I’ve been having some problem with my laptop’s battery. The life I expected just wasn’t there. I would like to be able to take my laptop places, sit down for an hour or two, get some work done, or just browse the net. Battery life has been under 1 hour. Sad really. You buy a laptop so you can have freedom to use the computer where and when you want, but you are then limited to finding a electrical outlet to work.

Well, to ease that situation, I was able to get a longer lasting battery (I hope). I’ve been running on battery power alone for about 20 minutes now. Taking the battery down to 0 will allow my computer to have a better indication of remaining battery life. Right now it says I have over 2 hours remaining. We will see.

still going…
Update when the battery runs out.

This week is going to be a tough one for my Mom.  Not only does she have to contend with the departure of a niece that she and my dad has raised for years, she has had to deal with my Dad’s approaching surgery to unblock the arteries in his neck.  A few summer’s ago he had a major stroke.  While recovering, it was discovered that there was blockage but at the time doctors determined that it was not serious enough to warrant surgery at that time (and they were uncertain whether or not he was strong enough to endure it).  The blockage has since reached 85% and today was the day for the cleansing.  He and Mom left for the hospital around 6.30am.  Three of my siblings and I met our big brother at his school around 8.45 to be at the hospital in time to meet the parents before 10.  When we arrived, Dad had already gone into surgery.

The surgery was to take no more than 90 minutes.  Sooooo… around noon, we became a bit concerned.  Finally, at 12.30, Mom went to the information desk to see what was up.  Apparently, he had not gone under the knife before 11 O’Clock.  A few moments later our paging system (similar to the doodads that they hand out at restaurants to inform you when your table is ready) lit up and vibrated.  From there, we went to a consulation area and waited another 45 minutes before the doctor came in and informed us in about 2 minutes that all went well and they were waiting for Dad to come alive before moving him to his room.  Then, we all went to lunch.

Our waiter at Logan’s Steakhouse was very out-going, hilarious, friendly, any superlative you can think of.  He took our drink orders and returned with them.  When he finally came to mine, he wasn’t sure what I had ordered and he eventually got it right after going through every drink on the menu.  Then he took our lunch orders.  My oldest brother is not a fan of salad dressing.  So when he ordered it dry, the waiter (wish I could remember his name) made some humorous comment.

On our first round of drink refills, the waiter returned and had names picked out for all of the females at the table.  My sister became known as “Sweet Cheeks.”  My sister-in-law was renamed “Cherry” (Cherry Coke).  Finally, my cousin received the moniker “Sweet Potato Puff.”  Not sure if Mom got a new name.  A short time later, our friend from Liswathistan decided to make his presence known.  He asked the waiter if he was a married man and if his wife would be interested in going on Wife Swap.  Like so many before him, the waiter was totally floored and left speechless.  I think he thought Morat had had one too many Coke Zeros.  When we had finished, the waiter asked Morat to come to the back of the restaurant where his manager was waiting and Morat asked if she was a married woman.  Yet again, Morat was left empty-handed.

When we got back to the hospital, Dad was awake in ICU.  Awake and alert because the first thing he asked was if I had gone to the garage and paid for the oil change my car got while I was in Florida.  The first I had learned of this was Sunday night when he told me that I needed to pay for it.  Niiiiice of him to get a bill for it or even tell me that it had been done three weeks later.  But really nice that they had thought to do it.  So, although he mumbled a lot and acted like he was flying with the birds, it was a relief that he was slowly returning to whatever he thinks is normal (which is in itself a little(?) less than normal).  With any luck, he should be allowed to come home tomorrow…IF he is a good boy.  We will see

Thursday, October 23, 2008 – Started off the day at Golden Corral for breakfast again, and then we stopped at a Wi-Fi place so my husband could download the Chicago Bears game from the previous Sunday because the internet was too slow in our condo to do anything.  That’s a good thing though, I wasn’t able to check email all week and it was nice to take a break from bad news on cnn.com and the real world.  We were lucky enough that it didn’t rain during our trip to Florida until this day when we were already done with the parks. It really didn’t rain much, just a little drizzle, and even though the day was overcast, we spent much of it at the two pools in our condo complex, followed by a nap while my husband juggled the kids, the Bears game, and his own nap.  We then went to our favorite flea market place and let the girls spend their money that Grandma had given them.  NOTE FOR NEXT YEAR – the souvenir shopping was kind of a mistake. Sammie (4 year old) wanted to be impulsive with her money, and we got tired of telling her to wait to spend it. Finally she was allowed to buy something, and then she saw other things she wanted after she was out of money. She also spent the rest of the trip whining and pitching fits about wanting the same souvenirs that her older sister Taylor had picked out. Disney’s (2 year old) idea of “shopping” was running around and picking up things she wanted and playing with them, so overall, I would not recommend the souvenir shopping for kids this age; if we go back within a year or two, we’re going to skip this aspect of the trip.  If they earn spending money for next time, maybe we’ll pick out something for them with it!

