Too much time face=booking

Is that a verb, "face-booking"? I find myself wandering there frequently. Perhaps because it is so social in nature, finding out what is up with friends, etc., and that this blog is a labor in solitude. I'm not much for lots of solitude. With the Boy off to college in the fall, and the Girl a senior, and the Husband taking two classes online at a time, I had better get used to solitude. Might find something good out there as I try to escape the solitude, or I may just mold the solitude to me.

Had a brief discussion about discerning the will of God in your life over facebook. I have never quite gotten how one does that. I think that since it is something we have to figure out then God must be She, not He. Like I have expected my husband to know what was bothering me, even if I didn't tell him - he should know, as he and I like to joke, because "if you loved me..." you'd know! God seems to be like that. Go ahead, guess what I want from you. Well, I'm not a good guesser so now what?

Report from Muggy Thursday

I just looked at the date of my last post - way back in May. I'm consistent in my inconsistent posting I suppose. Reaching? Sure. And your point is?

Went to a retirement seminar with the Husband (9 hours over three nights) that was offered free by my employer. Can we say wake up call? Some things I knew, like how we should have a will (we don't) and medical and day to day powers of attorney (ditto) but then we get to the stuff about how much we will need to live on when the time comes...whoa! Luckily we do participate in TIAA-CREFF, where the employer puts in money and you put in money and then it is invested in various options and grows (hopefully) Anyhoo, he advocates making the maximum contribution every year that you can make (an additional 20,000 per year is the max) and I said to myself, does he know who we work for? There is no spare $20,000 hanging around my house, I can tell you that. But it did get us thinking, which we have to do, and the Husband has bought in to it, which is good as well. Now we just gotta get us a Roth IRA...

There's an awful lot of trust involved in planning for retirement, and not just living trusts, etc. If you are in a committed relationship where your finances are entwined, and then you are no longer, you're in trouble. I see the divorces that happen to folks after thirty years can have real devastating consequences for retirement. So I guess your last partner better be your best partner!

I joined facebook at a friend's invitation, and I can see why people get hooked on the computer. That alone could be absorbing, but if you have a blog as well, and are doing im (I don't), and etc, etc, etc, - the information highway can take you for a very long and absorbing ride. So ends the rants of the old lady.

Got to go put my feet up. Heat and humidity and not enough fluids and lots of sitting at the keyboard equals ankles the size of...well, way bigger than they ought to be.

So what

So what? I'd like that to be my mantra, but it isn't. Would really like to run away. Can't stand just about everyone. Oh, and the tests are in, menopause is here, in a big way. Woo woo. Maybe that explains things. Then again, do I care? I must say, when I first found out, I was excited and felt empowered. I have no idea why. It has been downhill since then. I have no idea why. But if I could be independently wealthy, quit my job, buy a new house and several hybrid cars, and hire a cook like Oprah (the real secret to the times she has lost weight) I would be all set.

Just another Thursday evening

Heard the "M" word today: Muggy. It finally hit the am weathercast. I hate muggy. I'm sure they exist, but I don't believe I know anyone who likes it. Of course, there may be closet muggy lovers out there...stand up, speak up, muggy lovers! I grew up with muggy, I know muggy. Spent 1 1/2 years in the Philippines, where there's an entire muggy season.

Tomorrow is movie night, just us girls. The Daughter has been planning this since the Dad left to go do a week of Katrina relief in Mississippi. Apparently we need to eat Chinese food and junk food and she is expecting me to stay awake for 4 video's. Don't know if that is going to happen!

Moanin and groanin

Sometimes things just suck. The last few days have kinda sucked. My shoulder has been really bad, and the cortisone shot was not fun. Not the shot, hell, I give myself a weekly injection that stings more, no, the THUMB. The dr. had to stretch out my arm and then press really REALLY hard on my shoulder to get the right spot. Tears came. "That was just my thumb" said the dr., thinking I had reacted to the shot that hadn't yet come. No you idiot, that's exactly the problem, your damn thumb. Not that I told him. Should've. He can take it. Has a good sense of humor. Then we parted ways, and because I had cried and was trying not to cry anymore, at least until I got outside, there was no real end to the appointment. I stood at the desk like an idiot, trying not to look at anyone so they wouldn't see my face, and he went off to the next patient. Kind of like in the movies when the couple has regrets and everybody just slinks away.

As long as I'm going on about stuff bothering me, I hate Mother's Day. Enuf said.

This hasn't been enlightening or insightful. Just a lot of grumping. Well, sometimes you've got to grump. Sometimes I don't want to think about the people that have it worse than I do, I just want to have a little pity party for me. So today I'm having it in bloggerville.

