Fathers

Sunday was Fathers Day. B.'s first errand on his own was to go shopping for the special day. He chose his own card and paid for it himself.

After church and working a bit (yes, on Sunday AND Father's Day), I went to Target to pick up a few household things. And to get J. a card. The shelves were bare - nothing for a 'husband' was easily visible. Lots and lots of 'golf themes' - but nothing from me to him. I was about to give up - to acknowledge that I neglected to think ahead and shop earlier when I spotted one lone card, hidden behind the golf themes.

It said:

wonderful father
great husband
best friend
true love

and then inside:

Happy Father's Day from your grateful wife

I love you today and always.

It was perfect.

Only, I forgot to give it to him. I came home, unloaded my stuff and tucked the card away out of sight and only just realized this morning that I STILL hadn't given it to him. I am such a dweeb!

So, belated Happy Father's Day, J. You truly are all the things the card says and more. And I am grateful and incredibly blessed. I love you.

Official

B. is now a licensed driver. I was on the phone with J. asking how it went when he said 'well, he's on his way to C's house' and then I saw him. Driving solo. I honked my horn several times, lightly, so I didn't scare him and gave him the thumbs up sign as he passed. Then, I waited a few minutes until I knew he was safely there and called his cell. Told him I was so proud of him. J. said the DMV person said he was the best test she'd had all day and he was a pleasure to drive with. YEAH! He only got one point 'off' - and he was 'allowed' up to 15. So he did great. He's so excited and proud of himself and he loves his 'car' - J's old car, but a pretty decent car for a new driver. So he's mobile and can now run errands, etc. Looking forward to sending him to the grocery now and then. And best of all - he can get himself to and from summer school since dropping him off and picking him up mid-day is something I'd prefer to avoid for the next 5 weeks. It's a traffic jam nightmare and takes far longer than I imagined. So now he can drive himself!!!

Then we called our insurance company and I am now frantically trying to figure out where our monthly budget will find the additional $200/month it will cost to insure him. We'll find it somewhere. We always manage, somehow. I'm getting another raise in July - a 'step' on the salary schedule - we were going to put more in J.'s 401K and we still will, but I'll reserve a bit of that raise for the 'new' insurance bill. Can't imagine how we'll find another $200 in 2 years when H. starts driving. Yikes. Thankfully, H's braces (Phase 2) will be paid for in another 8 months and that will free up some monthly outgo as well. So it's all good.

My baby is growing up. He's driving now. And he wants to get a job, too. For some 'pocket' money and also to help with the insurance expenses. I think it's noble of him to want to help - but school comes first and I think we should wait and see how his first quarter of school goes in the fall before he adds juggling a job to his schedule. We'll see.

Congratulations, B. I'm very proud of you - you are a good, careful driver. Stay safe. I love you.

SPAM

I'm about to disclose something so horrific, it will probably alienate most of my readers. Which is 4-5 people - but they are 4-5 people I care a lot about and their opinion of me matters a lot. But, an important facet of blogging is that you're putting yourself out there - warts and all. And your readers, whether a few or zillions, get to make their own judgments about your and you have to trust them to judge carefully.

As part of our Medifast diet, we eat one 'lean and green' meal a day. Two sometimes - if I'm invited out to lunch, I'll eat a salad and might have another salad for dinner. By the time I get home for dinner - especially after these 'late' nights I've been working lately - I am famished. We have been cooking beef or chicken and having that on hand to add to the salad. But I've been looking for 'other' meats we can add to salad. And in the dark recesses of our 'garage stock' - the cabinet we keep our 'emergency' supplies in - you know, in case of an epidemic, natural disaster, etc. - I found SPAM which we bought at Costco.

Yes, it's true. I love SPAM. Me, and apparently, the entire state of Hawaii who consume massive quantities of the stuff in every available flavor. It was just in the news this week that Burger King is now offering SPAM with the various breakfast foods on their menu in Hawaii.

I have loved SPAM for as long as I can remember - one of my 'favorite' dinners as a kid was a block of SPAM with mustard and brown sugar poured over top and baked for a bit - served with Kraft Mac 'n Cheese. Delicious. I can still remember that taste.

