Things are getting done

Today I spent the better part of the full day taking care of business for Jess going to college. I haven't gotten anything from her that I need, like information about when she is supposed to BE there for instance. She's been uncommunicative with me. It is frustrating. Doug is sympathetic to her (which to me is odd because I'm the sympathetic one) and feels that she is just not dealing with the transition well.

So I finally got her to give me the login info to the payment account thing, and I find that we were supposed to set up a payment plan in May. There are things she is supposed to do, but she has not done.

Did I say that a week from this Saturday we get in the car to drive her to school?

sigh.

Anyway -- I ended up on the phone today to the University, asking questions and making progress. I called MEFA to see if we can get a student loan for her. We were counting on there being some resolution to Doug's grandmother's estate by this point but that hasn't happened. So I need to come up with 13,000 dollars by next week. We have 7,000 in her 529 plan and I think we will leave it there, and just borrow the first year's money while the other stuff (like grandma's estate etc...) gets settled.

Again, did I mention, like 10 days from now we're there.

Right.

So I got things ironed out, figured out, applied for, documents signed, and I guess we are like 90% solid. Unless we get declined for the loan.

All I know is the first semester has to be paid in full by September 17th.

I'm only completely overwhelmed. And I sit here overwhelmed and I think about other people who are in worse situations and I feel guilty about my inactions and inabilities to deal with things. I think of Keri and Anya. I think about people who are sick and healing. I think about people who got laid off from their jobs 2 years before me who are still without work and have lost their homes and are at a total loss for what to do.

The fact is, I can fix things and do things and if I need to lean on my daughter to GET what I need to make sure things go smoothly, perhaps I should think to do so sooner. Instead of 10 days before she has to be there.

Anyway.

airports

Met the morning with Doug bellowing "oh DRIVER! Driver I need you... it's 6:30, time to get up and go..." He is off to Scottsdale Arizona for a conference/training thing for the hospital field he works in (rehab outcomes management) and I had to drive him into Logan Airport for his flight.

Fight is at 10am, so of course we are leaving at 7am (with all the commuters heading to Boston). I am not awake so he drives and I sit in my PJs in the passenger seat with a big coffee. I figure I'll be more awake for the trip home, and he's WIDE awake and bright eyed and bushy-tailed. So I let him do the driving.

Traffic is awful, which gives me time as a passenger to look down side streets off of Rte 60 into neighborhoods and industrial zones that I never get to look at. I also get to gaze longingly at airplanes. I'm impressed by their size, by the physics of what they do. The huge, shiny white noses with tiny little itty bitty windows for the pilots to look out of. My guess is they fly mostly with their gauges and science than by visuals based on the window sizes. I'm also impressed by how clean they are, compared to the front ends of cars and trucks. Air is much cleaner than roads, I guess.

At the airport, Terminal B, we are blocked in by vehicles that decide the second lane is the drop off lane, even though it is really the curb. I get out of the car to give him a hug and a kiss (apologizing for my coffee breath) and I'm aware that the woman behind us is looking at us. Him in his dress pants, dress shirt, shoes and his luggage, me in my oversize Pitt T-shirt and pyjama pants, flip-flops glasses and hair scrunchy with my coffee cup in hand.

It's almost like I'm kissing him goodbye at our front door as he goes to the office. Only I'm 40 minutes from the front door. This is a different front door, a different commute. And unlike his usual morning commute where I don't get to see him off (being unemployed means I sleep until 10am usually and he's gone at 6:45) I am glad to have the opportunity to see him off.

We take our time with goodbye and stand at the back of the Subaru for a minute because we (and the woman behind us) are still blocked in. I wonder if she looks at us and says "God, they are so fat..." or what she thinks. He takes his garment bag and backpack, tells me that he forgot our friend Amy R's phone number and asks me to call his voicemail with it. He is off. I walk around to the driver's side, get in, adjust the seat and mirrors to where I like them, and put the car in drive and signal on while I wait for the hotel shuttle vehicle and Limo Service car to move out of the way.

He's off to Scottsdale. I'm still in my pyjamas. And I'm jealous that I won't be waking up tomorrow in a hotel in the Southwest.

I need a vacation.

