Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

Monday Morning Quarterback

There are some things that you might want to salt away in your memory bank for future reference when you get into some trouble with the law. You just never know when you'll be in a situation where you need to know this stuff. For most of you, some of it won't apply, but for many .... Please remember that this is NOT legal advice nor should it be construed to apply to similar circumstances because although the situation you are in might be similar, it is never exactly the same.

1. If you ever are standing in front of the judge and you have entered a guilty plea to aggravated arson [First of all, DO NOT torch your fiance's ex-fiance's car while it is in the garage attached to the house in which she or he is living.], listen to your attorney and wear a suit or something with sleeves long enough to cover up the tattoos of screaming, red-eyed, orange-and-yellow-flaming skulls you have on each forearm.

But having eschewed that advisory about proper attire, take your attorney's advice about keeping your mouth shut, the judge having read your psychologist's report, because you will have plenty of time to ruminate about the advice if you tell the judge you were "pretty fuckin' angry" because your fiance ex-fiance was sleeping with your best friend.

2. After you have hired an attorney to represent you in your unemployment compensation case and the attorney asks you if you ever received any written or verbal warnings for missing work, your attorney really does want to know if you ever received any written or verbal warnings for missing work. Why? Because when you are at the hearing and your employer's hearing rep pulls out the three written reprimands and final warning that the next time you call off, even if for illness, you will be fired, your attorney won't be drinking water and start choking on it and the administrative hearing officer who is going to decide your case won't start laughing.

3. When you are out of jail on bond on your felony DWI case and you also have taken the police on a high speed chase and you failed to get away because you ran out of gas and a condition of your bond is that you get tested for drugs and alcohol, do not show up for your weekly piss test and puke all over the probation officer and then pass out. Twice. And at sentencing, do not bring in the guy who gave you a job two months ago, a guy who has been in AA for 12 years, to say, "I guess he hasn't hit rock bottom yet, judge. He should see what prison is like." And when the judge turns to your attorney and asks in a sarcastic tone, "Now tell me why your client shouldn't get more than the minimum time in prison?" please expect that your attorney will say, "I think that is a question best answered by my client."

NOTHING BUT LOVE. LAUGHING. FOOD. FOOTBALL.

friday: jax 18! 15 friends. our favorite pizza restaurant. good food. fun. late. sleep. good-night kiss from jax at 2 a.m. 4 a.m. mark home. sleep.

saturday: shop. starbucks. cook. clean. don and lee. ohio state football game. jax cigars. laugh. food. food. food. pj and michael. matt and mel. more food. good byes (mark). more laughing. more football. more food. more laughing. big lebowski. more laughing. sleep. abandoned by dogs who choose to sleep with guests.

sunday: coffee. breakfast. coffee. laugh. coffee. good byes (don and lee). pajamas. good byes (matt and mel). football. food. naps. starbucks. friday’s. jax and friends. bed. sleep.

perfect. how bout you?

2Schwarzenegger Amendment

It's Sunday. In Blogland, nobody cares much about anything. [This is off the subject (Kathy will be lecturing me), but the word "Blogland" just reminded me of the book Flatland (Edwin Abbott is the author, maybe) -- not that you should read it, I was just reminded of it, that's all]

Arnold's U.S. citizenship papers just turned 20 years old.

18 Years Later

It's the J-dogg's 18th birthday, which we celebrated at 12:01 a.m. It was 18 years ago at about the time of this writing -- about 1:50 in the afternoon -- that I was in the expectant father's waiting room. Being involved in Matt's birth was pretty cool and awe-inspiring, but the doctor wouldn't let me in for the Jackal -- something about "devil baby," as I recall.

Now, 18 years later -- he smiled and asked me for 10 bucks -- gas money.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JACKSON!

my "baby!"

he's 18 today! go wish him a happy birthday!

edited: i've been asked several times today if jackson is excited about being able to vote. umm. not sure. but i DO know he's excited to be able to (legally) buy cigarettes!

To Do

1. Book flight to Munich.

Bonus: Almost forgot. I need to put in a 220 volt outlet in the basement for the stove I'm supposed to move down there. Oh, I found some do-it-yourself instructions.

BIRTHDAY WEEKEND

jax will be 18 friday. even though he has no plans to leave the “nest” anytime soon, i’m feeling the weight of time. he’s finishing up his last high school credits this year and, we HOPE, then starting on some college “stuff.” we’ll see.

wow. 2003 is / has been a big year. college degrees for matt and mel. the wedding. jax’s first lead and his one year sobriety “anniversary.” i’m so proud of this family. we’ve had significant challenges the past 10 years, and here we are. really stronger than ever. and crazy about each other. i cannot / will not say that i’ve enjoyed these challenges or that i look forward to more; BUT – i will say that i can look back on all of them and am grateful for them. they’ve each been a “gift.” changed us. tempered us. but i AM ready for a break here. pray that we’ll have a couple years of calm.

