Thinks By Me

Overhead conversation in the bathroom between Eric (9) and aspiring American Idol, Caroline (8) after watching the show Tuesday night: "Caroline, I don't think your voice is quite to the level of the competition yet, but I think it will be when you get to puberty."

Update from Saturday's rabies escapade---the raccoon tested positive for rabies!

The world is a sad place. I went to the doctor yesterday to get a rabies booster because of the raccoon John shot on Saturday. I found out that I have to lose 5 pounds and the doctor will be calling in six months to do a weight check on me. They wanted to do a intestinal parasite exam, but I declined that. I did break down and splurged for the $20 prepackaged diet food (sort of like Jenny Craig) and I also got sucked in to a year's worth of preventative medicine for a problem that I don't have. Last time I bought it, I took it once or twice and had to pitch the entire year's worth of medicine because it got so old. Who am I? the pitiful family dog, Max. Who's the sucker? My human, the boy one. Not the smart one. The girl already learned her lesson on the many visits to the vet. But the boy is new at it. The girl tells the vet that we only want the $10 rabies booster, and that even if I go on a diet, I will dig in the garbage, catch stuff outside and not lose a...

I'm not really a DIY type person except in desperate situations. Unfortunately, I am married to an engineer and that type thinks they are jacks of all trades, experts in everything, no training needed. Combine that with the genetic need for every father to try his hand at cutting his son's hair, and you have disaster written all over it. For the last nine years, I have steadfastly held to the position that my husband is NOT to touch our son's hair. I take him regularly to get his hair cut by someone trained to do it. The problem is that my son has the worst hair on the planet. All sorts of cowlicks and double-crowns, growing nicely in one direction and then jetting off in another. So no matter who cuts his hair, it always looks terrible--with one exception--my marathon friend, Karen, who was a hairdresser in her past life. However, Karen is now a stay-at-home mom like me, and her kids are in school at the same time mine are. That sounds really convenient, but it is ...

Last night (Sat) my 40-something husband, who fancies himself a 20-something studly, introduced me to a missed event of my teenhood--garage band concerts. We have a kid in our church that has a very talented band, and we really enjoy the music from Dear John. Neil Eash, the lead singer, guitarist and writer of all the music, regularly plays in our services. A couple of weeks ago, my John invited us to a "house show" the band was having. I immediately had red flags going up, envisioning being the only people over 25 in a group of people eventually getting arrested for disturbing the peace of the neighborhood. But try as I might, my husband insisted that the band would be very disappointed if we didn't show up. I'm positive we were the only people who had to get a babysitter for the event. After a quick dinner at Bud's place in Apalachin, we showed up at the neighborhood at 7pm. Us old fogies were the first of the audience to arrive. It seemed a little strang...

Since hunting season is over, John just couldn't go another minute without shooting something. This afternoon, about 3:30 (Sat) my 9 year-old Eric came screaming and crying to the back door. As I was letting him in, he explained through sobs that there was a rabid animal attacking our dog, Max, in the front yard. After investigating, John saw the raccoon which was hunching down under our front porch. Although he feined worry, he ran upstairs (I saw the big grin on his face) and grabbed his ever-at-the-ready shotgun. He put two bullets under our porch while screaming wildly at our dog to stay back. I haven't checked yet to see if either of the shots went through our wall in our basement. We have experience with this sort of thing. Our house seems to be a magnet for crazy animals. Two summers ago, a raccoon came on our porch and bit our dog. The raccoon was foaming at the mouth and we were pretty sure that it had rabies. At the advice of the DEC, we bagged the raccoon...

Wednesday night was not the most pleasant. I shared my bed with "The Claw". My husband was on a business trip overnight and Caroline, who jumps at any chance to sleep with me, announced that she would keep me from being lonely while dad was gone. "Great" said I through gritted teeth. You need to know this about my husband and I. We get along great, we never fight, we're quite affectionate with one another, but we take our sleeping business seriously (or at least I do). We have a king sized bed and we each have our own side. And when we are sleeping, we stay ON IT. We are not spooners, snugglers, huggers or anything of the sort unless we are awake. We do not thrash, steal covers, roll over on one another--we keep to ourselves. Caroline, however, sleeps in a twin bed which is taken up by an adult-sized pink fuzzy horse, 7 stuffed cats and a myriad of other stuffed animals. She has a spot the size of a shoebox to sleep on and her animals all just love it ...

I've done a bit of self-reflection this morning. I was prepared to tell you that I've discovered that I am actually a Suzy Homemaker. But in examining the facts, I have realized that I'm something a bit less glamorous--a quick fixer. This is a well-established pattern for me that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. We'll be seeing with the latest project I've just finished... I just hemmed a pair of Caroline's pants. Well, to be accurate, hemming would entail using measuring tape, scissors, needle/thread and perhaps a sewing machine. I only used the scissors out of that list, so I guess "shortened" would be the truth. I bought Caroline 2 pair of pants that fit perfectly except they each were about six inches too long. Normally I don't do this because I realize if something can't be fixed quickly, I'll never do it, but we were desperate. Finding somebody to do thejob is NOT a quick fix. First you have to locate somebody avai...

My mom's a nurse, so I was raised around all things medical. I'm married to a medic and I do medical transcription myself so when I don't feel well, I don't worry, fret or think I have cancer, I just get irritable. I'm aggravated because I have a nagging pain, I'm frustrated because my routine gets interrupted if I don't feel like doing my normal stuff and I'll admit, I just like having the excuse to be cranky. A couple of weeks ago I developed a shin splint from jump roping in my kickboxing class--silly me--barefoot isn't a great way to interval jump for 15 minutes. The pain was off and on, and then because I was walking funny, my ankle and Achilles tendon started to hurt. It wasn't long before my lower back was tight and sore from limping around. So, when I get irritable about being in pain, I figure that my mother trained me well enough in self-medication so I begin to pop pills. All sorts of them. I'm sure I put my kidneys and liv...

