Another week gone by...

...but fear not, we are still here!

Some technical difficulties around here with a new computer and an additional laptop trying to become part of the family wireless network. New desktop computer: replaces the one we've had since before moving to this middle of nowhere place in December of 2003. Additional laptop:

The Beloved is home!

For 13 days, but hey - a man's gotta have his technology. Which knocked mine off and out for the past 5 days. But we're all back in working order now. At least I think we are. Right before coming home, the Beloved wrenched his already bad back while doing something he won't explain overseas. (More from fear of mockery than for security purposes, I'm guessing). We are four days into our visit, the jetlag is about conquered, but the back pain...not so much. He's on the couch with a heating pad, tramadol, and a grimace on his face if he's not wrangling and/or wrassling with The Boy.

The Princess sailed through her "procedure" last Monday, during which we discovered that she has a lovely, healthy looking set of intestines. The biopsies of the three areas (small intestine, ileum, and colon) will be back next week, but for now, the diagnosis is back in question. So if it isn't Crohn's, colitis, ibs, or celiac issues....what is it?!? Good to know it's better than what we thought, but bad to be guessing one unnecessary appendectomy and a rather humilitating (from a 15 year old's point of view) colonoscopy later. Cheerleading has started so we have decided to do our best Scarlett O'Hara imitation and "think about it tomorrow."

Therese is now an orange belt and steeling her nerves for junior high. And at the school she's going to...that's no small feat. So far, she's learned that two girls (incoming 7th graders) are pregnant. Nice, eh? As she put it, in that straight-faced, matter-of-fact totally Aspie way of hers...."I guess someone forgot to tell them that sex before marriage is a sin." Then she cocked an eyebrow and smirked when we explained to her why we were cracking up. So I'm not entirely sure that was an innocent statement. She has potential, that one...for all good things, but with a teeny-tiny edge of snarkishness. That's to be expected when one grows up at the Casa de Brookside, I s'pose.

On this cool but sunny Sunday afternoon, I am watching the first of the leaves fall from one of our trees out front (I must confess that have no clue what kind of tree it is, but it has tiny little symmetrical leaves that make it look sort of fern-like) and I'm thinking about Fall starting, which, on one hand, is great because I love the weather, the football games, the colors, the smells, the apples and spices that will be cooking in my kitchen in another month or so...but since we didn't get our first truly warm, sunny, and summery-sweltery days until the beginning of August, I feel like we got RIPPED OFF this year!

Hope you've all had a good summer - and yes, Karen, I have more Tales from the Brookside for you. Just a matter of having a few moments to myself to commit them to computer!

Summer, wherefore art thou...so rainy? And creepy...

Another week has blown by - literally. It has been cold, gray, rainy, and crappy here for the past week. We had a severe thunderstorm on Friday that knocked our internet service and telephones out until Tuesday afternoon. (More on that in a bit). My basement is leaking, my hair is frizzy, my flowerbeds got crushed by hail yesterday, and I truly believe I am suffering from a bout of S.A.D. in the summer. Sheesh!

In Princess/Athlete land, no real news, but he does still hold out hope. He came over and did some yardwork for me (hacked the hedges I can't reach), and we had a long conversation about Transubstantiation, his doubts, my attempt at apologetics was good (he gets it now) but not good enough (he still doesn't believe it). All the while the Princess lolled about in her bikini with a magazine and a diet 7-up, trying to soak up whatever rays she could between cloudbursts. She is back to work after only a week off after exams - 6 weeks of geometry tutoring (so she can skip a grade and accelerate toward calculus her junior year - ugh!), cheerleading practice three times a week, and ballroom two hours a week. No rest for the wicked. :)

Okay - now for the creepy bit. When the storm hit, lightening struck on the block behind us, between our house and the river. One of those instantaneous flash/crash things. Very scary. Less than 30 seconds later, three of the baby's "noisy toys" - Elmo, a car dashboard, and a school bus that sings that song - all spontaneously started making sounds. None are electric, all require pushing and pulling to get the sounds going. All were in different spots in the living room, and the baby was in bed for his afternoon nap. The girls and I looked at each other, and all the "warning hairs" on the back of my neck stood up, as happens when I get the feeling we are not alone in the house. I decided we should all repair to the basement to wait out the storm. We shut off all the electronics at their various power strips, grabbed the baby out of bed and went down - just as another huge crash hit outside.

When we came up, we heard a blast of static and a screeching sound through the computer speakers. The ones that we shut off at the power strip before we went downstairs. Then we looked out and discovered that a tree directly across the street from our house had been split down the middle. Utility wires and one of our own trees kept it from hitting the house, but part of it did knock out a USPS box that had been anchored into the cement for decades, by the looks of it. Crews came and took down the tree. A near miss.

