What a day...

Hello Stephen,

How is your day going so far? I hope it's been better than mine.  I woke up realizing that, 20 years ago today, my best friend had a baby girl, on the night of my 5th year high school class reunion---so a group of our friends and I left the party to go see her at the hospital---and I held that baby in my arms, and she grabbed hold of my pinky finger---and OH!! That was IT!! She was MY BABY!!  We bonded instantly and I've watched her grow over the years, still thinking of her as a curly-haired blonde 2 year old in frilly pink dresses...

And now, she's a full grown woman, 20 years old, no more blonde curls, now it's straight brown hair, glasses, and she's filled out quite a bit in the bosom---skinny though, and very tough-minded.  She's the apple of my eye, my Emily, and I love her more than the entire universe.  She's still "my kid."  I was there when her younger brother Noah was born too, in fact, I held the video camera and ran into a damned wheelchair so the whole picture went haywire, as I followed her down the hallway to the operating room, (she had a C section)...and I remember saying on camera, "DAMMIT!! WHO PUT THAT THERE!!?" which cracks up everybody in her family every time they watch it.

I feel so OLD today. Terribly frail and OLD.  SIGH.

But, the boy and I didn't bond as well until he was older, and not such a devilish brat-child from hell. That kid did NOT know the meaning of "NO" and would continue to beg and plead and pester and drive everybody crazy until his mom would just give in and give him whatever he wanted.  BAD MOVE in my opinion, but he's not my kid so I really didn't have a right to say much.  However, when he was left alone with ME....Aunt Becky don't PLAY....that was the sentence they could repeat to you verbatim to this day, because I told them that every time I visited and took them out to do fun things.  "You've got ONE CHANCE to screw up the day, fellas, so keep that in mind when you suddenly want to throw a temper tantrum, or scream, or fight, or do anything WRONG while you're with me. The minute one of you acts out, that's when the day ENDS, and you go home with nothing. Got it?"

Boy, those kids learned quick. I followed through with my words, I kept the promises I made, I never lied to them about anything, but I was tough.  I believe in tough love with kids, they NEED to be spanked sometimes, dammit, I don't care what the politically correct bullshit says nowadays. Damned kids today don't know the meaning of respect, they have a sense of entitlement, and expect everything to be handed to them on a silver platter. They get rewarded for bad behavior, AND they see ADULTS doing the same shit everywhere all the time, so they never really GET IT.

I used to show up, tell them I'm taking them out for a day of fun, (usually the library, McDonald's playland if it was rainy, or the huge playground if it was a nice day...free stuff...because I was poor)...or sometimes, if I did have some extra money, we'd go to the Dollar store and let them buy a few things. That was a tough choice, lemmetellya, going to that damned dollar store...they took FOREVER to decide what they wanted to buy!!  But it was fun to watch them.

But, before we would go anywhere, they had to clean their bedrooms. And OH, how they hated that!!  I'd look at my watch, tell 'em, "you've got 15 minutes, get busy, get it done, or I'm leaving." Holy crap you would see the toys and clothes flying through the air, socks, you name it, it went flying, most of it shoved under their beds or in their closets...which made me laugh, because that's what I used to do...but they always got it DONE, and I would even help them sometimes, to do it "right."  So, they would have no choice but to do some chores first, BEFORE going out to have fun, and they seem to respect me more than their own parents now that they are older, because of that...at least, that's my opinion.

Ah well...but I digress....yes, today is Emily's 20th birthday, and I---being the frazzled frumpy housewife that I am, totally FORGOT to mail her a birthday card.  I know, it's horrible, I feel terrible, I should be shot in the face with a bazooka for cripes' sake.  BUT, the saving grace is, I'm going to visit them next weekend, so I called her (she was sleeping, poor kid works 3rd shift), and I'll be taking her out for a fun evening while I'm there.  So, it'll work out just fine.