Windy City and back

Just back from Chicago. Went to an annual meeting of a users group for the system we use at work. Eh, not such a great conference, and oh, by the way, since the company was bought out by another company, there won't be a users group, at least the way there has been in the past. Not many improvements to our system either. Well, it was fun while it lasted.

The hotel, however, was another matter. Brand new, still a few kinks, but neat things like aroma therapy scents in the common areas, not overpowering, but nice. High def tv, that the Husband loved, and a tv in the mirror in the bathroom - yes, you heard right, in the bathroom mirror. When the mirror fogged up, the tv was still clear, and there was a rectangular clear space in the middle. Odd and interesting feature. Thought it odd that the whole mirror didn't stay clear.

We were supposed to go hear the Girl sing with her choir Saturday. They were doing the children's chorus parts of Britten's War Requiem. They sang at Symphony Hall in Boston on Friday. We were in Chicago, and were expecting to hear them at in a local performance on Saturday. Climbed all the way up to the second balconey, my 84 year old mother in law climbed all the stairs, sat in a very overheated section where the kids were, only to have the poor kid have to leave because of a headache. Poor thing. I'm sorry we didn't hear it, but relieved to be out of that heat - it was that oppressive.

Today we went to hear the Boy's last high school concert. My nephew played in the band in the first half. The Boy sang with the chorus, and had a solo. He sang "Some Enchanted Evening". Proud mom. Proud Aunt.

Saturday musings

Fell asleep on the loveseat (again) last night. Lights out before 9:30. Oh to be young again! Woke up way earlier than usual (4:30 am, or as the Husband, a.k.a. the Dad, calls it, "O Dark Thirty"), and earlier than I had to be.

Realized that I had forgotten my injection. Once a week I get to stick myself with 50 mg. of Enbrel, as well as ingesting 25 mg of methotrexate, either of which can give me liver damage or lymphoma. Sound like fun yet? The injection itself doesn't hurt, but the drug? Well, it sucks. Burns and stings like hell. Apparently they have to make it more acidic in order to give it a longer shelf life. Oh, and the injections have to be refrigerated, and that makes travel just that much more fun. I used to swear when I did it. F, F, F, you get the picture. Then I had some epiphany, and decided that if I tried to relax (not so easy) and if I said the Our Father, Protestant edition with the "for Thine is the Kingdom...etc. it takes just long enough to get me through the entire injection. Still stings, but works much better. Apparently, I also realized I have to have privacy to do it. I don't have any places where the Husband and I haven't pretty much gone in terms of full disclosure (he emptied bedpans during my labor with our second kid, can't get much more open than that) but this thing is different. I need to be alone. Don't quite know why, but it hasn't worked out as well if he's been around. So now I go it alone.

Why do I sadistically abuse myself with dangerous drugs? I have Psoriatic Arthritis, among other medical issues) which means I get to have two, two, two autoimmune diseases in one! The joy and fun of itchy, ugly patches of skin that make swimming in public less about how the big fat body looks in the suit and more about "will they think it's contagious and ask me to leave?" Responding to comments about poison ivy, (no it's not), and well meaning "does it hurt?"remarks (sometimes I want to crawl out of my skin, but thanks for asking) . Shopping becomes a search for 3/4 length sleeves, unless it is bad and has migrated to my hands. Then forget it all. Oh, and the skin part is also affected by stress. Stress!!! Just having the disease is stressful!

Then there is the systemic arthritis part. Sometimes, sure, there's pain, and my knees have taken turns blowing up with fluid, and there are problems with the tendon sheaths in my hands. But almost rather have that than the skin part. Much more socially acceptable.

I need to keep on top of the medication because it is an autoimmune disease, my body is destroying its connective tissue. Even if there isn't any pain, the destruction of the joints can take place.

Some day I will bore you all with my other medical issues (and there are a few) but I think I brought this beautiful and finally sunny day down low enough. I will go and work on Happy Thoughts. You do the same.

There and back again

According to the t shirt I got this past week, I'm a "Proud CSU Parent". Yup, the Boy and I went to Cleveland for college orientation. The Dad and the Girl stayed home. Drove. And drove. And drove. You get the picture. Pennsylvania is beautiful, but way longer than it ought to be. Route 80 is truck city, and it can be annoying to have a multi ton missile dogging your tail. Orientation was actually pretty good, though lots of walking; a small college feel for a good sized university.

