B&B

Brooks sent this photo via Facebook messenger earlier this evening.

The two of them were at the base's Winter Ball.

A little bit ago, another message - this one from B. (B.'s girlfriend).  She said 'this is B. on B.'s phone' and carried on a wonderfully sweet 'conversation' with me.  Complimenting us because B. is 'such a gentleman' and 'so proud of him - he is such a great soldier and it's not easy'.  When I thought she couldn't be any sweeter, she asked B. to ask if it would be OK to Facetime - so we had a video chat as well.  She said 'we just Facetimed my Mom so I wanted to Facetime with you, too'.

I think she's a keeper.  I really do.  And to that end, I will be praying non stop - what will be will be but I truly don't know many young women who are thoughtful enough to WANT to meet his parents, even across many miles.  Warmed my heart. 

Very sweet young lady and she's a treasure.

The two of them seem to be mutually each other's biggest fan and it's so sweet to see that.  And to get to 'know' her is so wonderful.

B. (son B.) when you see this, if you want me to take it down, I will.  But....I hope it's here for years to come.  Because I promise you I will never forget the sweetness of meeting her this evening.

Air Quality

Having lived in the Los Angeles area in the 80's, I'm familiar with smog.  Never really bothered me much.

What we are experiencing here now as a result of the Camp Fire and the fires in Southern California is unlike anything we've seen ever.  By mid afternoon yesterday, the air quality in Tracy was the worst by far than anywhere else in a 200 mile radius.  Burned my eyes and created a super sore throat and congestion.  It was a hard day - our district kept kids in school (like our neighboring district did) primarily because we had kids inside.  Even took their lunches to their classrooms - but folks weren't necessary happy about that decision.  By the time the particulate matter was shockingly high, we were within a couple hours of school being out - so why try to arrange for early pickups, etc..  We are a commuter town and on a Friday afternoon, the last thing any parent commuting from the Bay Area to Tracy wants to hear is 'you need to come pick up your child ASAP'.  Especially on a holiday week eve.

Long day - felt bad for my boss and my friend (his assistant) who spent the day fielding hostile phone calls and terse emails.

The tragedy in Paradise, CA is something we will remember for the rest of our lives - much like we still remember the Oakland fire.  Still 1,000 people unaccounted for and while we all certainly hope many are relocated and don't realize they are being counted as missing, it's very likely the death toll will continue to climb.

My new assistant's cousin lives in Paradise - and by some miracle, her house is the only house still standing on an entire street of one neighborhood.

The guy in the Oval Office's latest ridiculous comments are 'the debris in the forests on the ground needs to be raked up often'.  Yeah.  He really said that.  J. watched Air Force One land at Beal Airbase and we chuckled as we said 'wonder if he's bringing rakes'?

I am technically off work until Monday, 11/26 - but I do plan to work two days at some point - and I will.  Just not sure when.  We're staying inside as much as we possibly can and today being the first day off for me, I'm being a little lazy.

I was sitting at my desk and saw what I thought looked like a tail scooting across the potting bench outside the window.  I told J. 'I think I saw a mouse' and just then, I see the smallest tiny head with huge ears.  Teeny, tiny baby mouse skittering about.  Really cute.

We're calling our pest control company to set closed traps - because we have pets so sticky traps are out and poison is out, too - and I told J. 'pay whatever we have to pay'.  We've been hearing odd sounds in the study and the last time we had an infestation was also approaching Thanksgiving.  I want them out - cute when they are super little and not so cute any other time.

H. is coming over tomorrow and we're happy to have his help.  We're making space in the garage to start stacking some boxes that we've packed up - mostly books, DVDs, etc. .

We heard that the builder received the floor plan back from the draftsman but sent it back again for further update.  They hope to have it for us next week.  Fingers crossed.

