FlipSide:Starting September 17, 2001

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A journal of the trials, tribulations, and triumphs in the life of a woman in the 21st century.

Last Updated : Saturday, September 22, 2001 10:52:55 PM -0500

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Monday, September 17, 2001

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(ed- I really hate to sound like a broken record, but again, monkey boy invaded our bed, and we slept poorly. Ah, kids. -- jd.)

Tuesday, September 18, 2001

I find myself very tired and rather overwhelmed today. Probably a reaction to all that has gone on in the last week. You can only stay so stressed for so long. Then the body gives out and makes you mellow out. Not a very pleasant feeling. I am noticing a lot of people seem to be hitting the same point. We've heard all (and more) that we want to hear about the terrorist attacks. There is only so much waiting I can do for the next attack, if there indeed will be one. We have been on an emotional roller-coaster and I am worn out.

It's so hard to get back to normal, but I am going to try.

This weekend we helped a friend move into their new home. Their new over 4000 square foot home. OHMIGOD! The three houses I looked at on Saturday morning would all fit inside this house. Even if I could afford it (which, just for the record, I can't) I wouldn't want a house that big. Sheese, they need a riding vacuum cleaner. Or a household staff. And I don't even want to think about the house payments. Over $420,000 for that house. Yikes. I'll stick with my more modest needs, thank you very much. It would be nice to afford a little more house, but hey, we'll survive. I don't want a house where I need a monitoring system just to find my kids. Image the trouble they would get into if I could go hours without seeing (or hearing) them in the house. Hell, Jack would wreck something daily, if not hourly!

(ed - one wonders what the burglar alarm system would be set to monitor - people coming in, or the people already inside... -- jd)

Speaking of which, I have weird children. (ed - well, I don't know about you, but I'm shocked. Just shocked. -- jd) I have a daughter who gives herself hickeys. (ed - Oxygen! I need oxygen! Hysterical Blindness! My hearing! What's that light? Yes? You called? Where are we, and why does this basket have handles? My daughter and hickey in the same sentence. Good Lord, I'm not even forty yet. -- jd). On Sunday afternoon, she comes into my room and presents her arm. She looks like she has been punched. When I ask her what happened, she looks at me all bewildered and says she was sucking on her arm and didn't know that would happen. Sigh. I still don't know why she was sucking on her arm. Hungry, maybe? Salt deficiency? Insanity? (ed - Cannibalism? Oh, OK - I'll shut up now -- jd).

Then there is my son who inflicts bodily damage on himself and laughs. (ed - I know, I know. The Insanity positively gallops around here. -- jd.) Last evening he was playing with Rhiannon's sky dancer toy, launching the dolls like they were guided (or not-so-guided) missiles on a mission to destroy . He'd launch, I'd try to catch the doll, then I'd tickle him. A very predictable pattern. But Jack prides himself on being unpredictable, so he decided to add some variety to the routine. The first bit of chaos was when he hit himself in the right eye with the launcher. He cried for a couple of minutes, then giggled and continued the game. Assuming he had actually learned something from this, I let the game continue. After a few minutes, he again tired of the routine of the game and managed to crack himself in the left eye. This time he just laughed. He's a strange little money and we feed him too much.

My office has been offline all day and John's office got hit by the new virus that is going around. In fact, our being down right now could be because Qwest's servers are being over worked by the virus. Code Red had us down for three days earlier this summer for that reason. Ya gotta wonder, don't these people have better things to do than to mess with people? Apparently they need to get out and GET A LIFE.

Wednesday, September 19, 2001

My father was the youngest of 11 children. 3 boys and 8 girls. Imagine the neuroses that breeds. I have always believed it is tougher for a boy to be outnumbered by sisters than a girl to be outnumbered by brothers. You see, girls are more verbal, hence more catty. Boys are just physical, and parents watch for that. But words, well, lets just say girls get in many more psychic punches than a boy could ever manage to land physically. And John had four younger sisters. It explains sooo very much, don't you think?

Anyway, back to the can of mixed nuts that is my father's family. My father was what was known during Depression as a "Fresh Air Kid". Fresh Air Kids were city kids (dad was from the south side of Chicago) that were sent out to small towns in Iowa for the summer. My dad went out one summer and ended up spending a good deal of his childhood there. Summers he lived with the Wilsons in Maquoketa and during the school year, he was in Chicago with his family. I think those summers are why he was relatively normal. God only knows what kind of axe-murdering, skirt-wearing maniac he would have turned into if he had been around those women 24/7/365.

