Driving Drunk Should be Legal!

About two-thirds of all accidents are caused by sober drivers!  So we need to focus on sober drivers instead of people who drive drunk.  Also?  "The campaign against so-called 'drunk drivers' is another feminist hate men program."

Yessss... there was really a serious news article about allowing drunks on the road legally in County Kerry, Ireland.  And I gleaned all that rockin' wisdom from the comments section.  But the local council reasons that allowing a few drunks on the road is a net social benefit because then these boozers wouldn't have to drink alone.  It will decrease depression!  Those poor rural men.  There is no way, I suppose, that an Irish man can socialize unless he's good and drunk.

I didn't say it!  But the article certainly implies that boozing it up is the only thing to do.  Have they not discovered basketball or golf in Ireland yet?  Pool?  Cards?  The Super Bowl?  I mean, really... there must be something else to do in County Kerry.  The Council thinks it's ok because nobody's been killed yet?

Thankfully the reaction from officials at a more national level has been more along the lines of, what the hell are you thinking.

Little Walking Feet

G had his ankle patched up after an accident in gym class last year.  A few months ago he started walking on the side of his foot and his orthopaedist made him wear braces and go to physical therapy.  It got worse instead of better.  It looked as though his tendons would need to be sliced, tightened and all this other stuff pretty soon.  We were referred to Dr. Bonar's place to find out what to do next. Her office was awesome.  We got an appointment within two weeks, and her people are friendly without being fakey-syrupy.  She told us to not use the brace and not do the special exercises.  I spent just under $100 on "hiking shoes" and if G isn't doing better in a couple of months, she'd like to see him again.  That's it.  G has been very happy this afternoon.  We thought Dr. Bonar was great, but we'd prefer not to see her again, you know?  Only thing is, there are times when "hiking shoes" are gonna look dippy, but that's the price you pay for good health I guess.

Bye-Bye, Tree.

My computer just died.  Won't even power up.  All my computer-saved tree-ly good pictures of my fave tree are gone.  Ah, well, here's a random shot of it through my kitchen window.  It will have to do.  The tree started becoming hollow up under, bark began to fall off and branches were dying.  The whole tree was in the dying process for a while, but I'm sure the hot, drought-y weather did it no favours, either.  So it was time to go before it fell and did some major damage.

Not the sort of thing you just do yourself, though.  The tree is absolutely immense.  I could squat down and take a picture straight up even from this angle, and the tree will still be up up up there.  We had to hire the professionals at Prentice and Bush to come out and do the job.  Jason climbs up the tree like a spider with nothing but a rope and a pair of spiky cleats.  He takes a chainsaw and a drink along, but it's almost like watching Avatar to see him scurrying about so high up.

A view from my driveway.  The tree branches are halfway down in this picture.  This picture does not give the size of my tree justice.  The websites I've encountered say "mature" pin oak trees are 70 feet tall, and the ones I have left on the side of my house are about that, but this one was a bit taller and closer to 90 feet. (I am guessing that 70 feet is an average and not a world record.)   Oddly only the trees on the west side of my house remain.  Others got sick or were dying and had to be removed over the years.  They would probably have been planted in 1964 when the house was built.

The bad thing about having to have this work done is now I have an in-your-face view of 1960's power wires, complete with squirrel nest and some glass-looking doodads.  Sometimes the squirrels electrocute themselves to death because they keep running about on the wires, but that doesn't stop the stupid things from building the same old nests year after year.  Kind of like the let's build a condo on the Florida coast mentality.  Whenever they do this, we lose power for a while.

Speaking of losing power, most of our town was in total darkness overnight because of a very large and sudden thunderstorm.  The silence during the outage was just amazing.  You never realize how much electrical humming and other noise is about you until it is hushed.  Our area was one of the very last to be up and running power-wise, so sleepy children had to find ways to light their way in the morning and stay safe.  Jason had been telling me when he bid our job that really, things were slow, they could sure use the work, etc.  I'm so glad the tree came down just before the big storm hit.  Right now, all the local tree service people are going to be VERY busy for a while.  Just saw six tree trucks going up and down our street doing work today.  Meanwhile, my newly-trimmed trees have just been rained upon so it's perfect timing.



The Boxer Fracture.

A little lower, and he'd be in surgery getting pins and metal bits inserted into his hand. WHEN will this boy learn to stop punching cement walls and/or banging his head when he's mad/ upset/ excited/ happy/ whatever? "Yay," G said, "My first broken bone!" Yep, none of the other children has gotten one of these before, so he gets to be the *first.* Kewl. More kewl still? We need to see an orthopaedic surgeon to look over the x-rays and perhaps recast/ recommend surgery. Hopefully not the latter. I'm sure I'll have a lot of fun bringing all the younger children with him to this appointment. Well... here he's striking a pose for the blog. In response to my question, it is NOT supposed to resemble Mussolini.

