Damn dog.

I've been craving cookies for a couple of weeks now. Not just any cookies, but my mom's oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. They are devine, with just a dash of nutmeg that gives them a unique flavor.

It seems like whenever I've had time to make cookies lately, the kids aren't home. I don't dare make cookies when the kids aren't home. We have a tasting tradition. I mix the First Stage (butter, sugar, brown sugar, eggs, vanilla) and we all taste. Mmmmm. Then I mix in the Second Stage (flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg) and we all taste. Mmmmm. Finally I add the oatmeal and chocolate chips and we taste some more. When I was a kid and my mom would make these cookies, my sister would get all bent out of shape because she said my tastes were so big they threw off the recipe. Pfffft. I think the cookies ended up tasting just fine. And so we continue the tradition of ginormous tastes after every stage.

Saturday morning the kids were home and I had some time to make cookies. The dough was delish. I made just over 4 dozen cookies. I had them spread out on the kitchen counter cooling when we headed out to soccer games.

When we returned home two hours later, my mouth was watering for a cookie. The kids each had one before we left, but I was too busy pulling soccer gear together to eat one. Grateful Dad hollered at me from the kitchen asking if I had already put the cookies away. No, I left them sitting at the back of the counter to cool completely.

As I walked into the kitchen, Grateful Dad had a quizzical look on his face. He looked at me, then looked at the counter. I looked at him, then looked at the counter. We looked back at each other, then both looked at the dog.

The dog lowered her head, drooped her ears, started slinking to her bed where she exposed her belly with a pathetic, "don't be mad at me" look on her face.

The cookies were gone. All four dozen of them. Well, all but two. Two that I'm sure had been licked by a doggie tongue. The paper towels they had been cooling on were barely disturbed. The only evidence I could find was one stray crumb on the dining room floor. That, and the horrendous gassiness from the dog.

I can't believe she ate four dozen cookies and I didn't even get a one.

Damn dog. I'm still craving cookies.

There must be some mistake

I received an email today from an old high school pal.

"Please update me with your address and phone number. I'm getting ready to send out the first mailing for our 20th reunion!"

Um, there must be some mistake. My 20th high school reunion can't possibly be coming up. That would make me....old. I'm not that old. Really, I'm not.

Somebody must have the dates confused.

Funerals suck.

My grandmother passed away in the early hours of August 24th.

As I began making my plans to head up for the service, we received additional bad news. My uncle had been admitted to the hospital. In the rural town they live in, there was apparently a shortage of doctors as two of the town's doctors are serving in Iraq. My uncle was life-flighted to the closest city. He passed away two days after my grandmother, on August 26th.

So I went home for two funerals.

My aunt, having just lost her mother (whom she never lived more than 3 blocks from) and her husband, is not doing well. Her way of dealing with her grief seems to be to lash out at the rest of us in some pretty nasty ways.

It has been a difficult time for everyone. Family issues and conflicts that have long bubbled just under the surface came bursting forth with everyone together for the two funerals.

Let me give you a piece of advice: If you're ever at a funeral, and you consider starting a sentence with, "I've kept my mouth shut about this for 22 years but I'm just going to say it now...", go ahead and just keep your mouth shut for another couple of days. Really. The world won't end if you don't get it out right then and there. If you've waited 22 years, you can wait two more days.

Facing the inevitable

Death seems to have a way of sneaking up on us, even when we're expecting it. Or should be expecting it.

My grandmother, who is 92, had a severe stroke nearly two weeks ago.

I know that she has had a long life.

I know that this is part of the circle of life.

I know that it woud be better for her to pass on than to live in a world where she cannot swallow, cannot speak, and must rely on machines for her daily existence.

I know all of this. Yet it still feels unexpected. I don't want her to die. I'm not ready for her to die.

She's not ready to die either, which makes it even harder, I think.

She's fighting it. She vigorously shakes her head no when her "Preacher Boy" begins to talk to her about going to be with her God.

She has had a long life. I wonder why she is fighting death now in some ways, but letting it take it's course in others. Is she afraid?

I think that her fight is futile. Her will cannot overcome the limitations of her body. Preacher Boy prayed for her. Prayed that her God would give her the strength to heal, if that is his will.

