Front and Center!
These two creatures who have locked up my heart will be front and center in this little corner of blogosphere!
It's a slow day. We finally got a brief shower and that was a welcome relief. I managed to capture some fun photos worthy of the "awwwwwwwwwwwwww" factor.
Spanky ADORES Mac! Chews on him and is in his face constantly! However, from day one, Mac has been the member of the pack that has Spanky simply can't stay away from. Mac lets him know when enough is enough.
Mr. Curious discovered himself in the mirror while I was in here on the computer. It was too cute!
Hope the photos brightened your day!!
Another new poem. We shake our head at the tales that our Connor spins here and at school. They are a combination of reality, Connor's reality, fantasy and facts he's read or heard.
He tells me
about the
Tar Monster
who eats kids
whole.
One
was seventeen.
It ate an entire village.
I question
and he tells me he
Googled it
but it’s no longer there.
It scared people
so they took it away.
Columbus
and Presidents
people
his family
tree
so a teacher
informs us.
There are details
only he knows.
Nessie is real;
it’s a fact.
I learned of a bird
at our feeder
that is not found
in Texas. It’s
an Oklahoma bird
that must be lost.
He says
he sees
people we
can’t see,
and we
nod
knowing
this is not
part of his disorder.
When a therapist
questions
the details
spin
then melt
back
into the nebulous
web of his psyche.
This child
of my heart
spins
his reality
like cotton candy
on a warm day,
sticky details that
melt
with the telling,
yet,
he keeps spinning,
adamant
in the tale,
his mind
a web of
whirling fancy.
I can see him
building
thread
upon
thread
and I am mystified.
~~~~8/16/10
And yet another new poem sparked by and old, new friend and the upcoming school year.
A chance encounter
stumbled upon among half-
forgotten names in a virtual
yearbook sent me spiraling
back into musty halls clogged
with the muffled echoes of teenage angst.
Snapshots appear then
disappear into a dormant scrapbook
where images blur and bleed into each other,
the Kaleidoscope collage from a long barren field.
Memories are like sandcastles
on shifting sand--
tiny grains of truth and half-
truths watered down with the waves
of eroded emotions.
Swells of first love
and small triumphs crash
against pangs of rejection
amid tugs of uncertainty. It’s
a roller coaster of
insecurity cloaked in brash spirit--
a wobbly ride over untested landscape.
I fumble my way
among the fossils,
like a blind woman
picking the bones of a distant land,
detached, yet not…
immune to lingering echoes.
~~~8/12/10
The unbearable heat lately has forced me inside, for the most part. That being said, the heat has been good for my creative juices. I've written a few new poems that I thought I'd post.
"August"
This heat
assaults me
like the uninvited
embrace
of a stranger,
his stale breath
pressed
against my cheeks
as I blink back
the assault of an angry sun.
August
straddles
my limbs
and stifles
my soul.
Languid thoughts
drowse
on cushions
Of distant snow angels.
~~~~8/11/10
"Intrusion"
Small
shards
of
discontent
prick
my illusion
of
contentment
and
I
turn away
from
the
sting.
~~8/11/10
What if
we could go back
and rewrite
a story
or even a paragraph in time?
What if
we could insert
a word or
conversation
Into a completed chapter?
The days are blank pages
as we journey through them,
one word, sentence,
one scene at a time….
no editing allowed once the ink has dried.
~~~8/10/10
Back in time.....9th or 10th grade.
Let's just say that life is never dull in my little corner of the world.
Friday my new computer arrived. The old trusty desktop (and I still prefer a desktop) had reached the blue-screen daily, or almost, stage and I knew it was imperative I break down and get a new one before Old Trusty was abruptly ripped off life support. Over the past year Old Trusty had slowed to a crawl and limped along while irritating and frustrating me on a regular basis. Also, my computer time had been severely curtailed due to working every day and the escalating chaos around here. Old Trusty didn't make it easy for me to spend my limited time online.
So, I broke down and got a sleek new computer with Windows 7. Love it! Also had to replace my 10-year-old deskjet and scanner with a sleek new wireless all-in-one Photosmart printer. Again, love it! Boy, has printer technology come a long was in a decade!! That was last weekend. Today is the first day I've had to really begin my relationship with Old Trusty's replacement. As usual, chaos intervened.
While replacing Old Trusty with New Hot Tech I noticed what looked like water damage around the edge of my carpet and baseboard beneath my desk. Said desk sits in front of a window where I can watch my birds come and go at the feeders off my patio. I enjoy that during the day. Anyway, I was appalled and had no clue what was causing the damage since there was no indication on the window or wall that water had leaked to cause the damage I discovered.
