Monthly Archives: July 2012

Bizzy and a birthday

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What a crazy 48 hours…

First, let me thank all those who wrote encouraging messages and had kind thoughts about Rousseau, the Wonder Dog. As most of you know from Facebook, he has Horner’s Syndrome, and will make a slow — but hopefully complete — recovery.

It was bizarre: the doctor put adrenaline drops in his bad eye, and it cleared up immediately, proving that something is amiss in the transmissions between his brain and his eye. When given artificial stimulation (the adrenaline), the eye behaved as it was supposed to. As you can see by the picture, it was fine for the ride home, although it reverted to its weak state by bedtime. The good news, of course, is that while it is clouding his vision a bit, it’s not hurting him, so he felt pretty peppy when the doctor sprung him. He still really, really wanted to ride shotgun. :-)

Well, scratch that. He just got up, and he’s squinting and panting. Not a good sign. I will call the doctor today and see what he suggests. Yeesh…

But on to the bizzy and the birthday. The Thriller is 61 years young today, and we are celebrating tonight with a family feast out at BFF Kay & Bob’s. Should be great fun. Today will be spent baking two cakes (one for the meal and one for decorating class tomorrow night), and making chicken and noodles for the birthday boy. The house already smells goot.

The rest of my Tuesday will be spent getting the house ready for overnight company. My nephew and his friend are staying with us (I have an empty nest of bedrooms, whereas Mavis has a full house) to break up their driving trip. It’ll be great to see him; it’s been a couple of years.

So, I guess I’ll wrap this up, finish the coffee, and keep moving. Yay!

Another nervy time

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Today is Rousseau’s appointment with the eye specialist in Akron, so this afternoon around 2:30, we will pack him in the car and take off. It really shouldn’t be a nervy time, as we’ll likely get some answers. I guess I’m slightly worried about what the answers might be.

Lots going on today and tomorrow, sheebus. And I still haven’t ordered music for school. Here we go again… :P

Akron today, and a visit from our nephew from Florida in the morning. Tomorrow is also the Thriller’s birthday! He wants it low-key, but we will see what kind of fuss we can kick up anyway. Still trying to figure out how to get 61 candles in a pineapple upside-down cake.

But first, a rare treat: kaffee klatsch in Mansfield with RtB fiend Meg. Haven’t seen her in many moons, so this will be great. Then it’s off to various retail outlets, and back home to get the men in the car and jet to Akron.

Then I shall rest. I hope.

Off to Mornday! Have a goody.

Hot fun in the summertime

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Awesome afternoon on Charles Mill Lake yesterday. It was supposed to rain, but ended up being beautiful.

Seamus & Hannah have a pontoon, and they and the Js invited us out for a ride and a cookout — right on the boat! — yesterday. What fun. We motored around the lake at about 5 MPH: the perfect speed for this non-lover of aquatic travel. (I have a couple of reeeeally good stories to tell about seagoing horrors.)

Jake, first mate

The boys are little fish, and totally comfortable on the boat and in the water. We pulled into a small cove and parked the boat so they could get out and play. It was a perfect afternoon.

We were driven back to the dock, just feet away from where we’d parked. Talk about door service! We drove the 15 minutes back home and sat down to watch the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics. I have had much to say on Facebook about it, both last night and this morning, and the blogs and news outlets were lit up with reviews today, so I won’t go into it yet.

Mr. Pool Noodle, fearless swimmer

Perhaps tomorrow — although the little minnows are coming to stay the night, and Grammie might be too worn out to do much of anything. :-)

Suffice it to say that it was a very different Opening Ceremony — unlike anything we’ve ever seen before, guaranteed. “Spectacle” could describe it in a couple of different ways. More on all that later (or in the comments, mayhap?).

Hey, it’s the weekend! Café mocha all around.

FO

From order, chaos

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*insert circus music*

What IS IT with me? I have got to get my collective crap together.

After last night’s minor debacle in the parking lot following cake decorating class, I came home to a lovely, clean workspace. It was 8:30 p.m., and I had a plan. HAD. I was going to begin research for Dinner Theatre programming (I’ve done nothing and RtB fiend Greg is waiting to start set design). What did I do instead? Started working on an arrangement for my vocal jazz ensemble that I won’t even think of using until January. What the…?

Focus, Fink. Focus.

It’s like I don’t what to do next, in spite of having a list. What good’s a list if it all looks like a research paper written in Sanskrit? I am going kookoo. Case in point: I just got an email from the new superintendent of my school district. Nice guy. He asked me if I was the one who could give him a username and password to get into the website to edit his page. So I immediately fire up the website admin panel, and…WAIT. I’m still writing this morning’s blog post. Why don’t I finish that first, THEN give Mr. B. his login credentials?

I have the attention span of a paper clip, that’s why. Absolutely no self-discipline. Chaos. Mayhem.

All right, I’m good now. Go do the login for the super, email it to him, then get started. Right. Got it.

Now what was I going to do today again……….? :P

From chaos, order

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Yep, I confess. Yesterday, I had a full-blown, super deluxe, stage 5 nuclear meltdown. Complete control rod failure.

What does this entail, you ask? Oh, nothing much, other than dumping out drawers, frantically pawing books off the shelves onto the floor, sweeping the surface of the desk with my arm, and flinging across the room two full pails of pens, pencils, flash drives, Post-It Notes and markers. Office Tornado. Parlor Cyclone. Massteria.

The Thriller, downstairs in his office, thought I was using Rousseau as a bowling ball. (Truth is, poor Rousseau was cowering under the dining room table.)

Why did I do this, you ask? Well…I couldn’t find something.

I know, I know. That’s ridiculous. Tear apart your parlor because you can’t find a piece of paper or whatever it was that went missing. It’s nuts, and a major character flaw. I used to clear my dresser in this fashion when I got mad. Jewelry box, framed photos, loose change, alarm clock, lamp…schlinnnnng!…away it all went. Actually, it was somewhat therapeutic, in a completely Outer Limits, beyond-screwed-up way. I’ll stop short of suggesting you try it.

After cleaning off the desk, picking up 3,000 papers, and putting the books back

Anyway, the Thriller takes these occasional tirades as a cry for help, and once again, he came to my rescue. He suggested — as he did four years ago around this time (dear God, I’m a hoarder) — a cleansing of the room. You know, kind of a demolition and rebuilding project. And since the demolition had already taken place, he was well on his way. So I decided, halfway during the cleanup phase, to photo-chronicle the transformation.

He went to Wally and bought one of those Rubbermaid stacked-up drawer units, so I wouldn’t have to smash all my office supplies in one desk drawer and two little cubbies in the hutch. Then he brought up an oak desk (no easy task) from his office and put it in the corner so I’d have a little more storage and a place for my printer that wasn’t the top of my space heater. He brought order to my chaos, calmly and happily, without once threatening to Baker Act me.

And then there was peace.

He’s a good egg.

He was so inspired by his magic trick in my parlor, he went down to his office and committed the same neatness crime in his own space.

And now that the transformation has taken place, all is in order and I am calm. There’s the whole issue of not getting ANYTHING on the list done yesterday, but hey, there’s always today and tomorrow and tomorrow, right?

Welp, we’re off to the veterinary opthalmologist in Akron today. (Apparently, there is such a thing.) Gotta get Pup’s eye taken care of. Then it’s back in time for cake decorating class. I must admit I’m really starting to like this “act like you’re retired” thing…

Have a great day!

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