Rational me says the electricity in the air must have somehow triggered the toys. Not-so-convinced me wonders if we got some forewarning....so I said "thank you" out loud and then said my prayers.

Hmmmmm.......

We still are finding strange things - a few fuses to parts of the house that are rarely used were blown, and two of eight phone jacks were fried, as were our cordless phones (one base unit, two handsets).

Freaky.

How's your summer going?

Johannestag 2009

Yep, it's Johannestag - the feast of St. John the Baptist (and the Boy's second anniversary of his baptism...how can that be?!?) - so we had a mini-bonfire (Johannesfeuer) and cooked hotdogs and s'mores out on the patio on one of the first truly GORGEOUS summer evenings here in the middle of nowhere.

Thank the Lord...for sending John ahead of his cousin and for instituting the Sacrament that washes away original sin...thanks for sending us the Boy....

...and praise God, summer's finally here!

HMD #33: Back to virtual reality...

Hello friends....yes, I am alive! I am well! Thank you for your kind inquiries. The Beloved is still in town (yay!), but leaves tomorrow (boo!).

I can report that the Prom went relatively well. The Athlete was still in a fair amount of pain and under strict orders to take it easy and only dance the slow dances, which he did - each one - with the Princess. He had a better date with Vicodin than with the girl, who was torn at first between staying at his side/minding him and mingling with the others there. As it turned out, she was glad that she chose to stay at his side, unglamorous as it may have been, because all of the "dancing" to anything with a remotely upbeat tempo involved her least favorite high school dance pasttime....grinding. Here are kids in tuxes and some crazy-expensive silk and satin gowns rubbing pelvises together and, as she put it "basically having sex with their formalwear on," in a basement of a fraternal order's lodge that smelled of fifty-plus years of beer, sweat, fish fry, cigarettes and despair. Ughhhhh....

As the lone freshman present, she came away having had a nice time, but being disillusioned with the rite of passage that is prom, and wondering if it will be worth going to it again for each of the next three years. But she will go, because it is what is done. However, she vows that she will chair the prom committee so that future proms will be at tonier venues such as the country club, not the area's various lodges - cheap prices notwithstanding.

That's our girl.

As for the future of our senior-freshman couple....well....graduation is Friday. Graduation parties abound for the next two weekends. Then it's summertime. She's dusting off the Jane Austen collection and stocking up on magazines and iTunes. He's planning roadtrips to amusement parks and pilgrimmages to such gourmand lures as Chik-Fil-A.

We shall see what transpires.

I am not optimistic, but that's okay. They each need to do some growing up, and that may well involve growing apart. It's a matter of doing so without hard feelings....and that, friends, isn't easy at any age.

HeloMom out - but I shall return in a day or two, once we're Belovedless and readjusted to the empty spot at the dinner table.

HMD#29 - Boys Don't Cry

But I'm gonna change all that...

HeloMom has done the unthinkable...

The Tall Boy turns 18 in a few weeks, and HeloMom and Princess have come up with the

BEST.
GIFT.
EVER.

for our particular Athlete.

(And no, it has nothing to do with offering him my daughter's hand in marriage, nothing to do with her much at all, really....)

We are so proud of ourselves!!!

There will be tears of joy. (There'd better be, or I'll crack him across his shins and make him cry anyway.)

Last time I saw him misty-eyed was at the bedside vigil during the appendix ordeal, when she awoke, kinda scared, and asked for him. One of my favorite moments of these past 6 months, and why we like him so much around here.

Stay tuned!

Stay at Home Dad

It's been a bit light on the blogging due to work and some last-minute houseguests, so here's a little entertainment until they all leave on Tuesday - enjoy!

Flippin' Yankees!

Ok. As I mentioned a few days ago, we did a charter bus trip to NYC to see the Friday 7:05 game. Left at 11:30 am on a gorgeous, sunny summer day. Horrible accidents and construction in the Poconos, so we ended up going most of the way on local roads, and thus our 4 hour trip turned into 6.5 hours. We hit the city right about 5:15 pm on a Friday. The view from the GW bridge was....lengthy. But hey, kids are watching movies, we had plenty of snacks, and we muddled through.

The bus parks 6 blocks from the stadium in Lot #11...we get off, and after walking about 50 yards from the bus, the sky rips open with thunder, lightening, and about 2" of downpour in a little over an hour. We are soaked, but with no end in sight, we decided to pay $5 apiece for plastic baggie rain ponchos about halfway to the entrance. We make it in, get some food....