I let the Board of Trustees know on Tuesday evening that I will be retiring at the end of this school year.  The next morning, I told my team and then went building to building telling the district office staff.  Shortly after that, I sent out a mass email - and spent the next three hours answering emails.  The Board members were shocked and sad and a couple of them said 'no, please don't tell us this'.  I said I had to.  Someone suggested I could commute in a helicopter.  I smiled and said 'that's a great idea but not likely'.  They are very kind. 

HR posted the position the same day and we already have one applicant.  Looks OK on paper so we'll see. 

Things will move very quickly now - holidays are upon us and before we know it, it will be January.  I'll be counting down only six months at that point -

It's going to be a wild, crazy year ahead. 

Dresses

We're attending an anniversary party in January for our dear friends R. & C. .  R. is the person who attends concerts with J. on a regular basis.  They live in Livermore and we've been friends forever.  R. & J. have been friends longer 'cuz they were in a band together - the band they still had when I met J..  A lot of our 'dates' were me attending gigs.  R. & C. are two of the sweetest people on the planet and I'm looking forward to their celebration.

I decided I wanted to try to find a dress to wear - and I never wear dresses.  Mostly because I don't wear open toed shoes ever and it's hard to find flats to go with a dress.  I'm also short so most dresses are just so long on me. 

I ordered a dress from J. Crew and it fits!  But today, I went to the website and they are having a huge sale - so I got two additional dresses for the price I paid for the one.  I think I'm going to return the dress/shoes/tights I purchased and hopefully the two new dresses will fit as well.  Fingers crossed.  Then I'll have to find shoes and hose to wear.

And the great thing is:  I can wear the dresses on our cruise for our fancy dinners out.  It will be nice to dress up a bit in the evening once in a while.

We have sun today which is nice. Yesterday was a completely smoke-filled sky - but it's clearing up.

The guy calling himself President tweeted yesterday that we (California) have to do a better job of managing our fires or risk Federal disaster relief funding.  Pointed the finger at horrible forestry management.  Seriously.  Most of the forest in our State is Federal forest.  And what exactly are we expected to do to do a better job?  Really.  Blame us for wild fires.

While denying climate change.

Malignant narcissist is the only term I can think of - the man is such a shell of a human being.

J. just left to pick up H. .  We're going to work on sorting books and other tasks on our list.  I have to give J. credit that he tried to get me moving yesterday but my trip to Hayward takes 4 hours out of the day - and I was ready for some downtime.  Though I did work on my desk a bit.  More of that today.

We spent some time working on culling through our DVDs and books.  Box for donation and boxes packed up and labeled 'To CC' with a number.  I envision huge stacks of those boxes in the coming months.  We're having conversations about the pros and cons of spending money to rent storage vs. just leaving the boxes in the garage. 

I just know the house will sell more quickly and for more money if it's virtually empty. 

We're also getting some linens together to donate to the fire victims up here.  Neighborhood is collecting things and/or we can ship them up there.  We have lots of things we were planning to donate to Goodwill but we'd rather give it to people who need it -

So excited tomorrow is another day off and I'm meeting a retired friend for breakfast in the morning - she and her hubby are traveling all over the US in their motor home and she's only in town for a couple days - looking forward to seeing her.

Three Day Weekend Eve

Woo hoo!!  It's Friday!

B. texted both J. and I yesterday morning - apologized for going off the grid without letting us know.  He'd been out in the field since Monday morning.  He'd been wanting a break from Facebook and then thinks his account got hacked - so he just suspended the account until he could fix it and was ready to be back online.  He says he gets tired of the endless 'notifications'.  I reminded him (he called me later that day) that you can turn those off.  We'll see.  Hopefully, he will reactivate 'cuz it's a way to stay in touch across many miles.

B. had some good perspective on the H. concerns I shared in the last post.  (I was glad he had read the blog only I often forget that he does.  He had asked me how H. was and I gave my usual, fairly vague 'oh, he's doing OK' answer....until he said 'Mom, I read your blog'. Oh.  OK.

