The Tigress Stalks Here

I've been under a polymer clay rock...

2009-10-05T20:15:00.004-05:00

Here's what I've been up to lately.

Using a wide variety of YouTube vids, I managed to concoct my own recipe for a humanoid head. Notices that their a bit elven. One's mostly put together and I've built the armature for the other.

Fun stuff, polymer clay. Addictive as heck.

Worse, by comparison?

2009-09-30T08:51:00.004-05:00

The only thing worse than having a tape where the doctor's voice is clear as crystal but there is a jackhammer noise in the background covering it alllll up...is the chicken-scratch writing he uses to fill in the blanks you left him.

Then he faxes it. On a yard-sale special. Running out of ink.

I just had to laugh...or I'd cry. I think I might be able to fill in two of the blanks out of, oh, 20 or so. Miracles 'R Us. That's me.

I wonder if he'd notice if I filled in every blank using Mad Libs for inspiration.

"Crohn's disease and FUZZY crypt abscesses with inflammation, enteritis, and colitis in the past. DARK BURGERS. She had a flare-up with active ileocolitis, where she actually needed surgery. She also was told to start SNOWING, but she did not want to because SNOT. She now continues to have about one to two bowel movements a day, which are liquid and BLUE. There is no blood. The patient has lower abdominal pain, which COVERS stool HIGHWAY GYN surgery, CUCUMBER diagnosis."

Criminy.

*NOUNS, ADJECTIVES, ETC. BY KITKAT. No lie. I shot her IM to give me random stuff.

This is how you chap my hide...

2009-08-06T21:51:00.002-05:00

Make me relisten to a doctor stumble over a sentence for the 10th time, only to realize the doctor is saying, "He talks in somewhat of a mumble."

...and the crater on my desk from where my forehead has smacked it so often is now deep enough to serve salsa.

Hear ye, hear ye!

2009-05-30T23:03:00.002-05:00

I have updated the SapphireTigress.com. Go. Laugh at my creative ineptitude.

If you do anything...if you ever read anything I've ever written, read this:

The Trouble With Trebuchets

I looked through my site, making sure all the links worked, and I had to reread it. I think it's probably the best thing I've ever written.

Have a good weekend, all.

Things I never dreamt I'd say...or hear!

2009-04-27T05:12:00.002-05:00

Ah, yes. More for you - click "say what?" in the tags for more.

Overheard in my house in the last few days:

1. I'm taking my Monster and fleeing (child up too early, dad's in a towel, Monster energy drink in hand).

2. You can't be hungry! You just ate your own barf! (to the cat, who, if overfed, loses his lunch because he eats like a bunny needs to proliferate).

3. A girl's breasts are where she keeps her eggs, right? (from the mouth of a very uninformed now educated child).

Something that came out of my mouth:

"What exactly is squirrel-tapping?" This in response to my son's accident with a baseball at school.

Ta-Da!

My Granola Bars

2009-04-23T01:54:00.001-05:00

My Granola Bars - The big batch

This is designed in a big batch because of the mix-and-match factor. I used two large round pizza pans, lined with aluminum foil for ease. These freeze well in single-serve sandwich baggies, perfect for a kid to grab and put in their backpack for lunch or a snack. Moist and delicious, these can be made custom to your taste. You control the fiber content and nutritional content. I haven't been able to mess these up yet!

*6 cups rolled oats - not instant
*2¼ cups packed brown sugar
*1½ cups wheat germ (or oat bran or a bit of flax or all three)
*2¼ teaspoons ground cinnamon
*3 cups flour (whole wheat or oat bran or your preference, all or in combo)
*2¼ cups dried fruit or nuts or a few chocolate chips (Be creative! Dried berries, apple and raisin, apricots and walnuts, just straight dried blueberries or what you like!)
*2¼ teaspoons salt
*1½ cups honey
*3 eggs or equivalent in egg substitute, beaten
*1½ cups vegetable oil OR 1 cup applesauce and ½ cup of oil
*6 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Use cooking spray to lubricate the foil already lining the pans or plain cookie sheet. Two circular pizza pans or regular cookie sheets work well, or use two 9 x 13 baking pans or dishes, but check frequently after 30 minutes in the oven to get the correct cooking length for you.

