One Foot on a Banana Peel

That’s my baby….doing her impression of a fish (and looking oddly like my aunt).

Meg, again, with her best friend.  And no, they didn’t plan the twin look.

No big plans for her birthday.  She decided to take a pass on the big party this year (she wants a huge blow out next year for her Sweet 16) and instead I’ll be taking her to the outlet mall in the next week or two and giving her money to do shopping for back-to-school clothes.

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It’s been a slow week so far, mostly just hanging out at home so I really don’t have a lot to write about.  I could mention Lyndsey Lohan and her arrest yesterday for DUI and cocaine posession, but it happens so often it hardly seems worthy of notice any more.  Get a clue girl…..and get some help before you throw it all away.

So, out of boredom and lack of topics I checked out what’s been bringing folks to my blog recently.  Oh my!

• Banana peel costume (are you making a costume that looks like a banana or making one out of banana peels?).
• Blend banana peels
• Banana Peel Studio
• Banana peel emotion (who knew banana peels had feelings?)
• Effects of banana peel on leather (why?)
• About a bazillion searches land here wanting to know about smoking banana peels.  Apparently it’s rumored you can get high by doing so.
• Banana peel religious story
• Old books
• Pepe le Pew (I used one picture of him when my dogs got sprayed and I’ll bet I get about 10 hits a day on it.  Who knew Pepe was so popular?)
• Stacy
• Grandson and lightening bugs (awwww)
• Under boob (well, uh…)
• Pick a molester (I don’t even want to know)
• Win vouchers
• Putting Orajel on before a tattoo (I’m guessing it’s supposed to numb the area?)
• Teens cutting themselves
• Farm tractor
• Do you peel zucchini (yes, I do, do you?)
• Grinch
• Irish blinkies
• Lubbock jumpin jungle
• Toby Keith
• One Foot in the Mud Band (wonder if they’re any good?)
• Martha Stewart turkey dryer recipe (I hope they don’t invite me for Thanksgiving dinner)

Who’d have thunk it? All those years ago when Nana used to drag take me along on her foraging trips to dig up flowers I swore I’d never, ever be caught dead digging up flowers along side the road.  I mean, god, it was sooooo embarassing to be out along a country road digging up "weeds."  And heaven forbid a car should go by.  That was about when I’d start praying for lightening to strike me dead where I stood.

So, where did I find myself today….  I’m sure you’ve guessed it was out in the boonies digging flowers not only along the road, but also by an abandoned house and along a powerline right of way.  Funny how those never-evers come back to haunt you.  My mom gets a big kick out of it because whatever gene it is that drives a person to such lengths to acquire flowers totally skipped her and her sisters.  I’m the one that seems to have taken up where Nana left off.  I guess I shouldn’t complain.  I could have gotten the gene that drove Nana to wear the most atrocious hats ever to grace a head in her later years.

As for my findings today……peonies, iris, vinca, daisy, butterfly weed, lamb’s ear, a little shrub with pretty yellow flowers, and blackberry bushes.

**Six days until Travis Tritt, Clint Black, Mark Wills, Little Texas and the Povertyneck Hillbillies.  I’m playing music from each group all week on the site to share with y’all a little of what we’ll be hearing.**

During her first year of high school my darling daughter failed three classes and received incompletes in two others.  With a record like that you have two options: stay in the same grade for another year or summer school.  Hello, summer school!  There are two, possibly three ways to handle summer school.  One way is to take the courses offered through the community college.  The other is a correspondence course.  Megan needs to take and pass Algebra I and English to move on to tenth grade.  I’m not good at math (never ever was).  Tim is, but with his work schedule he isn’t home that much.  So, we decided to enroll Meg in the community college Algebra class and do the English course by correspondence (I was a journalism major so I might be a little helpful there).

Enter a major kink in the plans.  I got a call from the community college today.  Mid-term grades are in.  Meg’s got a 36%.  She does her homework, but fails her tests and the teacher commented that he doesn’t feel she puts forth her best effort.  She doesn’t ask questions or get help.  Ever.  Great.  I have talked to her and talked to her about how she needs to ask questions when she doesn’t understand.  Yeah, yeah, she knows.  She doesn’t want to be a freshman again so I just don’t get it.  Why doesn’t she ask for help?  As it looks, it will take a miracle for her to pass.

So, what comes next?  I don’t know.  I was going to order the English packet this weekend so it’d be here to start right after the algebra class finished.  If she fails algebra, there’s no huge push to get the class made up during the summer.  She needs both classes to move on.  I suppose we could try to do both courses by corespondence.  I’m pretty sure one of us would not survive the experience.  There are also the learning centers to consider, but they are so expensive.  You have to have an "evaluation" first which costs a large chunk of change and then they do offer summer school, but if that doesn’t cost one huge sum, then I’m sure they charge by the hour like they do for tutoring….and we’re talking around $40/hr!

