it's that time again

How can it already be the holiday shopping season? I haven't had time to pay off my credit card bills from the summer! How is it that the older I get, the less Christmas feels like Christmas? And working certainly doesn't help. At least when I worked in New York, there was Christmas everywhere. Somehow, the drive deeper into suburbia just doesn't pack the same punch.

Anyway, I did do a very little shopping online, and Kevin and I are going to take B to his swim practice and jump over to the outlet mall while he's there, hoping that the major crowds will have died down by late afternoon. M went to a friend's house and they were going to go to a mall by her house, before practice. M has opted to forgo her school's homecoming dance this year! Last year she deemed it 'boring' and left with the group she had gone with. I also think she doesn't like to put on a dress because of her hairy legs (it's a swimmer thing.)

The damage is in on the Jetta headlight and it's going to cost me just under $500 to fix. The good news is that Kevin paid for mine and B's plane tickets to Florida with a discounted fare through AMEX's new system so I won't have that $600 to chip away at this year. I could put the deer crash through my insurance, and as a comprehensive claim it "shouldn't" affect my rates. But the rep on the phone couldn't tell me that it was the best thing to do, and the woman at the body shop said she would pay it herself, because if another larger claim came in and they had a look at it, they'd sock it to me then. So we're coughing up an extra $400 to keep it off of the insurance. What a hassle! Insurance is a scam! Hate that deer!

Meanwhile, facing forward to the next month, I'm fixating on the merit aid issue with M and her college acceptance. I have been reading old postings on web forums where people posted how much money they were given, and what their SAT scores and grades were, and most with M's relative stats were given a fair amount of money. But one was given much less, and that was in 2006! So I keep thinking, what if they give her less because they know she already committed to come there? What if they give her less because they think they are not her first choice? (There was no way for her to indicate that they were, as far as I could tell.) And then I panic. It would be unfair of them to give her less because they know she has to attend anyway, since we were counting on this when she signed the letter. But the two awards are really separate, so we took a risk in allowing her to sign without confirmation. We should know in about three weeks.

And in other news,our Thanksgiving was a success. The food was well cooked, and the house weathered the guest without incident. The dogs behaved, no cats puked during dinner, and the dishes almost all fit into one running of the dishwasher (even if the soap dispenser did malfunction, requiring a second cycle to be imposed!) And the next few weeks will bring swim meets - M starts the high school meets on Friday; B's school has an alumni meet tomorrow, so that should be interesting. And M has a big club meet in two weeks, at which point she will finally be allowed to shave her legs!

oh deer me

And it has happened again. I've been accused of bloglessness. Apparently my weekly blog-ventures are not enough to satisfy those who live them along with me. So here is the latest: yes, I hit my first deer. Really, the deer hit me. Deer stories are like birth stories, and mine follows.

Driving along a 40mph road with B's school on one side and a county park and community college on the other, B had just told me that he may become friends again with a certain friend from his past about whom we have had concerns. I was lost a bit in thought, and made some random comment, never taking my eyes off the road. Well, never until B exclaimed, in someone else's deep voice, "MOM MOM MOM MOM!"

If you are driving in a car, and someone calls out to you in such an alarmist tone, what do you do? Do you turn toward this person, or do you think, "oh! a deer must be coming from my left peripheral vision, let me look AWAY from this person!"??

Well, I'll tell you what I do. I look at the person who is yelling at me. And then, when I look back, as if in a dream, a deer sails across my windshield, like a movie playing in hyperspeed. I slam on the brakes, but then I feel a crushing blow and what look like feathers fly up in the air. But the car moves on, and a van behind me slows, then picks up again. I pull over and find what seems to be a deer's tail in my headlight, which no longer has much of a plastic covering. In my rear view mirror, there is no sign of my victim.

So there is my deer-tale, in all its entirety. I believe that the deer was probably just bruised...the car sustained no apparent damage other than the cracked plastic and subsequent trips to the scene (where I noted a deer crossing sign when I came from the other direction) yielded no sign of an injured beast. I fear I may have weakened the poor thing just in time for the shootout at the park, scheduled for next weekend.

