Ayn's Multiple World

Hmm, Should have posted this on Saturday

Good Morning, This is me … I thought I’d try something different and write in the blog directly this morning. We’ve been up for a bit just catching up on things … and yes a little drifting and I think we’re about up to here.

We’ve as you noticed been writing to Thom lately so there hasn’t been much direct writing to the blog. There hasn’t been much direct work done either. If we are not writing there; we are reading the Marineparents.com message board. Yes and we write on that probably more than we should. We tell ourselves we are going to scale back and then we don’t seem able to do that because we want to respond to someone.

Thom’s by now waking up and he’s going to have a very hard day. I think they call this a housekeeping day because they’ll be working around their new barracks getting everything in ship shape and they will be learning to follow their drill instructors and do drills. It’s going to be a very busy day. I hope he got a good set of DIs.

I don’t think the Marines have bad ones. I sure hope he is doing good today … he has to know how to handle that frustration of his and I think the DI is going to know how to deal with that … MORE training! They really do work it out of them until they are ready to work on the same page as everyone else … Thom’s got a long ways to go there I think … we’ll see. I sure do hope he does good. Maybe later we’ll post some of the posts we’ve been putting up on the boards to get an idea where we’re at with the parent group. We’re a little jumbly right now though and PART of that is that we’re still in the stage of typing with the weight of Chief on our arms. CHEEEEEEEESE!

Whoo … finally, we have our ways … we breath on his fur too closely then after a while (we fall asleep) he gets up and moves. Hehehe it has to be done to save the arms and fingers!

We are not very sharp yet … maybe we should take our medicine? We’re nibbling at the pineapple slices too … who whispered in that birdies ear?! But, then we ate our leftover omelet from last night’s dinner so we think Sweetie is going to be grumpy cuz he said to save it for lunch, but we didn’t wait that long. One thing at a time, right? Hmm, first meds and washroom AND coffee refill AND pineapple? HMM??

AHA! Got all that done … feelin better! Oh we weren’t feelin bad? It’s ok feelin better!

Sooo, maybe not so sleepy now … let’s see how far we’ve gotten … not quite a page and it’s already 7:30 am … sheesh where’s the time go?

Ok, not so much then this morning. Sleepy bear will be in bed for about another hour. He had a very late night … he was picking up his daughter at about 12:30 am.

Terrible time to be coming in. He put me to bed about 8 or 8:30 pm and the said he was going to watch a movie, but then I think we convinced him to put on some music instead. Before he could adjust the station, we’d already fallen asleep so we cannot attest to what happened. It was our original theory that if he just rested on the couch listening to music for a bit, he wouldn’t be so tired coming back from dropping off his daughter way out west. I worry to pieces over him – although if he can get us in the sleeping position we’re out and there’s not much to be said about nuthin. We harassed him in the car all the way the home though about getting a nap in. He was giving us a hard time about not being a little boy anymore … and we were like … you’re an old man and that’s much worse! I know being terrible. BUT, the thing is … we don’t want him getting hurt. I think sometimes when he does stuff like this that he is tempting fate. Hmpf!

I know he loves it that his daughter comes home and he says that she is also coming home in May. He’s not sure why she’s coming home THIS often, but it is good that she is willing. He will be seeing her on Monday. It seemed like a long ways a way, but I guess that just means she’s tied up somewhere else for two days. I don’t know if she plans on seeing more of her Aunt than her Mom and Dad, but the Aunt just had her in Hawaii for the last week or so. I think … no, I’m not going to think … that would seem to be the safer way to go. Rich, of course, will be glad to see his daughter. Period. I think he’s going to try taking off a half day and seeing her into the evening … I would think he’d try to get another day in too, beside taking her back to the airport. More is always better in these cases.

I never know too much, but things in general going on with the rest of the family.

I think that part of what I learned last night was that Rich’s Mom and Stepfather were going to spend the weekend in town somewhere, I forget, but it was at a fancy hotel. I thought WOOHOOO!!! My first thought was that Rich should get his mother some nice and fancy nightgown. But, he didn’t think he should do that. I argued, but what if Bud couldn’t walk into a Fredericks …. And Rich was like … and you think I could?? SHEESH Men! They are soooo difficult. He could have borrowed Jillian for a moment … SHE would have known what to get Grandma! Sometimes girls are much more reasonable! Guys get over sexualized and then that stumbles them up. Girls are certainly thinking sexual thoughts, but they can be more coy … I think. Of course, we are making this up off the top of our head, and most likely that is showing.

