Blogging Ahead

Good morning, friends, and happy Monday.

There's a bit of an oddity with blogging (or any kind of publication, for that matter.)  I schedule blog posts ahead of time; it's the only way I can insure they come out with any kind of regularity.  I like to have something up on Mondays and Thursdays as a courtesy--you have a pretty fair idea of when "The Neighbors Think We're Normal" is going to update.

But as I write this it's two weeks before it's going to go live, and it may of course be longer than that before you read it.  So there's a little bit of time travel going on here, because I'm aware that some of the things that are still in my future are in your past.  But they'll also be in MY past, because not only do I write the blog but I read it, so I know what's going live on any particular day.

I'm particularly thinking about an upcoming wedding.  It's less than five weeks from the "writing now," but it's less than three weeks from the "reading now."  If all goes according to plan, this blog will update every Monday and Thursday for the foreseeable future.  On Monday, June 19th, if all goes well, I expect to be a father-in-law and my married daughter will be off on her honeymoon.

Yikes.  And I'll be reading a blog from a three-weeks past self who still has a marriage ceremony to look forward to.

I wonder what I'll make of it.  Maybe I'll tell myself "hi," and hope that everything has gone well.

Looking back over this, it seems a bit disjointed.  Sorry.  I have LOTS of stuff on my mind.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Monday At My House

Okay, so some highlights from Monday.

Social Hurricane, who'd worked third shift the night before at the medical center, got picked up from work by a friend who'd also worked third shift.  (She could take the bus home but that would add an hour and a half to her commute so she usually tries to get a ride from somebody.)  They stopped by Wal-Mart to pick up a few things the household needed and then came to our house for breakfast, before said friend headed off to bed, and SH went to bed herself.  This happens sometimes.

I took Graphics Magician to a dentist appointment while Adored Wife and Basement Artist were going to a wedding dress fitting.  The good news is that he's probably not going to need braces, the bad news is that he does have two cavities, but we were pretty well aware of that already.

I dropped him off at school and then went to work.  Word has it the dress fitting went well.  AW had some household chores during the day but was mainly busy with wedding stuff.  A new physical thing is that her arms and hands are giving her some trouble, more than likely connected to the spinal nerve damage.  She wears wrist braces a lot because she's more comfortable with them, takes them off to do things, and forgets where she sets them down.  Then she'll be in another room, her hands will start to hurt, and she'll wonder where on earth she put the doggoned things.  That happened at least twice on Monday to my knowledge.

Basement Artist is at that "I'm-getting-married-and-moving-seventeen-hundred-miles-north" freakout stage.  There's enough stuff to keep her busy, PLUS she keeps getting breakfast and lunch invitations from all these friends who want to catch up with her before she leaves the country.  (When you work second shift at a restaurant, it's easy to make breakfast dates.  You just need extra coffee.)

Also, Adored Wife texted me late in the afternoon that GM seemed to have acquired a basketball goal.  Good for him, I guess, he's been wanting one for some time, but Social Hurricane's room is right next to the driveway and she works nights and we've made it plain to him and his friends that we don't want him playing b-ball out there while she's trying to sleep.

I got home late from work, played a little catch-up on some yard work (my weekend had been pretty full plus it had been rainy), and ran to the bank (had to get some checks deposited) and the library with Social Hurricane (and we grabbed a soda and talked a good bit).  AW did pork chops and pasta for a late supper, but it was a "food available in the kitchen" rather than a "family sit-down" kind of night.  She and I ate standing up at the kitchen counter and played a game of Farkle.

Had good talks with Basement Artist and Graphics Magician in the evening.  Adored Wife and I are overdue for a date, and I'd suggested we run out for at least a few minutes for a milkshake, but she wasn't feeling all that well and we settled for conversation and snuggles.

All in all, actually a very full and interesting day.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Conversations, Lightly Seasoned With Memory Issues

I am, let's be fair, occasionally absent-minded myself.  If I don't write it down, chances are good it won't get done.  Usually, something will jog my memory later (usually too late to do any good) and I'll have a regrettable "oh, yeah, that" moment.  Some things don't stick in my mind at all.  I don't think I forget them, I just don't think I really paid them enough attention to record them accurately in the first place.