2. In a very large bowl (I use the big plastic fruit bowls from Wal-Mart), mix together the oats, brown sugar, wheat germ, cinnamon, flour, fruit/nuts, and salt. In a separate bowl, beat together the honey, egg, oil and/or applesauce, and vanilla. (Tip: Put the honey in right after the oil using the same measuring cup, and it doesn't stick as badly). Get a heavy-duty spoon and mix it all together.

3. Divide the batter between the two pans. Use the cooking spray to coat your hands and spread until evenly distributed.

4. Bake for 35 minutes in the preheated oven until the bars turn golden at the edges. If you do not use foil, cut into bars while they are warm, or they will be tough to cut. If you use foil, wait until cooled, pull from the pan using the foil, and break apart into pieces or use a knife to cut them into bars. If freezing, a sandwich baggie in the microwave for just less than a minute will put them to an edible state.

Uncle Herschel's Bayonet

2009-04-19T20:46:00.002-05:00

The day I helped pick out what I wanted from Pop's basement was full of surprises. Pop loves his tools; where one wrench existed, there were at least five "just in case" ones. X-Acto knives. Screwdrivers. Vice grips. Scissors. Swiss army knives, one actually purchased in Switzerland, which came home with me.

My Uncle John presided over the offerings; I asked him, right away, if there was anything I could not have.

"You can take anything but Uncle Herschel's bayonet."

Huh?

Pop apparently had this piece of WWII history in his basement, since his brother Herschel's death. I suppose it's not something you think of when you're displaying your genius for your grandkids to remember you by.

"May I see it?"

"I think it's on that shelf over there," my uncle replied.

I found it under a cigar box full of bolts. I picked it up reverently. Over time, the carbine darkened, but the bayonet itself held its edge remarkably well. I called Adonis over for his purview. I showed him where it attached to the rifle, and explained its use.

I looked hesitantly at my uncle. "Did it get used?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Uncle Herschel never talked about the war."

I handed it back. That sounded too much like a "yes" to me.

You see, my idea of war was the surgical war first fought in the first Desert Storm. Impersonal. Precise.

The bayonet? It brought the wars of our past uncomfortably near.

In World War II, 446,000 American soldiers lost their lives. The overwhelming majority were foot soldiers, who used these up-close-and-personal weapons. They attached to guns about 45 inches in length.

In the forest, out in the cold, in a jungle, or in a pit dug for protection. The attack launches in waves. Ammo is low; it's hand-to-hand fighting.

I have trouble watching violent movies. With today's amazing computer rendering, special effects, and other props, it's too darn real. Full Metal Jacket now looks like a ketchup fight compared to some of the newer movies available.

Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes.

But the ammo is gone.

I suppose a long arm reach was something to thank God for. Pushing through the lines, trying to take the hill, trying to fight your way through to safety?

No wonder Uncle Herschel never wanted to talk about it.

Perhaps America reaches its long arms and sticks it's nose into international business but, you know what? Unlike European war veterans, they left war-torn countries and nobody drove past battlefields on their way back home. Nobody, with the exception of those stationed in Hawaii, really had to contend with a constant reminder of what they did to serve their country. America acts proactively, and we don't have to fight on our own soil. I looked up the numbers for civilian WWII casualties. About 41 million in civilian deaths. Japanese civilian deaths, even with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, totaled 580,000.

Staggering.

So, with a burst of American pride, I'd like to point out to all of those Europeans who look down their noses at us, that after you get up and brush your somewhat crooked teeth, put contacts in you brown eyes, and brush your brown locks, please note that you will go outside and wave casually to your neighbor instead of proclaiming "Heil Hitler" and goose stepping to the nearest transport, while patting the head of the child of your neighbor who has Down's Syndrome.

