So what? It's Christmas

1. What natural disasters (earthquakes, tsunami, volcanoes, wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes/typhoons/cyclones, floods, landslides, etc) is your area prone to?

Hurricanes. Last summer we felt the DC earthquake. My sister. Yeah...

2. What natural disasters have you experienced firsthand?

Hurricanes. In particular, Hurricane Fran, 1996.



This is Oak Island, NC. where my family's beach house was, before we sold it in 2005. The worst thing I saw was this little crushed house that still bore it's name sign:
Our Dream. I don't know if I have ever cried so hard in my life as I did at that sight.

3. Have you ever been evacuated due to a natural disaster?

Back in the seventies, we were down during a hurricane. A Coast Guard officer came to our door. I remember his yellow slicker blowing in the furious winds. He told us to evacuate and Daddy said we'd be all right. The officer took out a clip board and asked him the name and number of our next of kin. When we left (and we did) the water was coming across the road and sea foam blew around like cotton.

4. Have you made/do you make any special preparations in case of natural disaster where you live?

No. Just know it is coming, and that wait for the endless howls of the wind.

5. What type of natural disaster scares you the most?

The hurricanes used to, but since the house is no longer my own I don't fear them as much. Of course, I know that if I discovered it had been destroyed (along with the pieces of my heart I left in there) I would be crushed.

Friday Five, two days late and a dollar short

1.Where have you been that could best be described as a winter wonderland?

Ha! No where, really. My back yard? This winter has seen more snow than I can remember in a long time, maybe ever.



2.In what way might you describe this as the winter of your discontent?

Oh, BUDDY. My husband has been in the hospital twice: once with gall bladder removal which turned out to have complications, then again two weeks later he spent four more days in with pancreatitis. I got a really bad cold. My Aunt Carol Bryant died. BCBS yanked us around some more about Bryant's hidradenitis treatments. Should I go on?

3.What was the last wintergreen-flavored thing you tasted?

Frost mints. But Andy ate most of them! :D

4.Is there anyone in your life who could be nicknamed Old Man Winter?

Heh heh heh...



5.Now that the holidays have passed, is there anything good about the winter that remains?

I hate the After Christmas blahs. I always feel as if I didn't do up the holidays "hard" enough...you know? People talk about being so busy with friends and parties and gift buying and making special treats. we never seem to be involved in any of that. I actually planned my wedding for February because I felt like it would give me something to look forward to after the holidays. Our 22nd anniversary was Friday. Oh well. :D

New year, some new stuff

We went out and bought a new sofa and love seat to replace the 18 year old set we had.



Tripp has always wanted a recliner since we moved into the new house and had a den AND a living room. The den is a reclaimed bedroom, and it's small. We could not fit a recliner in the room along with the sofa and love seat. So, this time we bought a reclining love seat and sofa. You can lie around like a slug in several different positions now.

Friday Five, the Final 2010 edition

2010 is almost over.



I would enter a sound file here, but I am too lazy.

1. Name one thing you do everyday:

Tell someone that I love them. I have experienced losing a very close loved one when we had just had an argument, so this is of utmost importance to me. You never know if you might not see that person again.

2. Name two things you wish you could learn.

Math and how to be tidy. I am retarded at math (ask anyone) and a huge slob. Not nasty. Just a slob. Clothes everywhere. Mail everywhere. Everything everywhere. I don't have time to be neat. If I was able to stay at home, then yeah. But not with my job.

3. Name three things that remind you of your childhood:

TV and music from the 70's, the smell of pipe tobacco, and Summer.

4. Name four things you love to eat but rarely do.



Lobster, fried shrimp, macaroni and cheese, and fried bay scallops. Screw those huge ocean scallops.

5. Name five things that make you feel good.



The sun on my head, the sound of the ocean, digging my toes into beach sand, waking up in my camper, a hot shower when you're cold, and a good meal.

I like to think of myself as a non-violent person. But when I get angry, I revert to my reptilian brain, and I need to slap someone.




It's usually someone who can really press my buttons. Someone who knows me well enough to know exactly what will piss me off the most.

Today it's my son.

He messed around and did not register for next semester. Now he has to...wait, I'll have to hustle him up so he can register and pay Monday morning. I have nagged him since November to register, and he gave me that "I will! I will! Gah!" Then it turned to "I did already!" When I asked what classes or how many hours so I could pay the bill, he demurred and always said "I don't remember."




Color me suspicious.

Finally, my Daddy got after him. I relayed the message to His Majesty that his grandfather requested an audience with him, regarding his Further Higher Education. Great drama ensues. I go to play with my E Reader for a while. Time passes. I went in his room and he is fervently on line trying to register for classes. Ah ha! The worm turns. So, after some back and forthing, seems he will not be able to register until January 3rd, when the school opens again. The last day to pay for classes is January 4th. Oh ho! What an extended time frame we have to work with!

Then today...