Oh great! Just what I needed: another, possibly expensive, issue to deal with!! I was not happy and the excitement of initiating my relationship with New Hot Tech was considerably "dampened". The floor and baseboard were dry at the time of discovery to I sprayed Moldex on the area and, on Sunday, cleaned that portion of the carpet.
As I said, New Hot Tech arrived late Friday and I was up until 2 AM on Saturday setting up and transplanting NHT from Old Trusty. The only hitch in the process was the dampened mood and undercurrent of anxiety over what the water damage meant. Saturday dawns, I take Trish to work and return to do my usual chores and cleaning of one or more fish tanks. I wanted to get all that done as quickly as possible so I could play with NHT. Like I said, however, chaos intervened.
I don't even remember the trigger at this point, but while I was cleaning the house something set Sam off and all Hell broke loose! He literally threw virtually the entire contents of his bookcases and room out into the hall and the family room area!!! I couldn't do much to stop him as he was hurling things in my direction. I got the 3 dogs out and closed Connor's room door. (Connor came out some time later, before I even made a dent in the mess, and asked..."What happened?" This is how clueless and hyper-focused he is when playing a video or computer game. Part of his Autism.). After annihilating his room Sam refused to help clean up, cussed me on the way to his mother's room where he slammed the door and remained for some length of time. I was horrified and almost didn't know where to begin with the cleanup. I had no choice as it was extremely hot outside where I had banished the dogs and I had to get them back in as soon as possible. Spanky, being a typical puppy, was sure to find all the broken bits and small Legos. Not a good idea, so I just jumped in and tackled the disaster. I probably had the dogs back inside in under an hour. By then I had gotten all the books into containers where I could pick up or sweep up the small and broken items. I spent the majority of the rest of the morning and afternoon until time to pick Trish up from work, putting his room back together, primarily all the books back in the book cases. It was one of those messes that couldn't be left to have his mother make him clean up. Book are our friends and I wanted to get them picked up and put back out of harm's way. The broken and unimportant items I swept up and threw away. I salvaged the video games and put them in Connor's room.
This, my friends, is just a small example of what life can be like with kids who have mental illness. It's not pretty and it can be very chaotic. One or more unstable kids is volatile with a 90-something chance of violent weather patterns!!
Soooooooooooo Hot Tech had to wait. Sunday I had more time to get to know the newbie. I also cleaned, as I said, the damaged carpet area and made a mental note to consult with good old Mr. Larry as to what the problem might be and who I should call to deal with it. Monday was a busy day and I never got that chance. Monday evening I had to attend to some business that my dear brother brought to my attention. It was tedious and took the better part of the evening. Some of it I had to do on the new computer and that made the going a bit slower. Office has changed in the past 7 years!
Yesterday morning, before I took Trish to work, I noticed the water-damaged area was wet again. Bummer! It also dawned on me that I'd just run the sprinkler in the area outside my window to water the container gardens. OK.... Looked like the source of the water had to do with the sprinkler right outside that window and the fact it had a 360 degree head on it which constantly sprayed my window when the sprinkler was running. The "where" it was getting in was another matter. So, anxiety rising like a tide in my belly again, I took Trish to work, stopped by the mail center and got the work I'd done the night before notarized and sent off (NOT inexpensively!), came home and called Mr. Larry.
Yesterday I spent a chunk of time playing with my blog, redesigning it. Today I lived the new photo under the blog title. It was one of those mad-world days.
Sears was scheduled to come today for the second time in a week to see why the pilot light on my 5-year-old water heater keeps going out. Thank God for my Master Protection Agreement with Sears on many of my larger appliances! It's really paid off in recent years. Anyhoo.... first go round the Sears person tells me that the water heater is one of those newer "closed systems" where the pilot light is controlled by sensors and a spark, not the old light- it- with- a- lighter type of yore. Seems that's the current requirement for safer water heaters. Mine was probably clogged with whatever from the attic and kept killing the pilot light. The guy cleaned it thoroughly and told me to go up there and clean out the pan under the heater about once a month and it should be good to go.
Yeah, right. Four days later, Sunday, no hot water. As always when these emergencies arise, my good neighbor Mr. Larry comes over the gets the pilot light going again. I call and set up another repair call with Sears and that brings us to this afternoon. "Between 10 and 2 " usually translates into sometime after the allotted time.
Today got off to an early start, 5 am to be exact. Sam woke Connor and they proceeded to play computer games, complete with sound effects, yanking the entire household out of dreamland and into a waking pre-dawn nightmare. It wasn't pretty, the reaction they got.