but, boy-oh-boy, this “18” thing. this is my “baby!” all 6 feet, and how many pounds of him. long-haired, chain-smoking, tattoed, pierced. sweet, compassionate, funny, spiritual, artistic, smart. the real deal. we’ll see where he’s headed. he knows he’s loved and where to find support. from the family and others.

all my life i knew i wanted a family. a family you could depend on. i met bill when i was 16. the rest of the story you know. we’ve made a family. it’s my whole life. the boys know this; everybody who knows me (really knows me) knows this. through the years i’ve wondered (i know matt kinda worried about this) how bill and i’d handle the empty nest “thing.” i really think – only god knows why – we’re cool with it. it really is AWESOME to be a family with these big guys, too! i LOVED sitting in a lawn chair for HOURS off the driveway watching them roll around on big wheels and other assorted vehicles. i LOVED watching all the hockey games. i LOVED all the kid stuff. but i think i’m gonna LOVE all that’s coming, too. weird. really don’t know how i made the transition. really i don’t.

WISH JAX A HAPPY BIRTHDAY! everybody’s coming “home” this weekend. mark’s 23rd is next wednesday, so we’ll celebrate that, too. lee and don are coming up. bill and don don’t know how many groundhogs they’ll find around us, so i heard them talking yuppies and PAINT-BALL GUNS (!!!). i hope they’re kidding. we’re thinking an impromptu “steven segal film festival” might be in order. we’ll see.

we’re getting our new stove today. the old one’s going down the basement ONLY TO STAY AS LONG AS THE OVEN WORKS! DO YOU HEAR ME, BILL????!!! anyway. just in time for the weekend. phew.

Teenage Death

I could tell you about the humorous and poignant things that happened while I was sitting as judge yesterday, but if you watched Judging Amy last night, you got your fill.

J-dogg mentioned a kid being removed from life support -- the kid was at a party Saturday night, borrowed a teen girl's new car, and drove down a short street, reaching 75 - 80 miles an hour, missed the T-intersection, went straight, nearly hit a woman who was grilling chicken and who leapt to safety, went through the lady's garage, causing it to collapse, went through a fence, then came to rest when he crashed into a second garage attached to a house on the next street. The police couldn't figure out who the kid was -- they went to the house where the party was going full force. Nobody would talk, even after being told that nobody would be arrested for just knowing who the kid was and so the kid's parents could be notified. Finally, after an hour, a girl volunteered who the kid was -- "was" being the operative word, since he was being kept alive by a respirator.

Millions and Billions

Okay, the president wants 87 billion smackers for "rehab" treatment on Iraq. I must give him credit for asking the entire world to chip in a little to help defray the cost.

I think that in order to make us all comfortable with the new 20's, on October 9, every man, woman, and child should receive 10 new 20-dollar bills. That would be about 60 billion dollars. Then use the other 27 billion, 34 million dollars, to get the troops back home that day. That would make October 9 a good day, I think.

Doctor's Office

So, after the trip to the emergency room last night, it was off to the doctor's office today to make sure they did everything right at the hospital. And the better half seems to be doing better.

Oh, yeah, now I see it all clearly -- you operate like the criminal justice system -- why didn't you say so?

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?

ok. bill's typing up some kind of rant about the doctor's office, so i'm gonna post now, too. i'll wait until he's pressed "save." THEN i'll save. so mine will be on top. teehee.

ok. the damn ear infection lasted all last week -- a new record. then sunday morning i woke up with my ear canal so swollen and painful it felt like it was bulging out -- like an "outie" belly button. OUCH. i tried to deal with the pain all day, but by 5:00 i was crying it hurt so bad. really felt stupid going to the emergency room with what i knew was basically "swimmer's ear." bill tends to worry. and because i'd not been able to shake the low-grade fever i had all week and my neck was killing me, he insisted we go to the emergency room. three hours later, the drops i knew i needed and some pain meds (yay!). today i saw my regular doctor who confirmed the swelling is down quite a bit and who gave me a prescription for more pain meds.

here's what happened later. it's my story, and i'm sticking to it. because i was all happy and medicated, bill talked me into getting my ear pierced on top. you know, through the cartilage. we told jax bill was getting his nipples pierced, but he didn't believe us. his actual words were, "i know you're fucking with me." dammit! we should DO it just to mess with him (and matt, mel, mark, katie, and whoever else we can freak out). but noooooooooooo, bill won't play.

so back to work tomorrow. happy and pain free. bill gets to play judge tomorrow (he'll sit as acting judge in our little burb for the day). it would have been fun to think about him wearing the robe with his nipples pierced underneath.

DAMMIT! I FORGOT ABOUT WAITING TIL HE POSTED!

Is That a Pack of Life Savers, Jimmy?

I have one question about this little legal problem. How much did Kurt Winter, attorney, get paid to handle the case? He lost, but he went down fighting. Sometimes you lose and that sucks. I mean, it's not like he blew the case. There are times you go down in flames and sometimes you don't. Okay, okay -- I'm sorry.