What to do, what to do?

It’s a rainy old morning in my corner of the world.  After all of the fun (and work) of yesterday no one is of a mind to get up and moving as it is.  Add a chill to the air and a general dull gray color to the day and you wind up with a family of slugs.  Tim went to work, but he went in a grouchy mood.  Megan went to summer school, but getting her up was torture, let me tell ya…….and she whined the whole way there.  I’ve spent most of the morning on the couch finishing (finally) a book I’ve been struggling through for over a month.  Even the doggies want nothing more than to curl up with me and snooze.  I actually kind of like it.  Everyone needs a rainy day now and then to just hole up and recharge the batteries. 

Yesterday was good.  We had everything set up and ready to go before everyone began arriving at noon.  If I haven’t missed anyone in my head-count, there were 35 people here.  There was soooo much food….hamburgers and hotdogs, pasta salad, potato salad, coleslaw, baked beans, homemade pizza, corn spoonbread, fruit salad, cookies, brownies, cheesecake, apple pie, watermelon, chips, a gazillion kinds of pop…….  And everyone went home and left the leftovers here.  Curse them for leaving me with all this temptation.  Bless them, because I don’t have to cook today.  The company and conversation was good as we had an interesting mix of folks here.  A lot of whom had never met before.  There was volleyball, badmitton, horseshoes and swimming…..and the rain threatened, but never did more than a few sprinkles.  Everyone seemed to have a good time, but you can tell the family’s getting older.  The party was over by 6:00 except for us, my mom and her husband and our friends, Helen and Dave.  It was just us and Helen and Dave to go downtown for the fireworks.  They were really nice, but it was so windy you just got a short look at them and they were gone.  I tried to take some pictures of them, but I don’t think they turned out so great except for one of the finale and it looks more like a super nova in space than fireworks.

Oh, there was an added bonus yesterday.  The cousins that Megan had the falling out with at New Years were here.  Meg was pretty nervous about seeing them, but by the time we ate they were all getting along again.  Thank goodness and maybe Meg’s learned a little lesson about thinking before you speak.  I hope so.

Well, it will soon be time to go pick Megan up from school so I’d better get going.  She’ll be in a big hurry today as she is wanting to get some more sleep and I’ve promised her nothing more strenuous than a movie day.  Maybe we’ll watch our favorite summer movie The Great Outdoors and munch on popcorn while the rain falls.

Yesterday’s trip to Erie didn’t kill me……and what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger, right?  Actually, most of the day was okay.  Maybe not fun or great, but okay.  With a friend along, Meg was in a good mood and occupied enough to not be a whiney pain in the butt.  My mom, other than making a few incredibly offensive comments, was pleasant and not criticizing everyone and everything.  My aunt, my dear sweet little old Aunt Peg………lord, she was another story.  She’s 82 and has had several strokes so I’m writing most of it off to age and infirmity, but still.  On the ride up she kept hollering at the girls to turn their music down or off.  It wasn’t loud, it wasn’t offensive, but she could catch a faint hint of it up in the front of the van and it BOTHERED her.  She also felt compelled to lecture Meg on how to behave at the shower. 

Now I’ll be the first to admit that Meg can be kind of crude with the burpin’ and fartin’.  She is just completely enamored of all things country these days and hasn’t yet matured enough to know that being country or even redneck doesn’t mean you have to abandon all kouth and offend everyone in a five mile radius.  It’ll come.  She is a teenager and she is trying out those wings.  We get into it over so much other, more important stuff that unless she has moved so far beyond what I can tolerate, I let a lot of it slide.  You know, picking and choosing my battles.  And hey, I figure all that burpin’ and fartin’ will keep the boys away better than anything her dad can come up with. 

Getting back to the point, which was……….oh yeah, my aunt lecturing Megan on proper behavior so she wouldn’t be embarassing at the shower.  I had to bite my tongue.  I mean, has my aunt ever met her grandchildren??  It would take a LOT to offend them, trust me. 

So, we made it to Meadville and everyone decided they were hungry so we stopped at Mickey D’s before taking the scenic (extra long) route to Cambridge Springs and the cemetery where my grandparents are buried.  From there our path meandered through Edinboro so Aunt Peg could see the university her grandson had just graduated from. 

