the end of our life as we knew it

So, a chapter has ended and a new one has begun. In a flurry of summer-end activities and last minute preparations, M is a college student. The move in actually went fairly well, we had the great fortune to be offered lodging with family just twenty minutes (in an ideal world, which we now know Boston at rush hour is not) from the school. We arrived and were given thirty minutes to unload into "bins" which were really just giant garbage cans for M's building, because the halls and elevators are so narrow that nothing else will fit.

We set about preparing when some hired movers converged upon us, and began to boss us around and rearrange. I, who had prepared a nice "bin" filled with manageable (for me) and easily controllable items, was told to take one of the containers packed by Kevin instead, and the professional mover took my light one. The one I was left with had a printer and a television perched and about to fall off, and I had to wheel the heavy bin about two blocks through the streets at a trot, trying to keep up with the rest of them. M was charged only with carrying a few handheld items. B had wisely opted not to join us. Good thing, because he would not have fit anyway!

So in the end, we managed, the printer had to be rescued and I managed to keep the TV at bay. The poor thing was returned home anyway, as M's room is so pathetically tiny that there was no place for her to put it. Her roommate has a large monitor which she put on her desk, and says she can stream live TV through that if they ever want to watch. Whatever. How do you live with no TV? Beats me. I can't sleep without it. But she will have to!

It is strange not having her around, but really not all that different. She responds to our texts, not prying but if we have something to tell her, such as that one of her classmates - yet another - was killed in a car crash yesterday morning. It wasn't someone she was close with, and perhaps not even someone she knew at all. But I texted her to let her know and that opens a short dialogue: so as best we can tell, she is having a great time, she eats but doesn't seem to exercise (I guess there will be plenty of that to come shortly) and she gets along well with her roommate ::knock wood:: but doesn't seem to be finding many kindred spirits in her dorm; they missed a meeting last night because they didn't know about it until later, they have been spending their time with kids from a neighboring dorm, I believe.

There are a couple more days of this welcome week, and then they have some mandatory advising and information meetings, as well as the President's Convocation and the Freshman BBQ. Classes will start on Wednesday. I hope she has her books! I got her two on amazon and left the rest up to her because I couldn't find them any cheaper than what the bookstore was charging at school.

Otherwise it's been quite a summer. We have survived almost nightly thunderstorms, random tornado watches and warnings, a hurricane and even an earthquake! M became as always unnaturally brown after spending every single day in the blazing sun, although I was grateful for at least a few cloudy days this summer. B had a busy summer as well, with volunteering at the hospital and a nursing home, and tennis camp on his days off. Now he has one more week to study his summer reading books before he has to return to school on the 12th. But his big news will be the driving. He should have his permit by Tuesday afternoon. Only one more two hour session with the driving school stands between him and the piece of paper with his name on it. And lastly on B, his neurologist rescheduled his appointment this year so it's been put off until the 20th of September. It's quite likely he will be sent for an MRI this year since it's been so long and he's grown so much. So please remember to storm the chiari gods for good results! He has been feeling fine. We even bought him a gym membership for his birthday. He goes on Monday for his inaugural session.

And in other news, the house is a disaster as my job has moved to full time, but I plan to spend the rest of this weekend trying to whip it into shape. We were lucky not to sustain any Irene damage, thanks to the waterbug in the basement that alerted us to the fact that water was just pouring in through a hole in the foundation, which was supposed to be sealed off around the pipe it had been cut to house. We only lost power for about ten hours and the backup sumps worked wonderfully.

After this weekend, it will be back to reality. Kevin has been on vacation but goes back on Wednesday. And our next big excitement will be when we go for Parents Weekend the third week of October. We are bringing the dogs because (a) it's cheaper to do that and (b) this way we know M will be sure to come and see us for a minute!

summersun and fun

Fourth of July weekend is here! And already I can't even believe how quickly this summer is going to go by. First, the recap. The thing on M's arm turned out to be nothing, thankfully. Of course, she has a cough now and a doctor's appointment next week, but otherwise she is doing OK. She's exhausted with swim practice and working at the beach, of course it never rains when she is there so she's already unnaturally darkened from all the sun. She won't have as much time off this year as she did last so I hope there will be more rainy days this summer! (sorry to those who planned to soak up the sun, for wishing it temporary respite).

Graduation day was also beautiful, which was a great thing. M ended up graduating fifth in the class, and today she found out her AP scores, which were good enough to get her out of three more classes in college! So now she has six AP tests with a score of 4 or 5, so she *should* be able to get those credits in college. And some, like Calculus, are two credit classes. Biology was a disaster, but we had been warned that her teacher was not very thorough. M had an A+ average in the class all year, and she could not possibly have done worse on the AP!