Ghost in the Canine

I'm watching Brodie stare into space.

It almost seems as if she can see some plane that we cannot, where things dance and intermingle freely. It is all around us, this plane, and right now she has tapped into it.

She is totally out of it, and when she does look to me, she is scared.

Perhaps my house is haunted after all.

Who needs sleep?

5am on Monday morning. I'm wide awake and have been since about 3:30am. It seems to happen every night. No matter how late I go to bed. 3:30 rolls around and nudges me hard enough to make me sit up, scratch my head and then not be able to fall back asleep after I go pee.

Tonight I'm up because I followed my dog around the house for a couple of hours. Yesterday afternoon Brodie had some sort of, shall we say, "episode," where she basically looked like she was hyperventilating herself into a seizure. Tail between her legs, she was apoplectic. Shaking, panting, and just an utter mess. She was like that for an hour or so and I decided she needed to go to the emergency clinic.

These things always happen on Sundays with us. Or so it seems.

Four hours later and no real diagnosis, we brought her home sedated. She stood in the middle of the livingroom and looked at us, swaying back and forth with a confused look on her face. I got her to get up on the couch, and she passed out. Shallow breathing, out cold. I watched her until Midnight when she woke up and decided to go up to my bedroom. She was confused because the door was closed, so I ushered her in and got her to the doggie bed. Three hours later she was pacing, panting, and I thought "great, here we go again..." I took her out to pee, which she did... and then she spent the better part of 90 minutes walking in circles in the livingroom, going out to the kitchen, coming back in, going back out. Wash, rinse, repeat.

She is now asleep behind the couch, by the fish tank, where Gonzo usually spends his days. And I am watching the sky lighten.

In addition to worrying about Brodie, I am also worried about how we're going to pay for college. I cannot apply for a student loan thanks to an ongoing issue with Bank of Asserica (cough). I thought for sure by now Doug's grandmother's estate would be ironed out and we could tap into funds there. So I don't know how I am going to send the University of P'bgh a ton of dough in the next 13 days to ensure Jess goes there without difficulty. And my mortgage situation isn't fixed (referencing the ongoing issue with that evil bank). So I wake up most nights at awful small wee hours and have that on my mind.

The good thing is, I've got a theme song... as does every person who cannot sleep. Thanks to BNL.

On that note, I'm going to crawl back upstairs. Doug will be up in about 15 minutes to get ready for work and if Brodie is still asleep down here he can keep an ear out for her. I'm going to try and rest.

Have a good day.

Othello done Much Ado begins

After teaching my class last week, I was also in the midst of the tour for "Othello" with the Rebels. Things were incredibly busy there for a number of days. The cast of "Othello" was stupendous, the show was outstanding. I'm still stunned from what I saw.

"Othello" is a difficult play. Everyone thinks of it as the play about race. It is more than that -- race plays into it for certain but the story overall is Iago's selfishness and his self-centeredness, the fact that he didn't get a promotion and he hates his boss because of it. He is mastered only by himself and his own wants and desires. He hates that Cassio got the job that he wanted, and decided that he will crush Othello and ruin his life and Cassio's life as punishment for it. He doesn't care who falls in the process.

It is an amazing and sad story.

Everyone thinks of it as the race story; but it is really the tale of one man's selfishness. And four people die in the end because of it. Race brings people in the door, and everyone knows this is the "death by pillow" play. Someone wrote on facebook "why would you do this play? Othello is a wifebeater." It is so much more than that.... he is a good man who is twisted and driven by the lies told by someone he counts as "Honest, honest Iago."

Othello could be any color. He could never end his wife's life by suffocation. The story would still be as twisted. The only one who matters in this tale is Iago. One of the greatest sociopaths in literary history.

I had the pleasure of watching two casts perform the show. Ryan and Jackson both took turns playing Iago and both approached the role differently. The photo here is of Ryan, who seemed to find Iago's behaviors more as a joke and in the end he seemed to show remorse for what he'd done. Jackson played it straight through as a monomaniacal evil genius, with no remorse at all. In the last show, when he stands there charged with what he's done, Jackson actually laughed, and stood there with this soft, crazy grin.

One cannot say who did it better, which Iago was the better Iago. They were both amazing and they were different.