Do you think that I heard from "Colleen" or "Linda?"

Sunday Night At the Emergency Room

I had a lot to say about taking Stacey to the emergency room and sitting in the waiting area for two hours, but don't feel like writing.

REMEMBERING

jax wrote about a buddy and his first lead the other day , and it brought back some memories. if you're interested in my entry after his first lead, here's the link.

To the Max

Dear Chuck:

Billy

AND... SHE'S DOWN AGAIN

relapse. ear hurts. head filled. wah!

IT'S HERE!

thanks to jenb for the reminder! TODAY (!) is TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY!

how will YOU celebrate?

***

for those of you who don't know, jax changed over from blogger to typepad a little bit ago. he put up a couple photo albums, too. i'm shamelessly plugging him here as this is a big way i try to get him to write more from his heart. i tell him he's got readers who are interested in what a 17-year-old recovering addict has to say. so go check out his "new" site here. check out the photo albums, too. i especially love the pictures from utah.

oh. and tell him what you think. he NEVER reads our site, so if you don't tell him i sent you, he won't know.

and thanks, anji for the new link to him on your site!

***

and, btw, i'm feeling MUCH better.

Don't Stand So Close To Me

I still feel like an interloper on this site. Today, we find out where I really stand in this adventure. As you may know already, the lady of the house (she hates it when I say "the wife" in posts, thinking it very impersonal and not "Nothing-But-Love-"like; but when I read what some women call their husbands in blogland, I don't feel that I am being impersonal or disrespectful at all) has been battling a severe ear infection, for which I picked up a prescription for some once-a-day-for-five-days killer antibiotic on Monday. So, she's taking that -- but before that, there was some amoxicillin laying around the house that she was slamming for a couple days.

I hope.

THE JACKAL -- OLD POST

when i first started blogging, a lot of what i wanted to write about was what follows here. mostly for myself. but i knew that bill had some readers, and there would likely be some people reading this kind of stuff. and really, i wanted to write about the journey. so i asked jax what limits he wanted to set in terms of what we wrote about him. by this time (january of this year), he had been comfortable enough to talk to almost anybody about this subject, so he told us there were no limits. i'm posting this again because this is a HUGE part of who we are and what we've been through as a family. i wanted to post it again because we seem to be getting a lot of traffic from new people lately (hi! to all you newer readers!), and thought this might fill in some gaps.

bill and i have three children. We are more grateful than we can say for these “gifts.” matt is 21 and a senior computer science major in college. he is brilliant, compassionate, loving, funny, and handsome. he’s going to graduate late this year, marry in august, continue his teaching assistant and research assistant work for the next year and a half. he and his future wife are planning to continue their schooling by pursuing phd’s in their respective fields.

mark is 22 (he is not our “real” son, but has been a part of our family since he was 15 when his father took a job overseas. his mom lives overseas also). he is an electrical engineering major (i think he’s a senior, but he’s been co-oping; so i’m not sure). he’s loving, thoughtful, funny, determined, and hard-working. he’s been a blessing in all of our lives.

jackson is 17 and is home-schooled. he’s a gifted guitarist, loving, compassionate, creative, and just a sweetie. he is also a recovering drug addict.

when we found out a year ago about jackson’s use of drugs, we decided along with his drug counselor that out-patient treatment was the way to go at that point. in spite of jax’s powerful cocaine problem, insurance required that out-patient treatment was necessary before in-patient could be approved. we weren’t sure about this, but john, jax’s counselor who had previously run an adolescent addiction treatment unit in our area, felt that the holidays were the WORST time to hospitalize a kid. short-staffing problems, due to vacations, and depression because of family separation were big problems. he suggested that we (jackson) start the out-patient treatment, with the option of in-patient long-term treatment if jackson relapsed. that was the deal we made.

the holidays last year were verry difficult. both bill and I were devastated, matt and mark were very angry and not sure that we had made the right decision in not hospitalizing jackson, and jackson was struggling mightily. not a good time. we kept a very close reign on jackson. as bill works out of the house, he was able to be there with jax. If he had to be away, jax would go with him (unless jax was at work). in february, jackson was fired from his job. at that point, we realized that his life wasn’t working, and we HAD to do something.

