One Foot on a Banana Peel

Today is my Friday.  Yeah, that’s right.  No work for me tomorrow.  There are no classes in the school district I drive for.  Woot!  Meg’s school district, however, does have classes.  Neener, neener, neener.  (I have to rub it in now because she will start summer vacation a week before me.)  Anyway, since I’m in such a good mood I thought I’d leave you all with something to laugh about.

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For the redneck on the go.

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One day, two rednecks named Bubba and Earl were driving down the road, drinking a couple of Buds. The passenger, Bubba, said, "Looky thar up ahead Earl. It’s a po-leece roadblock. We’re gonna get busted fer drinkin’ these here beers!"

"Don’t worry Bubba," Earl said. "We’ll just pull over and finish drinkin’ these beers, peel off the label and stick it on our foreheads, then throw the bottles under the seat."

"What fer?" asked Bubba.

"Just let me do the talking, okay?" said Earl.

They finished their beers, threw the empty bottles under the seat and slapped the labels on their foreheads.

When they reached the roadblock, the sheriff said, "Have you boys been drinking?"

"No sir." said Earl. "We’re on the patch."

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Okay, I admit it.  I want me one of these. 

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And you thought horseshoes was already a redneck game.

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Know why they raised the minimum drinking age in Tennessee to 32?
They wanted to keep alcohol out of the high schools .
What do they call reruns of "Hee Haw" in Mississippi?
Documentaries.
Where was the toothbrush invented? Arkansas. If it was invented
anywhere else, it would have been called a teethbrush.
Did you hear about the $3,000,000 Tennessee State Lottery?
The winner gets $3 a year for a million years.
A new law was recently passed in North Carolina so that when a couple gets divorced, they’re still brother and sister.
What do a divorce in Alabama, a tornado in Kansas and a hurricane in
Florida have in common?
No matter what, somebody’s fixin’ to lose a trailer.

Like Randy Jackson, I am left speechless by Sanjaya Malakar’s latest look.  I do think Simon summed it up when he said it didn’t matter what Sanjaya looked like or how he sang because he obviously has fans that love him and it doesn’t matter what the judges say to him.  Amen to that.  The boy’s singing has left much to be desired week after week, but he is still hanging on while better singers have gone home.  (I also liked Simon’s crack about him not having a mirror in his dressing room.)

What a gorgeous day!  It feels like we just might possibly be done with that nasty white stuff.  I mean, I’m sure we’ll still have to suffer some chilly days and maybe even some frosty nights, but surely Mother Nature wouldn’t be so cruel as to give us a string of sunny 70 degree days and then dump a late snow on us.  Would she? 

I’ve had the windows open all weekend getting the stale winter air blown out.  The puppies are loving it and spend all their time staring out barking at everything that moves or looks like it might and that’s a lot of stuff.  I went on a cleaning binge yesterday and cleaned the livingroom and kitchen from top to bottom and moved all the furniture around (I get bored when the furniture stays in the same place too long).  I like the new arrangement and Tim actually commented that he likes it.  I move stuff so much that he rarely, if ever, bothers to comment.

Megan talked me into a twilight game of Around the World (basketball) while we were waiting for Tim to get home.  She begged and begged me to play.  Funny, she doesn’t seem to want to play with me any more.  I so kicked her butt!  Not once, but three times.  Oh, the indignation and disbelief at being beat by her fat, ancient mother.

Tim had to work today, of course.  I can’t wait till this project is over.  Just four more weeks.  I swear if his employers ever put this kind of deadline pressure on him again just to get a job, they’re going to need a trip to the hospital to remove my foot from where the sun don’t shine.  Tim likes the challenge, but he is stressed and exhausted and looking forward to taking some vacation time when he’s done.  I’m glad about that, but the crappy thing is school won’t be out so I will still be working.

Megan and I did absolutely nothing this morning except watch HGTV and read the Sunday paper.  Well, actually that was me.  Megan didn’t even get up till I woke her up a little before 11:00.  My mom asked us to go shopping with her.  We hit Gabriel Brothers, Bon Worth and Burlington Coat Factory.  Mom bought Megan a pair of capris and a layered tank and she bought me a beautiful blue nightgown.  She said it was our Easter.  Megan bought herself a purse and I bought Megan and I Polo flipflops.  I also found a string of blue and yellow seashell lights that match the livingroom.  We stopped by the cemetery to take the Christmas arrangements off my dad, grandparents and uncle’s graves.  Mom and I also looked at a used book sale at the library.  Megan isn’t a reader so waited in the car, but Mom and I enjoyed ourselves.  We hit at the end of the sale so you could put all the books you could fit in a bag and get them all for $3.  I think I got around 15 books.  Heaven!  Combine that with the 20 or so a friend at work lent me on Friday and I should be set for a few months.