Five hours after we left home we finally made it to Erie and we were still an hour early for the shower.  We helped one of my cousins finish decorating.  And then we sat.  And sat.  And sat.  And sat.  The shower was to start at 3:00.  The mother-to-be didn’t show up until after 4:00.  No, it wasn’t a surprise.  In fact, for all intents and purposes she threw the shower for herself.  She is just always late.  A running joke is that she will make advance arrangements for her own funeral and ask them to wheel her in late.  It was during all this waiting that my aunt lost any patience she might have had and got quite vocal about how ridiculous the lateness was.  Maybe everyone else lived close by but didn’t my cousin know we had a three hour drive back home and that she had pills to take at a certain time.  The longer we waited the nastier Aunt Peg got about it.  Finally my mom lost it and asked her how she could possibly have been worried about Megan’s behavior being embarassing?  I just wanted to crawl away.  Far, far away…..like maybe all the way to the bar, but since I was driving home I couldn’t.  Fortunately, after having all the strokes, Aunt Peg’s memory isn’t what it used to be and in 5 minutes or so we were all back to normal.  The grandkids didn’t visit much with their grandmother, but I did pin each one of them down and take their picture with her.  I’ll get them printed for her later this week.

To keep a long story from getting longer, let me just say that it took 12 hours to go to a 2 hour shower.

Just realized I forgot to mention how Aunt Peg took it when I told her she wasn’t welcome to visit her granddaughter’s home.  On the surface….pretty good.  Inside……pretty sure it hurt.  A lot.

I’m off to Erie today for a cousin’s baby shower.  I’ll be traveling with my mother (who, just to enhance her already miserable disposition, is not happy about going), my aunt (who is the so-excited-she’s-beside-herself great-grandma-to-be), Meg (who is also not happy about going, but I didn’t feel comfortable leaving her home all day when Tim and I would be far away), and finally, Meg’s best friend (who is a nice girl and has no idea what she’s getting into).  Ought to be interesting.

We are also stopping by the cemetery to change the flowers on my grandparents’ graves.  My aunt wanted to see the new house of one of her granddaughters but I got an "urgent" phone call last night begging me not to take her there.  The girl is stressed to the max over her sister’s shower and the house is a mess and she doesn’t want us to see it that way and she can’t deal with cleaning it right now (though from what her sister tells me, it’s always like that).  So, lucky me….I get to find a tactful way to tell my aunt her granddaughter doesn’t want her at her house when seeing the house was what she was looking the most forward to.

Sounds like a fun day.  Want to go for me?  I’d pay you.

I read a lot of blogs that originate in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and several of those writers visit here.  It’s just a fluke.  I don’t really know much about Michigan, let alone the Upper Peninsula, though it is one of the places I’d like to visit some day.  This morning I found something in common with my UP friends.  Seems Bigfoot likes to hangout there as well as here in my neck of SW Pennsylvania.  The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization has announced it’s on its way to the Upper Peninsula, eastern Marquette county in particular (because it has the most reported sightings), to look for proof of the big guy’s existance.  Other counties reporting encounters include: Ontonagon, Baraga, Dickinson, Luce, and Schoolcraft.  I don’t know about Michigan’s Bigfoot spotters, but here in PA they tend to look like they just got back from a swinging party on a UFO where they danced with Elvis.  Oh, and they smell like beer. 

Now that’s a big foot!

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Meg survived her first day of summer school, though not by much to hear her tell it.  She isn’t a happy camper (awwww….poor, poor baby).  She is trying to worm her way into changing things around to her liking, but she hasn’t gone totally Paris Hilton on me.  Maybe she can ingratiate herself to her teacher and get him to let her off for time served because it’s just too much emotional duress. **snort**  If ya can’t do the time, Chickie, don’t do the crime.

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Got a call from Matt last night.  He wanted to know the geographical halfway point between his family and Ashlei’s.  Uh, why?  Because they’ve set a (tentative) date to get married.  August 6, 2008.  That’s only bumping the schedule up two years from what they originally said and neither one of them is through school (or even in it at the moment).  Nor will they be next summer.  So, why the big jump in the time frame?  Because they found out that if they’re married they can get more money for school.

Biting. My. Tongue.

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Tim finally called the doctor’s office yesterday to ask about his MRI.  He kept saying he didn’t need to call because if anything was wrong they’d call him.  Can you tell how seldom he deals with doctors?  Anyway, there wasn’t anything serious wrong, but oh, by the way, he has a pretty nasty sinus infection.  Who’d have thunk it?  He doesn’t have any symptoms you’d normally associate with a sinus infection, just the dizziness.  Since he called to ask, they’ve now phoned in a prescription for antibiotics, because it does look to be a pretty bad infection.