My Uncle Herschel wouldn't talk about it, but he fought, with a bayonet, to secure your freedom. He, a gentle man of respectable roots, put his life on his line to keep his country safe, and kept a lot of people for being a poster child, a "perfect specimen," for Hitler and his cronies. Given Hitler's obsession with the master race, do you really think he would've stopped with Europe? Come on, Asian features just don't match up with his idea of the master race, so you think he would've stopped there? Look at the numbers for the "imperfect" Soviet army, a blend of some 180 nationalities, from Caucasian to Mongol, who lost over 13% of their population, an overwhelming 23 MILLION people, both soldiers and civilians.

To my Great Uncle Herschel, WWII soldier, to my father, C-130 pilot and logistics specialist, and to my brother, F-18 pilot, thank you for serving an American military who thinks ahead and keeps the war from hitting to close to home. I don't want another 9/11.

Thanks to all our men and women in military service. May you come home.

Today's Random

2009-03-20T08:01:00.001-05:00

Is it so wrong to want a cattle prod to make life easier when it's time to get the kids up for school?

This is my idea of a morning!

2009-02-19T07:33:00.001-06:00

more animals

It's my daughter's, too.

So where's my economic relief package?

2009-02-03T23:46:00.002-06:00

1. I didn't fall for the banks' slimy encouragement to buy a $250,000 home with a meager income.

2. I pay my taxes.

3. I support American ingenuity.

I want to know...why Exxon boasted record profits today. I agree with President Obama's assessment that the 20 BILLION dollar bonuses to Wall Street was, indeed, "shameful." I want to know why these people didn't read between the lines but still get to keep their homes, why the CEOs aren't going to see any dip in their pocketbooks, and why my interest rates keep going up when I pay everything ON TIME.

I'm tired of living in a house built in the 1820s. It's what we could afford, so that's what we went with. But, had we been STUPID and bought something that we couldn't afford, we'd be better off.

Sickening.

The bread trick

2009-01-26T18:07:00.002-06:00

I'm about to go make Monster Cookies, and I got hit by a random thought. In my house, they may not last long enough to worry about this, but if your cookies ever start to get too firm for you, grab a slice of bread and put it in with your cookies in a plastic bag. This works for any and all cookies. The cookies pull the moisture from the fresh bread, leaving the bread dried out, but your cookies stay nice and soft.

Word 2007 "add to dictionary" glitch

2009-01-22T05:20:00.007-06:00

If you’re like me, you need your word processing programs customized to the max for easy utilization. In Word 2007, I want an AutoCorrect like it used to be, but I’ve worked around it.

For many of us, when we upgrade, we need to take our custom.dic “custom dictionary” files with us, as we’ve spent all our time accumulating our old terms. Like former versions, the custom.dic transfers the same way. Unfortunately, this time I ran into a bit of trouble.

After putting in my own custom.dic file and loading a medical spellchecker, I no longer had the “add to dictionary” feature. It wouldn’t even give me an alternative spelling in many cases, especially where it related to my added medical spellchecker.

I solved this by:

1. Making a back-up copy of my custom.dic file and put it on my desktop. This is found in a folder called “Uproof.” Make sure this is the one on your specific user data (mine has “saph” setting, the “saph” being specifically for my use of the computer). You can just search for the Uproof folder. I was changing spellcheckers at that time, so I uninstalled the program I was using.

2. Removing the custom.dic file while using the spellchecker for the entire document (from the ribbon menu).

3.Getting rid of the custom.dic and then adding the custom.dic again. This will reset your custom.dic to a blank text document, so make sure that backup is somewhere! This gave me my “add to dictionary” feature back. Then I opened that custom.dic file, copy/pasted all my words from the original custom.dic text file back into it, saved it, closed it, restarted Word 2007, and this got me my “add to dictionary” feature plus suggestions from the spellchecker back once more.