The only downer in my weekend has been my thoughts about church.  It kind of started yesterday when we ran into our old pastor at Wal-Mart…..the one that blames us for his being fired.  He told everyone that would listen that it was a personal vendetta.  Not true, but poor Tim was the head elder and so ended up being the main voice in the situation.  He ended up being like the cashier who is the only person the customer sees and so ends up being the target for the customer’s anger and frustration.  Anyway, he and I, we were civil.  Painfully so.  To say meeting face to face after all this time was uncomfortable would be an understatement.  And it got me thinking about church, which used to be a huge part of my life, and now isn’t in my life at all.  I miss it.  At least the good parts of it.  I am scared to death of the bad parts and of ever being in a position to be hurt that much again.  To say all that went on nearly destroyed us personally is no exaggeration.  I have never felt so emotionally betrayed and raw.  Still, I often find myself longing for the worship, the sermons and maybe even a little bit of fellowship.  I’m willing to try it (as long as I am not involved in the politics in any way), but Tim, who was the main target of everyone’s anger, has not wanted anything to do with church.  Then in December his uncle died and the funeral was at a local Lutheran church.  We are not Lutheran.  Between us our backgrounds encompass Catholic, Methodist, Baptist and Evangelical.  But we liked the minister (he sat with us at the dinner after the funeral).  A couple of weeks ago, as we were driving past the church, Tim casually mentioned that maybe in May when he is done with this insane project we could try going to a service.  I wanted to shout for joy, but just said "ok."  I hope he will not lose the desire to give it a try.  I miss the services so much, especially at this time of year.  Life just seems a little out of whack without it.

Well, I am off to watch HGTV with Megan.  We like looking at the extreme homes.

No, I’m not refering to a tube top, that unreliable (if you know what I mean) item of clothing from the 70s.  I mean the television, or to borrow another of my mom’s pet names for it, Idiot Box.  I’m just mentioning it because I usually don’t watch that much television, but I’ve been glued to the thing (and my butt’s melded with my comfy couch) every night this week so far.

Dancing With The Stars had its season premier on Monday.  I love to watch the dancing even though it makes me feel less graceful than usual.  I loved Joey Fatone’s number.  He says all that dancing with ‘NSYNC didn’t help, but I’m sure it did in that at least he’s used to learning routines and all that movement.  He was incredible!  I thought Billy Ray Cyrus did a good job, too, even if the judges said there wasn’t a cha cha step in the whole routine.  John Ratzenberger wasn’t too shabby, either.  I think he’s going to be this season’s Jerry Springer.  And while she wasn’t the best, kudos to Heather Mills for giving it a whirl in the hopes of inspiring others who have lost limbs.  I found myself holding my breath during her whole routine, hoping that her leg wouldn’t give out.

Last night it was American Idol.  Everyone did a pretty good job, I thought, but the biggest surprise was Sanjaya!  He has been my least favorite contestant from the beginning and I still don’t think he has what it takes to win, but he sure pulled something out of somewhere last night!  He was a whole different kid up there.  And speaking of kids, I can’t not mention the "crying girl."  That poor thing.  Megan was having fits about how embarassed she’d be if it was her.  The girl cried when Ryan talked to her.  She cried when Sanjaya sang.  She cried when Sanjaya hugged her.  She cried when Simon talked to her.  She cried non-stop through the whole show and the cameras captured it all.  She couldn’t have been more than 12 or so.  She probably was embarassed by all the attention.  I believe you can see a video of her on the Idol website.

Tonight it will be Friday Night Lights.  There are four more episodes this season and it is up in the air as to whether or not there will be a second season.  If you hadn’t noticed, NBC had pulled it for a couple of weeks, but the show if not a ratings giant has at least gathered a cult following.  If you want to see the show stick around because you like it (or even if you just want to do me a favor) you can sign a petition.   Please, please, please?  I need my weekly Kyle Chandler fix.

Goodness, but I can tell it’s Monday around here.  Nothing in the blogosphere seems to be working right for me this morning.  It’s either running mind-numbingly slow or just won’t work, period.  It’s so frustrating, but I guess even machines and the technology that runs them are like us and need some time to get up to speed on Mondays (and maybe a good many other days, too, for some of us).

I had a really nice weekend.  Matt and Ashlei came Friday afternoon and stayed until yesterday afternoon.  Matt has been off work since his trip to the hospital last weekend and they decided to come for a couple days after he saw the doctor on Friday.  The good news is that he got a clean bill of health.  The bad news is that he does indeed have diverticulitis.  The antibiotics cleared the problem up for now, but he will have to watch eating seeded fruits and veggies, nuts and anything hard to digest for the rest of his life.  It seems to run in both sides of the family, but for someone to get it so young is highly unusual.