Lately, I've been sucked into sitting down in Florence's living room to watch The Waltons with her. She never turns the channel on her t.v., it's always on the Hallmark channel. She watches Martha Stewart most of the afternoon (I loathe that woman because she makes the rest of us women look bad), and then the Waltons and then Little House on the Prairie.  Now, I used to like both the Waltons and Little House when I was a kid...in fact, I had all of Laura Ingalls Wilder's books, and read them all.  Loved all of them.  And I used to admire "John-boy" because he was a writer, and I knew at an early age that I wanted to be a writer too, and I was also writing in a diary like he was, so I felt a connection there.

Now, as I watch these old shows again, I enjoy them even more. I love the simplicity of the worlds each show created, the old fashioned values, the family quality time, the moral good of each happy ending, and all that SCHMALTZY CRAP.  And I wish sometimes that the world could be like that again.  I sit there looking at those characters on those shows, and I think to myself, "Too bad you didn't see 9/11 up close and personal like I did...you might not be so damned happy all the time..." and the Waltons were living during WWII, so they knew what Pearl Harbor was....but, it's just not the same world anymore. How would they be NOW, I wonder, if they were thrust into a time machine and came out to our world the way it is now?  I do think up some weird stuff sometimes.  Yeah, I know.  I'm weird.  Big shocker.

The other thing that happened, actually took place last night, with my mom's dog.  She has a chiuaua (spelling?) named Radar, (his ears are HUGE), and for the past couple of days, he's been coughing and hacking, but we just thought it was because of my mom, who is currently coughing and hacking with a sinus congestion infection.  However, he suddenly keeled over onto his side, his legs kicking---having a seizure---and he's NEVER done that before.  He couldn't breathe!  My mom scooped him up, blew in his face, right into his nose and mouth, and then took him outside. He snapped out of it, but was stunned for quite some time...I was frantic...

--------And frankly that annoys me...I was TRAINED in SECURITY for cripes' sake, in the nation's CAPITOL, I can evacuate an entire Museum full of people!!  But a dog keels over and I'm all yelling OH MAMA WHAT DO WE DO OH MY GAWD LET'S TAKE HIM TO THE EMERGENCY I'LL GET MY KEYS OH MY GAWD MAMA WHAT SHOULD WE DO?!!---------

So, we waited until today and took him in to the new animal hospital that is just around the corner, and they informed me and my mom that Radar has heart disease.  He's got adema around his heart, liquid I guess, which is what makes him cough so hard, and he faints if he's not getting enough oxygen while he's coughing. The poor dog, it breaks my heart. He's only 9 years old, but he's really not doing well right now. We've got some medication for him, two actually, so hopefully that will help.  My mom said, on our way home in the car, "Well buddy, looks like we'll be dying together in the same way, huh?" which sent shivers of creepiness down my spine.  My mom has this doomsday way of thinking, and I blame it on the damned crime shows she watches on t.v. all the time.  But, the fact is, she does smoke too much, she's already got COPD, and asthma, so the next thing to come is emphazema and/or heart disease, or lung cancer. One of those things she fully expects to happen, and doesn't seem to care.

I dread that.  I dread being 43, because parents die when you're in your 40's...and that is not something I care to deal with.  In fact, I got so paranoid after taking my mom's dog in, that I made an appointment and took MY dog in later in the afternoon, to have her checked out all over.  She's got these tiny little "bubbles" of fat under her skin, that you can feel...they are small, and they move around a little, but they are benign...I had the vet test her...if they become harder and don't move around as much, that means they have turned into cancer.  So I'm going to keep a close eye on my puppy...she's everything to me.