4. Installing my new Stedman’s spellchecker, and the “add to dictionary” still worked.

I finally figured this out after about two weeks of use. If you stumble upon this, I hope it helped you :)

He lied. To my face! Plus word of the day.

2009-01-18T22:07:00.003-06:00

Time: Christmas 2008.

Setting: The brunchfast table.

Characters: My brother and me.

The question:

"So, when are you going to give me a niece or nephew?"

His answer:

"Oh, I don't know. Not until we get settled somewhere permanent."

Liar. Spool's wife was sick the entire time.

He called me tonight to let me know that Jen's in a maternal way. Increasing. Pregnant. As in...giving me a niece or a nephew.

"How much longer?"

"She's about 11 weeks," he said.

"She was pregnant at Christmas," I realized then. "You lied to me!"

Apparently, whilst Christmas-ing with her parents, she got sick at the scent of coffee. A pregnancy test at my folks' house confirmed it.

I'm not too upset about the lie, though. Truly. It's just an eye-catching title to let the world know that I'm going to have a niece or a nephew - a nibling. That would be the new word of the day, although it's not an official word, yet. Apparently, there's a group of British kids who want it in the next dictionary, which is great.

My kids' responses:

ManCub - He was eavesdropping while I talked to my brother. He asked, "Who's pregnant?" I told him. He said, "What did Spool do to her?" in a voice of complete and total innocence. He also then quickly claimed how he loved science.

Adonis: I told him as he lay sprawled on the couch, watching TV. "She was pregnant at Christmas, then." Yeah, she was. And he LIED to me LOL.

KitKat: Upstairs in her room, working diligently on her older books, trying to get them written. I called down, to which she snottily replied "I'm coming!"

Adonis looked at me and said, "Pretend you're mad at her."

Sounded good to me.

She appeared down the stairs, grumpy, because I threw her off her groove.

I asked, "What are you doing?" in my most stern mother's voice.

She got defensive and huffy, just like I asked, and launched into a tirade about how nobody ever lets her do what she needs to do to be fulfilled...

"Jen's pregnant," I said.

She melted.

So, that's our current news. I'm going to have a nibling. I'm adding to the collection!

Pic essay - Anavarza Castle, part 1

2009-01-17T09:56:00.009-06:00

Anavarza, part 1

The second pic is my dad, who usually took the pictures.

As a child, I spent two years in Turkey, courtesy of the USAF. Among the castles we visited and the memories made there, this is the one that created a life-long desire to go back, back to the top of the hill.

I know most folks dream about riches or fame. I dream of sharing with my children what they didn’t have growing up: Exposure to life outside the US. Visions of other cultures. Standing at the bottom of a castle and wondering if the castle came from the Roman era or from Byzantium. Wandering through museums, taking note of the years gone by. Our nomadic lifestyle brought frustration at times, but it also brought a sense of wonder and awe, making it easier for our family to avoid all manners of prejudices by exposure. You see, this castle not only represents what was, but also what could be.

This is what Anavarza looks like from the beginning. The archway comes first. Then, welcome! Step into the castle grounds. Imagine the bazaars and houses. Incidentally, here, at this very arch, in 1981, some poor kid asked the only two families in the world who did not own televisions who shot JR. The show Dallas was a big deal all over the world, if you needed the proof! He barely spoke English, but wanted to know about JR. Lord-a-mercy.

Our little deprived JR-seeking friend was a goatherd. They’re plentiful, as are their goats. Buyer beware: If one of these little darlings offer you “ancient” coins, you can bet that they’re coins all right, but they’ve been thru the digestive system of said goats to give them that ancient appearance. We loved the little black goats. In fact, my mother wanted to bring one home for Max, our dog, whom we left behind before our sojourn to the other side of the world.

Anavarza begins at the arch. Next, we passed through a 10-house “village” at te foot of the mountain. Here, we met three individuals who did some explaining about the castle. This mosaic came as a big surprise. The gentleman tossed a bucket of water on it, and the dusty thing came to life.