And now they're on to the next play.

Much Ado About Nothing. How totally opposite of Othello. I cannot wait to see what the kids do. We have 2 sets of the lead couple of Beatrice and Benedick. Henry and Zoe are paired together and they will be hysterical. I'm sure that Alison and Seth will be a riot too. The other couple are Rozzie and Joe, they play Hero and Claudio.

The 2 couples of Beatrice and Benedick will switch off and each will have 5 opportunities to perform the shows over the ten show tour.

That is pretty much the focus of my life right now. Getting Jess ready to leave for college, doing the publicity for the Rebel Shows, and putting up with Geoff being bored out of his mind and nagging me every three minutes that he wants the laptop. Oh joy. Oh bliss.

Summer 2010 update

I am sitting in a computer lab at the state (soon-to-be university) college, co-teaching the summer course that I've taught for a couple of years. One of the features of the class is we teach teachers to make webpages. In years past, we've taught them how to do Netscape Composer. But we decided "screw that old school nonsense!" and now we're teaching them how to use Blogger not just as a blogging tool but as a web page too.

Which got me to thinking.

I have been remiss in updating the official (a)musings journal because it has just become too much work. As much as I do love Dreamweaver, and designing graphics, and layouts and whatnot.... it has become too much.

Also, the stupid company that used to do my comments changed their format and I can't get it to run on my journal. The web is progressing beyond what I'm comfortable doing by hand.

And spending 25 bucks a month to host thousands of entries when I can do it for free up in here.... it's a no brainer.

So I'm transitioning all my old archives over here, and will begin writing more regularly here. I am using the post options feature here to date stamp all the old entries correctly. Some will be slightly edited so that discussions I have with myself about layout changes and colors and stuff will just go away. So the ebb and flow of entries will still be what it was over the last 9 years.

The other journal will go away, eventually. So update your bookmarks. I will keep my domain and host my portfolio there, but that is about it.

---

The last time I wrote was when Jess graduated from high school. Two months gone. A lot has happened and not a lot has happened.



Shakespeare started for Geoff, and he had a spectacularly fun time this year. I was worried about him going into the program with all female directors because he usually has "issues" with being told what to do by women.



But his attitude going into the program was fantastic, and in checking in each day with the directors all I got was great feedback about how funny and smart and entertaining he was. I couldn't believe it was the same boy as last year. He loved the play (Two Gentlemen of Verona) and had a very funny part that suited him wonderfully. My inlaws and my mom came up to see him in the play and a good time was had by all. Here's a photo of Geoff as Thurio, with the lady Sylvia beside him. He is in love with her, but she loves Valentine... and Proteus also loves her and chaos ensues. Funny chaos. Geoff was fantastically great. The first night he did a perfect deep voice and the second night he insisted

Othello started, and my inlaws got to see that too. This year I'm tour coordinating again, which brings me incredible joy because otherwise I would have literally nothing to do with my life other than apply for jobs, do laundry, nag Jessica to do the dishes. And we all know how damn exciting that is.

The show is amazing, I think they've outdone themselves in awesomeness with this presentation. If you live north of Boston, do go see it? Check the website. You should know where it is by now, and if you do not, you can leave a comment here and I'll respond.

So I'm here teaching this class now. When I agreed to it I didn't know it would be Shakespeare Tour Week, so my mind and heart are kind of thinking about the kids today. They are in north andover, and hopefully right this minute are running a workshop with kids at the library where they're playing. I wish I was there to see it.

But making money is good too. I'm happy to get paid. And I love this -- teaching people how to use powerpoint and blogger is a lot more fun than... well, laundry, dishes and applying for jobs.

Well -- this has taken 2 hours to write. I'll post it and get back to class.

I got to sleep in a bunch of times...

Got my wish. I ended up sleeping in a lot over several days. Sleeping until 11 am is just an awesome thing. But I'm already sick of that and ready for other things.

I've had a couple nice lunch dates with friends, some stay at home mommies and my former co-workers Mike and Jeremy. I have done a little yardwork, but not a lot. We were treated to some gorgeous summer-like weather for a few straight days last week. I have had some fun with the dogs outside, and chatted with neighbors and did bike maintenance on Geoff's bike but cannot get the pump to attach to the stems on Jess' bike so I can't go riding. I want to figure that one out the most because there isn othing nicer and time-killing than taking a bike ride in the middle of the day.