As for B, he did pretty well on all of his finals, except for one or two. He passed everything but he didn't score high enough on his drivers ed final to get exempt from taking it at the DMV. So he has to go down there on his birthday now, and he can't get the pre-permit six hours of driving lessons until he passes the test on their computer.

I have managed to keep him busy for the summer, too. He's been doing a low key summer swim team, which practices in the evenings, so that works for all of us (except those who come home looking for a dinner on the table!) and he is now signed up for about 19 hours per week volunteering, two 8 hour days in a big hospital, and two afternoons in a nursing home. He started the latter today and enjoyed it. I am hoping that he can continue that one throughout the school year. He said that today they had 'Happy Hour' where they sit around and eat cheese and crackers. He enjoyed that. At the nursing home the volunteers' main purpose is to keep the residents entertained. At the hospital, they are put to work a bit more.

As for me, I have been somewhat rooked into increasing my hours. I didn't really want to do it before the summer ended but then the way things worked out I sort of didn't have a choice. So I'll be working 36 hour weeks, but getting paid holidays and vacation days. I also stipulated that I would like to be able to continue taking vacation days without pay when I need to, so that will allow me to keep my flexibility. I am happy about the extra pay, and will expect that my wage will increase as well. We discussed it briefly but no resolution was reached. I'm sure I'll hear next week. If I'm not happy with the terms, I'll just keep looking. At this point, if the agreement is satisfactory, I think I'm in a good place for the next year or two. But one never knows with these things.

And in other news, Abby is regressing to devouring our personal items when we leave her in the house. I think she was rattled by her travel and our visitors, and now she gets nervous when we leave. I hate to have to crate her again, especially with the days being longer, but it may come to that. The most recent victim was B's tennis shoe. Oh, and that was the one activity I forgot - his free day will be Mondays. So he's doing the tennis camp every Monday for eight weeks (except for next Monday, when we will be in Boston for M's orientation). And speaking of M, she got her move-in date. She moves in August 31. Her dorm is an artsy/musical/creativity dorm. That ought to be interesting!

the eve of a new day

Back to the blog! These have been hectic days, although at the end it seems like there is nothing to tell. B is done with school, and all but two grades are in, and hopefully by tomorrow, they will all be known to us. So far ::knock wood:: so good, relatively speaking. This will be a restful week for him, he just has a take-home test for the volunteering position he has applied for at the hospital to complete, and he has until next week to do that.

M has one more day of high school (tomorrow!) and then three days of finals, during which she hay have to take one, or not. The teacher is dragging out telling them whether or not they are exempt, because I think he knows they have mentally checked out already. However, the top ten are set for graduation, at least they have been at practice, and M has a spot amongst them! So that could change if she has to take this final and it has a negative effect on her grade!!

As for me, I have been trying to get into my job and still am having a hard time. It's hard to manage when some of the things I do don't get taken to the next step, and then I'll be asked to redo work weeks later because now it's time to revisit. It's difficult to explain, but I will just say that I am happy I like the people that I work with and leave it at that!

And in other news, M gave me another scary lesion fright this weekend. On Friday I noticed a dark spot on the crook of her arm, and realized that it was a big red boil surrounded by bruised skin! Then she told me she had shown the nurse at school, who had treated it with benadryl spray! So I called around and found a covering pediatrician who would see her that day. We had tickets to Cirque de Soleil and I couldn't risk it being a scary MRSA outbreak!

Anyway to make a long story shorter, the doctor couldn't get anything out of it to culture it and decided that it looked like it would be able to wait a day. So she had us come back the next day and it looked a lot better, although now had a head so she was able to culture it. But so far, we have avoided antibiotics and it does seem to be healing. And I'll have those culture results by mid-week. It alarms me to think that she's prone to these things and I will have to send her off to college with the wits to choose which of her arsenal of creams and lotions and washes she should use for which type of condition. It's really a science; and you have to catch them early and treat them immediately at home. I'll have to set up weekly Skype sessions to make sure she's taking care of herself!

here i am lord

Yes, that's right. I am still here, and so is my entire family. Even my friend Doreen, who I most would have expected to have been raptured, responded to my text last night. So I guess now we wait and see. Maybe at work there will be some missing compadres.

Other than the cable phone, tv, and internet going out for an hour or so yesterday, and skies that alternated between threatening and bright hot sunny yesterday was a pretty ordinary day. I woke up with a headache from wine too late the night before, got a lot of laundry done, and took a walk with the dogs. Took B to tennis and hollered at M for not doing the cleaning she was supposed to do before having three friends show up to take her out for the evening. Three friends, might I add, who were very well received by our new guard dog!