Dinner that night was interesting.  My husband has wanted to take me to a Japanese restaurant for awhile, so we decided to try a place called Kabuki.  I was always under the impression that Japanese food would be like Chinese food, but I was wrong.  We sat at a “cooking table”, which is where the chef comes and does little tricks and stunts with the food and cooking utensils while he cooks right in front of you.  At first, I was a little nervous about this because we were seated with a couple from a country called Luxembourg, and having strangers at our table was a little nerve-wracking because my kids can be wild at the dinner table at times.  Everything was fine; the kids were really entertained by the chef’s show.  Better yet, they were mindlessly eating their food without thinking to complain about it or ask for something else.  And the couple from Luxembourg took pictures and later emailed them to me – check it out:

Overall, I liked the Japanese food experience – taste and show –  and I would recommend it to others if it’s something you’ve never tried before.  As you can see, our chef was not Japanese – the guy from Luxembourg predicted that and recommended we retry the experience with a Japanese chef.

Well this weekend was a special one, for more than one reason.  First my friends from Ohio came out and visited.  Thbey came out to see their family and then came over here for the “nightcap” before they headed back.  It took us a bit to decide on where to go for entertainment.  For a very populated area I couldn’t think of much in that line.  There is a lot of outdoor entertainment during the warmer months, but it was cold and wet so that was out.  Indoor water park down the street?  Too expensive.  Laser tag?  Kids not old enough.  So we settled on Chuck E. Cheese.  We got there and it was so packed that people were making their own parking spots at the side of the building.  Fortunately some people were leaving so we got a spot.  Inside, C bought a bunch of tokens which the older girls used for the most part.  A couple of times C would raid the cup of tokens, but the two girls used most of them.  There were a couple of rides, some skill games, a video roller coaster, and video games.  The favorite seemed to be the Nickelodeon race game which basically stole borrowed heavily from Mario Kart.  The younger of the two could not reach the accelerator when she played, so her older sister did that job for her while she steered.  I didn’t get to talk to C and L much at this time, but it was quality time with their two oldest.  Following CEC, we went to a local hot dog joint, down the street from me actually, and had us some good food.  There is where we were able to talk, that is between young C spitting up and some issues that crept up with the girls eating.  From there they dropped me off (we all went in one vehicle), changed the baby, and they were off for home and I was off to part 2 of this post…

…Drama.  This was my cast’s weekend to perform so I had to be at my church at 3:30 for rehearsal.  Between making a DVD for another friend in OH and the visit this mornig I had no time to shower so I dragged my grubby self over to the church.  We found out that the learning center where we perform was in use so we rehearsed in the room next door.  I gave the two giggling kids some candy (4th and 6th grade) and we were slowly able to get through the lines.  We then did it with blocking a few times.  Through all this time the guest author (there is a different “guest author” every week) never showed up.  Steve, the children’s pastor, didn’t know anything about it so I gave the director a call and he was surprised that he hadn’t shown up.  I hung up and a few minutes later Steve got a call from him and it turns out he wouldn’t be coming, so Steve would have to fill in (again…) for the night.  The one who was supposed to be there would be there for the Sunday performances.  Now, because Steve is the kids’ pastor he had many other duties to do so we still didn’t get to rehearse with him.  This may or may not have contributed to what happened next during the performance.  Bear in mind that I am an experienced actor and rehearsal had actually gone fairly well, especially line-wise by the time we got to the performance.  I did my puppet part well, but when I walked out to do my live character, I started off fine but then I forgot my lines!  How…?  Anyway, I at least stayed in character and the others tried to cover until I was able to recover a few lines later.  I almost missed my puppet entrance after that because I was mad at myself.