One of the villagers went up the hill with us, to help with the kids. Between the two families, we had 4 adults, me, and four kids. I don’t remember the actual number of steps, and to say I knew for certain would be a lie, for many of them are missing. Still, it was quite a climb.

To be continued...

Pic: I'm descended from her!

2009-01-13T03:54:00.004-06:00

This is Eselbine. I'm afraid to show her to my kids, lest they draw comparisons. Of course, they could tell me that I'm aging gracefully, but I seriously doubt it.

I am so warped

2009-01-05T22:22:00.002-06:00

more animals

Promises, promises.

2008-12-23T23:49:00.002-06:00

Yes, I am behind on the blogging.

Tonight, as I take a break from typing for Siteman Cancer Center (yes, shameless pride, here), I shall endeavor to bring all my faithful readers (Hi, Aunt Alice!) up to speed.

Promise #1 - I promised a link to KitKat's awesome project that her teacher kept for posterity. You will see why. Note the detail on the hieroglyphics. I need to make a site just for all her artistic endeavors.

Promise #2 - I decided that Tiger's Eye will stay Adonis. This name is hereby confirmed by all the notes I pull out of his pockets before I put them in the washing machine. Every day, he has a new phone number or e-mail address or a new buddy on MSN. He told me a great joke tonight:

Q: How many ADDers does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Do you want to go ride a bike?

**NOTE: This is not a slam on those afflicted with ADD. Our family has a good portion of ADD tendencies, knows Ritalin, and this is totally, completely funny to us because it's the truth! Flight of ideas? Speaking of flight, I love airplanes. In the air, I love the bird's eye view. Did you see the view? I have pictures of Turkey to post, now that I think about views. Castles. I haven't walked in a castle since I was 10 years old. When I was 10, I wore velor. I have a new shirt...

Yeah. I'm good at nonsense.

Promise #3 - I'm going to be published by the time I'm 40. That means I'm reading up on the competition...and thoroughly engrossed. The problem with reading the competition is that I have 12 (no lie) new story outlines. Basically, I'm all dressed up with everywhere to go, but I have to finish the chapter of the book I'm currently reading. This also means that I have two different versions of Word Perfect up, because between work and writing with so many story lines, I never know which will have a line or two for me to add to the story. See ADD narrative above. Right now, between work and writing, I have a total of 11 documents open.

Promise #4 - ManCub WILL do better. He got a 33 as a final grade in industrial arts. Lord-a-mercy, I'm having trouble staying afloat, here. Adonis? He has a B average. Everyone kneel on the prayer rug and count your blessings...he keeps this up and I'll let him get his license! KitKat...um, she's set. Like always.

Promise #5 - I will get back to weekend cooking. Maybe. I learned how to make a new dessert! I call it Caramel Coronary, and I even made my own caramel out of sweetened condensed milk. I asked for saffron for Christmas from my mommy. She promised me. I have a lot of rice ready for it.

Promise #6 - We will have an awesome slither season. Expect commentary on a lot of our visual morphs. The lady who produced Lotus (our pied) is now 2500 grams, and that could be eight eggs, maybe 2 or 3 piebalds. Three pieds x 2000 bucks = happy Sapphire. We now have a pin and a mojave. The Cactus Jack project is still online and we've got some pretty girls, but Jack might be too young yet. He's not showing much interest. Actually, nobody's really too interested, but it's early yet. Gideon's online and doing his duty. Good boy.

Promise #7 - I will try not to read other's writing without cringing at passive voice. Lord, but it's hard. Years of training only to discover that the top-selling authors get away with "she had had more than she could take..." really, really bites.

Okay, that's a wrap...for now. Love and stuff for the holidays!

Club Nimrod and how I cope with them.

2008-11-07T06:33:00.003-06:00

This week has seen a few changes. Adonis turned 17, but he might not ever see 18. We ate a big cake in two days (I've been abstaining, so the Nimrods felt deprived). We learned to love a new ice cream that has little chocolate cows in it. I'm not telling you its name because it's all MINE.