Dear Teen Facebook Users

Your friend's MOM has access to your friend's account. Occasionally she logs on AS your friend, because that's the deal in your friend's house. Your friend's MOM checks on what is on the computer and what your friend is up to. That means unbeknownst to you, she is looking at your profile pictures. She reads your statuses. She finds out what YOU are up to on a Saturday night, because she wants to know all about who her kids are hanging out with and "friending."

She learns so much about teen life she never would have known just from asking your friend. Because usually? Your friend comes home and how was school? Fine. Did you have a good day? Yes. What did you do? Stuff... like... usual stuff.

Just so you know? Y'all are so tame compared to me as a teen. And that's a good thing. If I found a "past me" type getting friended, my kid would totally lose facebook for a month. That, or I would tell my kid something like, "You need to go tell lil Miss C that her attitude toward her mommy was ungodly, turn or burn, and repent right now. There's the comment box. Start typing."

But seriously. I appreciate that God has changed your 14-year-old life, that you like the JONAS BROTHERS AND JESUS VERY MUCH (whoever they are... well, ok, I sorta know who JESUS is...) and that you've achieved a level three in some aquarium world.

PS. Nice picture in that little aquarium! I'm glad you love playing with the aquarium and the FarmTown stuff. I'm a YoVille fan myself.

PPS. I also see that you and my son must have attended the same clses b/c u dont know hw 2 use eng. so gd. Sigh.

The Harvest Mite Life Cycle

Emperor reacts badly to the bite of the "chigger," or harvest mite. Perhaps you've seen them. They are very small little red dots, almost microscopic. A trip to the doctor to find out why he was itching so badly was the inspiration for this little production, written by Emperor. Elf narrated and did most of the artwork.

Difficulty With Science.

I tried and tried to do the "make static sparks in your hair" science experiment. Sure, I got my scalp all hot and probably burnt some hair in the process, but there were no crackly sparks like we were supposed to see. Bummer.

I tried and tried to do the "make the paper jump" experiment we were supposed to do with food wrap, paper and a box. We did it with two different boxes and wrappers, two different kinds of paper... nothing. Well, except for hurt hands and wasted time. Friction is supposed to make the paper jump... but... it didn't.

I really, really stink at the practical experiments. We were somewhat successful at the "put the lit candle under a jar and see what happens" experiment. It's supposed to make the candle go out, and then we're going to remove the jar and record how long it took to burn out in our notebooks. But upon removing the jar, WHOOOOOSH! the candle about burns down half the kitchen with its vehement spontaneous re-ignition. Um... ok, Mom stinks at science, but hopefully this teaches the children to make sure that candles are completely extinguished before leaving the room.

But wait! Emperor wants to see if putting water on a candle will still keep it lit.

Of course it won't, silly Emperor.

Yes, it will, Emperor counters. Didn't you tell me that water is made with oxygen? ANNNND, didn't the LIFEPAC explain that the flame needs oxygen? We have to try this experry-ment and see if it works. I suggest it will.

Well, of course it didn't but I can't explain why. He's disappointed but thinks the strange new wax formations are cool. Elf says that the experiment proves that the water has no oxygen. And besides, if it DID have oxygen, we would be able to breathe in it.

Ok, now what would you say to that? I told him that we could breathe just fine underwater if we had gills. Thankfully he did not ask me how gills worked. *whew that was close*

Elf thinks that if we devised our own experiments, they would work better than the ones in our workbook. LOOK! I see that "butane" and "oil" are fuels. Let's get a big bunch of them together in a tube, and light a match and see if it's electric!

???

Um... Well, there's a reason this eight-year-old doesn't write your science curriculum.

I've taken a picture of his "trying to convince Mom" frownie face and posted it to the blog. Would that picture convince you to try this at home? How getting butane, oil and matches together proves "electricity" is an interesting concept, though. Elf counters that Mom has not proven that coal makes electricity at the power plant, either.

Arg. It just *does,* ok? Don't ask Mom how. We will consult with "Wikipedia" on this issue later.

Expensive ER Visit

The good news is that G is a perfectly healthy kid. He weighs a whopping 135 pounds and is six feet tall. His thumb is not broken, but was very purple and swollen, necessitating a trip to the ER. The bad news is that someone called him a faggot one too many times. I wonder what price Mom and Dad are going to be paying here for his defending his honour...? I'm guessing about $2,000 because of the high-tech splint and the fact that an x-ray was taken.

Bug-Catcher.