So anything else in the news? Not much … you heard the part of Maury wanting to go
all of a sudden to Texas?

I think I wrote about it in one of Thom’s letters, though briefly. Basically, Lauren got a job offer, so for some extra thousands, which Maury believes will get them out of debt, they are willing to drop everything they know – especially home and family – friends and leave. I’m going to be ok with this when I have to be, but at this very moment I’m feeling a little bad about it. I know it is their choice so I won’t interfere … It’s just that I don’t think they are thinking it through as to how much they rely on Lauren’s mother and how much Maury relies on his family. Not me as much, but on his Dad. I think he’s over there several times a week. Me … he spends more time with on the phone … and my relationship with the granddaughters is good, but secondary to the one I have with Maury and way behind the relationship that the girls have with their other grandmothers.

I know should probably stop thinking that way … just feel it. ANY way…

Think Maury is going to get down there and find that Lauren just as easily makes good surface friends with her new store buddies and Maury is going to be left in isolation without family or friends. He talked about working maybe at UPS at night, but that gets him out of sync with his family for sleeping and with people in general. I would hope he make friends … he usually finds just a few special friends at work, but then he’s not getting any closer to Lauren if they are on split shifts. The thought was presented that if they were going to rely on each other more, they would have to work things through better, but that could work either way as to helping or hurting them more. I don’t know. Maury is optimistic in the part that it is just a 3-5 years commitment, but he is downplaying how long that is. The only way that would work is if she would back off him enough and he would self motivate himself to get the degree while he was there. That’s the only way I think it would be worthwhile. AND, he’d have to learn to pay off that debt instead of thinking they had more to spend.

Ok, so that is that. You can be sure I’d get the phone where I could talk all times of the day. And, they would have to get a webcam. HMPF!

Ahh, do you know what we just did? We did a load of clothes – at least brought one down and started the washer so lover bunny could sleep in some more . We’ll see how that works. We figure we can get one more load in too … we’ll see how long he sleeps naturally. It’s 8:11 now … he said wake him up at 8:30 cuz of the clothes, but we’ll let him sleep, then next load at 8:50 … so if he’s still sleepin we’ll start that load too. He’ll be SOOO surprised an happy! It was hard on our numb feet at back coming up, but it’s tolerable … just have to sit and rest. The next load going down would be the hardest cause we’re carrying a basket too, but the third trip at 9:35 be easiest because then just switching loads? Hmm. Nope gotta bring a load up … better Rich do that one … Pretty sure he’d be up by THAT time!

Anyway … so far so good.

So, what’s next worker woman!??

Fresh coffee yup yup got that … medicines good … mood great! Don’t think there’s much to add on the medical. I think on Tuesday we have to do something on the arthritis, and there is a meeting down toward UIC for South Chicago Providers …

We’ll have to see if the times coordinate to make both, but I think the parking is prohibitive. I’m not able to walk across the street – distance is too great. *Sigh*

Hopefully by Tuesday we’ll find out something on the new glasses because it will have been 10 business days. They are taking a long time, which is not appreciated for the amount of money spent on them – though it WILL be nice to have the better prescription. I’m looking forward to that. We’re still going to be using the same old frames. I think we’ve used the same frames for about 12 years now, but they were good and passed the test – just they won’t take responsibility for them if they break.

I’m not up for getting the small square one’s after so many years having big ones to look out from. My eyes aren’t good enough to peer out from in back of my glasses as if I were reading beyond someone’s mind intelligently. I think that’s just a mental game anyway and don’t want to be caught dead using it. The other problem going smaller is that I’d have to still fit in the tri-focal part and I’m thinking I’ll take it the way it is now … I don’t want things all squinchy. Plus if I were to choose again … I’d just get the same tortoise shell. I’m pretty old fashioned about that – AND since we’re borrowing the money seemed to make sense to stay as low in cost as we could … Just made sense all around. I think we got the Rich nod of approval on that.

WooHooo! 8:31 am and sleepy bear is still sleeping … so far so good! Hope that light outside his window doesn’t wake him. He got up around 5 am to use washroom … think he’s good to go there hehehe.