on that day we told jackson that we were looking for the proper treatment facility for him. we started searching the internet and right away decided that a wilderness treatment facility looked best for jackson. two days later, bill had a hearing in federal court that he needed to attend alone. we decided it would be safe to leave jax home alone for two hours as I was only 20 minutes away at work and would keep in near constant contact. when I called home and didn’t get an answer, within 10 minutes I was on my way home (hysterically crying all the way). i continued to call all the way home, as did bill, who was also on his way home by this time. no answer. i pulled into the garage, got into the house, screaming jax’s name all the way in. when I stepped foot in the door, I heard a moan. screamed again to try to get another response. he moaned from the floor of the downstairs bathroom. he was passed out on the floor, wedged up against the door. i continued to scream to try to rouse him. i had my cell phone in my hand, but bill’s phone was busy. calling me on the home phone a long way away from the door that i felt i could not leave. my phone rang. bill. told him what was happening. “call 9-1-1!” i hung up to do so, but jax roused and got to his feet at that moment. “what’s going on??? did you take something???” “no, i didn’t feel good, came into bathroom to throw up, and must have passed out!” shit. on the way to an entire day at the hospital, where after 6 hours, blood tests confirmed alcohol and another interesting substance. looked like a cold medication, the doctor said.

so he got shit-faced on alcohol that morning. we found out much later that he had stolen a bottle of gin from the grocery store during a break at work.

but the cold medication. hmmm. I couldn’t remember j having been sick in the last couple of months. here comes the truth as jax knows he’s on his way. somewhere.

robitussin d-m. if you’ve got it in your house with your teen-aged kids, throw it out. we didn’t know this, the kids know it though. drink a bottle (yes a bottle), and it feels like an l-s-d trip. yummy. jax’s addiction / need for drugs was so powerful that this fit the bill perfectly! lunch break at work, walk next door to the drug store, “yank” a couple of bottles, or maybe even buy it, and you’re hooked up.

found the perfect place. aspen achievement academy in southern utah. these people are angels on earth. believe me.

we were sending our baby away for at least 7 weeks to utah. the only flights we could find connected in cincinnati. what a leap of faith that was! put him on a plane in cleveland, pray he’d get on the connecting flight in cinci to salt lake city, where he’d be met at the plane by somebody from aspen and under CONSTANT supervision for the next 7 weeks. i can’t even write about what aspen meant for jackson. these people saved his life and opened his eyes to what life could mean for him. after 5 weeks of therapy and treatment at aspen, the psychologist told us that jackson’s problem was so huge that they met and felt that residential treatment (at least a year) was necessary. the only alternative was COMPLETE devotion on our part to jackson’s recovery. yes! yes! we would do ANYTHING!

when we brought jackson home, EVERY SINGLE MINUTE of his life was supervised. there was no hearing, deposition, meeting, ANYTHING that bill attended that jax didn’t tag along. unless he was here at work with me. intensive out-patient treatment, a.a. meetings took up every single evening of jax’s life. when he graduated from iot, he filled in the empty days with MORE a.a. meetings. no one – no one – has worked harder to fix themselves than this boy.

he wanted to be in school again to be with other kids, and have some kind of normal life. we found a school, but in early august, he told us that he couldn’t stay sober AND go to school. knew that if he wanted to stay sober, he’d have to give up the idea of a normal life.

we will not, have no reason to, feel shame. this child was a gift to us from god. his addiction was a gift to him from god. god said “fix yourself or die, buddy.” so he’s decided to fix himself.

he goes to meetings every single day. oh wait. once in a while he spends a saturday night with US. he is a deeply spiritual, caring, completely giving young man. completely sober. believes that god must love him so much to have given him this past year. god does. and so do we.

OUCH

i have a horrible ear infection. the plan was to stay home today and get in to see the doctor, but i HAD to get to work. the other sales coordinator is sick. so i’m feeling like shit, and i had the morning from hell here at work. so i’m taking a much-needed break here. michelle, i’ll work on some good questions for you later. k?

jax got to see the doctor today though. i thought he had a sinus infection, and so bill made the appointment on friday. today he’s feeling much better, and doc says it’s just a cold. so he’s on the mend. jax told him about me, but doc needs to see my ear before he gives me drops. dammit! he did prescribe antibiotics though. but here’s the cool part. doc wanted to prescribe jax a stronger version of robitussin – jax said “not a good idea.” so doc didn’t. i’m so proud that jax did that! EXCELLENT.

bill received an e-mail last week from a family member about me that hurt me / us deeply. the part that hurt both of us was where our role in jax’s recovery was questioned because we did not tell this person all about jax’s treatment and addiction last year! jax asked us not to, and we discussed it with his couselor, who also asked us not to tell certain people. i’m pissed and hurt. this person knows jax so very little, knows us so very little, knows NOTHING about the whole thing we went through, and has the fucking gall to speak self-righteously about our negative impact on his recovery. pfffft. does not begin to express how i feel.

the other thing i learned was that some people with whom and to whom i had placed my trust and confided some personal things shared these things with others. others with whom my relationship is distant – at best. lovely after-dinner conversation.

yet, i was told i need to work on myself. oh yeah. i’m working on being more careful about who i trust. and i’m working on getting over this hurt. i’ll be fine because i know where my heart is. right here.

Dogs and Cats

I'm sorry.

So, anyway, for all you cat lovers and, to a lesser extent, dog lovers, the National Academy of Science came out with a new pet nutrition guide that is a must for every bookshelf. As a public service, you can order it, discounted, right here.