Today’s performances went fine though I am happy to say.  There was a line flub by the kids in the first performance today, but mothing like my flub last night.  I will miss this drama for the next two months.  We will be off for the holidays.  Next week is the last one until January, but it is a different cast so I am done until that time.  Hey, more time to memorize for the next one, right? 🙂

I only made one post about work last week?  Well, I was depressed about the state of the elections I guess.  I truly believe we are in for a very rough four years, and that’s all I’m going to say about that.  I know who my messiah is and He isn’t a politician.  So my last post was about Wednesday, so that day is covered.  Thursday and Friday were the same job, a special ed teacher.  The interesting thing about this job was that it was a teacher-grade job, but the duties were more or less the exact same as the prior week’s teaching assistant job!  The difference must be behind the scenes.  The job was itinerant (traveling) but I didn’t know that until I showed up at the wrong school Thursday morning.  A phone call later to verify where I was supposed to start, I was on my way to the other school.  Got there, got started.  Detailed plans- good.  Start off in 4th grade where there is a student who appears to be autistic.  They’re still working on his diagnosis.  I helped where I could and then I was off to another 4th grade class to help other students with writing.  I edited the papers of a couple of students who were on the teacher edit stage and then it was time to go back to the first class.  I pulled a couple of students and worked with them outside of the room for a while, and then it was intervention time- something that was skipped last week at my assistant job because I had no plans for it.  Half a dozen third-graders came in and we did a reading lesson about visualization and bugs.  That ended and it was time to go to the other school.  Only a half hour before I was scheduled to be in another class so no time to stop for lunch.

So now I was at the school I had initially gone to in the morning.  Went to her desk and- no plans.  After the detailed plans of the morning (which only included the morning!) there were no plans here?  Say what?  Okay, she had a schedule, so I just went to the rooms in question and followed whatever the teacher had for me.  Lunch was 45 minutes after my start at this school (and I did bring a lunch by the way- I just like to stop for lunch instead when I travel, in which case I would save the lunch I brought for another day), and that’s when I learned that the teacher I subbed for was not expecting an afternoon sub.  Nice.  In fact, she initially expected no sub at all- she was apparently told that her position doesn’t get a sub (this is her first year there by the way).  Interesting considering I have subbed for many teachers in this district with her job title.  Somehow that changed and she expected one for the morning only.  Well, I continued to follow her schedule for the afternoon, which included two 5th grade classes and a 2nd grade class.  The second grade class had a student who was in a way the equivalent of the 4th grader I mentioned in the morning.  No intervention group this afternoon, but I did notice she had one tomorrow.  I was getting a little worried about that.

After the last class I returned to her office, and surprise- the teacher I was subbing for was there, due into a meeting after school.  That would solve the plans problem for tomorrow, including the intervention class. Whew.  She explained to me more about the miscommunication and that she would be sure to have plans for me the next day.

Friday went much the same as Thursday, with only a slight variation.  Same classrooms, same kids.  Today I gave spelling tests to a few of the kids who had special lists.  I did this for a few kids each in the 4th grade classes.  For 3rd grade intervention I finished the lesson from the day before and let them read silently for the rest of the time.  Since I knew I had an extra 15 minutes today for travel I had time to pick up a Wendy’s lunch and scarf it down before 5th grade intervention.  This class just had a writing assignment so no big problems there.  Like the morning, the rest of the time was spent in the same classrooms as yesterday.  A few written notes later I was on my way out for a nice weekend.  Next up: drama.

The song would continue “is like being nowhere at all.” Today I spent the evening in Toledo, actually the Suburb of Maumee and I had a wonderful time. Spent the evening with a large group of my daughter’s friends. Went out to eat a great Restaurant, when to her house and played some group games. All around fun for the evening.

This was a bit of a change from my reflective evening yesterday. We had such a large group at the restaurant that we were asked what the occasion was. Welll the occasion was that it was Saturday. Fellowship, food, drink were all enjoyed.

Just getting into my relaxing phase. I do tend to psych myself up for long drives in the evening, and it takes me a bit to unwind to fall asleep.