Her body is beginning to shut down, even as her mind is clear and she is aware of what's going on around her.

I want to shoo death away from her as though it was some pesky insect. I want it to go away, to let me have my grandmother.

I'm not ready for this. I know it's coming and I'm not ready for it.

Rock beats scissors

Our momentous decision has been made.

In the tradition of most momentous decisions in our family, this one was decided by rochambeau. As my children say, three times is fair.

Paper beat rock.
Two rocks tied.
Rock beat scissors.

Yes, after days of emotional deliberation it came down to rock beating scissors. You can't argue with that.

Rochambeau is the way to go.

What a relief to have that out of the way.

Decisions, decisions.

So we have a huge decision that must be made today. It's a rather momentous decision for our family.

I know what makes sense. I know what we should do. I know all the reasons we should do it. It's the right thing to do.

But I don't want to do it. Which makes no sense. I have no good reasons. My only real reason is I don't wanna!

I don't wanna change. I wanna keep everything the same. I wanna turn back the clock, go back to how things were before this decision was upon us.

To top it all off, this momentous decision must be made when I'm smack dab in the middle of a wicked case of PMS. Now that sucks.

Just for today, I want to crawl back into bed and pull the covers up over my head.

Buck Fush

The idiot-in-chief was here last weekend, just a short distance from my house. It was a good day for a protest.

Unfortunately we were running late (as is usual for The Grateful Family) so we got caught in the freeway closure. We finally got off the freeway and found a place to park. He was speaking in a light industrial area and they had the road closed off. So we parked and started walking down the empty road.

Before we got to the main protest, we saw a friend who was leaving. Bush was finishing up his speech and would be leaving down the road we were walking along. Our friend had been further ahead in the main protest and said the Secret Service was taking pictures of the protesters. Kind of creepy.

Since we were running late anyway, we decided to stay put. We were still a quarter mile from the protest site and we didn't know if we'd get down there before Bush finished his speech. We decided to stop and wait for the motorcade to pass us so we could really get a good gander. I must say, it was quite something.

There were a few people scattered along the side of the road near us, but not many. A couple of people 30 feet one direction; two other people 100 yards away in the other direction. Everyone else was in the large group of protestors further down the road.

When the idiot-in-chief left his speech, the motorcycle cops came zooming down the road and each one stopped in front of anyone who was standing on the side of the road. One stopped right in front of us. Grateful Dad asked him if he would arrest us if we all dropped trou and BA'd the President. That's my husband for you. The cop didn't appreciate being spoken to, but he said he wouldn't arrest us as long as we stayed on the sidewalk.

But alas, the machine guns scared us. That, and I didn't particularly believe the cop.

As the motorcade approached, I held both hands high above my head, flashing the peace sign with one hand and flipping him the bird with the other. As the limo with The Dumbass passed us no more than 10 feet away, everyone in the vehicle turned to look at us. I think they saw the kids and thought since we weren't with the main crowd we'd be Bush supporters, but no luck. :)

Weird to know that the President looked right at us as we flipped him off. Weird, but good. Grateful Dad flipped him off and yelled, "You suck!" Grateful 'Tween yelled, "You're a butthead!" hee.

There were probably 20 SUV's in the motorcade, all packed with guys wearing camoflauge and holding machine guns and semi-automatic rifles with scopes. It is really scary to see an SUV whiz by with the back open and a guy in camo sitting there pointing a machine gun at you.

We walked back to our car and headed home. By the time we got back on the freeway, we looked behind us and could see Air Force One had just taken off. Two huge military helicopters were heading from the airport back to the nearest base.

I fucking hate Bush. It was a rather surreal experience.

I do wish we had BA'd him. What a sight that would have been - a nice family out on a Saturday afternoon, all showing Bush their asses.

The idiot-in-chief is coming

Yes, that dumbass GWB is coming to town for a visit. He'll be here in a couple of weeks.

I'd better start getting my protest signs ready!

I may have to go with a classic - "George Bush is a butthole."

When the lying scumbag was gearing up for the Iraq war, we went to a huge protest march. The Grateful 'Tween was younger then - a Young Child, I think. She was just learning to read. This made for some interesting moments at the march. There were many, many protest signs for her to read.