ManCub is in serious trouble. He aced his tests and has all C's and D's because he didn't turn in his homework. The first quarter of every school year seems to be dedicated to him earning my trust. Think I'd learn, right? It's now the second quarter of the 7th grade, my trust is gone, and he is suffering my wrath.

What is that? Waking him up at 6:00 a.m. to make CERTAIN he's done his homework. It's great in theory. The problem is...waking the darn kid up.

Solution?

Squirt bottle. You see, my fellow mothers, the efficient squirt bottle is the perfect idea. I will now be keeping one in the refrigerator to keep it nice and cold and a perfect visual reference every time said Nimrods raid the fridge.

Still, it works well in theory. ManCub rose instantaneously. However, he managed to walk upright into my room and promptly collapsed onto my bed and entered the Land of Nod once again.

Squirt bottles being squirt bottles, amazing things that they are, have a setting to switch from fine mist to STREAM. Long-range stream. Forget Nerf water guns - a cheap 99-cent squirt bottle from Wal-Mart does just fine. I didn't have to leave the chair at my desk. I've got excellent aim!

It's proven its effectiveness. However, please cross reference all KitKat posts where we complain about how terrifying she is in the morning (poke the bear in her lair, dodge the dragon fire-breath on her way out of slumber, yada yada). It's been worse this year. Shudder. This year, she's falling back asleep. Whereas we used to joke about fearing for our lives, we now are quite serious about it. See, there's a chance that she did get up and she is dressing. However, if you don't check, you don't know for certain. If she's asleep, it's not so bad. If she's awake and dressing, however, by god, you'd better know she's awake. We should all have telepathic capabilities by now, you know.

Adonis, smart child that he is, decided that KitKat needed a lesson with the squirt bottle. I'm happy to report that he's still among the living, but it was very, very close. I told him not to do it. The subsequent ear-splitting shouting and thundering down the stairs made me stand up, and Adonis streaking through my room with KitKat on his heels and a hairbrush in hand sent me into the giggles. Of course, I told my oldest who's been with me the longest that he's the bravest, stupidest kid I ever met. He's glad he's fast. Katie's glad he's not dead...yet. According to her, he's now ripe for slow torture.

Stay tuned. I'm expecting an iron maiden to be delivered by FedEx. KitKat's known for hoarding money, and I can see where this is money well spent.

Welcome to my dementia. Grab a squirt bottle and hang on for the ride...

We should call my son Adonis...

2008-10-06T23:00:00.002-05:00

I'm seriously considering changing Tiger's Eye's moniker. It should be Adonis.

Adonis is a good-looking guy. He wears glasses, but he's a cutie. It just amazes me that he's not drop-dead gorgeous, yet, everywhere we go, the ladies gravitate to him.

Tonight it was Moto Mart. I had to go play with the soda machine with the fancy buttons. It's now a compulsion. She was about 5'6", slender yet curvy, her skin reminiscent of Dove dark chocolate and her hair in soft curls with strips of red.

She didn't corner him; she asked, benignly, if he had an older brother named Patrick. An obvious farce, I might add, since her father, who was there, rolled his eyes. Interestingly, the father kept going back for another purchase, shooing us ahead in line, giving his daughter more time to converse. She spoke to the cashier, very loudly, claiming her job was going well and her place of employment was a fast-food restaurant with multiple locations, but she made sure to specify which one.

It's so gratifying to know that Adonis radiates charm like that, just a good, clean kid with a nice, pleasant face, huge blueberry eyes showcased by wire frames.

More amazing yet, it didn't even fluster him to where he left the 12-pack on top of the car again.

ManCub is notorious for "forgetting" homework. I received a call and e-mail from his English teacher. So enthusiastic was my conversation with him that he finished all his back work, and fast. He also is notorious for not reading instructions...and finished 25 journal entries, when he only needed 4 (four/quatro). Heh heh. Lesson learned? I doubt it, but I find it poetically just.