Ah well, let's see....so my mom's been upset about her dog, which then makes Florence upset (she's empathic and started crying when we told her he has heart disease), because she remembered a dog SHE once had, who died, and how much it hurt.  So, here's this 89 year old blubbering woman having memories from when she was 10, not to mention she wandered down the basement stairs while I was gone to the vet, looking for my mom, who was outside on the back porch.  That scares me a lot, I don't want her to fall down the stairs!!  DAMMIT!!  I told her she is forbidden to ever go down there again, when she's alone. She won't remember that at all in 5 or 10 minutes, unfortunately.  Alzheimers is awful. They can remember stuff from 60 years ago, vivid as if it happened a moment ago...but ask what they had for breakfast that morning, and they have no idea.  It's really sad to see it progress like that.  She was always sharp as a tack, intelligent, an OR nurse for most of her life...very organized, smart, etc., but now she's losing her faculties and it is sad to see it get worse from day to day.  She also has bipolar, which is another whole mess to deal with.

(Pet peeve of mine: People who say "A WHOLE NUTHER)."

Anyway, I have had sugar today, can you tell?! I bought candy dammit, I don't care if I'm diabetic, I wanted candy.  I know, I needed some kind of comfort food or something to make me feel better, so candy it is...and then I made spaghetti for dinner.  mmmm, I love spaghetti...but, it turns into sugar in my blood stream, so I'm actually a bit hyper right now.

I will probably crash in a few minutes and fall asleep. That's what usually happens.

Sooooo, how many boxes have I unpacked today? NONE. Yesterday?  NONE.  And we've got less than 7 weeks left until the 90th birthday party for Florence, to get this house in order and settled, which doesn't look like it's going to happen...not with all these damned distractions and the 2 mom's driving me crazy with "need need need need need need."  I don't get a moment to myself---so since Pete is coming home late from work tonight, (3rd night in a row, rather annoying), I decided to tell the 2 mom's I'm going upstairs, I won't be down for awhile, they're on their own, and so here I am.

To talk to you.

Hey, you didn't happen to call me earlier, did you?  I had a call on my cell phone from a phone number in Los Angeles.  But, I don't know anybody in LA, except you.  So, how the heck did you get my number?! And why didn't you leave me a voicemail?!  Ya putz.  I tried calling the number back, but an automated voice said, "This person does not wish to receive any calls right now, please try again later."  I was SNUBBED by a fake person, REALLY?!  I mean, you didn't even have the CAHONES to answer the phone?! Come on Stephen, I expect better from you than that. The least you could have done was breathe heavy!! Great googa mooga, throw me a friggin' BONE will ya?!

(Yeah, yeah, of course I know, it was probably a goof, a pocket call, or something like that.  But, it was kinda fun imagining)!!  A girl can dream, can't she?!

Well, if you ever DO call me, (Lora has my phone number by the way, so it IS feasible), at least breathe heavy for a minute or two, and make me guess who you are.  Okay?!  I'll pretend I have no idea.

Okay, I guess I'd better get busy with some transcription.  The people who rebuilt my web site (which has had over 400 hits in the past 30 days, by the way...not too bad), agreed to barter with me, if I do their transcription for a project, they will work on stuff for me on my web site for free.  Cool, huh?  I type about 125 words a minute, give or take a few, so it's no big whoop for me.  I sat down for about an hour last night, and got 5 pages done.  Nevermind the huge pile of clothes I've got all over my bedroom floor because I've got NO TIME TO HANG THEM UP, or put them away, nevermind the sink full of dishes and the clothes that need washing...nevermind the 3 garages FULL of boxes of STUFF that need unpacking, nevermind the weeding in the yard that needs to be done.....nope, this house won't be ready for this party in 7 weeks.

Especially since tomorrow night we're going to the Pittsburgh Pops to see Michael Feinstein do the songs of Frank Sinatra.....can't wait for that!!!  And then Saturday we're going to see SADE!!! YAY!!
Next Wednesday we're taking my mom to see the Monkees, and actually MEET THEM after the show! Then, she and I are heading back to Michigan for the weekend, to attend my nephew's graduation party.

My life is chaos.

Seriously....call me sometime, ya big lug. Really. I truly don't bite, unless you're into that sort of thing.

Well, I'm gonna go now, and I think I'll keep daydreaming that it really was YOU who called me...that little thing has made me feel worlds better after such a depressing day...thank you for that!!

Love, Rebecca