I didn't smother the SPAM in sugar - was tempted but resisted because sugar is a 'no' as much as I can possibly resist. But I did have a slice of SPAM last night and this evening, Jim cubed up some and added it to my salad. No, it's far from 'lean' - at least not as lean as I should eat - but hey, when you're living on 100 calorie packets of soups and shakes and eating one meal a day, I figure I can spare the 'fat'. I'm still consuming far fewer calories than in my 'normal' day, prior to Medifast.

We offered some to H. to try and he shuddered at the thought. I said 'it's just ham - it's just 'smushed together pieces'. Yeah, right.

And, just to get it all out in the open - I love Vienna Sausages, also. Deviled Ham, too. Only I don't have any of those in my pantry. Yet. But I do draw the line and would never consume anything called Potted Meat. No way.

Pooped

Arrive home after a 13+ hour day - dogs are kenneled and frantic. Howling, literally...and I'm soon to realize it's because it's 8:15 and they've had no dinner. J. and B. are at church rehearsing for Sunday - they are playing at both contemporary services - on Father's Day - how cool is that?? H. is at football practice. I head to the family room to let the dogs out and the phone rings. Rush over the gate, back to the kitchen - miss it. Rush back over the gate, let the dogs out, phone rings again and I decide 'to heck with the phone' - take the dogs out. Bring them back in. Sit down to get the messages off the phone. Dogs start barking like crazy again - and I realize after a few seconds it's because there's someone at the door - I didn't hear a knock or the doorbell. It's H. home without a key to let himself in. Good thing I left work to be here or he'd be sitting out on the front stoop or at the back patio table vegging.

H. wants to immediately call a friend who allegedly invited him to spend the night. H. also has a voicemail to return re: a city-wide youth group rally on Friday evening. AND he tells me as he's calling back his friend about the rally that he's been invited to a party - also on Friday afternoon. The kid needs to learn to use a calendar - I can't keep up. He'll have to miss practice Friday which doesn't seem to bother him a bit - I think he's starting to feel a bit worn out and less than excited about football at this point. But I say nothing and remind him that missing a practice for any reason may be all it takes for him to get cut. He says he doesn't think so. It's a girl's party so he's got to be there. H. calls the friend who invited him over for the night back and the friend informs him that no, he can't have anyone over but asks if he can come over HERE to spend the night? After a very long day with another one just around the corner, I say no. With a look that says 'are you kidding me'? Yeah, that one. The phone rings AGAIN (third time in less than 30 minutes) and it's a girl for H. - they've been calling and calling [so that's who it was] and want to know if he can meet them at so and so's house to 'hang out'. Just down the street. He goes. I say be back by 9. At the latest.

I am past tired. Have entered a third dimension of tired. Achy. Muddled brain. Short tempered. Too tired to care about blogs or email or checking our account balances or anything else. I am drinking some water, taking a couple ibuprofen and heading to bed. For what I pray will be a long restful sleep. So I can get up early and do it all again.

On a good note, I'm really starting to enjoy the job at the moment. It's really, really busy and crazy but I'm liking it. Things are starting to make sense. My new boss and I seem to have figured out a 'rapport' of sorts and the 'guarded, stilted carefully scripted' conversations are gone. We take each other at face value - up front, honest. To the point. It's how I think we both really are and we just spent the first 4 months or so trying to NOT be our true selves with each other. Which doesn't work. He's a nice guy and I really think he's happy I'm there - something I didn't feel for a really long time. So things are gelling. Of course, I still have a budget to put together - and present to the Board - and get county and state approval for. But hey, minor details, right? (NOT). But the other administrators seem to appreciate my 'approach' to budgeting and I think that's half the battle - they like that I'm easy to talk to, 'get' their issues and try to fix them as best I can. So that's nice. I think I'm starting to feel like I'm making a bit of a difference - and that's what it's all about for me. I want my time here to matter - and I think it is starting to.

I had breakfast with the lovely N. last Saturday - it was a treat to see her - we always just pick up where we left off, which is the great thing about good friends. The 'gaps' of time you don't see or talk to each other just melt away into giggles, chatter, laughter. It was a lot of fun - and was the first time I've seen a college colleague that I didn't end up feeling homesick. So perhaps progress is ensuing.

OK - dogs are whining now. Need attention. I will go spend some quality time with the other females in the house and then head to bed.