I have a dog named Max. The vet says she's too fat. I take that to heart, but the dog isn't concerned about her health or her looks. She is perfectly happy with herself. I switch her over to diet dog food and start rationing her food. She doesn't like that at all. She takes matters into her own paws and begins to sort through our bedroom garbage cans for pieces of chewed gum, tidbits of snacks that have been discarded or pretty much anything else that has a scent to it. In a pinch, she will even resort to pieces of kleenex or a broken crayon. Her favorite hangout is underneath our kitchen barstools because that is the seat of choice for my 8 and 9 year olds. It never fails that "accidentally" the dog finds droppings of people food, however small, and gobbles it so quickly that I'm sure she doesn't even get a chance to savor it. And then she is off for more. But the kicker is, not once does she say "this is going straight to my waistline...

It's kind of nice to have the rat race stopped unexpectedly sometimes. We woke up this morning to a blanket of snow, and apparently sleet happened last night as well. At 6:30 am there was a 2 hour delay for school and by 8:30, they had declared it closed for the day. Truthfully, from the viewpoint of our house, we can't figure out why there's no school because the road is clear and there isn't much more white stuff coming down. But on the good side: Cartoons all day (check), jammies till we feel like dressing (check), eating dry cereal in front of the TV (check), Social Studies report due today for Eric (delayed), Brownie Scouts after school (cancelled), Karate after Brownies (cancelled). Now if I can just drag myself away from the Wiggles on TV, I won't feel like a loser by the end of the day!

The day was a flurry of activity as Caroline got up bright and early Saturday morning, saying that she "really needed to get her rest today for the big dance tonight". We were off to the archery shop at 8:40 (Jen in charge this week, if you remember last week's entry!) and upon seeing the florist next door, made an emergency detour to see if they could whip up a small wrist corsage in blue. I had sort of forgotten this little touch from last year and knew Caroline would be horrified to have it overlooked. Luckily the shop obliged. Next was a stop to drop Eric off at a friend's while Caroline and I went to get a quick hair trim and stop at our favorite jewelry store, Van Horn Jewelers in Owego, NY. While there, Caroline picked out the absolute brightest, biggest bauble of a necklace to top off her outfit. It set her back a whole $3.40 of her allowance money (thank goodness an expensive jewelry store also has a "costume" section). She was thrilled when...

This is Eric. He is 9. He's my son and I think he's smart. He thinks he's a genius. I didn't know he thought this until Thanksgiving time when my nephew, Chandler, asked his dad (my brother) if it was true that Eric was a genius. I've always known Eric took pride in his brains. The biggest complement you can give him is to call him "a nerd". He thinks it is funny. Partly because he is nine, and partly because it's true. Last year, in 3rd grade, he came home and announced that he was president of the Dork Club. He belly-laughed as he explained that the only kids he would allow in were his friends that would agree to be dorks. He is an above-average student and has a talent for learning quickly, but I suspect he's pretty normal. Since he proclaimed himself a genius, John and I have had to give him a few lessons on humility (this is a little difficult for John, being that Eric's confidence level is genetically linked to John's). I ...

Names say a lot. And that's bad for me, since I am more of a face person. I have three main groups of friends. I have my church friends--about a half-dozen girls that are moms with kids about the same age as mine, who share my faith and consider it a priority to have their kids involved at church. Next I have my fitness buddies--the group of girls that I have been working out and kickboxing with for several years. I also have my PTA group--the parents who have kids in my childrens' school, who think it is important to know the school, the teachers and have a say in what happens there. The problem is, these major parts of my life don't generally intersect. This makes for a lot of interesting coversation between myself and any one member of one of these groups. For instance when I refer to one of my friends to a girl outside that particular group, I actually talk about them like this: A few of the church girls-- --Jill, my jewelry store friend (she and her husband own ...

Caroline and I, who love to cook together, have taken our cooking experience to a whole new level. We just returned from a field trip with her 3rd grade SPARK group and we went to Roberson Museum. I have to admit that the other few times I have been to this museum were little more than dull. Needless to say, I wasn't thrilled about the prospect of being with a group of unruly eight year olds from 10am-2pm. Rather than touring and observing as a typical museum, they had several experiments set up for the kids to do, and all the kids acted much more mature than their 8 years, so I was pleasantly surprised. The highlight of the day was making ice cream with liquid nitrogen. I am a little surprised that they would trust such young kids around this stuff--but they all did a great job. They used the basic ingredients of homemade ice cream- heavy cream, half-n-half, sugar, vanilla and then poured a ladle of liquid nitrogen in the bowl. As the kids stirred the ingredients, the liquid...

Did you ever wonder what 10 years worth of dust would look like? I readily admit I'm no domestic diva, but I'm not gross either. My house is not usually a showroom, but for the most part it is generally tidy with not much more than a week's worth of dirt in most places ;) There is one exception to this rule though--the fan on my cathedral ceiling in the living room. For over a year now, I have been mulling over how to clean the 10 years worth of dirt that has built up on a fan that is totally out of reach. With John (my husband) not seeming at all stressed over this allergy-fest inducing item in our house, I have gone so far as to consider purchasing the "Little Giant" ladder that they infomercial on TV or even renting a scaffold to put between the 2 beams going through the living room. On Monday, with the kids home for Martin Luther King Jr day, I was drifting around the house noticing all sorts of little things that had been bugging me. As I went downstair...

This is chapter who knows how many in a story written by me. Hope you enjoy the adventure as much as I do.

This is me.