Anyway, animals aside, this is a nice short week! B is done, thank goodness, as he had taken to failing quizzes again. At the teacher conferences, most of them said he forgets homeworks, but three of them said he has been participating a lot more this second marking period. So that was good to hear. Hopefully he's getting the confidence we had hoped he would get from this school.

And M continues on her usual way: swims and does homework. We are trying to lean on her to enjoy her senior year a little more by participating in school activities. This year she isn't even going to go to the homecoming dance, and she had to forego the powder puff game because (a) she couldn't make enough of the practices due to meets and (b) the game is tonight and she had a paper left over to finish for tomorrow.

So she didn't even go to watch, which we don't like to see. She has distanced herself a little too much from the extracurricular life at school. Swim team has started but twice they sent the club swimmers home because there wasn't room for them on the bus to practice! They only have to go to six practices, but those six are their only chance to actually be part of the team, except at the meets.

Anyway, in other news, PetSmart has stopped carrying the litterbox liners that I like, and I'm really mad! I might just not change the litterboxes ever again. I am also troubled by the high cost of absolutely everything. I still cannot believe how much money I have spent on the pets in just the one month that passed. Wilbur must understand what I am writing because he stopped chewing his bone and is just looking at me. Oh yeah, and I discovered a crime map of Boston that shows the worst part of the city just on the outskirts of M's campus-to-be. Just great.

windy wednesday

Yes, here we are again, just us chickens and cats and dogs. Kevin is overseas this time and we are battening down the hatch. M and B are both swimming in high school now, which makes her charming and him exhausted. His practices are half an hour away, but I was lucky to have an offer from a former elementary classmate of hers to drive B home!! I am thrilled. I will have to thank him somehow - it isn't far out of his way but it saves me hours. I saw his parents at the meeting and they said he would be able to do it. It's nice because I'm able to have dinner ready.

The job has improved, at least for now. I can't say why, maybe it's just because my boss is not bad as a person, just sometimes as a boss. Also, I took a day off last week, so that helped a lot! That was when I went to watch M sign her letter and commit herself to the next four years in Boston, for a meager pittance. Now, fingers and toes are crossed for the rest. I ran into one of those people this weekend who always say the kinds of things that scare you, she did just that.

Told me that the NCAA won't let her have any other money until they approve it, that she won't be allowed to eat or drink certain foods and beverages anymore because they are on the banned list, and that we will have to be able to show proof of everything she bought with her own money for this entire year. So I don't know. If these things are true, we could be in trouble. Also, one by one, the girls she liked on her training trip are committing to other schools, except for one, so at least there is that one! And she also got a message from a very nice girl who used to be on her team here, saying that she wants to go to that school and has already applied early action. She might swim, but she's just be a walk-on. One more month till we hear from them about the aid and honors college!

All the pets are well now, thank goodness, even though Wilbur ate Molly's 5mg prednisone the other night when I put it down for her to eat in a chunk of meat roll and she failed to comply. In swooped the hawk and that was the end of that. But the only effect was that he ate all of his breakfast the next morning without enticement.

And now it is almost time for Thanksgiving! I am shocked. I didn't even realize that the time was already at hand until I was preparing my spreadsheet at work to keep track of my hours. I have two days off, the office is closed on Friday, which is nice, although I won't get paid.

And in other news, we had some bad news last week. A friend and fellow swim parent was killed in a terrible motorcycle wreck. It's very upsetting and untimely. And today there was an article in the local paper about helmet laws and motorcycles. Too bad the helmet didn't help him. Also today the Doll called to announce an untimely death in her family. Her brother's son died as a result of some sort of heart surgery, and she needs to sign some document and fax it to the funeral home. Something to do with the cemetery plot, and there's this crazed rush to get it back, but they don't even have it yet. I'm trying to help her, but I have to work tomorrow and they want it back by 4:30!! Sigh. And she wants Kevin to take her to the funeral mass on Friday morning, which I suppose he will. That was his day of recovery from the trip. She has been estranged from this brother for years, and now wants to patch things up.

quiet on the home front

So, here it is, another Sunday night. Just me, kids, dogs, cats, and the sneezing couch. The weeks have just been flying by. High school swimming starts this week (at least the practices do) and that will be exhausting. B is going to give it a try this time, and his school practices half an hour away from 5-7. No bus. I sure hope I can arrange some sort of carpool. As for M, her senior year! No pressure. At least she is already accepted into college but there are bragging rights at stake as well. I'll say no more about that!