Dad's sisters always seemed to think he got a better deal than they did. Their attitude toward him always bordered on the patronizing. My father was 6 feet tall with 2 kids and I can remember my aunts (who were all damn near 6 feet tall themselves, scary when you are a kid, let me tell you) kiss my dad on the forehead and basically tell him to "run along, they'd take care of it". Maybe because they were older or maybe it was just because it was easier, but my dad never really fought them. My aunts are, well to put it kindly, demanding women. Fairly high strung as well. They used to come out to our house and stay. My aunts Myra and Beverly drank Manhattans (which taste like perfume) and rearranged my mother's furniture. Aunt Harriet (retired Army) would literally march us down the highway, as she felt we didn't get enough exercise. Aunt Irma taught us to gamble with pennies playing poker and blackjack (I don't think she endeared herself to my father with that one, but she was one of our favorites). Aunt Marion would come out with her spoiled daughter and stuffy husband and would endless compare darling Pamela and me. (Since I was a great deal younger than Pamela, and strangely, more mature, this didn't bother me much.) Aunts Evelyn, Audrey, and Shirley didn't come out much, thank God. I had all I could handle with the five that visited regularly. Chicago was only 3 hours away, so they could just hop in the car on a Saturday morning on impulse. SHUDDER.

Due to a genetic illness that the women pass on and the men get (you know, that just fits my father's family sooooo very well), my dad's two brothers died young. So my dad stepped in with his nephews and functioned as their father-figure. When he died, my cousin Cliff flew out from Michigan to do the eulogy. When his mother, my Aunt Ruth, arrived at my mother's house before my dad's funeral and I told her that Cliff was flying in, the woman literally dropped and writhed on the floor, moaning "Oh, he works to hard." (My poor frail 40 year old cousin was mortified.) And she married in. THEY did this to her. Until that moment, John thought I was exaggerating about my family. He turned to me and said "You weren't kidding?!"

To be fair, these women have been very good to me and mine over the years. They always remembered my birthday with at least a card (always with money or a savings bond), and quite often a gift that my folks thought was too extravagant. And I am sure they didn't realize just how pushy they were. Although how they deluded themselves about this, I have no idea.

My aunts make John's sisters look like pussy-cats. Passive-aggressive pussy-cats, but hey, you takes whats you gets.

I had it brought to my attention today that my husband is an über-geek. Today he was regaling me with a great joke he got today by email. The punch line was a Unix command code. Geez. It's not funny if you have to translate it to 80% of the population. Do you think I can blame it on his sisters?

Thursday, September 20, 2001

The grocery store has always been a family endeavor here at the Dominik hacienda. It can occasionally be stressful when one of the kids wants to body surf on the bottom of the cart or treat the aisles like an obstacle course, but, for the most part, it is a fairly enjoyable family activity. (Yes, I actually said enjoyable. Fun is what you make, you know.) Tonight was Thursday night. Grocery store night. (And Keri, you didn't call?!) John had a meeting, but since I was home early because of a seminar, I figured I would get the kids from school and pick up some groceries without him. Big BIG mistake. Things that are easy to deal with when there are two parents available are damn near impossible to deal with with only one present

First mistake, I didn't go to the grocery store I am most familiar with. Instead we went to the one closer to home. After I got everyone out of the car and into the store, none of the family minivan type grocery carts were available (you know, the ones with the rumble seat for both kids to be tied to, I mean sit in) so I had to take a regular cart. Which Jack decided to try to ride like a skateboard. After I righted the cart, Rhiannon complained she wanted to ride. Well, if my almost 8 year old wants to ride in the cart, there is no room for groceries, so the trip is kinda pointless. Then Jack decided to body surf using the bottom rack of the grocery cart. This, in and of itself, is okay, as he is small enough to fit. However, he decided to go in and out and in and out and . . . well, you get the picture. I tell him no more, so he simply wanders aimlessly in the same general direction I am heading. (By "general" I mean he stayed within the grocery store itself.) Then Rhiannon decided she wanted to push the cart. Although she is tall for her age, pushing a half full grocery cart is still a bit much for her abilities. But you can't tell her, you have to let her find out for herself. (She gets that from her dad.) Then, of course Jack wants to push to, since Sissy is getting to do something he isn't. When he can't push, he decides to go back to trying to use the side of the cart like a skate board. Luckily I managed to keep the whole thing from tipping, but by this time, I could give a damn if I had everything on the list and I herded my brood toward a checkout.