We earned another t shirt for being one of the few to come from far away. That was the question all day long. "Where are you from?""Connecticut?!!""Why?" Apparently most are from the greater Cleveland area. Well, the Boy wants to go away from home, and thinks that folks are nicer in the Midwest. They are nicer in general as you head west. There are just too many of us packed into the East. Rats without enough room...you remember the sociology experiments. We're not that horrible, well, there are some... We have good friends in Cleveland, and so we're comfortable with him out there. I liked the school, forward thinking in ways the place I work at can't be. Came home to find out that the Boy had gotten a talent scholarship - he does have pipes - you go Boy!!!!! The Mom and the Dad are chest burstin' proud!

I was cruising on the high - good trip, scholarship, etc., when I went back to work today, then I heard the news about Virginia Tech and the massacre that occurred there this morning. I think it was a turning point for me of some kind. I've lived through astronauts burning on the launch pad, and the Viet Nam war in my living room, Nixon's resignation, the threat of "the bomb", the taking of the US embassy in Iran and the year of waiting after, the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, Challenger, Columbia, Columbine, NYC, Flight 93, and the Pentagon, the poor girls in the Amish school...and all the other agonies in between. We don't live far from Ground Zero. As an adult and later as a parent, I've been touched, and I've mourned, and I've stressed, and worried, and cried, and wondered if my God was listening.

Today seemed different. There is usually buzz about things on the outside world that get through at work, and then that's what people talk about. Today I didn't hear about this until late in the afternoon. Even more strange, folks who did know didn't mention it. We weren't unfeeling, we felt badly. But it was as if we didn't want to talk about it much, like we had reached some kind of saturation point. Someone went on to spend more time investigating a local scandal online. We talked a little. But it felt like we were full, unable to take another blow. Perhaps we were just weary, thinking of how the news would be filled with ghastly images, sound bites, things that are too black to think about. The Dad and I are sending our kids out in to the world, and it frightens the hell out of me. That could be my kid that doesn't come home from college. I don't know. But my heart is with all those families who are in agony tonight.

Poetry

Anyone with some time to waste can click on the link to Cranky Patient's poetry. When I put the poems up last night, I realized that there was a lot of talk about death. I hope it is just because I am at that place, where people I love are following that natural pattern of leaving, the previous generation slowly moving on.

I know that I am influenced by death in ways I don't even realize by the loss of my dad when I was thirteen, and perhaps that intimacy with death influences my writing. My husband once said that I had never gotten over my dad dying. May be. But what does getting over mean anyway? In one sense, I must have "gotten over it" or I would have stayed stuck in that moment, the singular moment when everything changed. In another sense, that one moment influenced who I am today, so it is always with me. For example, I've thought about how I would live when I became a widow. Not if, when. My mother said she never thought about becoming a widow. Guess you go with what you know.

Losing more loved ones, or close calls like my aunt's illness last year, gets me thinking about life and love and loss in ways that may have been dormant while building a marriage and raising kids. Not that I haven't suffered losses since my dad, there have been many, including three vibrant teenagers, two cousins in their 20's, and several in their forties who left behind young families, none of whom should have gone so soon. All were mourned. But something different is going on now in my head.

Perhaps it is my head that is in a different place. Turning 50 seems to have had a profound effect on my thinking processes (those that I can remember anyway), and it certainly has become a time of intense introspection, not unlike adolescence, but without the acne and worries about who to ask to prom (all girls school, we had to ask). If only that body, this brain. Heavy sigh.

Letting Go

We're about to send our eldest off to college, and the next one is starting to college search. Soon we'll be "empty nesters". Very soon. And it doesn't upset me. I'm looking forward to it. Truly!
At one time I wasn't sure that I would. I kept looking back on when they were very young and wishing I could have a "do over", that I could go back to when their problems and lives were simpler, and in retrospect, easier. I think my friends and family expected me to be that kind of mom, and try to keep them close, and maybe I did, at least a little bit. Perhaps I feel ok now with the process of them moving on because my kids are looking forward to it, and because there are glimpses of the the future that I have found enjoyable and perhaps exciting. Like today, when I'm home alone for a few hours with just the dog, and there's no tv on, no radio, no one asking for anything from me. I never knew I liked quiet so much, at least on occasion.
I know I will miss them and the chaos too, but I'm ready for this future. I've already started planning care packages to send! I may still be one of the mothers who is crying as they drive away from leaving their child at school, but they'll be happy tears.

Opening Salvo

Like every other weirdo, saint, grandmother, movie star, etc.out there with a blog, here I am. Love me, hate me, whatever, from the privacy of your internet connection. I promise to do the same.