So, yeah, I'm absent-minded.  Unfortunately I don't have any neurological issues to blame it on, but fortunately it's generally not too bad.

Adored Wife has significant memory issues, with plenty of neurochemical grounds to account for them.  Some times, things that she once knew just, purely and simply, go away, without hope or chance for recall.  No jogging her memory, no reminding her of things.  They're simply not there any more.

The awkward thing in conversations is that we'll sometimes have different recollections of how things have happened.  Usually, my version of events is more accurate than AW's, and we both know this, because of the interesting place that is her brain.

Usually.  But not always.

Because it HAS happened that I've legitimately forgotten something myself, and AW hasn't.  And that gets difficult when I'm sympathetically assuming that she's forgotten something and she's second-guessing herself, because her memory is only a rough guide to events for her.

And then something will jog my memory, and, oops.  My bad.  Sorry, AW, you were right about that one, and I was wrong.  (With a little luck, though, she'll forget that she was right and I was wrong.  Otherwise I'd never live it down.)

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Saying "No" To Stuff

We've had to say "no" to some things for peace of mind.  Sometimes we look like a normal family, and we try to act like one, but we're really kind of not.  I know every family has their own problems, and it's entirely true that "everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about," but, yeah, we have our challenges.  Adored Wife and Social Hurricane, in particular, have psychological and neurochemical issues that make it occasionally difficult to function at all, and AW has some pretty good-sized physical limits on top of that.

So there are things "normal" families can do that are a little difficult for us.

One case in point--our neighborhood had a community yard sale.  Everybody putting out tables in their front yards, enjoying the weather, socializing and hopefully making a few bucks on some unwanted treasures that were taking up space in their garages.

I'd kind of wanted to do that.  We have a LOT of unwanted treasures, and it looked like fun.  I already knew AW couldn't do any of the heavy lifting, of course, but that was no big deal.  I'd have the girls and Graphics Magician to help with that.

And then it got down to the wire, and Basement Artist was going to have to work, and AW had a very busy week with wedding planning and had been ill on top of that and was having anxiety issues and SH'd had a really bad couple of days with hallucinations and panic attacks and was doing well just to get to her job and then come home and try to keep from falling apart.

So the upshot was that I'd have to pretty much pull it all together and man it myself along with whatever I could coerce Graphics Magician into doing.  And it's not as though I didn't have other things going on that I wanted and needed to do.

And it wouldn't have been any fun to try to do it under those circumstances.

So, we took the low-stress option and said "no," to participating in the community yard sale.  Bummer, but sometimes you have to do that.  Because the neighbors only THINK we're normal.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Panic in the Sam's Club

Both Adored Wife and Social Hurricane are subject to panic attacks and anxiety attacks.

I appreciate that there are probably more precise medical definitions, but AW explained the difference to me from a sufferer's perspective-----

Anxiety attack:  Somewhere out there, someone is probably hunting for me, and he might have a knife.
Panic attack:  He has a knife.  And he's in my house.

Social Hurricane and I were out on a father-daughter date, eating pizza in Sam's Club, when she tensed up and said "I know there's nothing you can do about this, but I'm having a panic attack."

There was nothing I could do about it.  Trying to reason someone out of it doesn't help, because they KNOW it's "not real."  But the body doesn't know that, and won't be told.  I've never had them, and hope that's always true, but it doesn't look like any fun at all.

Fortunately it didn't last long, but SH was jumpy, agitated, and paranoid for several minutes there.  Increased respiration, nervously looking all around, completely distracted.  We walked around and looked at stuff, because it's better to keep on the move.

It was very good that she can recognize when she's having an attack--that helps tremendously in dealing with them (although it doesn't make them go away.)  And, a few minutes later, she was fine.

That kind of thing happens in my family all the time.  Whee!

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Just Another Weekend

So, the other weekend....

Graphics Magician had his social privileges severely curtailed, because he wasn't where he was supposed to be when he was supposed to be there.  Also the story he told us didn't quite line up with the observable facts, although I'm prepared to grant him the benefit of the doubt and attribute it to adolescent confusion rather than deliberate deception.  Nonetheless, it wasn't a happy conversation.

Social Hurricane had a bad hallucinatory episode, and had to put down a few lines of salt in the house to keep the monsters at bay.  It's a coping technique that works for her, and we just deal with it.  She hasn't had to do that in some time, and may be adjusting her medication.