We're Not in Indiana Any More

On the drive across Indiana on I-70 and into Ohio towards Columbus:

"Yep. We're hicks."

INTERVIEW BY MICHELLE

1. You and Bill have a choice to travel within the USA or overseas for 3 months. What do you choose, where would you go to and why?

whoa. we just talked about this yesterday. my list goes like this (in order of preference):

ireland
italy
france
new zealand, africa (s. a., of course would be in there), china

whoops. i just noticed that you included the usa in there. that probably would be a good idea. southern utah is awesome. i’d like to see the grand canyon. i’d like to spend some time in new york again, chicago, new orleans, just check out some of these big cities.

as far as that overseas list goes, bill always assumed italy and ireland were at the top of my list because of my ancestry. i never thought about that. weird. he’s probably right. but i’d like to spend at least a month in each of them. doesn’t leave much time for the rest.

2. You have a weekend totally to yourself. How would you spend it?

another weird one cuz i didn’t have a whole weekend, but yesterday was the first day i was really all by myself for the longest time. jax was “around,” but not around. bill went to terre haute. for probably 20 years, if bill was away, i had children to care for. if the boys were away, bill was around. it was very strange.

i went shopping (woohoo!), did a little bit of cleaning up around the house, and read. i talked to some friends and my sisters. this is probably what i would do again. that or else try to get “while you were out” or “ground force” here.

3. What music do you enjoy listening to?

duh. i have a 6-cd changer in my beetle, and it’s ALL who / pete townshend stuff. i do like a lot of other stuff, too. maybe a mix cd with a lot of stuff:
who / p.t.
geo. harrison (while my guitar gently weeps, my sweet lord)
santana (smooth and others)
ella fitzgerald (lots of her stuff)
the critters (mr. dyingly sad)
the clash (rock the casbah – teehee)
marvin gaye (let’s get it on, mercy mercy me)
sinead o’connor and van morrison’s david letterman show version of “have i told you lately that i love you”
various talking heads stuff
janis ian (seventeen)
guess who (american woman, she’s come undone)
jane olivor (let’s make some memories, stay the night)
joe cocker (you are so beautiful to me)
bob dylan (my back pages, all along the watchtower)
michael feinstein (puttin’ on the ritz)
and the kinks (lola)
weird playlist. i’m 49, k?

4. You have the opportunity of changing your appearance through plastic surgery. Would you do it and if so, what would you change?

yes. lots of stuff. start with the neck. i’m not telling what else, you’ll think i’m all natural then.

5. Financially you have the chance to change the direction of your job and your life. What would you decide to do?

i’d like to work bill’s “office / administrative” stuff again. get his bills out, coordinate the calendar, stuff like that. i'd like us to work at our other stuff for a little while more (a couple years), then scale back his practice, half work the prctice and half retire.

The Interview Meme

1. If you want to participate, leave a comment saying "interview me."
2. I will respond by asking you five questions—each person's will be different.
3. You will update your journal or blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

204 Highland Court, Terre Haute

Terre Haute -- Next 2 Exits. "We take the second one. This looks the same, except now it looks like the middle of nowhere. It didn't look like that back then." Back then was 1972, '73, '74.

After 6 hours of talk and listening to tunes from the early '70's to prep for the trip back in time, he got off I-70 at the Route 41 exit and did not hesitate in taking a left at the botom of the ramp. A sense of wonder streaked across his face as we turned a corner onto his old street. He knew the way. We didn't get lost. Things hadn't changed much. "The corn field still looks the same." He told stories, but not as fast as the memories flooded over him.

He showed me the exact spot where he and another kid got into a fight. "He slapped me in the face. I told him he slapped just like a girl. He tried to slap me again; so, I punched his lights out. Funny, the feeling that comes back."

He drove through the twisting roads of the neighborhood, which would have been upscale when he lived there during the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades with Frank-Lloyd-Wrightish design elements and rolling, treed yards. He pointed out where the girls lived, where his best friends lived, where his older brother's girlfriends lived, where he eluded the police on his Suzuki dirt bike and got it up to 67 miles per hour. I saw the Carmelite Monastery where he used to visit the nuns, talking to, but not being able to see them, through the black curtain. We drove through the secluded upscale area where the inventor of the Coca-Cola bottle built a huge mansion on the hill, complete with secret rooms and passages. The area was still upscale, with gated driveways and dirty looks.

We drove past the fairgrounds where his parents dropped him off to watch the sprint car races every Friday or Saturday night during the sumer months.

He remembered that it was a good time, a time of Little League, junior high school, dirt bikes, mostly dirt bikes, and girls. He nodded to the place where he and a girl made out for three hours ... "making out ... that was just kissing back then," he pointed out. "It was a different time."