And we look to the upcoming week, with Kevin off to Denmark. B is finishing up his time under math tutoring, as well as (should be) preparing for finals. M just has swimming and taking up space at school waiting for graduation (a month from now) and I will have to work although we're all off on Friday.

In other news, the newspaper just arrived, and me in my bathrobe. Abby is tall enough to reach the mailbox, I wish I could train her to go out and get it. I probably could, but she might eat any passers-by, and that just wouldn't be good.

Anyway, just wanted to weigh in and alert the world to my continued residency here; just in case anyone had any doubts.

rapture watch

I've been neglecting my blog. Again, I guess nothing ever happens, or so many things happen but they just don't seem all that interesting. There are swim meets, warts, graduations, dogs, and monsoons. And then, there is the End of Days.

I heard on the radio this morning that the end of the world should reach us at around 6am Saturday. Of course, we don't know who will be raptured. The radio personality isn't too worried about the population of NJ dwindling by much; he figures we'll probably lose very few residents. Who knows, maybe he is right. I guess at this point all we can do is hope we qualify. It's not too clear what to do at this point, probably too late to mend your ways.

So assuming we are still here on Sunday, what does that mean? Back to work on Monday, back to the dog park, M has a swim meet, and B only has two more (four day) weeks of school before finals. He's only failing one class at the moment, but oh! what bad timing. It's religion.

Anyway, summer still isn't falling into place as far as trips and plans, but M will go to the national meet after all, but we worked it out so she'll only swim two of the four days. We will pay less, and she can come back and work like she wants to do. So she and Kevin (he gets to go after all so he is happy about that) will fly out with the team and fly home the evening of the second day. I figured, she's never made top 16 on her own, and if she does it this year we will gladly pay the penalty to change the flights!

B and I will stay here and do what we do. If all goes well, he will be volunteering at the big hospital near my office. He has had and passed his first TB screen, and he has to go again in two weeks. Then he has an orientation the night of M's prom, and I guess at that point he will find out where he can request. He says he would like to be in neurology. I know when M volunteered at the other hospital, you had to be 16 to be on the peds floors. I don't know if that rule will apply here as well. But he is pretty excited to do this job and I think (hope!) it will be good for him. I'm hoping he can do two eight hour days a week, and I can drop him on my way to work and pick him up on my way home. Then he'll do tennis camps scattered about here and there, and we have our trip to Boston. Still trying to work in Cape May! We never made it there last year :(

On the canine front (what happens to the dogs in the doomsday scenario?) Abby has been behaving well. I have a friend helping me with interventions and today we went to her house where Abby only barked at her a little when we went through the door and then she settled right in and made herself right at home. We also stopped by the dog park, where she now feels very much a part of the community, and she didn't bark at a single person, even when they petted her! She did poop in the tall grass though, and then I stepped in it. (ew) We also met a neighbor on our walk the other night and stopped to chat and she was fairly easy to calm after the initial woofing.

And in other news, our town is embroiled in chaos over development. They want to build 340+ homes just behind our hamlet (I think I have said this before) but now the golf course on the other side of the road sued for the right to build 200 houses on their property and won! So we are looking at 500 new homes to be built in an area of a couple of square miles. Pretty scary. And to think that we moved across town, doubled our mortgage AND our taxes for roads that will now be equally trafficked, but are less equipped to handle it. Hopefully litigation will tie it up for years so that at least when we go eventually sell our house, we will have some equity in it.

month in review

Spring is finally here! It's a beautiful day, the birds are out, the boys are fishing, and M is at the beach for dryland training. We're going to church in a little while to set up some of the rooms for displaced families, a position for which I volunteered but have not quite figured out. But this will be my second time helping, and my first time "doing." And M needs her National Honor Society hours.

In M's world, school is almost over. She has one more AP exam to take, on Monday, and then she will consider herself "done with high school." (Even though her last day is over a month away.) Seniors don't have to take the finals in non-AP classes if their averages are A's, and she only has two non-AP classes, which she thinks are both A's. (one is gym) So she looks forward to the summer, her job, and orientation in July in Boston.

We're in a quandary over whether or not to go to the national meet. This year it's in Georgia, which will cause it to cost us well over $1000 for her, and another $1000 if even one person goes to watch. Not so good when we're trying to figure out how to pay the tuition for next year. Her coach-to-be said he doesn't mind if they don't do meets in the summer, he just wants them to train consistently. So she has to decide and we have to see. She thought of going for a couple of days but her coach may consider it all-or-nothing. She'd also lose a week of work pay in addition to the cost (as would I if I chose to attend). They want us to decide by the end of the weekend. This won't leave much money or time for a family vacation either.