Basement Artist had a bridal shower at church, and she was both thrilled and completely overwhelmed.  She was gracious and conducted herself admirable while there.  She got home and was completely peopled out--she had to go do some introvert recharging.

Adored Wife and I were actually okay, except for having to juggle kids.  GM's situation was a bit stressful, but the shower was grand fun.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

The Next Bill Down The Pike

Basement Artist was a little concerned, because she got a substantial medical bill for a procedure that she was under the impression insurance was supposed to cover.  She's still figuring out all the "adulting things" herself and has made great progress (she's going to be fine) but getting a notice in the mail asking you to pay several hundred dollars you don't have would rock anybody's day.

And we got to share with her the benefit of our own experience.  I don't think I've had a day in my twenty-seven years of married life when there wasn't some doctor bill I was making payments on, or some health coverage snafu I was trying to straighten out, or some prescription that hadn't been refilled, or some insurance company I needed to call about some claim that hadn't been paid on.  We've made mistakes in some of the things we've done, but sometimes doctors' offices and insurers have made errors in how they filed or processed things as well.

The upshot is, there's always something to deal with.  And no sooner do you get one matter handled than the next thing is coming down the pike.

And you can't let it get to you, and what we were trying, with some success, to get across to BA was that she couldn't let it get to her.  Yes, it was something that needed to be straightened out, but you didn't need to let that ruin your whole day.  No point fretting about it; just make the phone calls, find out what needs to be done to address the situation, and move on.  Oh, and stop to enjoy the sunsets and the kittens and the smell of fresh-baked cookies in the midst of all that.  You can't let worries about doctor bills run your life.

As it turns out, other than a modest deductible insurance IS covering this particular bill.  The doctor's office had just sent us the bill before they received the payment from our insurance company.  If we'd just waited on this one, they would have sent us another, much lower bill the next month.  But it was a five-minute phone call to buy BA some peace of mind--well worth it.

Okay, on to Social Hurricane's doctor bills......

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Going Through Midlife Crisis

I'm not exactly unhappy where I work.  There are some frustrating aspects to it, but I can't imagine anybody in any other job would say anything different.  I'm privileged to be able to associate with some very nice people and there are aspects of my occupation I quite enjoy.

But I can't see doing what I'm doing now for the rest of my life.

I'm starting to feel my age a little bit.  Forty-eight at this writing, which is hardly advanced, but it's just right for a (bum, bum, bum) MIDLIFE CRISIS.  And there are things I'm doing now which a younger man, quite honestly, could probably do better.  I was probably not a bad fit when I started my current job, eight years ago, but I think I'm aging out of it.  Some of the physical stuff is getting harder, and I'm a little crankier about some of the management policies and practices that I've never quite been on board with.

And I think I'm ready for a change.  Spread my wings a little, do something more creative, have a little more fun.

But I have to be careful and cautious.  Men in midlife have been known to do ill-advised things purely BECAUSE they're starting to feel their age, and I don't want to add my name to that list.

Also, I kinda want to go out and buy a nice car, which I'd have to finance, and that would be a really moronically bad idea.

I'll have to keep an eye on it.  I'll let you know if I start looking at toupées.  (Which would be kind of silly, because my hair is seriously graying but is otherwise intact.)

God bless, friends.

The Cat Is In Disgrace

Remind me why we have a cat, again?  I keep forgetting.

Picture this:  Adored Wife is making cookies, using sweetened condensed milk with pink food coloring as frosting.  She leaves the kitchen for a minute and comes back to find Oscar up on the counter, in kitty heaven, having eaten about half the frosting.

He is not allowed on the counter and knows he is not allowed on the counter.  She swats his furry behind and throws him outside.

(For those of you who may not know, cats tend to love dairy products, but dairy products are not good for a cat's digestion.  This fact will become relevant very shortly in the story.  Like, say, in the next paragraph.)

Sometime later, she lets him back in.  He promptly goes down the hall and upchucks bright pink barf in front of our bedroom.

He was outside for an HOUR.  He couldn't have done that outside?

Much scrubbing later, and the carpet is still slightly rose-colored......

It's a good thing he's cute.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.