And his face darkened when he talked about his mom being in and out of the hospital and going with his older brother to eat at Burger King most nights. And the sadness drained away as he talked about caddying at the country club to make some money so he could go to the pool in the afternoon to hang out with the girls.

He told me that a girl he last saw when he was in 8th grade tracked him down about four years back. She reached him at his office and wanted to get together when she and her husband came to Cleveland to run the marathon. They did. I told him that he should give her a call, but he said she was divorced and remarried and he didn't know her last name. And that wasn't the reason he came back -- he wanted to see the places, not the people.

And we did. He showed me the house she and her mother lived in.

And as darkness fell, we headed to downtown Terre Haute to check out Wabash Avenue, the main drag, where the locals gathered to ... socialize, and to get dinner with Mark and KT.

I thanked him again for asking me to be a part of it.

Dr. Cyborg turned to me, "Something tells me Houston is going to be changed a lot more than this."

JOINT STATEMENT

i know i could figure out or let bill figure out a way to make this entry alternating colors, but that's just too much work.

you're not nuts if you think you've been thrown back in time a couple days on our site. you have. been thrown back in time a couple days. it happened once before. but the only thing "lost" that time was some comments. evidently, our "host" did some kind of "update" yesterday. i placed the word "host" in quotation marks cuz i'm not sure if that's the correct term (i'm pretty sure, but not completely) -- and i placed the word "update" in quotation marks because it appears that what's happened has been more of a "backdate." i placed that term in quotation marks cuz i just made it up. at least in THIS context.

so, yeah, bill's last entry's gone -- and a bunch of comments, too, anji -- send me that link again, k? bill put the iraq war counter thingy (yeah. THINGY. YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT WORD?) back up himself again, cuz, you know, he's, umm, well, bill.

anyway, our i-t guy is on the case. we had his wife wake him up last night when we tried to pull up the site and the only thing on the screen was a message to us:

29 May, 2003

so, we were like, umm, wtf, god? is that you? what do you want, god? talk to us. we're listening. and hoped he'd give us a link to follow. no link. so we called the i-t guy. he outright LAUGHED at us, then YELLED at us. for not calling him earlier, i think. and then he sent an e-mail to our "host."

we don't understand it either, but here's part of it:

Apparently, after a lengthy downtime today, either the box they were on was modified/reinstalled in some way, or they changed machines. Now, both sites don't have access to the perl module DB_File. In the past, I've had issues with DB_File being present on some of your machines, and not present on others. Which was okay, since the site in question was moved to a machine with DB_File.

I don't think that it is unreasonable at all of me to require that I have access to DB_File -- in fact, I think that it is rather unreasonable that it not be present. It is a standard component of the perl module libary. I can see why it would be unreasonable for me to expect that some obscure module should be present, but DB_File is a part of nearly every perl installation.

so, umm, we, umm, we think he kicked their ass. we'll see. he really likes this "host," but we'll see.

funny, though, when he complains about the "problems," it makes ME laugh. cuz we ALL know what a mess blogger/blogster and the comment things are. so we're not really pissed at all. but we're really happy i-t man is.

***

everybody (bill and jax) is waiting for me to finish here so we can head to starbucks. so i'm outa here. bill's heading to terre haute with doc cyborg later, i'm gonna do some work around the house, some shopping, and some reading. you all have a good weekend!

I’M NOT A POET – AT LEAST I KNOW IT

but i looooove those magnetic poetry thingies. you know, magnetic words that you order and place up on your refrigerator, you know, being all creative and shit, and thus, creating like, you know, POETRY.

anyway, for some reason, i love these kits. i’ve bought probably ten kits and given them as gifts to ... well, umm, probably ten people. or two kits each to five people. i don’t remember. but yesterday, STARBUCKS gave me one as a present – just for ME! actually, they gave it to bill when he went inside for our morning mochas. but he gave it to me. it’s so freaking cool! it was a magnetic sheet of precut, but unseparated, little, tiny words. so i spent all morning (at work) breaking up the sheet into the little tiny words. and they are tiny. not more than a ten point font i think. 74 little tiny magnetic words.

they now reside on the front panel of my right desk drawer. at first, it was just kind of a mess. i was trying to put together a coherent, CREATIVE, sentence. couldn’t. so i then organized them in columns. verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs, prepositions, pronouns, and conjunctions. much easier to construct sentences now.

i noticed – RIGHT AWAY – that some of the words – if used in a sentence CREATIVELY – could be construed as a little, well, umm, naughty -- and of course, i mean who wouldn’t? -- i set to creating some SLIGHTLY dirty clauses. and then i thought, this might not be an appropriate use of my work time. and what if the cleaning people think i’m trying to “communicate” with them?

so then i “created” this: “appreciate each day.” blech. so i started on the dirty stuff again. i’m not sharing those with you. create your own.

so, like any immature person, i got bored with that; but i figured i had to create SOMETHING. you know, what does it say about me just leaving it all organized and shit like that. NOTHING. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. YEAH, THAT’S RIGHT. but i was all created out, with all my dirty stuff and all, so i created this:

“recognize your beans.“

don’t really know what it means, but it’s grammatically correct.