B. said that when he was younger, he'd often just not tell me stuff 'cuz he knew my reaction to it wouldn't be good and then he'd feel a lot of guilt.  So he just stopped sharing much.  And in defense of H., I acknowledge that I have no idea where he went last week.  And I have no proof that he didn't go where he said he did, though I have some clues that lead me to believe he may not have.  Maybe the 'answer' is as simple as 'tell me you're heading out to spend time with a friend or friends, what time you plan to be picked up from here, what time you anticipate being home and stick to that?

I told B. 'maybe he's going to the smoke shop for cigarettes, etc. - who knows'?  And H. knows I don't want him to smoke so that's reason enough to not say anything about that. 

B. said 'unless you think he's using again, Mom'.  And I said I truly didn't think that was an issue...though there's plenty of historical evidence that I'm largely clueless about those kind of activities anyway?  So maybe.  But I truly don't think so.  He has a lot of other people in his life and home that keep him accountable on that score -

H. is coming over on Sunday and we'll have some conversation about the concerns and come up with an agreeable plan.

Every ounce of my being is praying that he's not spending time with R. .  I don't think I could handle that development at all.  Really.  Ever.

I am trekking to Hayward tomorrow to see my therapist.  I had to cancel one appointment for my trip to Reno a few weeks ago.  Cancelled last weekend 'cuz I had a nasty stomach thing happening.  But I'm due.  Overdue.  Millions of swirling thoughts in my head and it's time to let some of them out.

It is officially getting cold.  The sky tonight is overcast with smoke - fires to the south and north of us and the sky shows it.  It was 62 degrees at 4PM when I left work - so it's going to be pretty cold tonight.  The cats still go out in the morning, but they don't stay out long.  Sort of look at me like 'wait, what happened'?  Stay out a matter of minutes these days vs. the long haul disappearing they do in the Spring & Summer.

I hope to wedge in time to go to the movies and see the Nutcracker movie.  I haven't been in a movie theater since the last Twilight movie, I think?  Long time.

I might head to the office for a bit on Monday - though I pulled everything together this week and finished today super strong.  Three huge audit items our auditors requested sent off at the end of the day.  Massive amount of Board prep also finished today.  It was a good, productive week and I need more of the same next week. 

I'm trying to be mostly off the week of Thanksgiving - we are hosting H. and his sponsor and a couple other friends for dinner that day.  I plan to make all the side dishes in advance on Wednesday and have them ready to warm in the oven when the turkey comes out.  We'll have a lot of shopping to do to get ready for cooking for a group. 

J. went to the gathering at 5PM yesterday in response to Trump firing Sessions and appointing some bozo as the 'interim' Attorney General.  Many people think it's unconstitutional - us included - and there were demonstrations all over the country to voice those sentiments.  He had his picture taken and wow!  He looks great - his weight loss really shows!  He sent the pic to B. - and B. immediately called and said 'Dad, you look GREAT - you've lost so much weight'.  J. had planned to surprise B. when he comes for Christmas but it was great to give B. a preview.  J. is really sticking to his plan and it's working!! 

I've made a to-do list for home this weekend and just like this week at work, I plan to work on things on the list and get things done. 

Tomorrow is an early wake up - but at least I can sleep in an hour or so - and then 2 days of no alarm which will be much appreciated. 

Awaiting Results

Spending the early evening watching the election returns....feeling like I'm barely breathing as I watch the blue vs. red results. 

I haven't commented much in the two years since the guy being called the President of our country was elected - really, I can't even bring myself to call him Mr. President.  Never.  If I were forced to meet him, I would call him Mr. Trump - and I'd be shamed for the lack of respect I was showing our country's highest office. 

I'm not sure if the fact that an appalling man is in that office is the worst?  Or is it that people in America do actually seem to think he is worthy of the office.

Clearly, our country is greatly divided.  It's hard to see what we've become.

Son #1 has gone 'dark'.  He's been off Facebook for a couple days - and I'm not talking about his green light being 'off' and the 'clock' of the last time he was on timing out.  He has suspended his Facebook profile - he no longer exists in Facebook.  His phone goes straight to voicemail.  Texts, Facebook messages, emails and phone calls are being unreturned.  He messaged me on Facebook Friday morning and I messaged back - and then he went off Facebook. 