At 9 am I have to deal with the garage door repair people who need to replace a beeping backup battery which is just difficult enough for me to defer to the experts, not to mention the costly battery that I can't run to Walmart or CVS to pick up. That set me back enough to tick me off.
Meanwhile, I'm doing things around the house, waiting for the eventual Sears person and the boys are amping up both in volume and behavior as they play some online Pirates of the Caribbean game, one on their computer and one on Trish's. It's getting to the point I'm having to try to tamp down the electricity in the highly charged room with threats of ....whatever I can think of within reason. They are already on my you-know-what-list after the morning fiasco. I'm also trying to dodge 3 dogs running around the house, under foot as they work out the newest round of toy or chew theft from each other. Spanky is a little puppy bully and the other two bark,nip and chase him when they've had enough. I have visions of the nasty fall I'm sure to take one day. I'll be on the floor, hip or leg or arm broken, in horrendous pain, screaming for the kids to call 911..... and the dogs will keep running around messing with each other, and the boys will keep doing whatever they're doing and no one will hear me or respond and I'll still be there writhing in pain, half dead, dogs barking at me because by that time they're hungry and the boys either still playing dueling computers or so amped up they've fried each other ..when Trish gets home from work.
Deep breath............
It's nearly 3:00 pm when Sears person finally arrives. He arrives when I'm in the middle of trying to deal with a computer issue, naturally. During the time he's working in the attic I'm back with the computer problem. The dogs are outside in the heat barking at me and the boys are behind the closed door of Connor's room. That last fact eluded me until after the Sears man left. He's there about 30 minutes replacing a sensor or whatever on the water heater telling me that the reason it keeps going out and the reason it needs replacing is that there is not enough air flow in the attic to keep it lit. Didn't they tell me that when they installed it 5 years ago? NO, as a matter of fact, they never mentioned an air flow issue, nor did they tell me that this newly- required type of water heater wasn't maintenance free. I needed to keep it dust free or lint free or whatever... I should see about a fresh air system for the attic or the water heater. Call a specialty plumber, they'll know what you need.
$$$$$$$$$ ...that's what is flashing in front of my eyes as he's telling me all this crap. My stress level is rising along with the heat outside, not to mention the attic. He leaves, I let the panting dogs back in, and, again, fail to compute the closed door to Connor's room. I go online and research attic ventilation things, groan and envision a large expenditure. Then I call my trusty Mr. Larry neighbor and he comes over, checks things out and tells me I do have ventilation and it sounds like I should be fine for another 5 years, not to worry about it. I relax and as I close the door behind him I finally realize that the boys are behind a closed door..... It also registers that I'm hearing bumps and thuds.
Connor's room looks like a hurricane ripped through it!! The funnel clouds are laughing and throwing stuffed animals all over the room. Furniture is moved around to make a fort... it's a mess!!! The boys are wired to the max!!! It barely registers that I'm in the room yelling at them!! I finally get through, Sam gets mad, grabs his mother's laptop and stomps out of the room refusing to help clean up the damage. He slams his own room door for emphasis. Connor and I proceed to wade through the mess and restore order to his room. Bless his heart, this type of effort is not his forte. He's about as useless when it comes to order and cleaning as an umbrella in a windstorm. This afternoon he gave me hope... :)
So, it was one of those days. Both boys are peacefully sleeping in their rooms as are the three furkids, one on Trish's bed, one on Connor's and mine on the bed behind me. I'm here at the computer (which is now behaving) writing this with "America's Got Talent" on the TV in the background. Trish will be home from work soon and we'll have a good laugh about the day.
Well, at least the final massive purge on the cleaning list for the summer. The above photo amounts to what's left after my two-day purge and two days of the alley scavengers helping themselves to whatever they might want and take to salvage. The pile is about half as big as the initial purge. What remains on Wed. will be hauled away by the city. I'm feeling very satisfied with all the cleaning and tossing I've done the past couple of months. This morning I tackled the last closet left undone and revisited my own closet for a final toss-out and rearranging. I still have the plantation shutters, wooden blinds and fan blades to clean in the next couple of weeks.
My daughter is on the third day of her new job and happily settling in. The sharp rise in her self-confidence is so evident it's like a neon sign! I like that! The boys are also adjusting nicely to Mom being back at work and Pammy once again being "the boss of them". :) There were issues the first day, but yesterday and today the waters are calm. My Equilibrium is feeling steadier already, and breathing is easier as the air clears. The stress level for all members of the household, human and fur, is back to healthy levels. For the time being. :)