ME BAD!

I was finished in court today. I was driving Stacey's white VW Beetle with the "The Who" sticker on the bumper today. The car tends to get away from me. You wouldn't think so, but it does. I was on a main feeder road to one of the interstate highways today, on which the posted speed limit, the prima facie speed limit (That is legal mumbo jumbo for the concept that the speed limit depends on the conditions; and if the conditions are good and the judge likes you, the judge can let you off for going faster than the posted speed limit.) was 50 miles per hour.

Yeah, you know the feeling. I did exactly what you would have done; so, don't give me that holier-than-thou attitude. Don't lie to me. That's adrenaline that comes with the memory of what you did. I did exactly what you have done.

White, Yellow, and Orange -- It's Not Just For Breakfast Anymore!

While Stacey re-posted her touching tribute to her mother (My first memory of M.A. was her asking me to put the Santa Claus head on the lamp post -- in October.), I was stopping at Marc's getting Wrigley's Eclipse Polar Ice gum to feed her addiction. Withdrawal from Wrigley's Eclipse Polar Ice gum is frightening and becomes quite dangerous for those, meaning me, within throwing range.

The candy corn was 59 cents a bag -- and in the world of the candy corn connoisseur, into which very few are admitted, the cheaper the candy corn, the less it needs to age. Confection perfection.

BOOK 'EM DANO!

another cheat / repost. she's been on my mind a lot lately. for a lot of reasons.

my mom was a verrry difficult person. our relationship was extremely difficult, to say the least. she was a drunk (alcoholic seems too delicate a term to describe mary alice -- m.a.) my entire life, and a cocaine addict to the very end. she stole from many people, let her children down too many times to count, and was probably the most selfish person i ever knew. but when she died, i knew what it felt like to be a motherless child.

she was MY mom. and my darling sisters' mom, mother of two sons, one of whom she gave up for adoption -- but is THE SPITTING IMAGE (i am not kidding about this) of the brother she did keep (born 5 years later).

she was gorgeous. she loved music and could speak very knowledgeably about the subject. she had the greatest sense of humor, the most raucous laugh, and was a loyal friend. she was born to two more drunks -- i don't know if they ever married or really what became of them -- mysteries i'm not sure SHE even knew the answers to. she was born in 1926 and was immediately taken in by her 18-year old uncle, who along with his formidable irish, catholic mother, took to raising the baby. uncle jim (as we always called him) was a very devout catholic to whom my mother was devoted. uncle jim married and had three children of his own; and though he loved m.a. dearly and raised her right along with his family, she never felt that she belonged anywhere. uncle jim became a prominent businessman and philanthropist to his church and community, and mary alice grew up with many comforts. she was indulged in many ways, but never felt really cherished.

when she met my father, she was well on her way to establishing herself as "the life of the party." what a party and ride it would be. my father came into the very young marriage with a baby daughter, and they soon had three more daughters. mom could not find a way to show love to her daughters, let alone her step daughter. it was an ugly time for many years. my mother always worked as a barmaid -- the perfect line of work for her. she charmed the patrons and drank right along with them -- every night to drunkenness. during this time, drunk and alone in the bar after work one night, she was beaten, raped, and thrown down a long staircase, which left her with even more emotional pain and a broken back. it was during these early years that she met who would become her second husband (but not until many years later) and the father of her two sons. he was also a drunk. but boy could he party. by that time, my father who was also a drunk but evidently not as much fun, was becoming a "real drag."

there was the next phase where m.a. and joe (only boyfriend at that time) drank constantly. we lived for a period of time (three girls and the two "adults") in a downtown "flophouse" hotel, with the rest of cleveland's almost-homeless drunks and a large number of cleveland hookers. fun time. one room, 5 people. my sisters and i made sure we were never in the elevator alone. joe and m.a. went from job to job (i suspect uncle jim helped out more than a few times) or unemployment check to unemployment check. we girls spent a lot of time alone -- family quality time didn't exist because if joe and m.a. weren't working (which was pretty rare), they were out drinking.

we then moved to the "suburbs" to an apartment (my younger sister and i were to be there for only a short time), where a baby boy was born and then was shortly gone. we never talked about it. i was 9 by this time, p.j. was 8. one day at school, our real dad showed up. non-custodial parent abduction time.

by this time, dad was back with his first wife living in florida. we were on a plane within hours, a grand adventure. but dad's wife wasn't THAT thrilled to have p.j. and me along for the ride. dad and wife ALSO both drank, but at least we lived in a house (and stayed in the same school) until "mama" decided she'd had enough.