As for B's summer plans, we sent off an application to volunteer at a local hospital. We were going to send in for a different one, but the paperwork was UNREAL, like he was applying for homeland security clearance. It was so cumbersome, and I would have had to pay for a two step TB test (so two copays instead of one.) The hospital we sent the paperwork to had only a one-sheet paper, and they said he would need that TB test but could have it done at their facilities. So we'll see what they come back with, they have actually been taken over by the group that uses the giant application, just haven't implemented it yet, I guess.

I actually had to write out an envelope even though it said one was enclosed. I sent that off thinking they were so disorganized, and this morning I found the envelope in one of my serving bowls on the bakers rack (Kevin thinks they're storage containers.) So who is disorganized now? Hope they still 'hire' B!

Also, he will do a couple of classes at the community college, one in writing and another in algebra review. He's been in this math tutoring center all year and while I'm sure it's boosted his math skills overall, lately it's not helping him with the tests in geometry. I think the tutors are more geared towards elementary math and possibly high school geometry skills are hit or miss, depending on what they actually remember. It's not part of the center's normal program. So next year I don't want to have to send him there, and I'm hoping a refresher course before the school year starts will give him that boost.

In animal news, Abby is doing very well except for her propensity to consume houseguests and people we encounter on our walks. She also enjoys a good terrorization of people who have just thrown out their poop bags at the dog park, when they spin around she seems to take it personally.

I'm becoming hesitant to take her, because although she never bares her teeth or lunges, she does bark very loudly and all her back hair stands on end. So tomorrow we're having a trainer spend an hour and a half with us to see if she can give us some tips on how to deal with it. I also suspect Sir Yapsalot is part of the problem. He just never shuts up and it's very obnoxious. But not scary at all. So that's why he's been allowed to get away with it. I wonder if the therapy session will end up more focused on his behaviors. Abby is very anxious to please, when she isn't afraid.

And in other news, our neighborhood is currently embroiled in a battle with the builder of a proposed mongo-development directly next to our little hamlet. The property, a former office complex which was rezoned for residential units, is going to house multifamily buildings which are totally out of character for this part of town. We have mostly two lane roads, no turning arrows at most of the intersections, and not really a large supermarket or school to handle the new influx of over 300 new resident families. Mostly what I'm worried about, traffic aside, is that this will cause a further plummeting of property values, which never seems to be accompanied by plummeting property tax bills. Good thing we weren't planning to try to sell the house anytime soon anyway because now it looks as if we will be stuck here for a while!

home alas (at last?)

Sob. Not that I am a Fort Lauderdale fan, but this was probably one of the most dramatic differences in temperature and conditions of any of the four years so it was one of the hardest years to leave that behind. Yesterday morning we were in the 80+ degree ocean, bobbing around with the manta rays and the man-o-wars, and this morning we were out in the gray, picking up our muddy dogs in 50 degree weather.

At least the warmth is not far behind. The trees have buds and the forsythia is in bloom. Maybe some blue sky will peek through sometime this week.

As for the meet, it was a success in that everyone made it home in one piece, no MRSA attacks while down there although a couple of the spots have small red raised dots in them, but this may just be scar tissue, because they don't look infected. But swimming-wise, it was not one of the better meets for M. Not one of her individual swims yielded a best time, except for the 50 free, which she swam at time trials and it isn't one of her better events anyway.

She did have two nice splits in the relay, the first of which helped to place her and her relay team in a tie for tenth place, bringing them back to swim at finals on the last night. Unfortunately, they weren't able to hang on the that spot, and they finished last in finals, but that still put them on the board with two points (the only points scored by the girls on the team during the meet) and qualified them for YMCA All-American status. So at least the meet ended on an up note.

All of our flights were early, and we got home around 10 to find the house and cats in one piece, if a little smelly from bowls with caked wet food in the trash can. The dogs had to wait one more night, but they were thrilled to see us at 9am. Wilbur was fine, but Abby had eaten her towel (which I had not expected her to spare, so it was an old one) within half an hour of arrival - and he said that was a generous estimate. Her more egregious crime was against the proprietor: she dug up, in 45 minutes, three of the ten new sprinkler heads he had installed.

And now it's back to the real world, at least for a week. The week after, both kids are off from school. I'd like to take a day off and go into NY with them, but I doubt I'll be able to, so soon after having three whole days off in a row. Without pay, of course. Unless something happens causing me to become unemployed, either on my own terms or otherwise. I'm terrified to go back in. I have never been out this long in a row before while my boss has been in, and it's bad enough when he spends an afternoon there and I have to go in and clean up his mess the next morning. I am literally feeling queasy over the thought. (A feeling which is not helped by my panic over Brian's educational situation, which was exacerbated by three days during which he chose to watch Law and Order instead of doing the 2-3 hours of homework a day I had required of him ... I guess you can lead a horse to water, but that's about it.)