I have had some moments when I'm incredibly worried about him.  I've had him on my mind and heart so much the past couple weeks - a post on that at some point - it's like God is telling me to be tuned in to him?  So I'm worried.  But I remind myself he's in the Army.  If he fails to show up every morning and isn't out sick, they go look for him.  If he calls in sick for multiple days, they go check on him.  He must be OK because it's Tuesday and we haven't received any call that he's not OK. 

Trying to remember if he told us he was 'going dark' for some maneuvers or something?  Not sure.  Don't think so - if that had been the case, I think his Friday morning message would have been a reminder that 'hey, I'm going offline for a bit'. 

Hope we hear from him soon.

Son #2....well, it's hard.  Reasonably sure that he's been misrepresenting his activities when he tells us on the Sundays he's visiting 'I'm going to K's house'.  He's not going there.  We don't know where he's going.  I've spent the past couple weeks with my mom radar on high alert and telling him repeatedly 'it's none of our business who you spend time with - but lying about what you are doing has long been an issue and will always be an issue'.  He says he's not lying.  But...I think he has.  That's a violation of a lot of the '12 steps' and is a red flag to me that his behavior isn't matching his plan to be straight with people.  And most importantly to BE AND STAY STRAIGHT with himself.  I worry.  He's off lately.  Not as sure of himself as he was.  Not as happy and bright and shiny about his sobriety as he was.  I know - it's a hard road and so bumps happen.  But...I know my son.  And his bumps aren't really bumps.  They are full on sink holes that suck him and all the people around him down....

I can't go there again. If I'm right and he's been lying, then for me, I will tell him calmly and clearly 'you are sabotaging your relationship with me and that makes me feel sad.  But I am true to myself, H. - in all things I do, I live true to ME - and I can't keep allowing you to disrespect me by lying to me.  You don't appear to want a relationship with me though you say you do - and your actions continue to confirm that'. 

It's a hard conversation to have with your adult son but it's what needs to happen.  And then the next hardest (actually even harder) step - getting J. on board with a very clear pulling back from H. .  He won't visit here anymore - because we won't allow him to be here when he is lying about what he's doing when he says he's going out for a bit.  He will miss having a little privacy now and then.  Sharing a house with 6 other people doesn't provide any quiet time or 'me' time.  He will miss having a place to do laundry, make a meal, visit with family and help out a bit now and then, which his aging parents greatly appreciate.  None of those things will happen anymore under this roof.  And J. will trek to Modesto to see him once in a while - I will too, most likely - but weekly contact will cease. 

And if I'm right, I will personally call his first counselor W. (who H. says 'saved my life') and tell him 'W., he's lying.  He denies he's lying but he is lying.  And we can't continue to invite him over here under those circumstances'. 

I told Cabinet that I'm retiring at the end of this school year - there were sad faces around the table which was touching.  We are a great team and it's hard to leave these folks - but...I am.  Insert a gazillion smiley face emojis. 

This time next week, our Board will be told and then it will be announced to the general public on the following Wednesday.  It's a lot of carefully coordinated steps.  It's hard.  And happy at the same time.

We emailed the realtor to remind her that we'd conferenced with the builder two weeks ago and are still waiting to see the revised floor plan.  We feel very out in limbo and often feel somewhat irritated about the process - but we remind ourselves it's 38 homes, all semi-custom and definitely a lot of moving parts.  In our email, we shared some of the dates and events - to remind that I've announced my retirement and in the event our house isn't ready by sometime in July, I will have resigned my job too early and lost the opportunity to earn a couple more months of compensation and have healthcare.

Then I remind myself 'who gives a crap? '  We can afford for me to not work.  Period.  End of story. So it doesn't matter.  And it might be pretty great to have a couple weeks of getting in some sleep. 

I'm wiped out and have felt that way for a long, long time.