Seeing that I have all this free time, you would think I'd be getting a lot done. I managed to clean the guinea pig cage. And that is sort of about it.

I have lists. The lists have to be done. The lists have to be completed. Item by item. But I can't manage to focus and do.

Instead, I long for distraction. I watch DVR'ed shows, "Red Eye" on Fox is my favorite. It is a news-ish topic oriented panel show, slightly conservative in nature but positively inappropriate and naughty at times. I goof off on Facebook and play Bejeweled (which my children call Becrack). I procrastinate to the last possible minute, and sometimes even later. I even rejoice when someone calls and asks for my help with something, because I would rather do stuff for other people than do stuff here. I was able to help Keri with some Rebel stuff last week for 2 days, but didn't go see the show (kicking myself for that). I will help her a little bit again tomorrow.

Tuesday I'm having lunch with Professor CM. Remember him? Over the course of this journal I've done a lot of work with him. He has a project for me, a website that has to be prettied up and fast ("Christine, you know my style. White Background, One Picture, Times New Roman, Blocks. Make it nice") that he will be presenting to a publisher. He hopes to get a huge pantload of awesome moneys in advance, and will be able to pay me for building the website. My first form of "payment" will be new software. He's getting me the new Adobe CS4 with Dreamweaver and Flash and Photoshop and all that good stuff. It's good that he gets things for free or little money. For me, this is the equivalent of a $2000 payment which he got for $500 or so bucks. Hot damn. Thank you CM! We'll figure out an hourly rate to "pay back" the software purchase, and then he'll start paying me.

---

This weekend I'm taking Jess to Pittsburgh.

She applied to Umass Amherst (accepted), Syracuse (waitlisted), University of Pittsburgh (accepted and first choice), and University at Buffalo, but she accidently did her common app to Buffalo State. We didn't care for the University at Buffalo too much, and they can't just forward her application to them (jerks). So we don't give a crap about Buffalo.

Pitt was her first choice, and after visiting I think she fell in love with it. We're in love with it. Great place, great school. Cathedral of Kicking Ass and all that. Syracuse's loss if you ask me.

So this weekend is accepted student's day. And she and I are going out on Friday, staying with my friend Liz who lives about 5 miles from the campus (gotta google maps her address!) and spending the day immersed in Panthery Goodness. Somewhere in there we'll spend some time with the in-laws, possibly hotel it up that way on Sunday night and head back on Monday morning.

I need to make sure that's okay with Her Royal Hiney, Jess. I mean, she might have a paper due or something! And heaven forbid she miss two days of school! Oy! I honestly think that if my parents offered to take me out of school for 2 days and go on a trip, I'd be rejoicing and not pushing back that I have homework due. She's a weird duck. I hope she keeps that weirdness in college though. I mean, once you're paying to be somewhere.... and that ...

---

The following weekend I'm heading back to my hometown.

Thanks to the joys of Facebook, a bunch of people I went to elementary school with started jawing at one another about whose elementary school could win at kickball. When I was growing up we had like five elementary schools, and then we were all brought together for 6th grade, split up into TWO junior high schools (so people you got to be friends with for one year now were at another school and no longer liked you... really smart stuff Huntington....) and then we came together again for High School.

So the jawing and posturing turned into a 'let's actually DO a kickball tournament!' Bah ha ha ha ha! A bunch of 40 somethings running around playing kickball sounded pretty funny so I got my fat ass all into it. Then they got the idea of having this be a charity event, and they set up a scholarship fund for one of my classmates who died in 2004 in a work accident. I never knew this guy, but I was vested already in the kickball portion of things because I was all "hell yeah, Southdown can kick Washington's ASS!"

I think about 100 people from the different elementary schools are signed up, who knows how many others will sign up, and there is a $20.00 buy-in to play. Hopefully this scholarship fund will grow, and we'll do this every year. There is another round of games in July, but I'll be working with Rebel, and Geoff's performances are that weekend, and I can't pass on that.

