clickmom

score

I chomped down on my lower lip really hard on Friday and now it's still so swollen that I unintentionally bite it at least twice a day, just enough to maintain the tooth sized lump and some low level pain.

Speaking of pain, I also managed to twist my foot, a mere 12 hours after I realized that my two ankles were finally both in fine working order.  This new incident occurred while I was considerately walking the devil, despite my lingering annoyance over the halloween candy incident, and I, being still a kind of kid was walking through a leaf drift, I was carefree as could be, kicking up leaves, when I stepped right into a camouflaged by leaves pot hole.  Yeah.  That made those stroll through the campus college tours a tad bit less pleasant.

Actually, spending two solid days driving around and touring/hiking school campuses with Matt was a real treat.  Matt can't hide in the Matt cave from me when he is next to me in the front seat of the car, and Matt, bless his heart, does things like request the Ray Charles duets album so he and I can sing together.  Usually Matt is Ray, unless the song is a dude duet and the other guy has the deeper voice.  I'm going to tell myself that Matt really does enjoy singing with me and I will not entertain the thought that he does the whole sing along thing just to please me.  (But it does, like you can not believe- especially the part where Evan claims he needs therapy when he witnesses our sing-a-long)

Speaking of Evan, he's driving me crazy with his cranky teenaged extreme attitude, but he does still manage to make me laugh on occasion.  Just today Josh's foot slipped out of his sneaker in the utopian grocery store parking lot and Evan ran over, scooped the sneaker up, ran down the parking lot lane and pretended to score a touch down with Josh's sneaker, including a some what joyous victory dance.  It was something to behold.  Evan got a few utopian stares, and I imagine the utopian natives see a lot of unusual things, so for Ev to be stare worthy adds even more hilarity to the moment.  

Can you see the ducks?

College search

4 colleges 3 states 2 days.I might not get out of my pajamas tomorrow.

Someone needed a snuggy

incriminating evidence

Scene: Sunday evening soon after sunset.  Approximately 22 hours after returning from the annual candy beg/threaten festival.  Matt, true teenager that he occasionally is,  makes a rare emergence from his Matt-cave, graces those of us in the den with his presence and asks:

"Who took my bag of Halloween candy out of my room?"

da da daaaaaaaaa

Evan: (barely looks up from his laptop- waves Matt off with one hand) Don't look at me. 

Josh: WHat?!?  Why is everybody looking at me?  I didn't do it!  I DIDN'T DO IT!!

clickmom: Are you sure the candy was in your room?  You took it to that party.  Why didn't you leave it in the kitchen where food belongs?  You know you're not allowed to have food in your room. Where in your room was the candy?  Was it in a drawer?  Was it under your bed?  Was it (please for the love of god!) in your closet?

Matt: No! I'm sure it was in room.  I know it was in my room.  It was in my room.  It was definitely in my room.  Now it's not in my room.

clickmom:  Where in your room??

Matt: It was in my room.  I left it in my room and now it's not there.

clickmom: WHERE did you leave it?

Matt: (looking defeated) I left it right on my floor.

da da daaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Oh yes she did!  And I'm still picking up the feces covered wrapper log poos to prove it!  The only thing we found in the flower beds was the actual candy holding bag, a tootsie pop and a couple of laffy taffies. (Is that how you make taffy plural?)  

My winners as taken by phone off of my computer screen because some people steal

made the cut!

I entered two photos into a juried contest.  I delivered them yesterday and they were being judged today.  I volunteered to be at the art center today because I wanted to hear the judges evaluating the photos. I imagined the three judges sitting at a long table, American Idol style, and critiquing the photos one by one declaring "YOU'RE GOING ON THE WALL!" to all the winner photos.  I imagined wrong.  

What ended up happening was the judges came in earlier to (they tell me) silently rate each photo and leave.  I was told there was no discussion between judges.  (DO I believe it?  Not sure.)  When the volunteers showed up we were assigned the duty of gathering the not chosen by the mysterious judges who do not wish to be seen or heard photos and wrapping them in bubble paper for pick up later in the week.  Then someone announced that someone else needed to climb the steep treacherous 150 year old attic stairs to stash all of the unwanted photos in the attic.  I looked around and realized that I was the youngest person in the room by at least a decade, so up I went.  And down and up and up and down.  There were 225 photos submitted and only 45 chosen, so I made quite a few trips up the right of a scary movie set creaking stair case.  

But, I got ahead of myself, when I got to the art center all 225 of the submitted photos were in the actual gallery space and I assumed that the ones on the walls were the winners, as opposed to the ones on the floor either flat or propped up against the wall, but I was wrong!  So I asked the woman with the spread sheet if either of my photos had made the cut  (I had high hopes for one photo in particular) and when spread sheet lady said that they both had been accepted I almost burst with happiness. And you know who I wanted to call more than anyone?  Matt.  I couldn't wait to tell him.  I didn't want to get too happy in front of the other people helping out there because most of them didn't get their photos into the exhibit and I didn't want to rub it in, but boy was I flying on the inside!  Also, I was pretty sweaty after climbing all those attic stairs and I didn't want anyone to hear the soggy squish if they slapped me on the back.

favorite holiday

I have 8 carved pumpkins.  Notice I didn't say I carved 8 pumpkins. Normally, I'd let the kids draw out the faces and face the arduous task of pumpkin carving in "it's just easier if I do it myself" isolation.  This year despite that I had plenty of time for any task in the world yesterday (as I waited for a delivery between 12 and 4 which arrived at 4:52)I, in typical me fashion,  couldn't being myself to start anything thinking that my delivery was bound to show up any moment, so the only thing I did manage to accomplish during my 5 hour delivery wait was a little nap not entirely comfortable in a chair, much like snoozing in the passenger seat with your neck all twisted and lovely drool landing on your shoulder.