KitKat has yet another completed project that her teacher wishes to keep and model. I'm making a web page for it. It's really quite lovely and such an ego booster for her. She's driven, as always, and I'm quite proud. I will post that lovely project when I can.

Yeah, my kids are nuts.

2008-09-20T22:44:00.002-05:00

Please understand that babies are precious, toddlers turn your lives upside down in so many wonderful ways, and elementary school kids are adorable. But the fun? The fun really starts when your kids get taller than you.

Tiger's Eye has always been fun. I taught him the fundamentals of basic addition, estimation, and general shopping math at Shop 'n Save. He learned bargaining skills. We had many an argument about the items with red tags, explaining that the red tags are great, but sometimes the trade name is still more expensive than the generic.

We have the strangest revelations in Shop 'n Save. It's just amazing what we come up with. Remember, I came out of the closet in that very store.

We had our usual fun and games through the store. When we loaded up the car, T.E. looked across from the bumper and saw an empty cart corral right across the street. With an eyebrow lifted and a hefty shove, I'll be hanged if he didn't send the cart into the stall, not even knocking the railing of the corral, from some 30 to 40 feet away, over a dip in the road, no less. I'm sure that earns points for intelligence somewhere, although I can't be completely sure. May I also remind my gentle readers that T.E. is legally blind in one eye.

A few days later, after laughing at me for being goofy and forgetting everything, we stopped at Moto Mart, where KitKat and T.E. commented on my lack of social graces and obsession with the new soda fountain, which, wow, is so COOL. It has green lights, fab buttons, four additives for energy drinks and lime and lemon! Makes my Diet Coke obsession go to all kinds of new heights.

We purchased fountain soda and a couple of 12-packs of Diet Coke. It's tricky, and the rule is that there are no fountain sodas purchased unless the Nimrod who wants the soda actually goes into the store and carries it out. Hey, I'm no octopus, three kids or not. I don't evolve quickly, apparently.

We all had something to carry out to the car. Next stop, Aldi. KitKat and I took our seats, and T.E., our erstwhile chauffer, backed up and drove in the direction of Aldi, which is about a mile from the Moto Mart. On our way out of the parking lot of Moto Mart, a chick in an SUV beeped and pointed, but she didn't appear to have a problem with us, so we shrugged and went on our way.

We stopped at the stoplight by Dairy Queen, then went on. T.E. is very cautious with left turns, waiting until there's a mile between cars before he turns, which is just fine with me. We pulled over the very big dip and got into the parking lot, and T.E. took his time and parked at least two spots away from the nearest car, just like I like when he's driving. I got out just in time to hear another driver of an SUV laughing like a nut, talking to my son.

"How did you get all the way with it up there?" he asked T.E.

On top of the car, on the driver's side, was one of my 12-packs of Diet Coke, in no different position than when we set off from Moto Mart and my son forgot to put it in the car.

He turned beet red. Please remember that, not five minutes before, they laughed at me :)

Now, I'm just waiting for KitKat to do something. She's sneaky, though. Might be a while before she admits to a mistake or I catch her in the act. Stay tuned...

Thank you, Aunt Alice, for asking me to blog something. It was great seeing you tonight and I will try to keep up better here!

And he caused a stampede in the F building.

2008-09-02T23:03:00.002-05:00

Wow. I haven't blogged since July 23. Guess I better make this a doozy.

I'm always asking my kids to do something funny to blog. Perhaps I should reconsider.

Tiger's Eye, my eldest, the child who has been with me the longest, has done something questionable. Part of me is proud. Part of me wants to scream. Part of me wishes I was this creative in high school.

Preface: T.E. and KitKat (lord help us all, they're in the same school again) attend a school where there are buildings, A through S. It's a large campus. The F building is grand central station, where there are a multitude of lockers at the bottom and and classes upstairs.

My son, my darling who has been with me the longest, had two minutes left to get to the top of the F building. On the bottom floor, he saw very slow progress. What does he do?

Oh, simple thing. He yells that they've only got one minute to get to class.