back to ohio with mom and her now husband (but best of all reunited with big sister, j.m., who was not parentally abducted as she was sick and out of school on the big day 15 months earlier). m.a. and joe had both been through rehab (on uncle jim's dime), and were trying to make a life. i'm not sure my mom EVER stopped drinking, "step-dad" did; but being a drunk was probably one of his most ENDEARING qualities. i'm not gonna say anything more about that. this may sound (or have looked on the outside) as the most idyllic phase of our lives, but it was not the waltons, believe me. mom seemed to hate us, we felt that way always. we tried and tried to make her happy and love us --never seemed to work.

another son (this one they kept), shit teenage years, divorce, and freedom for us as we turned 18.

mom NEVER found happiness or sobriety. p.j. always kept mom in her life, i took as much as i could and built walls and tore them down when i felt comfortable doing so, felt like I WAS THE ONE IN CONTROL NOW, and j.m. (big sis) had a very rocky, yet somehow more connected, relationship.

through all this, i know one thing: my mom loved us. she just could not figure out HOW to do it. at her funeral, one of uncle jim's daughters (who loved m.a. dearly) told us, "now she'll be able to love you the way she never could." i'm the kind of person who believes that.

------------------------

before mom went into the coma that finally led to her death, she was in the hospital room hooked up to all kinds of tubes and wires (she had had most of one lung removed in an effort to treat her lung cancer). p.j. and j.m. walked into the room where hawaii 5-0 was on the tv, mom looked at them and said (with great difficulty, but very clearly), "book 'em dano!" i think these were her last words.

i love this story. i loved her, but i don't know if she ever really knew that, as i don't think she ever believed she was lovable. i KNOW she loved me, and i feel her loving me now.

Terre Haute, Indiana

Dr. Cyborg called and begged off the trip to Terre Haute this weekend with the lame excuse that he is playing guitar at his church on Sunday and he forgot all about that. Sure, Doc, no prob. So, it's next week -- leave Saturday afternoon, cruise Wabash Avenue with the locals in his pick-up when we arrive (I will try to refrain from yelling things out the window), stay at the Holidome, go see his old house, then head on back.

I think we'll have the fried blue cheese ravioli coated with a walnut-bread crumb mixture this afternoon.

Word of the Day

I added the Word of the Day over there on the right side. At some point, dictionary.com changes the word of the day, but the link over there shows the word from yesterday. By the end of the day, the link catches up and changes. I don't know what the story is.

Or would you rather that it be about golf?

George Laffer Bush

The late, great, Cleveland-raised, Rock'n'Roller, Edwin Starr sang the question: "War, huh, what is it good for?"

Blame the Democratic Congress! Oops! Can't do that!

BAD MOOD RISING

sorry, CCR, for the bad pun up there.

britney speaks. why, you may ask? as i did / do?

let me summarize. among other things, britney says:

The singer said she is just "performing and expressing myself." She also believes that by fulfilling her own dreams and having fun doing it, she is inspiring her fans.

i am getting in a REALLY bad mood. hrmph. maybe that’s what “inspired” feels like.

"Honestly, I think we should just trust our president in every decision that he makes and we should just support that," she said.

OF COURSE, WE SHOULD. why think for ourselves??? she can’t be BOTHERED – she’s an “artist.”

However much she would like to avoid cameras following her everywhere, she said she really enjoys the reality TV shows.
When asked what else she watched, she said, "Oh CNN – all the time, all the time."

duh!

let me reiterate – i am getting in a really, REALLY bad mood.

i need to go back and read this again.

***

i, like kathy, have been waking up laughing. i am REALLY funny in my dreams. trust me. i am. yesterday i woke up from a dream in which i had written a brilliantly funny blog. honest to god. i wish i could remember it. it was something about a conversation i had with people at work about the proper way to roll toilet paper and paper towels. i had told my boss that rolling from the "over" position was what "protestants" did. i explained (in my blog) that when i was a little girl growing up in the "projects," protestants were a different kind of people. i was in awe. i couldn't understand (and i'm still not sure if this is right) how you got to CHOOSE your religion (protestants, it seemed to me, got to choose between lots of varieties: methodist, baptist, episcopalian, presbyterian...). if you were catholic -- like me -- it seemed to me you were catholic until the day you died (well really for much, MUCH longer) UNLESS YOU LEFT THE CHURCH or were EXCOMMUNICATED.

trust me. this was hilarious in dream form.

*****

yesterday, i rode along with bill for a "quick" round of golf. we've been doing this A LOT this summer. at least 3 times a week.

the bugs were horrible. i am traumatized by what happened yesterday. i felt like i was getting eaten alive -- slowly. at one point, i kept itching inside my shirt and reached into my bra to check out the "pinching" feeling and came up with a red ant in my hand!

that's it. i got nothin' else. hey. i was inspired.

Trite, or As You Like It

I thought I'd try one of those Trite posts that all those weblog connoisseurs hate, but are compelled to read because they can't admit that there is a curiosity to look in on other people's lives to see what is going on, an almost voyeuristic tendencyas a friend would.

Any questions?