I never got around to carving our pumpkins, which I also forgot to get the kids to design, so I didn't feel too bad.  Today I was busy busy with a photo assignment for the paper in the AM, dropping off 2 photos for a juried contest (the volunteers accepting the submissions LOVED one of them!), taking Matt for a haircut, bringing the husband to a car dealership so he can get a vehicle for Matt to learn to drive in that isn't my humongo truck, picking Matt up from his haircut, stopping by the music shop to reschedule Matt's weekly lesson, going home and then greeting the parents of all of Evan's friend's plus the kids that Evan's friend's said they would trick or treat with before getting asked by Evan came over and I had the brilliant idea of enlisting 9 twelve year old boys to design and carve my pumpkins and that was a SUCH great idea.  Aside from the one kid who was more happy merely stabbing all of the pumpkins than carving and de-seeding, the kids did an awesome job.

Then I gave them all pizza and let them loose on the neighborhood.  Sorry neighborhood.  All I'd like to do right now, at the very late hour of 8:41 is take a nap.  But Matt, being 16 is invited to a party that doesn't even start until 9.  So now I have to not only stay awake and dressed to bring Matt to the party, (I do plan on getting a visual on some parental supervision before abandoning him) but maybe even to bring him back home again.  I did warn Matt that I might be showing up at midnight in my PJ's, so he knows that I will not be getting out of the car during the return flight.  

Both Matt and Josh wore penguin costumes, and as is their typical routine, Matt took Josh around the neighborhood while I manned our front door and tended to the candles in 8 carved pumpkins on this windy halloween eve, as well as performing full size candy bar distribution.  Matt tells me that all the little kids that saw my two penguins parading around got pretty excited, and I can totally relate to that.  The two of them were damned adorable, even if I myself am not entirely objective, no not in the least.  

moving forward

I woke up in a funk this morning because I had a horrible dream.  I am overwhelmed with guilt over the way my father my died.  I struggle with the knowledge that I caved into the pressure of the two cardiologists who insisted my dad would not walk out of the hospital unless they put in a stint that night.  And I wonder every day if the failed attempt to put in that stint is what caused the massive stroke dad had 9 hours later.  Maybe he could have had even a couple of more weeks. At least he would have been able to say goodbye.

In my dream I was with my dad, who is kind of strung to a wall, knowing he is going to die because he has had a stroke and can't move or talk, like he was in real life.  Lil sis and my steps come into the room moving in slow underwater motion and no one is able to talk to each other.  We are not connected.  

All of a sudden my dad opens his eyes, lifts his head, and requests a banana from the nurse standing beside him.  I hear his voice and it sounds extraordinary.  It's like hearing heaven.  I am dream shocked, yet totally psyched, because I know I had just bought a bunch of bananas at whole foods and then my dad, wearing his typical pastel colored pants and acrylic old dude cardigan, steps off the platform he was tied to and I run to hold him up. 

I put his one arm over my shoulder and I hold his body tight.  He can barely walk and I am panicked, not knowing what to do about this sudden turn in his health.  Mostly, not knowing if it is real or imagined, because I think I might be dreaming in my dream.  At the same time I am luxuriating in the feeling of giving my dad a hug with my one arm while trying to help him walk and I think how amazingly comforting it is to have my arm around him and feel him right there next to me.  I smell his cologne.

I look around the room for someone to take dad's other side and no one can see us. It's like we are invisible and I can't get sound out of my mouth either.  I feel desperate that I am the only one who is aware of what is going on.

Then dad asks to walk unassisted.  I let him go, not because I want to but because I have to respect his decision, and he can't stand up.  He cries out from pain in his back, he bends forward, I can see his spine through a dark shirt he is suddenly wearing instead of the cardigan and I wake up.

I spend the first couple of hours of this day walking around with the weight of the world on my shoulders.  Then my house cleaners, who I normally try to avoid because the dude cleaner likes to talk to me more than I am comfortable with, come earlier than usual and the dude cleaner starts talking to me about all kinds of stuff except I don't feel like I can listen to him with this unbearable guilt smothering me, so I start talking and I tell him my dream.

And then cleaner dude says that he doesn't think the dream should cause me guilt at all.  He interprets the dream as illustrating how supportive and in tune with my dad I had been in real life.  He thinks the dream was my dad thanking me for being there for him.  And cleaner dude also thinks I should now pray to my dad.  But I'm focusing on the part where I was being appreciated for being supportive.  And in the end, much to my surprise, cleaner dude made me feel much better.  I gathered up my stuff and I went on with my day.

wah wah wah

I'm trying not to cry after getting a phone call from the place that I ordered some (15 different) photo cards from today.  After spending hours learning how to put a border on them and then finally ordering all 15 only to find out I have to order each one individually instead of all on one order and redoing all of my hard work, they called to say I didn't size the photos right and the results were not satisfactory.  

weeping weeping weeping

At least I found a reputable place that wouldn't send me not perfect photos.

And at least there are some real quality resizing video tutorials out there.

And I do have time. 

sniff sniff

pass the kleenex