm Red’s Meadow sweatshirt. That sweatshirt reached down to my shins when he bought it for me, and now it finally fits, reminding me every time I wear it that the time I had with him wasn’t wasted or insignificant.

            No one knew what to think when Thom got sick, including me. When I really thought about it though, which wasn’t often because I couldn’t bear the thought of something so terrible happening to someone so amazing, I thought about the possibility of losing memories throughout time and losing time with him. And then a smile would come to my face because this thought process, in turn, brought to mind all of the happy times I shared with him and reminded me how much he has taught me and how it would be impossible to ever forget him.

    The nine months that he was sick with lung cancer is fuzzy with confusion and questions:“Why do bad things happen to good people?” “Why Thom?” and “How did this happen?” Of course none of this mattered though because it was happening and “how” or “why” wasn’t relevant anymore. All everyone knew is that we had to cherish every waking second we had left. We did just that, until his very last breath. Both my family and the Owens’ family were there that night, as one family. We told him it was okay and that we loved him. Then he left, forever.

            These are two memories that haven’t left my heart since April 25, 2008 and never will. Something else that will always be in my heart is the image of my favorite picture of him. In the picture he is throwing up the “hang loose” sign with blood dripping down his nose after he fell while mountain biking in Mammoth. There is no better picture to capture the essence of Thom’s fun loving yet hard-core personality. I have learned to accept that Thom was such an amazing person that there are bigger jobs for him to do elsewhere and that he had already touched hundreds of people’s lives on earth, thankfully including mine.

    Thom impacted every person’s life that he was involved in. I will always remember his hearty laugh, contagious smile and red hair like I saw him just yesterday and I will always remember the things he taught me along with the fact that he is now looking down, proud of everything I’ve accomplished. Although I have a dad of my own, I wouldn’t know what to consider Thom if it wasn’t my second father.

Filling in my Peeps

Whenever something happens in my life that I either can't blog about or haven't gotten around to blogging yet, I feel like a little strange. Not that I owe my blog peeps all the details of my life (or that you even want to hear them), but I'm pretty open in this space and that's the way I like it. Since last week I've had something to share, but it's one of those things where I have to puzzle out what is mine to say and what isn't.

This particular item is made easier by the fact that the other person in this episode volunteered permission for me to blog it.

Almost two years ago I wrote about the fact that my best friend, OMomK (for "other mother of my kids"), and I were no longer friends.

Last Thursday we had lunch.

It was about three months ago that a mutual friend of ours let me know that OMomK was interested in us reconnectin. I took some time to think about it before I said yes.

One of the people I talked to at length about what I was thinking and feeling was Suzy Soro. I kid you not, that woman gives wise counsel of the sort that can only result from years of psychotherapy and uncommon common sense.

Her advice was that if I wanted to reconnect with my friend that I needed to do so with no agenda and no expectations. I took her advice to heart and spent some time thinking about whether or not that was something I could do. It turns out it was.

OMomK and I had a lovely three-hour lunch and we are going kayaking together on Friday. Things will never be the same, but that doesn’t they might not still be good.

 

Paparrazi: The Mr. Fix-it Edition

If you give my husband a camera . . .

He's going to use it!

 

Danger Boy, The Girl Next Door, Social Butterfly and I were just trying to get to the car. This is only one of a series. Sigh.

Doing the Right Thing, but Sadly

This was our oldest dog, Buddy, just a few hours before Mr. Fix-it took him on his last trip to the vet's. I was up early with him to see how he was doing after he'd had a tough day on Friday. He'd been on daily Prednisone for the slipped disc in his back for the last year or so and was doing really well for a 16 + 1/2 year old dog; then on Friday his legs went out from under him and he couldn't have gotten up without my help.

I gave him an extra dose of the steroid Friday and he was fine all evening--he got up slowly Saturday morning, but under his own steam. He walked around the yard and I snapped some photos of him. For half-an-hour or so I told myself that he was doing so much better that maybe we should see how things went with the higher dosage of medication. I had really been hoping he'd still be here when Danger Boy came home for Christmas.

By 8 a.m. though I realized that all my reasons for not wanting to euthanize him were for us, for the people in our family not wanting to see him go, rather than for him.I thought about how awful it would be if he were to fall down the hillside in our backyard and be stuck there while we were at work and school and I just couldn't take that risk.

I knew it was time.

We spent the morning giving him lots of treats and I sat with him and stroked his head for the last half-hour before it was time for him to go. I remembered how when we first got him (he was two and a half years old, a rescue dog) a four-year old DB asked if when he died we could keep his ears because they were so silky-soft.

Both of our dogs are Danger Boy's first and foremost, but we all love them.

Our little Beaux definitely knew something was up as soon as Mr. Fix-it carried Buddy out to the car. She's definitely one sad pup--missing her big brother something fierce.

She's not the only one.

RIP, dear Buddy.

 

 

 

 

 

Water Polo Weekend

Danger Boy only gets three days off school for Thanksgiving; given the tight time frame and the difficulty of getting a ticket on points around the busiest travel week of the year, we knew he wouldn't be able to come home for the holiday. Thankfully his coach likes to play a tournament in California in October--he does it for the great competition and so the parents of the West Coast players can see the team.

You couldn't have kept us away if you set up a police roadblock.

Mr. Fix-it, Social Butterfly, The Girl Next Door and I left Friday morning and stayed the weekend. We watched Danger Boy's team play seven games in three days and we were able to squeeze in seeing one of the high school team's games on Saturday morning--that was awesome with a side of fantastic.