Night folks

A beautifully choreographed piece from beginning to end:

Christmas came early to our humble abode this year.  We have members of our family who are moving to Alaska next week.  My cousin lived with us from her first grade year until she graduated from high school two years ago. Her husband is now a PFC in the Army and was recently stationed in Alaska.  My father’s niece came to live with us after she had been in at least three foster homes and my mother was approached by her case worker to discuss assuming custody of her.  It was deemed much more beneficial for her to live with actual relatives.  So on Thanksgiving Night of 1994, she came to our doorstep.  I hate talking about her in the third person, but the first few years of her life were less than idyllic (and I will NOT get into that).  Needless to say, she eventually became a much more important part of our family.  Some of the little things that most of us take for granted she had to accept over time (leaving the bathroom door closed, getting too emotionally close too fast).  However, I am ecstatic that she has grown into a young, mature, caring wife and mother to their 17 month old daughter.  But like any siblings, we have had our share of quarrels.

So today was spent watching the Buckeyes handily defeat Northwestern (a three-peat to the National Championship is now out of the question, but a Bowl berth is still entirely likely).  Then eating a feast after which I took a nap.  After the nap, we watched all of the little ones open their gifts that were given to them before the departure.  Later on, my cousin’s best friend stopped by to deliver a rather expensive Build-A-Bear (or penguin as the case may be) and we played some Phase 10.  I kept getting skipped time after time (by the same person) while another player continued on her way and eventually won the entire game.  Not very strategically minded I must say.  So, a bit of Christmas cheer arrived a bit early.  May God bless the little family as they make their way WAY North to Alaska.

There are times I spend contemplating the past. I’ve done this most of my life. Quiet reflection on the things I’ve done, the things I’ve seen others do, what I could change, what I can’t. Pondering the what ifs in life.

Then things happen, and I stopped doing this for a time. Contemplating the past was, to say the least, painful. Too many things happened in too short of time. The what ifs in life were overwhelming.

It took a long time to get to the point when I could look backwards without dwelling on those what ifs. But recently the what ifs have crept their way back in. As I’ve mentioned before, I think it has something to do with the turning of the calendar, but also with the weather this year. There were days in 2003, late October, early November when I was taking Sarah to this Doctor or that specialist that were unseasonably warm. Nobody knew what was wrong. The weather later turned cold, as Novembers will, and the bottom dropped out. A week before Thanksgiving we knew it was cancer. That date, that day is in a few short weeks. Sobering thought that. As with the early months of 2004, I now wonder what if.

Writing this help to clear my mind, as I so aptly put on my page header. The what ifs aren’t so pressing. A futile wandering of a tired mind, that sorely misses its best part and partner.

I know that the baseball season has ended and legions of Cubbies fans are still mourning the playoff showing (not trying to rub it in; honestly, there is a point to this madness).  Tonight at work, I was chatting with a friend and customer whose daughter lives in Chicago.  I told him that some of my best friends moved to this area from the Chicago ‘burbs.  Greg’s daughter lives within breathing distance of the hallowed ivy covered outfield walls of Wrigley Field in Wrigleyville.  Her apartment building is near the Budweiser sign where a game can be seen right out the window.  Coolers and grills are frequently seen going while games are going on.  I said, “Don’t tell my brother.”  “Don’t worry, Chad and I have already discussed it.”  But don’t be asking to use any connections anytime soon.  The apartment complex has been purchased to be redeveloped into something more lucrative (just don’t ask me what).

This brought about a discussion of my brother’s devotion to the team.  Every spring, he conveniently becomes ill at lunch on opening day (or takes a vacation day from work)… EVERY YEAR.  One would think that the school would catch on.  In our youth, Chad and I shared a bedroom.  He would spend hours in the room making towers of baseball cards.  Invariably, these towers would be placed right beside the closed door.  Consequently, the door would open and the towers would come crashing down.  THIS was not done purposely.  Periodically however, I have a cousin who would stay overnight and we would have some fun by going into the bedroom and mischievously knocking over the cards.  OH, My… you would not want to be caught dead after Chad discovered his hours of work destroyed (intentionally or not).  And guess who was first on his radar?  To this day, I never understood why he stacked and restacked those cards when he could have been protecting them and probably would have some money in them.  Even less did I understand his practice of personally autographing the cards that did not have a signature on them.  I do not know how many cards he has but we have speculated that it has to be in the millions (I’m not kidding).  He would also get entire sets of cards for Christmas year after year which he would open and mix in with all the other cards or trade with friends.  AH… YOUTH.