G is here with his ruler (spider-webby) and his container. Inside? A VERY LARGE brown recluse that would hide behind the toilet until you sat down and then slowly... slowly... would creep out. How could I have missed this thing two inches wide until the children brought it to my attention? Ohhh... it was hard to catch, too. If it knew you were coming for it, it would hide in a crack where the walls meet behind the shower. If you sat on the toilet it would come out slowly... slowly... (shudder) Patrick is hoping to capture a spider in the next day or so so that the spiders can be set free AT each other outside and the boys can watch the ensuing spider fight. By the way, Patrick also had to go to the doctor. Brown recluse bite, infected with icky drainage and the size of a tennis ball. Um, Patrick said it wasn't that bad and he could just squeeze it regularly to keep the swelling down and he wonders why I was SO INSISTENT on taking the kid to the doctor. Just when we got the upstairs (hopefully!!) bug-free, the downstairs is full of brown recluse spiders creeping up to bite your legs while you pee.

Bracelet Removal

Elf has been wearing this bracelet for years. It has his name and birthday on it and warns medical providers in an emergency that he has asthma. He hasn't used his asthma medication in several months. He has not had to go to the hospital all winter for asthma symptoms. The bracelet came off today. He will be surprised when he gets bigger that it used to be so large on him.

Feeling a Bit Better!

OK, so he can breathe now, but he's been screaming non-stop for the last several days (except for sleep-time, of course!). We went for a followup visit to be sure he's fine, and I mentioned this to the doctor. Oh, he tells me, didn't you know that a side effect of his steroid medication is sometimes anger or temper? No, thanks for telling us before we doped our kid up... and telling us it will take several days to get out of his system .... Sigh. Note for future reference, I guess. I've given this same drug to Elf before when his asthma is VERY bad and sometimes it's the ONLY thing that clears up his lungs besides albuterol... and you can't treat albuterol like candy. I can't say it's a "bad" drug when it's the only thing that helps you breathe again. But literally the non-stop howling for hours on end is very trying.

Because My Mommy Doesn't Feed Me Enough

I ate a plastic piece of slipper I found on the floor. I was sure to swallow it quickly so no one could take this vital bit of nourishment from my mouth. What I don't know is that I have an appointment with the doctor, and my mother will not be able to sit with me while I have an X-ray done. I probably won't learn that this bit of yumminess wasn't worth it. I still like to lick my fingers and run them under the couch where the vacuum won't reach to see what I can find.

Appendectomies Are Expensive!

Just in case you were hiding under a rock and didn't know that "hospital care is expensive," let me clue you in on what we've been seeing this week:

We went to Patrick's surgery follow-up on Thursday and found a bill for just under $500. Um, that's AFTER insurance and please pay up... Thanks! (Owie!)

Checked my mailbox today. Another $18,000 in expenses *so far.* We'll see how well the insurance pays or whether we're selling this place and moving to the 'hood so we can afford his medical care.

Why G Will Not Be Getting Braces.

Yay for them deducting the $150 because it would be our second child in braces... Sigh. It's just not happening at these prices.

New School Room

OK, it looks a little disorganized, but it works for us. We have a gate system, so we can keep J in since he is starting to scoot. We have moved the cabinet with the homeschool stuff downstairs and set up desks for the Elf and the Emperor is using the computer desk for his work. It will be nice to have everything in one place again like I did in the kitchen. But it also now works for baby J, and I won't have to wait until naptime to teach or feel afraid that he's getting into something. When Elf and Emperor were younger we had this area set up as well. We called it "the cage." You should have seen the Emperor's therapist when she came over and the kids wanted to show her their cage LOL!! Actually it is a very NICE gate system with the advantage that it is specially designed to be used near fireplaces and stoves. You can probably see our woodburning stove in some of the pics. It gets VERY VERY hot. Literally, I brushed some of my skin on it once for a very small fraction of a second, and let me tell you that *people* make that same yummy sizzling sound as chicken when it hits the pan. They smell a little wierd cooked too. So anyway, putting your kid in "the cage" and hanging out with him there is much less cruel than the potential consequences. Just saying.

I'm Off the Couch! Hoo-ray!!

OK the blanket is done and I'm up off the couch!! D would constantly ask when "his" blanket would be done... I kept on telling him that the thing is MAUVE and he doesn't want it. He was pretty insistent, so it's his now and he's sleeping with it tonight. I finished the blanket not two hours before I was due to hop off the couch and rejoin the world. You see I make squares first, then sew the squares together into strips, and then sew the strips together into a blanket and then crochet a row around the whole thing so it doesn't have rough edges. It's good to have the blanket done AND be up. Wow.