Anyway, it was nice to have them here and Ashlei opens up a little bit more each time I see her so it has gotten comfortable having her around.  We still have a way to go, but I know the background she is coming from so I can be patient.  She cooked a huge Mexican dinner for us Saturday…and I do mean huge.  We ate till we were stuffed Saturday, my mom and her husband came down yesterday and ate leftovers with us and I still have enough leftovers for all of us to have another meal.  It was very good, though, and she made everything from scratch.  She may not eat much, but she is a good cook.

The kids and I did the whole Wally World (Wal-Mart) thing on Saturday.  I needed to pick up a few things and Matt asked if I could get him some pants for work and some new boxers.  I treated everyone to lunch.  Sunday, Matt took his car to Wal-Mart for an oil change and spent the rest of the time until he left playing Guitar Hero with Megan and her friend.  It’s a pretty cool game for Playstation.  There’s a guitar for the controller and you have to play rock songs (some classic, some new).  You earn points by not making mistakes.  The kids played it a lot over the weekend.

It really wasn’t a very exciting weekend in terms of what we did, but it was so very nice to have everyone home and to have the time as a family.  The days of having my kids all to myself for holidays and such are coming to an end.  In fact, Matt already told me how they were handling the splitting of Easter between the families.

Actually, I really am, but even if you aren’t….everyone is on St. Patrick’s Day.  Have some fun.

Blinkie by LilmsGlitter

Over the hump day and time to do some tossing out of the thoughts piling up in my head.

American Idol:  I watched last night.  It was the first night of competition with the final 12 contestants.  Diana Ross was the celebrity mentor.  She surprised me.  I’ve always thought she was a bit of a flake, but she came off as very normal and down to earth.  Paula Abdul, on the other hand, was having trouble putting a coherent sentence together.  But getting back to Ms. Ross, it would be interesting to know what she had to say in private last night after hearing the majority of the contestants massacre her songs.  Only a couple of the girls did them justice.  The rest were just…..eh.  The worst had to be Sonjaya, which was not a surprise, really.  I really question how on earth he made it to the final 12, when he is just not that good.  None of his performances up to now warranted him getting this far.  And as for being "a gently soul", "all about love", etc.  Gag me.  When he opens his mouth and starts talking….if I close my eyes and just listen, it’s Micheal Jackson.  Anyway, they didn’t come through last night, but my favorites are still Chris Sligh and Blake Lewis.

Health Care:  There is something wrong with the picture when in a country as rich as this one, not everyone can get the medical attention they need.  When we were in the hospital lounge this past weekend, a doctor came in to explain things to a lady who was waiting on a woman who’d had surgery on her leg/foot.  The patient was being discharged as soon as she came out of recovery.  The woman waiting was horrified and asked wasn’t it too soon and how would the patient manage when there were 28 steps leading up to her house?  The doctor agreed that she should be kept at the hospital, but the insurance wouldn’t cover it.  So, home she had to go.  Ridiculous!  When I had Megan, my roommate’s baby was quite ill and needed to spend much longer in the hospital than the 2 days the mother did.  The problem was, the mother lived a good distance away and wouldn’t be able to travel back and forth.  She was beside herself.  Her doctor, who shall remain nameless (and one of my heros), told the insurance company that she, too, was sick and therefore needed to stay.  He was able to convince them of this so that she could be with her baby.

March:  Is such a tease.  Yesterday it was 71 degrees and sunny.  Felt like summer.  Everyone acted like it was summer.  Today it is 67 degrees with rain.  Tomorrow is more rain.  And a little cooler.  By the weekend, we’re talking snow.

Walking the dogs:  The nice weather had us out walking the dogs.  Good for them.  Good for us.  Well, maybe not so good for them…or at least not for Elvis.  I knew he needed a new collar.  The Basset Hound in him showed up in the neck and chest.  He’s quite, um, large of girth.  Still, I thought he’d be okay till I made it to the big pet store in Greensburg.  I was wrong.  If he had walked nicely, it might have been okay, but he pulled.  A lot.  We didn’t even make it to the end of the street before I gave up because I was afraid he was literally going to strangle himself.  His eyes were bulging and the blood vessels were sticking out and red.  He was hacking and the drool!  I ran right to the local (and more expensive) pet store to get a bigger collar.  What I decided on was a harness and it’s the best thing ever.  Elvis walks like a perfect gentleman with it on.  No more pulling.