....no Sabretts in the stadium. Should've gotten one outside. Sigh. Note to self for next time. After all of this trauma, the storm raged on. The thought of a rainout and having to get back on that bus, our $300 wasted, made me sick. So I had a few $9 beers to prepare myself for the inevitable.

But the baseball gods smiled on us, the game started shortly before 9 pm, and the Boy (and his sisters, of course) got to see a game at the soon-to-be demolished Yankee Stadium. After seeing the leaking roofs and rusty beams, I can understand why, but still...


The new stadium across the street looks like it will be pretty cool.

Anyway, the score was tied in the 9th. I was dreading the thought of extra innings, given the 4 hour trip home. Thanks to a wild pitch, the Royals scored (bases loaded, stolen home), and the Yankees lost at 11:59 pm. That's okay with me, because I kept scanning the scoreboard and the CUBS WON after coming from behind.

Then there's the trip back, which got underway at about 12:30. We schlepped back to the bus in RAIN FREE weather, walk up the steps...and practically get knocked back outside by the stench of the broken and raw-sewage-leaking bus bathroom. Our seats were in the row just ahead of the rear. Dear Lord. Fortunately, we were so exhausted, we fell asleep until just a few minutes before we got home. At 4:59 am. The Beloved had to work at 7:00. Oy!

Yesterday was a "lost day" - we all slept in, and no one got out of their jammies until just before Mass today. I am still exhausted.

Hope you've all enjoyed your weekend!

In, then back out

Well, we made it home last night after 11 hours in the car with a very nicely behaved baby, who (along with his carseat) acted as a perfect buffer to two slightly cranky female children.

Sadly, I must do a little [- gulp -] WORK tomorrow, then on Friday we are off to NYC to do something I've never done...a game at Yankee Stadium with the Beloved and crew. One of those things that must happen before the stadium is wrecked and replaced after this season. I've gotta get a picture of the Beloved and the Boy standing out front of the stadium for the sake of posterity.

It's almost as good for a Boy as going to Wrigley with his Mamma.

GO CUBS GO!

P.S. I just realized something else - this will also mark my first venture into the Bronx, oddly enough - I think I've driven through and/or at least flown out of every other borough. Digi, I will chow down on a dog and hoist a cold adult beverage in your honor.

Out and about

8-4-08 update: Extra day of partying on Seneca Lake....so we are off to the homeland (sweet home Chicago) tomorrow morning. We decided to stay home tonight and make sure the recyling goes out tomorrow, given the amount of longnecks that've sacrificed their lives in the name of family communing over the past 4 days. We have probably fed a family of 4 for a week with our empties!

;-)

Well, Friday is here, as is August (<--that was fast!), and I'm wide awake at 2 a.m. formulating lists and itineraries for the next 10 days. After work tomorrow, I have all the pre-wedding stuff to do - family dinner, hair and nails, then Saturday is the wedding of the Beloved's cousin - two big HUGE Catholic families, 350 guests (note: only immediate family and 1st cousins are allowed, or they were well over 500!), and a very small handful of teetotallers among them. So needless to say, Seneca Lake is crawling with extended family, some of whom are already in "pre-flight" mode. Say your prayers and clear the roads.

If we can lift our heads on Sunday, we will go to an afterparty on the lake, then Monday we are off on the 10 hour drive to IL for as long as my mother and I can tolerate each other. So I'm guessing 3-4 days, tops - maybe an extra if we manage to make it to a Cubs game.

Posting will be light, but I'll be checking in with some regularity...as an evasive self-defense move if for no other reason.

Wish me luck, and have a great weekend!

Happy Johannestag!

...and Happy Rebirth-day to the Boy!

Today is the Feast of St. John the Baptist, and the one-year anniversary of our Little Friend's baptism. Incredible how the time has flown...our Miracle Baby continues to flourish. Thanks be to God!

6-24-07 [pics removed at family request - sorry!]

6-24-08

Johannestag (and Johannesnacht, the eve of the Feast day) is a great traditional German Catholic celebration, with parties and bonfires (Johannesfeuer) the night before, and fabulous Bavarian music festivals to celebrate on the Feast day itself. It is, not coincidentally, a midsummer celebration, as it falls a few days after the summer solstice, the shortest night of the year. The Church fathers wisely chose this symbolic time of year for St. John's feast to celebrate the victory of light over darkness - Christ's victory over sin and our spiritual rebirth in the Sacrament of Baptism. So pop some sacred Bach onto your iPod, say your prayers, and enjoy the day!

On the menu tonight: bratwurst, saurkraut, beer, and some sort of glycemically correct dessert!