The herd moves forward en masse and freshmen trip. He says three. I told him he'd better be happy that it wasn't KitKat. She'd have tossed him over the rail.

He says it's a perk of being a junior. I say it's the result of him being demon spawn...from his father's side of the family, obviously.

The Sapphire Gazette

2008-07-23T00:51:00.002-05:00

The Spumoni ice cream is in memory of a great woman, my Aunt Mildred, who would have been 97 years old in a month. You can read a bit more about her here.

Pop is in the hospital, and it's not exactly wonderful news. He seems to crest, plateau, and then plummet, rising up again to drop once more. There's a blood clot in his leg. There's an IV in his arm. He's not eating well or drinking much.

I'm behind on e-mails, so apologies to all. Things are kind of cluttered right now. I did manage to get out of jury duty. Tiger's Eye is going to be fine, we think. The lesion they found is a benign one and is filling in with the right stuff now that he's getting older. The meniscus separation didn't correlate to his pain, so they're a bit cautious that he doesn't disrupt more ligaments, because he's done this once and it really didn't affect him and we can't pinpoint when it occurred. He's wearing a brace on alternating legs, and that's the best we can do until I convince our FSA people that we can justify our medical spending with our receipts, which they can't seem to read no matter how much I blow up the receipt size and enhance the darkness. Frustrating. I'm still trying to get physical therapy set up in order to get his legs stronger where they need to be to keep pressure off his knees. There's a problem with his patellae tracking like they should, so that means strengthening his muscles in his thighs. I can't do it for him, so I hope he cooperates for his own sake.

I did get a new window unit for our room. My fingers no longer look like they came from a Jimmy Dean box, and my typing speed is up. It's nice to have it too cold and shut if off, even in weather with 105 degree heat index. Oh, yeah. It's some wonderful stuff.

New page for a slither

2008-07-08T02:52:00.004-05:00

This is the link for Cactus Jack. He's an aberrant ball python and I'm looking at seeing what kind of genetics this little dude has. This is where I'll track his progress. Here soon, I'm going to measure and weight him, as well as try to get some better overall pictures.

And you think you've got good 4th pics

2008-07-06T20:46:00.003-05:00

I absolutely cannot believe I captured this one. One of the best of the night!

Suggestions for keeping my sanity welcome.

2008-07-03T10:19:00.003-05:00

I called the radiology center and they found the x-ray for comparison and amended the report. The report now looks much better and in the addendum, it says:

Paragraph one should say...

Paragraph two should say...

So it's all fixed now.

The report, anyway.

My keyboard broke Friday morning and my power went out Friday afternoon. Monday, the gal I needed to talk to wasn't in, so Tuesday, I finally got her.

She took offense that I was offended at the quality of their reports. She then looked at it, and I pointed out all the problems, and mentioned that I had a screen print of reactions from the MT community of that report. She backpedaled a minute, then said it was the doc's fault for not sending it for editing :(

I informed her that if they ever have problems with VR (she said it was really helpful because finding qualified transcriptionists was hard), I'd be happy to support them by submitting this, but she said the doc needed to review it or send it to edit. I challenged her to go pull 10 MRI reports and see how many errors she found on legal records that make the doc look like an idiot.

So, I've got what I wanted...I guess. The report is fixed and they know where I stand on the issue. Now I have to deal with the fact that TE's knees hurt, doc sent him for x-rays, the lesion came back on the x-ray, they sent him for an MRI to check on the lesion, and the incidental finding was of the lateral meniscus separation. It now goes back to the original thing that his knees were hurting, so we're eventually going to have to have the other knee imaged, as well.

Oh, and I have jury duty summons for the week my boss begged me not to have anything going to take extra work. Yeah, all those $$ going out the window. I think I'll be disqualified just because I type legal documents and probably will answer questions truthfully, which they won't want to hear, but it's all day, maybe more, and it sucks. It's also during the week after Tiger's Eye sees the ortho, so who knows what testing I'll need done?

I'm about to lose my mind.