Feel Like Complaining

This morning as I was shopping for my mom I started thinking about all of the different masks we wear when around different people. I don't even recall what triggered the thought, but I think it was when the box boy (for the lack of a better term) passed me in an aisle and said a quiet hello instead of being his chatty self at the check stand. Are we all like that? Acting one way around one person and different for another? I feel like a have a different mask for every person I know. I act quiet and patient for some people, even when I don't feel like being so. With my mom, I am very cautious about what I say. We are close but after a terrible argument several years ago, she threw some things in my face that I had confided in her many years prior, when I was just a kid. It was a rough time and even though we are fine now, I will never let her get close to my tender underbelly  for fear of being ripped open again. Around my brothers I resort to my insecure childhood and try...

Remember when Drivers Ed was part of the curriculum in school? And it was free. Now it has to be taken from an independent business (in our state anyway) and runs about 500 bucks. Although my daughter is already 15 1/2 she has decided to wait until summer to take the course. Her homework load is too much and driving in snow is probably not the best thing for a new driver. That means that she won't be licensed until she is well into her 16th year which is fine by me. I truthfully think 16 is too young to be operating a huge machine on wheels. Their little brains are just not developed enough to understand the consequences for the decisions they choose to make. I should know, I was there once. I grew up in a very small town and we all took the same class taught by Mr. Green.  Three students in a car and Mr. Green in the passenger seat with his foot raised above his special break pedal, just in case. I don't remember much of the class or the driving. Our town was about 20 miles ...

This is the creepiest thing I've ever read about Spokane. It's hard to believe stuff went on that long ago and I wish I could see some kind of follow up to find out if they caught the guy. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From our archives, 100 years ago A "fiend" nicknamed jack the Spanker was preying on Spokane schoolboys. The man, who police surmised was a homeless "degenerate", had been prowling around Spokane neighborhoods and going up to young boys and announcing, in a businesslike manner, "I am going to spank you. You're a bad boy, and you need it." Then he partially undressed the boys and "cruelly beat them," sometimes with a leather strap or a length of bailing wire. The latest attack came in the Rockwood area, where he confronted five boys who were out playing. He grabbed one 10-year-old and beat him. Three of the four other boys were too scared to run and they too were beaten. One was choked "nearly into insensibility." ...

This has been kind of a stressful month for our daughter and I suppose me too. I shouldn't make Dr. appointments for her right in the middle of State testing. They're probably the most important test a High Schooler will take because if they don't pass, they don't graduate. she has three this week, one in April and math toward the end of the year. That's the one I worry about, she's struggled with Geometry all year. Luckily though she didn't have any homework last night so off to the Oncologist/Hematologist we went. To back up the story a bit she went to a regular checkup a month or so ago and we discussed past heart tests and shoe inserts and then out of the blue she wanted to test her for anemia because she looked pale. They poked her finger and tested twice and found her to be very anemic and then was put on vitamins with iron. No problem right? After we get home and tell hubby, he said we should hold off and have her tested for Thalassemia, because h...

In no way am I making light of the tragedy yesterday and today in Japan and the approaching tsunami's on Hawaii and the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California. I've been kind of tense myself all day waiting to hear about my older brother and his wife who were on vacation in Honolulu. They already had plans to fly home tonight so they are safe and will be on their way home soon. But when I went to check on an elderly friend, I really had to chuckle at her thinking process. Of course the first thing we start talking about, is what is all over the news. She said she had some things in her walker basket that she grabbed in case they had to evacuate. Huh? I looked in the basket and saw two rolls of toilet paper, one box of Kleenex, her walkman radio and a pair of socks. Huh? Also in her room was a set of warm clothes that she got out of the closet just in case she had to stand outside. Why? We live about 30 miles from the Idaho/Washington border. So my thinking is that...

I guess I haven't really felt like writing so will just do a bit of rambling today. I haven't been feeling very well lately, the past few weeks or so. The abdominal pain was so bad over the weekend that I went to acute care. I told the girl that I didn't have insurance so she said she had to tell me how much the basic visit is before I filled out all the paperwork. $225.00 just to walk in the door and more for any testing. I said no thanks, I'll just go home and cry. Sometimes it's just the principle to me. I could have charged it but I didn't want to. I would rather pay that much to do something enjoyable, like see Elton John. But to spend it on medical care when they probably wouldn't figure it out anyway makes no sense to me. My daughter has her own appointments I need to get her to in the next few weeks; regular dentist, orthodontics consult, oncologist/hematologist (long story for another day). It's hard to juggle all of those appointments with my...