Thank you, everyone, for all the prayers and thoughts.  I would have posted an update sooner, but yesterday it was a problem with my internet provider and today Blogsome’s being stupid.  So, hopefully, I won’t get to the end and then find out it won’t publish.

Matt was released from the hospital yesterday after passing a stress test and a couple of other tests for his heart.  A cardiologist gave him a clean bill of health (heart-wise anyway).  As for the other…..we still don’t really know.  Nothing showed up in any of the tests.  So, all they can tell us is that it was most likely a flare up of either diverticulitis or colitis (spelling?) that was bad enough to cause Matt pain, but not large enough to show up in the tests.  He isn’t allowed to return to work until next week and must see the doctor again on Friday.  After that appointment he’s going to come home for the weekend and let us baby him.  I’m happy about that.  Ashlei has done an impressive job of sticking by him the entire time, but when it comes down to it, she’s barely more than a kid and her mother isn’t exactly the reliable, responsible type.

So, that’s where we are.  Thank you all, again.  I appreciate you so much!

It’s a mother’s worst (it’s in the top 5, anyway) nightmare.  A phone call from a child away from home saying he is on his way to the emergency room.  That’s what my "baby" boy told me yesterday just as I arrived at work for the afternoon.  Seems he became nauseated at work and then was hit by pain so severe that he could barely walk.  Tim and I were unable to leave work so a quick phone call set Grandma on the road to find the tiny, never-before-heard-of hospital Matt drove himself to.  She arrived a couple of hours and several detours later in a foul mood (from said detours) to find a rather uncaring, inhospitable, and unorganized staff that got treated to a good dose of her indignation by the sounds of things.  Blood tests and a CT scan showed he didn’t have any kinds of stones.  Preliminary guesses leaned toward diverticulosis.

I never did get down there last night because no one seemed to know what was going on, what was wrong or how long Matt would be there.  I wasn’t happy about it, but my mom was there as well as Ashlei so he wasn’t alone and as it turned out, I’d have missed him if I had gone because they transfered him to another hospital as the one he was at had no beds available.

Megan and I went down today and spent most of the day.  He was still in a great deal of pain.  They ran a lot of tests, but the results weren’t back yet when we left.  I did get to talk to his doctor.  He has no idea, but isn’t ruling out the appendix even though Matt’s feeling the pain on the wrong side.  He said that can happen.  A surgeon was supposed to review Matt’s tests tonight and see what he thinks.  Matt’s supposed to call me after that, but I haven’t heard anything yet.

One nice thing to come out of this is that I was able to talk a little bit with Ashlei.  She still doesn’t talk much and not at all until I speak to her first, but it’s getting a little easier.  And she loves my boy.  I have to like her for that reason alone.

UPDATE***I’m heading out in just a little bit for the hospital.  Megan is going.  So is my mom.  Maybe her husband, too.  I’m unclear on that.  Tim had to work, but is going to try to sneak away and come down at some point.  Sometimes I hate his job.  Anyway, not sure what we’ll find.  Ashlei called in the middle of the night and said they’d moved Matt to a private room and put him on a monitor because he was complaining of chest pain.  Anxiety, I’m hoping.  No word about if the surgeon stopped by or what he said.  Send up a few prayers, will you?

Yesterday was a snow day. For me. Megan only had a 2-hour delay. Sometimes life is sweet.  I didn’t do anything much.  I shoveled our deck and walk…all the way up to my mom’s and then shoveled her deck, too.  When I finished she invited me in for a cup of tea.  I reluctantly agreed since I really have been avoiding her lately (she’s been in a hyper critical mood even for her).  She surprised me by being totally pleasant.  We visited for over an hour and when I left she told me to come back again when I felt like shoveling…or even if I didn’t.  I just wish that she’d get it, that if she was nicer to everyone we’d want to spend more time with her, rather than hiding from her.  Anyway, I also worked on the never ending mountain of laundry that plagues me, read a bit, napped.  Ummm, yeah, that’s about it.

It was 4 degrees when I left for work this morning.  The bus never warmed up till it had been on the road for nearly an hour.  I’d complain about the cold and snow, but there’s no point.  The sun is shining and though today is to remain cold, Saturday is promising a balmy 50 degrees!  Even better news is that the mild temps should stick around all next week!

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Is it just me or is American Idol incredibly dull this year?  For whatever reason my favorite show, Friday Night Lights, wasn’t on last night so I could have watched Idol.  But I didn’t.  I just couldn’t muster the interest.  No one this year seems to have what Simon calls the "It factor."  There’s plenty of talent, but to be an idol you need a personality that grabs people’s attention and makes them want more.  I’m just not seeing it.  I ended up watching lame comedies on ABC.