I went into his room and asked him for a Hershey Kiss, of which my sister gave him several bags for Christmas. He was sitting at that damn World of Warcraft and he looks at me like "NO." But he said "Why?"

Why do you think? I didn't say that, but I said "Can I please have a Kiss?"

He sat there and mocked my expression, blinking at me and turning his head around like a girl. Then he ignored me. Look, I cannot stand for someone to make me feel stupid, and this 18 year old snip of my DNA was making me feel stupid. Yes, yes, yes, I know that no one can make me feel ANY way, that I am the master of my fate, the captain of my soul, blah blah...but we're still human. And he is in the Button Pusher category. I just said "You know, you're mean. Let me know how this being mean crap works out for you.", and I went out the door and slammed the Hell out of it.





I guess I need to reel it in. But dammit, have some respect and some gratitude. You live in your own room with anything you want, you drive a car and you know as long as you go to school and make decent grades you won't have to work.

Yeah, he's spoiled. He's an only child on purpose. (We knew it would be impossible to send multiple kids to college, so we made the conscious decision that one kid was enough. And I didn't want any more kids.) Not to mention the fact that he is an only grandchild, which is even worse than being an only child. So he's rotten. But he has manners and knows what is polite and impolite. I guess it's just safe to be a jackass to people who won't reject you.

I see so much of who I used to be in him. I wish he could stop and think like it took me years to do and correct these kinds of behavior that I used to foist on other people. We have to reach a point where we realize it isn't everybody else in the world that's being a douche to us: we're the douche.

A "Five". Screw the day of the week...

1.When you’re sick in bed, do you prefer to be left alone or to be taken care of?


Leave. me. alone. Until I call for you. They you better move like that ass is on fire.

2.How difficult or cooperative are you as a patient?

Oh, my God, I am compliant. Give me drugs, give me shots, give me an IV if you must, just get me better.

3.It’s just a really bad cold so all you can do is ride it out. What are your strategies?

Usually I go to work. This way I get more bang for my buck...or virus, as it were, and I can knock a few kids out with it! Ah, I jest. Being diabetic and having a kid with a disease that requires regular doctor visits, I can't squander my sicks days. so I soldier on.

4.How ill do you have to feel in order to shut it down for the day?

Really? Well, it depends. If it's been a long long stretch with no vacation days, I might have to jet for a small thing. Usually though, I've had a doctor's appointment or my son has (and his are at Duke, so it's a major gotta-get-out-and -go-type thing) in the recent past, so I am cool. Now, back before I started teaching the academically gifted kids...hell, I could be having a bad hair day.

5.Waves of nausea are washing over you and through you. Do you fight them off, or do you just throw up to get it over with?

Oh, God, go ahead and shout Europe at the sink. Why stave off the inevitable? I've always been an easy puker. Lately, though, I will try and try and it just won't happen for me. I guess since last March's Barfest 2010 my body figures I've had enough vomiting for the year.

The above is really needed in my home. Usually one or the other kitty (and you can tell which one by the...expulsion) will have a hurk in the morning as I go to work and I am too late to clean it up. I need a tent sign to put over it 'til afternoon.

Oh my God...

Has it really been that long?

Yes, yes it has.

I am ashamed at myself for not doing any writing. Let's just put it this way: my health has gone to Hell this year, I have a new teaching position at my old school which is less taxing but involved a (get ready for a term I REALLY HATE) 'learning curve'(spits). There. So I've made my half-assed excuses, now we can move on.

Look. I'm not going to scoot to the edge of my chair and clap my hands over my knees and say "SO much has happened!" because of course it has but not a whole lot of it was that noteworthy. The holiday season has come and, for all of my own intents and purposes, has gone. I have not published a damn thing even though people bring it up with some regularity. I have become friends with new people and become disenchanted with others. My mother and father are in poorer and poorer health, which makes my sister more and more anxious and consequently, more and more bitchy towards me. I am cutting it off there because it's starting to get involved and draw blood and I did not intend to go there.

As I type there are six inches of alien snow on the ground here in SE North Carolina, more than I have seen in many years. I have been hibernating all day but tomorrow I must venture out as the cats are bereft of canned food and it's really pretty excrutiating to live with then when they are. They are rotten and won't eat the dry. I was in a store the other day and saw a pet food place mat that said it perfectly. One circle on the mat had "FOOD" written under it. The other said "NASTY DRY CRAP". Speaking of cats, my sister bought them cat nip toys for Christmas. Now Oliver could give a rat's, you feel me? But ZOOEY...! Well, who knew? Absolutely embarassing. She'll be on Kitty Rehab for sure this coming spring.

I go back to work January 3rd. That means I have to start getting up at 5 am January 4th. I neglected to tell you that school starts an hour earlier this year. Yes, we get out an hour earlier as well, but somehow I wind up staying as late as I did before anyway. I won't even go into the trauma induced December 1st when I had to put on a five-school Forensics tournament...