That night, two brothers who are in different bands are doing an acoustic show together to entertain us and cap off the shenanigans. I think I'm most looking forward to that. It should be amazing.

And in between, I'll try and do some vacuuming and clean the bathroom.

When do I get to sleep in?

People keep asking me "so, now that you're laid off, what are you gonna do?" Instantly my reaction is "Sleep In Late."

Or I go the Homer Simpson route and say "Well first I'm gonna get really drunk...."

I've done neither. Not sure if I am disappointed in myself for not doing either. I've found that I take the kids to school, come back here, get on facebook, and then do some cleaning. And then I pump out the basement. And then I go on facebook. And then I let the dogs out. And then the kids are home. And then. and then and then...

Tomorrow I can sleep in. No one needs to go to school. I don't have getting drunk like Homer on my list of things to do, but all told, a glass of wine would be nice.

One thing that I've been doing a lot of is running the sump pump in our basement. Three weeks ago we had a catastrophic rainstorm. About ten inches of rain in 72 hours. Records were broken, chaos ensued. We left for church on the Sunday morning that the rain was really trucking, and I heard the sump pump running but didn't think anything of it. It was running like a champ, like it has for almost 4 years when we get some rain. We got home and I could hear it. I got some laundry together at about 2pm and went downstairs to discover about 7 inches of water on the floor.

The sump pump was running, but not sucking any water out of the basement. I brought it to Doug's attention, and he decided to go find a new sump pump at the store. I went to an Eagle Court of Honor for our Boy Scout Troop. I got home at 7pm that night and Doug still wasn't back. He had to go to 10 different stores to find a sump pump. He went down to hook it up, and we couldn't hook it into our system so we had to run a hose out the window to pump the water out.

There I was at 11pm, running a hose down to the street to get the water away from our house. Good thing I love my life.

I looked across the street as I was unraveling the hose, and saw my new neighbor throwing a bucket of water out his back door. They had just moved in back in October, and I didn't know them well but knew that they went to the same college I did. We met while their kids were trick-or-treating. Already they'd had a tree fall over on their car in December during the first snow storm and here they are bailing out their basement. I told Doug that I felt that I should go over to help. He opted out, since he spent four hours driving around America looking for a new pump for our basement.... and I can't say as I blame him.

I grabbed a bucket and went across the street. When Ben came out on the side porch I said "need some help?" and held the bucket up. Ben smiled and invited me in. I spent the next 90 minutes helping him and his wife bail out the basement. We took out about an inch of water, and then they decided it just wasn't going to make a difference if we kept going. At least we had a couple laughs, and I got to meet the new neighbors. New ish. Not totally new. But you know what I mean.

The following day, our hot water heater was under water, the pilot out, the gas off. Doug and the kids went to work and school (or maybe the kids had no school, I can't remember at this point). I stayed home, manning the pump and monitoring the situation. At one point I was convinced that the pump wasn't working so I went out to check my hose. Looking across the street, I saw that the fire department was there pumping out the neighbor's basement. And the two houses next to them. So one came across and asked how our basement was and asked to evaluate it.

"You should have called us yesterday, when the water got close to the water heater." They had the basement pumped out in no time. Literally, an hour. Done. I got to hang out in my basement chatting with my town's finest, apologizing for bothering them.

"It's our job, Chris" said Lt. York. "We get paid to do this, and your tax dollars go to us doing this so ... use us. We're not just for when your house is on fire."

I ended up calling the next day again, when the water got to be a few inches away from the hot water heater. We had the plumber come out and flush out the tank and relight the system... and I didn't want it to get wet again. They confirmed that our sump pump was not working. We'd burned through the second one in less than 2 days. Doug bought another one on the way home from work.

Our basement hasn't been water-free since the first storm really. This week we got yet another storm with about six inches of rain. It could be worse, we could be living in Rhode Island where everything is completely trashed.

As for our basement, we have to wait until it is fully dry to install the sump pump exactly right, and until then it has to be plugged in manually. On that note, I'll be right back. About every 2 hours or so I have to plug it in, and it takes about 90 minutes to empty out the basement. Wash rinse repeat.

That's been my life since getting laid off, really. Rather thrilling.