My job is pretty lame. I really don't know if I'll make it. I have realized that there is one aspect I'm just not going to be able to do the way the boss wants it, and that's manage the list of people he wants to call. I just can't make heads or tails out of the names that fly at me from all directions, and although I organize them into list after list, I never see those lists again, so I just really can't do it if he isn't going to cooperate. And I don't think he wants to. He tells me that he will not change, and expects me to adapt. So, I don't know. I'll give it my best go for as long as I can but meanwhile I think I'd better not get used to having these paychecks! He's out for the week this week, so it should be quiet.

Kevin is also off for a conference in San Antonio this week. He just left this afternoon while Wilbur and I were at the dog park. He'll be back Wednesday right before things get really crazy with obligations and evening commitments.

As far as the hospital goes, patient zero (Rusty) is 100% recovered. The girls have been to the vet as well, at $106 per cat, and they are being treated but not having the miraculous recovery enjoyed by their brother. Fortunately it doesn't seem to have crossed the species barrier, and the dogs seem well. As well as can be in Molly case, anyway, and she is just about out of her pills, so I'll have to call tomorrow for more of those. More $$. Please note that I will not be replacing those who depart. Although perhaps Molly. It's going to be hard on the pompom when she goes.

B's marking period ended Friday. We thought he had two C's, a bunch of B's and an A (computers, which is an elective), but his religion teacher graded a bunch of papers and a test at the last minute and all of a sudden he had three C's. But this was still a much better marking period than any other, because aside from the initial failures in math (which may have been a blessing because it drove us to Mathnasium where he is filling in the gaps left as a result of his weak middle school information retention) he has gotten through the classes mostly without guidance from us, which is the ultimate goal. Incidentally, math is no longer one of the C's!

And in the case of M, we all trekked up to Boston yesterday for an open house at her college. We sat in on the speech presentation and also the honors college. We toured the new dorm, which is where the freshmen who are accepted into honors are offered housing, and Kevin took B to the computer science presentation, where B was floored by the availability of resources. He loved it, but didn't like the urban setting. So we're getting an idea of what he wants out of a college, and will spend next year helping him narrow down his options, and helping him prepare for the SATs. (I keep running college searches for him and Hofstra comes up as one of his best matches!)

The speech department is interesting. It's very small, and the woman who presented at first kept getting confused and saying the wrong things (like calling their five year MS program a four year program and misunderstanding the questions she was asked) but the woman in charge of the coops was great, and she really made it exciting. Then they had two students, one in particular I wondered if he might not have been advised to wear a sign around his neck saying, "results not typical," because the things he had already done were truly amazing.

The problem that I foresee is going to be a conflict with swimming and coop in her sophomore year. She will have to do a six month coop from January through June, and they have their championship meets as well as their training trip in January. But obviously this can't be her issue only, as the school is based on cooperative experiences, so all athletes must confront this issue at some point. She just wants to put it off until the time comes, but I keep telling her she has to discuss it with the coach and the coop advisor as soon as she gets there.

And, if she gets into honors, there will be additional conflicts, but she'll have to decide if she wants to take them on. Honors certainly sets her above but will she be able to handle it all? But I put the cart before the horse here - we have another month or more to wait before the acceptance even arrives - although the letter she has to sign for the scholarship should be here later in the week. The signing period is Thursday to Thursday.

And in other news, what other news is there? I've rambled on enough already, have I not? It seems I've run out of things to say!