Nightie night.

Excitement

B. called me at work today. My cell phone rang - unknown number - I pushed 'ignore' because I was talking to someone on my office phone. My cell phone rang again 10 seconds later. I ignored again. Then my 2nd office line started ringing. I was still on the other line and furiously taking notes on how to load positions into budget development. 2nd line rang again and then stopped. I worried slightly - maybe something was really wrong. But probably not. They know to call 911 in an actual emergency. And they can get a hold of J. when they need to.

As soon as I'd finished my call, I called the house - B. answered and said (in quite possibly, actually undoubtedly most excited tone I've heard from him in months) 'I have the most exciting news you've heard in a long time'. I thought 'YEAH!, we won the lottery' - and then realized he wouldn't know that 'cuz he doesn't know what our numbers are. And J. most certainly would tell ME before he'd tell the kids - so that was out. He said 'I'm getting my license a week from Friday'.

I'm glad he's confident and resisted the urge to say 'if you pass'. Because we NEED him to get his license. Summer school starts Monday and we will have to take him there and back daily - there's no bus during the summer. So his being able to drive himself to and from is a BIG DEAL. I work in town now, so I can 'schlep' him to and from - but I'd rather not. It means I have to leave work around 1ish daily to get him by 1:30 then drive him home, then back to work.

We have been bugging him to call and set up the DMV test then call the driving school to set up his last behind the wheel lesson. I don't know why he's dragging his feet - oh wait a minute, yes I do. Because he's 16 1/2 and has no 'hutspa' lately. No get up and go. No drive. Nothing. He's got nothing. He doesn't want to listen to us, act on our suggestions, nothing. YET, he insists he is an 'adult' and should be treated as such. Yeah, right. It's the most frustrating, most anger-creating approach I've ever encountered. AND add to that - he is right. WE are wrong. We have politely and patiently reminded him for WEEKS to get those phone calls made and get it set up. He says 'I'll get to it'. And then doesn't. And if we remind him repeatedly, we are nagging him. Interfering.

I know this is teenage angst vs. parenting. I did the same thing to my mom - and my grand kids will do the same thing to B. and H. I know it. But I've never lived it from this side of the equation. From the parent side. It sucks. It's like living in the house with total strangers. And there's now TWO of them - H. is getting to be just the same way. Overnight. No warning.

My friend P. said her son J. returned from his first year of college a much more mature young man. I hope we end up feeling that way in a few years. At the moment, I don't see him ever being able to take care of himself. I sure hope we aren't going to be those parents that have adult children sponging off them forever. I want to help them get a good start in life and then let them go. Which is hard to do - but come on. I can't 'raise' them forever. At some point, they have to on their merry way and move on.

Some days, lately, I can't wait to have them both out of the house. And then they'll return to their sweet selves and I'll want them to never leave. Sons leave - they don't stay close like daughters. I worry about that - my brother was never close to my mom and never made any effort to be close and I hope that's not how my relationship with my sons ends up.

Aging

Tomorrow is my 47th birthday. That number is an interesting number - officially, most definitely in my 'late' 40's. Approaching 50. On the downhill side of that approach. I'm almost FIFTY and I have two teenagers. Who in the heck planned THAT?

There's a lot to be said for being 'older' parents. We are financially stable. We are also pretty content in our lives - our careers are good, we have our 'needs' met. We communicate better - better than we did in our 20's and 30's ; better than our parents communicated with us when we were kids. I think we are consistent and communicative and fair and while we piss them off daily, we are OK with that because we're their parents and it comes with the job.

Still, we are very 'old' relative to the parents of our kids friends. THEY started parenting in their 20s. Heck, some of our friends are not much older than us and their kids are already grown and out of the house. Oh to dream!

At H.'s graduation Friday evening, we were fast forwarding and realized that in two years, we'll celebrate B.'s high school graduation. 2 years after that H. will graduate. Then another 2-3 years, B. will (hopefully) graduate from college. Then 2-3 years after that, H. That's 8-10 years down the road and when I blog about THAT, I'll be approaching sixty. J. will be close to SEVENTY by then. That's nuts.