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As for my health issues…… I was at the hospital bright and early Monday morning for the sonogram on my legs and bloodwork.  The bloodwork takes time to get results from and given that I go to the same doctor as Tim, it may be months before I hear anything.  The sonogram only took a few minutes and while they really can’t tell you what they see, the technician did tell me that if they saw anything abnormal they wouldn’t allow me to leave.  I took that to mean my veins are clear.

Courtesy of LilmsGlitter

Can’t tell you anything folks.  The doctor doesn’t know what my problem is.  I have to get a bunch of bloodwork done and have sonograms done on my legs to look for bloodclots and collapsed veins.  Once that’s done he’ll decide what comes next.  Yea.  At least my blood pressure was good, the best it’s ever been in my life, I think.  120/60.  Walking’s on hold till I find out what’s going on.

Meg’s report card came today.  Not good news.  I knew it was going to be bad, but it was really bad.  Really, really, really bad.  She failed algebra, english and speech.  She got incompletes in study skills and phys. ed.  At this moment in time she is still a freshman.  She didn’t earn enough credits to be classified as a sophomore.  I totally freaked.  I don’t think Meg really cared that much until I read her the little enclosed note about how not being classified as a sophomore could affect her ability to do things such as the prom, class trips and the like.  That upset her.  A lot.  But she still isn’t any where near as upset as I am.  These grades prove that she lied to me.  She just never made any effort at all.  I don’t know how on earth she thought she could do nothing and get away with it.

Well, there’s a solution and it’s been put in motion.  Beginning Tuesday Megan will be attending summer school for four hours a day, five days a week.  That’s just one class.  Algebra.  She’ll do that until July 16 at a cost of $80 (just one more thing I’m not happy about).  Then she will have to make up english in one of two ways.  Either I will have to drive her about 40 minutes away and sit for four hours every day while she is in class at the $80 price or for $180 I can order a "packet" that she can do at home within a 3-week time frame.  If she passes both of those, she will earn 2 credits and be classified a sophomore, but she will still have to make up the other three classes at some point between now and graduation if she wants to graduate.  Plus she needs to get on the ball and never do this again because there is no way she can blow 5 classes a year and expect to keep making it up and graduate on time.  All I can say about the whole mess is that I hope she learns a huge lesson from this.

This is so frustrating.  I am up and awake and raring to go walking, but here I sit.  It rained a ton last night so it’s cooled off considerably.  Perfect for walking, but it’s my damn legs that aren’t cooperating.  They are still aching something awful and in a new twist, as of last night, they are swelling.  Man, I am telling ya….once you pass 40 your body just starts falling apart left and right.  I’m going to give in and call the doctor’s office today to schedule an appointment.  I kept putting it off and walking hoping that the pain was just from being out of shape and would go away, but obviously there’s something else going on.

Last night, as Tim and I were innocently sitting around the fire pit with Megan and three of her girlfriends making s’mores, mountain pies and hotdogs and enjoying the silly banter and antics of the girls…..life blindsided us with the next stage in our baby’s growing up.  Her cell phone rang and it was a call from a couple of boys she (and the other girls) know from school.  Next thing you know I’m on the phone explaining how to find our house.  Tim, meanwhile, was having seizures on the lawn.  Not really.  He was actually in the house getting out his shotgun.  Oh okay, he didn’t do either of those things but he wasn’t smiling either.  He is so not ready for the young bucks to come sniffing around his baby girl.  Doesn’t help that I think they reminded him of himself at that age….farmer boys with big, loud pickup trucks.  And he knows what he was like.

We met the boys and they seemed nice enough.  I can’t comment too much on their looks.  The girls assure me that one was a hottie, but I personally thought it was too dark to get a good look.  The other poor kid they described as being 6′8" and looking like the character Flounder from The Little Mermaid.  It was dark, but I could tell he wasn’t suffering from giganticism or burdened with the body of a fish.  Anyway, since they seemed nice, I came inside to give them a bit of space.  I could see them perfectly fine from the kitchen window.  Tim kept saying I should stay out with them.  He probably thought I should take the shotgun with me.  After all, this is his baby we’re talking about and she isn’t allowed to date until she is either: a) 60, b) already married, or c) Tim is dead.

This is all kind of new territory for us.  Matt wasn’t really all that social and never had friends, let alone girlfriends, over much.  If there were guys and girls here they were the youth group kids.  I knew it would be a whole different ballgame with Megan as she has always been an extremely social creature.  Still, last night was unexpected.

Today they are off to the school picnic at the local amusement park.  We dropped them off this morning and they are meeting up with a lot of their friends.  Again, most of them are guys.

Sigh.  I feel old today.