                                              DB helping coach his former team

The competition at the tournament Gannon was playing in was fierce--on top of that only 11 players made the trip west and one of the captains hyperextended his elbow the first night and wasn't able to play several of the games. Good thing winning isn't everything. More important than winning, for us, was:

• Meeting DB's teammates; what a great bunch of guys they are--friendly, polite, respectful and fun. The team is a very cohesive, supportive group and spends most of their free time together. The captains are wonderful mentors. Overall the team is very young; most of them will be playing together for three more years. There's a lot of potential for the team to become really good as they mature as players and as a team (being a young, "rebuilding" team was instrumental in DB's choosing the school). 

• Meeting the parents of DB's teammates. We met two other families and I think I know why their sons are such good kids.
• Getting to talk to DB. He is so not a phone person that it's hard to get details about anything. His grades are good and it's comforting to know the coach has and enforces a study hour.  DB doesn't care for his scripture class (Catholic school), but likes Intro to Social Work. He seems to have adjusted to Pennsylvania weather okay--though, of course, it hasn't snowed yet.
• Getting to see DB play again! We were going through water polo withdrawal (I will admit to having been to several of the high school team's games--though I have taken to calling it "going to visit my friends who happen to be hanging out at the pool watching their sons play polo").
• Getting to be the team of "Juggling & Juggling" sports photographers. My husband shoots and I edit--we got action shots of everybody and we both feel very proud when one of "our" photos becomes someone's FB profle pic.                                   

 Speaking of photos . . .

Just a sampling of the many photos of DB we got over the weekend (click to enlarge). Yes, he is being choked and his cap has been lost in the bottom middle picture. He's wearing #7 if you didn't figure that out.

I mentioned they were a young team traveling with a small roster--this wasn't the case with their competition. The team in blue (below) had 23 players--several of whose birth certificates I'd love to see. Like, say, this guy . . .

Doesn't really look like a fair fight, does it?

This last picture isn't water polo-related; it is of DB and The Girl Next Door. They were very mature and reasonable when they broke up before she went to spend the summer in Texas with her father. Long-distance relationship, he's in college while she's still in high school and all that. This is the first time they've seen each other in four months (he left for school before she got back home) and they've decided the being broken up thing wasn't working for them so they'll give long-distance a try.

 
I'm less uptight then some people about young people not being tied down too young--I'm sure that's because I married my high school sweetheart and it's worked out--and I just adore them as a couple, so I'm rooting for them to be happy together for a good, long while. Or not. Whatever works for them!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No Good Deed . . .

The feel-good water polo post will have to wait until I get something less feel-good off my chest.

Danger Boy has a cousin who is the same age as he is--they are eight days apart. My nephew has had a difficult life; his mother (who is now deceased) was my sister (This post provides a bit of background). That said, there comes a time when you either get over your difficult childhood and move forward or you wallow in your difficult childhood and your adulthood sucks. Eighteen is that time.

My husband and I have always done our best to help our nephew--we have done so in many ways and at many times. When he was living at our house I persuaded the swim and tennis club to which we belong to put him on our membership; something not generally done, but because we've been members there for twenty years they bent the rules a little. I left him on the membership even after he moved out so that he would have the chance to shoot hoops and use the gym and pool.

I didn't take him off our club membership even after an incident this summer after which he (and three other "boys") were in our house without our permission when we were on vacation. They weren't there to steal, and they didn't have to break a window to ge in, but it was clearly WRONG. The lying about it when our neighbors alerted us and the not 'fessing up until I brought up our security cameras compounded the betrayal we felt.

That betrayal was just the beginning.

Three things you need to know before this saga continues:

• We pay our monthly club dues via automatic payment from our checking account.
• Because we pay our dues automatically we don't actually open the bills that come in the mail.
• Our club allows members to "sign" for purchases--not that there's much to "purchase"--this is not a country club.

I'm tempted to stop here and have you guess the rest of the story (maybe I'd get some comments!), but it's just too predictable.

My husband was in an envelope-opening frenzy the other night and opened the club bill "accidentally." Imagine his, and then our, shock when our bill (which should be zero) had $238 on it. I popped up to the club to get to the bottom of this hefty bill.

Honestly, the woman in the office was pretty surprised that I was just now showing up. She didn't have to investigate why the bill was so high--she had the answer at her fingertips. A stack of charge slips for $1, $2, $4 at a time, going back to the beginning of the summer, all signed by my nephew. They were for ice cream.

She had been waiting for months for the "tall, blonde kid"'s parents to get fed up with his profligate spending on Good Humor bars for himself and his friends.

I could include every synonym for the word angry here and it wouldn't begin to describe how we're feeling. While I had my thesaurus out I'd be looking up "dupe" as well.

The adage "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me" has some applicability here. That said, there will not be a third time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cutest. Mascot. Ever.

Why am I the Tired One?

We watched eight water polo games in seven days. Seven of the games were ones Danger Boy was playing in and one was his high school team that was at a tournament in the area (DB got to see not just his family, but his old team, too--how lucky is that?!).

I will have more tales after I get done editing the 1,400 pictures Mr. Fix-it took. Lest you think I am engaging in hyperbole, I am not.

Speaking of pictures . . .

Social Butterfly tweeted the following shot to Peanut (who always comes with us, but couldn't this weekend) with the caption, "This is what you missed out on."

No, I have no idea who he is, but apparently SB thinks he's just the right amount of muscular.

Speaking of tweets  . . .

One of DB's teammates apparently tweeted "Wish they all could be California girls." I don't know who he could have been talking about.

Social Butterfly and The Girl Next Door chilling in the shade between games. I was chilling too, but I deleted that photo.