Self Imposed Cone of Silence...

Shortly after my last entry, I found out that I was going to be losing my job. My boss very politely pointed out that while she knows I never, ever really write about work or work related issues, she needed to emphasize to me that I should not blog about the layoff. In fact, I don't know that I even should write much about it. Last time I blogged/wrote about getting laid off that boss took my entry about my exit process, printed it out and gave it to the management team. And that was kind of embarrassing, because then everyone at that job started reading my journal.

So I knew for about six weeks or so I guess, I forget the actual date that they let us know "for realsies" that we were getting let go, and who would be in the culled group. Over the weeks it was interesting to watch a lot of drama and stuff going on at so many levels. I felt like I was on a TV show watching alliances form, and infighting, and arguments, while I sat on the sidelines not part of the whole scene. I got voted off the island, and I'm okay with that.

If you go back and read that entry and the two before it, I think that a lot of what I feel now is exactly the way I feel right now, so there isn't a lot to say about where I am. I had outgrown this job a long time ago. I picked it up simpy by running into G at Wendy's in 2004 and she said "I need some graphic work done, can you help me out." Six years is a long time (well, almost six years, June 2004 was when I started doing graphic design work on a computer at a fold out table in the middle of a room where 10 other people were running around doing things and yelling and acting start-up like).

There are pros and there are cons to me being let go. I always make pro and con lists when there are landmark moments that I have to deal with. I wish that I had 3 more months inside the job, just to get me that much closer to Jessica leaving for school. Right now I have a decent severance and I've applied for unemployment. Part of me says that painting the bathroom and doing volunteer work at the schools and whatnot, do some websites on the side, and just kind of relaxed over the next few months. And watch a lot of Dr. Drew Celebrity Rehab and RR/RW Challenge Fresh Meat kind of crap shows in my pyjamas every day after taking the kids to school.

But, that said...

I have a job interview tomorrow morning with a job placement/contract agency that does web design placement, and I'm kind of psyched to have an interview this quickly in life... kind of neat, considering the amount of people I know who are flat broke unemployed and screwed. But I'm not getting my hopes up too high. A three month contract would put me into July, just in time to run off with the Shakespeare kids, so that would be very perfect timing wise, and I could go back on unemployment after the contract ends... But like I said, I am not getting my hopes up, I am not getting those hopes up, putting eggs in a basket, or otherwise planning on anything.

I'm not sad that I lost my job, I miss my girls. I think we had a great time together and as a team we got a lot done. I just wish my company had executed a better business plan and didn't crash and burn the way it did. But.... it's so good to know that I have these contacts in life, and maybe something might pan out. Heck, it's how I landed there after running into G at Wendy's....

Anywho. That's what's going on over here. I think I will make a more concerted effort to write more because I am paying for webspace, and I know a lot of you care what's going on.

And now, off to enjoy one of my favorite things about being unemployed -- lunch with a friend!

February at the Way Out Inn

Nothing has changed much in the land of the way out inn for the past couple months. Well, a few things... so that garners an update.

When last we spoke, dear readers, Keri went to Russia for a visit with Anya. The visit went well, there is so much love and stress and hope and fear there, but no resolution to what to do with Anya and how to get her here to the USA. Please continue to keep Keri in your prayers, and especially keep Anya in your prayers because she needs power bigger than government on her side. That's all I can really say on the topic because I'm frustrated and infuriated at how things are going for them, and I do not want to say anything that could potentially upset the metaphorical, proverbial apple cart with my righteous anger.

This past Saturday I went to the eye doctor. I hadn't been for a number of years, since I had my last spate of Migraines and thought I had a brain tumor. Once I turned 43 my vision just totally failed. I can't see to read (which sucks because I love to read). I had to ask a stranger to read something for me, I needed the toll free number off of the back of one of my credit cards and it was too small for me to read, so he read it to me while I dialed. I have spreadsheets at work that I can't read on the printouts -- I have to put them on screen and enlarge them to 150%. Rather than continue to struggle with this, I made the appointment. Turns out, I'm fine, I just need reading glasses at +1.75 and the eye doctor said to just buy them at CVS off the rack. Kind of funny, she could have sold me a pair of $300 glasses that I don't have vision insurance for to cover... but she didn't. So I thought that was classy. My distance vision is still impeccable, but the whole Blindy McBlind Blind Shabadoo situation has been corrected with a pair of $10 stupid looking CVS glasses. Now I just have to remember to bring them places with me, like church. Doug said he's gonna get me one of those chains that old ladies keep their glasses on, with baubles and kitty clips and whatnot. I think he's having fun at my expense.