I know B. thinks about this - he says frequently he wants to be married young. I know it's because he wants to have kids and have them know us - and he's pragmatic enough to realize that won't happen if he waits to marry; until he's in his late 30's or his 40's. I'm in no hurry for him to marry - and I have suggested that waiting until he's approaching or in his 30's is good.

I realize that as hard as it is for me to parent at this age, I was far too wrapped up in my own 'stuff' during my 20's. And I had B. when I was almost 31 and those early years of motherhood are just a long, slow slide of daily chaos. It was an amazing and fun but incredibly challenging time for me.

The boys have been asking me all weekend what I want for my birthday and I've replied the same every time - I want a clean house. That's all. Just help in getting the house tidied up and clean. They have made efforts though not very vigorous. But they are off school now so I can leave 'suggestions' (aka To Do lists) for them tomorrow and hope they will fulfill my fondest wish - I'll arrive home tomorrow evening to swept and mopped floors, etc. I can always dream.

I've loved my 40's. I've been happiest during these past 7 years, without a doubt.

My 20's were all about wanting. My 30's about getting. My 40's about having. And I want my 50's and beyond to be about giving. To my family, my community, my church.

Happy Birthday to ME!

Frogger

This morning, as I briefly tidied up the kitchen before heading out the door, I glanced over at the 2 gallon hexagonal shape aquarium on the breakfast bar to check on Frogger. I have done this every day for the almost 10 years we've had Frogger and usually find him 'hanging out' - legs barely touching the bottom, head pointed toward the water surface and 'arms' dangling slightly in front of him ready to spring into action at any moment. Frogger frequently fakes me out - he can remain perfectly still for extended periods of time - non-responsive to slightly jiggling the tank, roughing up the water surface, or even adding food to the water. I have thought him to be dead so many times that I've stopped worrying about it....realizing that one day, when he was really dead, I'd eventually figure it out.

Frogger is an African aquatic frog - his body is about the size of a quarter when his legs are drawn in. We bought him at Walgreen's one evening on our way home from the kids school - and this was way back when we lived in Hayward. He was sold in one of those then popular small plastic 'cubes' - like the kind to display Beanie Babies - and the small pamphlet included said he would live quite happily in his 'aquascape' container for a few years. But that wasn't good enough for him and I quickly invested in a small aquarium, filtered the water and even heated it for a time with a heater. Over the years, I realized that he was used to living in a swamp so I eliminated the filter. I also eliminated the heater - in the winter, I'd just leave the light on for him and in the summer, I'd leave it off and he'd get enough sun from the sliding doors out to the yard that he'd be fine.

Frogger lived 10 years with us. He had a healthy, plentiful diet with no predators; fresh spring water as needed. When I changed his tank water, he'd let me scoop him out of the tank with my hand, place him carefully in a glass of fresh spring water, wait patiently for me to finish cleaning his tank and then enjoy the 'slow pour' ride back into his lush home. He always got 'spring water' - never tap water because we have a water softener and I didn't think a 'mineral free salt-softened water' was good for him...so I bought gallons of spring water and in times when I didn't have a gallon around, I'd use Crystal Geyser drinking water. If the water was too cold from being in the garage, I'd heat it briefly in the microwave, wait for it to cool, triple test the temperature to make sure it wouldn't be too much of a 'shock' for him and then I'd put him back in. He was indulged in many, many ways.

As he aged, he had a harder and harder time swimming up to the surface of the tank for gulps of air - so I gradually lowered the water height until it was only about 3 inches deep. I think this approach is at least partly what kept him alive so long - he didn't have to work too hard to get to the surface for air and he always had plenty of food. But Frogger has been showing signs of age - he hasn't looked 'good' for some time and I've been pretty sure he was on his last legs. Pun intended.

I was right. This morning, he was flipped over on his back, completely and totally spread eagled and white. I knew. He was really, truly gone this time - no doubt. No need to shake the tank or try to entice him with food - he was dead. It was briefly sad. And then a relief - one less pet to care for. One less chore on my list of chores. And then I was sad again.

But he lived a great life with us - and he was so amusing, so many times. He knew I was the 'food lady' and when I'd be in the kitchen and go over to his tank, he'd sort of 'perk up' a bit - raise himself up a bit higher toward the surface to be ready to catch the pellets. He was a character and we enjoyed having him around - and we will miss him a lot.