The kids wanted to help pack the grocery bags. I tried struggled valiantly and managed to keep most of the bread out from under the canned goods and frozen foods. The lunch meat did end up on the bottom of things though. Oh well, what's a little squished turkey in a family? I wheel the full cart out to the car, buckle the kids in, open the trunk and find . . . boxes. Oh crap. We got packing boxes from our friends we moved this last weekend and they are still in the trunk. Sigh. Shift shift squish squish. The groceries are in.

After getting the groceries home and unloaded, I am beat. Oh damn. They actually want to eat the stuff we bought. Soup and sandwiches were the order of the evening. With mini cupcakes for dessert (for people who ate their carrots. For certain little boys who did NOT eat their carrots, there was NO dessert.) John got home at 8 and we were all VERY happy to see him. I think we overwhelmed the poor guy. Normally I cope quite well with the kids alone, but today, maybe because it was rainy all day and they didn't get to run out their energy, they were demon spawn from the lower reaches of Hades.

Oh, and by the way, in response to last night's post. John says I can blame any of his behavior I want on his sisters. I think he thinks it gets him off the hook . . .

(ed - that's not precisely what I said, but then again, if I can push off 10% of the blame on others, hey, that's ten percent less trouble for me, eh? Though, more properly, that's ten percent more I can get into, truth be told. Oh well. I shoulda shut up a sentence or two sooner {no, I can't see all the nodding heads, but I can just imagine}. -- jd)

Friday, September 21, 2001

(ed - she and the kids spent much of the evening watching the telethon. If you've got the chance, please check them out and donate if you're so inclined. There are suddenly lots of single-parent families who need your help. And, in another small housekeeping change, you'll note the flag now links to LibertyUnites.org - another site for disaster relief in this time of need. Thanks for your help... -- jd.)

Saturday, September 22, 2001

Wet, rainy, dreary. You'd think we were in the Pacific Northwest. ; ) Looked at a couple of houses today and came to the conclusion that it would be best if we waited until after the holidays to move. Ah, well. Gives us more time to save some money and pack.

In celebration/consolation of our momentous decision to procrastinate, we decided to have a nice lunch at Red Lobster, one of my (and my kid's) favorite places. My children absolutely love seafood. John tolerates. Especially as he is outvoted. After another trip to the grocery store (this time fully manned) we came home and I decided to bake. (Damn it, we forgot yeast. Yet another trip to the store. I HATE it when I do that!)

Did you know you could get M&Ms in designer colors? Really! You can go on their website and order custom color combinations of M&Ms. What a cool party favor! (John wants me to mention that "Their site is crap". This is his professional opinion, of course. He could get more technical, but he'd need a flipchart {and a tranlator}.)

(ed - or two simple words. One rhymes with trucking, and the other word is "flash". It's amazing how total dependence on one visual tool can completely destroy a site. Of course, it doesn't help that their servers suck dead cattle through tiny straws. -- jd)

Well, I am thoroughly uninspired tonight, I'm afraid. I am still rather worried about all the things going on in this country. The good news is that I found out that my brothers in the Air Force are not subject to being deployed overseas. One is at a training base so he is not subject to going overseas anymore. The other is an air traffic controller and things just aren't set up for him to go right now. Plus he doesn't call in air strikes. Although they are torn and rather wish they could go and kick some serious butt, as their sister who is just really getting to know them and love them, I am rather glad they are confined here. Not that I am sure that any of us are that safe here. The 11th certainly proved that.

One more thing. To all the idiot rednecks out there who think that Arab-Americans or Muslim Americans are the enemy, GET OFF MY SIDE!!! These people were attacked just as surely as you or me. There wasn't any warning going out in Mosques bulletins in secret code saying "Pssst. Hey, you in the turban. Don't go to the World Trade Center or the Pentagon on the 11th." One person that I know of made the "mistake" of going to celebrate his wedding anniversary with a nice dinner in Minneapolis with his wife on the 12th. A couple of ignorant punks (and that is the NICEST thing I have to say about them) kicked the shit out of him for having the audacity to have dark skin and Arab descent. The few missing links out there who are going after anyone different are just as bad as the terrorists who decided they had the power to decide who lived and who died. The Koran doesn't tell the faithful to kill innocents any more than the Bible does. Frankly most of the Arab and Muslim world don't like Osama bin Laden any more than we do. He has performed terrorist strikes in their countries too. Besides, he gives them all a bad name. Kinda like you bozos do to the rest of us. So KNOCK IT OFF!

Okay, I'm done now. Have a good night.

Sunday, September 23, 2001

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