Gonzo has continued to show some sort of severe lameness in his back leg and then stopped using his front leg on the same side. Two hundred dollars later at the vet and we still don't know what the cause is. He's on pain killers that I give him only when he can't walk at all, which perk him right up. And a little buffered aspirin the rest of the time, which I give reluctantly because blood thinning agents scare me. What if he cuts his paw open on some ice in the yard and bleeds to death? Don't like the idea.

A couple of weeks ago, Jess competed in the local ESU Branch competition for high school Shakespeare. A sonnet and a monologue, 30 students from around Eastern MA, and all told a wonderful afternoon of watching Shakespeare. Keri came to watch as not just Jess but Madeline (another Rebel from Marblehead) had made it to this competition. She brought Zoe, and another set of parents of a younger boy came too, so we had a whole Rebel Corner in the auditorium. Geoff and Doug came, and I was impressed at Geoff's staying power. He really enjoyed it and told me he wants to start practicing for when he's in 9th grade. It made me smile. He loved the kid who did "Bottom's Dream" from midsummer (he got advanced to the next round) and a few others. So it gave this old mom's heart some joy.

Jess and Madeline were eliminated (of the 30 competitors, 10 go on to the regionals of New England) which horribly disappointed me. I thought at least one of them would make it to the next level. Ah well.

But it was fun, and personally I had a blast coordinating the competition for the high school this year and working with two of the English teachers to get it done. Next year I already have a couple kids lined up who want to do it. I'm thinking of approaching the school to start a Shakespeare discussion group/club/something that meets after school so we can get the kids thinking of monologues, watch movies, read scenes, think about characters and motivation. Make it start with the 8th graders so they can come up into the high school ready for this.

There is one kid in tenth grade who is like my new best friend. He emailed me the other day and said "I am dying to see some Shakespeare but my parents aren't interested. Where can we catch some?" So we're going to go see Othello when it starts in Boston in a few weeks. I'm hoping to groom him as a minion. Mwah ha ha ha ha ...

After the competition, Jess was pissed and didn't want to go out to dinner or anything. We came straight home (picked up a pizza on the way) and her mood changed immediately upon getting the mail.

She got accepted to Pitt, her first choice. Now we have to mail them back her acceptance of their acceptance with $300 bucks or something. I want her to wait until she hears from the other schools, but she's already decided that Pitt is It.

Her "meh" attitude towards college from two months ago when we toured schools seems to have abated. She's gung ho about Pitt and ready to go. Which makes the "meh" attitude transfer slightly over towards her school work. In her mind, she knows what she wants to do and being at Pitt instead of being here is top of the list. She completely bombed a midterm, due to miscommunication with her teacher because she just didn't give a rat's ass about it. I told her if I'm paying 30,000 dollars for her to go to school her communications skills and effort are going to have to substantially rise to match the dollar amount. Holy crap.

I'm dreading her leaving though. Already.

Geoff is doing well with things. Middle school seems to be a good place for him. So far, so good. I don't want to jinx him but suffice to say the more time he spends away from his Elementary School the more convinced I am that the past 6 years of his life the problems weren't HIM but THEM. I say this to people at the middle school and they kind of sigh and say "yeah. We get that a lot." How many of you, family and friends, have followed me through the last six years of our lives and know the sheer hell we went through with Geoff. Yeah, some of it was him, and a lot of it I never put down here because I thought that poorly of my child and the things he was doing. Is it just that they know how to diffuse situations easier at the middle school level? Are the rules just different enough that he never breaks them because the elementary school rules were so messed up and wrong that he couldn't HELP but break them?