One sign in particular caught her eye.

"What is a but-HO-lee?" she asked.

What? I looked around until I spied the sign in question.

I didn't really want to have to explain what a butthole was right then. I knew that would become the word du jour and the kid would be trying it out in all kinds of inappropriate settings. Like to my mother-in-law. Who would not find it the slightest bit amusing.

I knew I needed to explain it without snickering so that she wouldn't want to keep making me laugh by saying this newfound taboo word.

I couldn't help myself. I snickered.

And with that, a new word was introduced into our family vocabulary. ButHOlee. Hey, it was better than The Glory Hole (but that's a story for another day).

Yes, George Bush IS a butHOlee. It could make a good protest sign.

Any other good protest sign suggestions out there?

Life isn't fair.

Why does having a two-career family have to be so hard?

Why is it that when one of us is presented with a career opportunity, it usually means the other has to give something up?

How do you decide who gets what they want and who gets the shaft? Because it always seems to be an either-or.

My partner can't take advantage of the career opportunity he's been presented with - his dream job - unless I give up what I want. Which in this case means giving up my career.

I want him to have his dream job. I just want to keep mine, too.

It sucks. And it's not fair.

I'm smarter than I knew!

Guess what I got yesterday! Guess! Guess!

Give up? Ok, I"ll tell you.

I got my diploma for my Master's of Arts degree.

Yay! I was very excited. Particularly as it was somewhat unexpected.

I stopped into the Graduate Studies office to find out what paperwork I needed to submit for my degree. I thought I had just completed the final degree requirements a couple of weeks ago.

Imagine my surprise when they told me to go to the Registrar's office and pick up my diploma! Where it had been sitting for a year.

Silly me, I imagined that someone would have TOLD me I was awarded a Master's degree. I must have been crazy to think that someone would have let me know that I had a diploma sitting in the Registrar's office, ready to be picked up. Crazy. That's me.

Who knew I've been Master's degree-smart for a year? I'm always the last to know.

Here we go again...

And so it begins, a new term. All the fresh, young faces staring at me...no, wait. They're not staring at me. What *are* they staring at?

That one's reading a newspaper. The two in the front row are surfing the internet on their laptops. The one in the far back is already asleep. Class hasn't even started yet so I guess at least I didn't put her to sleep. The three sorority girls along the edge of the classroom are whispering and giggling. They continue their whispering and giggling as I begin speaking and they don't stop until I glare at them. Then they look at each other and let out one last giggle. Hee.

The emails have already started.

"Where is the classroom?" I don't know, check the campus map just like I'll have to.

"The textbook is expensive! Where can I find it cheaper?" Heck if I know.

"Is there an assignment do [sic] this week?" Yes, that would be the one that's listed right on the syllabus with the due date right next to it. You did look at the syllabus, didn't you?

"Is this going to be on the test?" Yes. Everything I say will be on the test. Everything you read will be on the test. Memorize all of my facial expressions and gestures because those just might be on the test.

"How many A's do you think you'll give?" None. You definitely won't be getting one.

"Get back to me ASAP." Right. I'll get right on that. Because I'm at your beck and call 24/7. Your email just went to the bottom of my respond list.

And then there's the students from last term.

"I need to meet with you ASAP to discuss my course grade. I want to talk about my midterm grade, my paper grade, my final exam grade, and my final course grade." Alright, come see me during my office hours.

"I can't wait for your office hours! I want to see you right away! I'm very worried about my grade!" Well, the time to come talk to me about your midterm grade was after the midterm. By this I mean within a week after receiving your midterm grade, not 7 weeks later after the course has finished. Same with your paper grade.

This term I'm instituting email hours. Students can email me whenever they want, but I will only read and respond to email between the hours of 8:30-5:30, Monday-Friday. So all of you who want me to respond "ASAP" will have to wait. I do have a life outside of school.

Luckily there are several students in my class this term who I've had in classes before. I even like them. One told me she was nervous about this class but was so relieved upon seeing that I was going to be her TA. Another one has been in my class the last two terms. I teased him that he must be stalking me but he swears he didn't know I was TAing for this class when he signed up. He's a good sport.

Only 10 more weeks to go.