Or do they just not tell me when he's bad. Which makes me paranoid that they're hiding things from me and thinking they can just handle it internally. Which then makes me worry, and makes me question him and them, and it turns into a big paranoid cycle for me. I constantly check in with his teachers and ask "how is his behavior? What is he doing in class? How does he treat you and others?"

Without fail I'm hearing back that he is respectful, quiet, "intensely serious," (!!!!!) very intent on telling others to sit down and focus, and doing it without being an ass or rude, just saying "we need to get through this work so we can move on." And the kids he's with listen.

And on the flip side, he has learned when to make jokes at appropriate times instead of jumping up in the middle of class or yelling out in the cafeteria. He seems to have figured out a balance of getting work done and keeping people entertained and laughing. So much so that I don't try and shush him or reel him in anymore when I'm with him in a group (he's funny because he steals from Bart Simpson and accuses me of "Momming all over" things when I do that). I let him go and 9 times out of 10 what comes out of his mouth is semi-insightful and really amusing. The other one percent I have to talk to him about, but it is different than a few years ago when that balance was opposite.

We did a food drive this past weekend for our Boy Scout Troop and Geoff was sorting cans with a friend. He tried a joke out on me at home which wasn't bad, and I gave him a recommendation on a change of word or two, and later I heard him do it with the guys.

"I wonder if the hungry residents of the area have email. If they do... we can send them.... (holds it up) SPAM!" Which made his friends fall on the floor laughing. Score!

Later, he was moving a can of baked beans over to the cans of fruit (we sorted everything into sub categories so they could get shelved at the pantry more easily.

His friend Brendan said "Um, Geoff. Beans aren't a fruit."

"Oh no, Brendan. You didn't just say that..." I said, aghast, seeing the grin on Geoff's face... and he launched into "Beans, Beans the magical fruit!" song while Brendan introduced his palm to his forehead.

"I walked right into that one, didn't I?" he said. Everyone was laughing, not just at Geoff's joke but Brendan's reaction. It was fantastic. And Geoff actually knew when to stop singing and keep working. Two years ago I would have had to drag him out of the room and lecture him on shutting up already.

He makes a game out of menial tasks. They had to move all the pasta into large boxes so Geoff started yelling "I'll save you, pasta! Save the pasta! Rescue it!" while picking up boxes and moving them to their new location. All the boys, except for one, were laughing and having a great time. There was one who kept saying "shut up Geoff! Shut UP! I'm trying to COUNT!" so his dad moved him to another spot to work. Geoff wasn't upsetting the program, work was getting done and they were having a blast. So rather than let one kid stifle him and stop the humor, the dad knew to shift his humorless kid to another job. I'm enjoying how he works within the troop and how other kids "get him" there. It's such a relief.

He is working on four big merit badges right now (and has to turn in papers on a fifth). I'm not sure he'll have them all completed by our Court of Honor in two weeks. But he is into it, getting the sheets and picking duties that he can do on his own, asking me to help him with things that he needs help with. He had to talk to a kid from another country and ask what life is like for kids in that country for Citizenship in the World. So I got him connected with a friend of mine from High School who was an exchange student from Denmark and lives there with his family, his oldest son is a few months older than Geoff. He likes to make videos of himself so for Citizenship in the Community he is making a video about our hometown that he is narrating. I'm hoping he has that done by this Saturday so we can show it to his merit badge counselor. It would be nice for him to get five merit badges in one ceremony, but I'll settle for one or two and the rest can come in the late spring.

I got tapped to coordinate Summer Camp registration, and the Bowl-a-Thon in March, and I just did the coordination for Boy Scout Sunday this past weekend, and set up sponsorship of a Blood Drive for late February. I think after summer camp duties I'm done for the year. Whew! Keeps me busy and out of trouble, right?

There isn't really much else to tell. We didn't get any snow from Snowpocalypse 2010. That all stayed south of here and it has been enjoyable watching my friends in Maryland and Virginia on Facebook with their stories unfolding about 36 hours without power and 30 inches of snow and a .50 mile long driveway with too much snow for the snowblower to handle. Kind of nice to sit back with a beer and read that in the evening instead of deal with it myself. I am procrastinating getting ready for work, all for your pleasure and enjoyment. And I hope you did enjoy. More later, I'm sure. How much later? Dunno. but... thanks for reading.