As to work. We’re not getting too much done there … see first couple of paragraphs. We’re obsessing with Thom’s stuff. Have to get head out of cloud there. There’s been some pain in the neck stuff going around mostly with the newer staff clique. Theresa, Candice and Stephanie have banned together and have been making themselves into a group outside the group, which has been getting harder on the rest of them because they’ve been so camp’ish about it. I guess a couple of weeks ago they started a new thing where they’ve been bringing in and eating salads together – so Maria saw they were having corned beef and cabbage, etc as a package meal at her grocery store and asked around who wanted to go in for it … turned out the old staff was game and it came out as an anti new group thing to do.

I don’t know how that will turn out, but it’s what’s going to go down on Monday anyway. I think the old group is tired of having the tryst thrown in their face as if we are not good enough for them. There’s a lot of attention, because it was ok for a while that Candice be allowed to go into Theresa’s room to work on outfits for Spring Fling, but now she’s brought in her computer and calculator and is working there during the day. I will just wait it out, because I don’t believe that Sister is going to put up with that for long. The first several days it happened this week I thought bleh … and just left without her because she was staying overtime with Theresa. She didn’t show yesterday because she stated she was up all night with a friend in emergency, and she came in late on Thursday, but …

She was out of the office most of the day with the exception she had a late lunch in the office – to avoid I believe coming to the 1 pm meeting on time, and when she came in she blasted her music instead of wearing her ear phones. Then she left again. Later 15 minutes before time to leave she came in and started as if she worked there. But, she put on this terrible smelling bath water. I was so taken back I asked what that was and then responded – oh it smells strongly. I was most frustrated because I didn’t want to take her home after being disregarded for a complete day/week- and I thought that’s why she had come back. I was playing it out to wait her out.

But, then Rich called and I knew I had to go home, so I stood up and put on my coat … and then she put on her coat. So I really felt compelled to have to ask her if she wanted the ride home which of course she did. Bleh, Bleh … I felt dirty and used. Plus, I had to deal with that scent was going to permeate my car. I couldn’t stop but to think that the noise on the radio and the body wash had both been done to irritate me. It was like a piddle-shit war game I didn’t want to play.

Pshwoo… It’s 9 am and sleepy bear still in his cave sleeeeepin away. We got the second load of clothes downstairs. The next switch – going to only do 2 loads – comes up in 45 minutes so that means if sleep bear doesn’t wake up we should gear ourselves to bring up the clothes. That be really hard, but then we’ve got to talk ourselves into the knowledge that we can rest as much as we want coming up right? This last trip we had to rest between the 2nd and 3rd landing. I’m pretty determined though not to wake up sexy … I mean sleepy until he does it on his own natural accord. Hmpf! We just gave Missy a bunch of extra petting so she wouldn’t meow and wake him up. She can be that way ya know! So far so good about not running into neighbors while you’re wearing your flannel pjs. Pshwoo.

As to the other stuff. I think sister is letting things ride until after the Spring Fling … by now Candice is thinking she designed it. Yeeks! Ok, no more of that stuff … enough said. You about got the idea.

Thinking group was pretty average. We were working of the chart for making your own selections and community so we let the group choose a room – they chose a bedroom.

And, we talked about putting furniture in the bedroom. We asked them what they
would put in first … They as a group decided that a television was first priority.

So we had them draw a TV. After the TV was drawn – Many of them wanted to show us … hehehe they are so cool! Then we wanted them to decide where they would shop for their TV. They came up with 3-4 choices and we had volunteers write the choices up on the blackboard, so they could be copied next to the picture.

Then we went on … the next item was the bed, but some of the group decided they would rather have a couch in their bedroom that way they could sit up and watch TV and then sleep on the couch at night. So we said of course, ok to that. Pictures were drawn, labels of stores added. I was thinking next toward a lamp or light, but one of the guys decided they needed shampoo … so people drew in shampoo and shopped for that. The light came after that. They decided on hanging, table or floor light. All the time they were showing the pictures to each other and staff. There was quite a bit of fluidity in that people were getting up and down to get a better view of the board. Others could get it from their chair. One of the guys decided he would draw in Jewels and then we said out loud ok, that’s good … is it ok that you can have food in your bedroom … they all agreed to that so they started naming off grocery stores. It didn’t take soon after that that they decided they’d shopped long enough they needed to stop at BK or McDonald’s, pizza or something. Hehehe The last item added was a closet full of clothes for the people that were still there.

Most of the people shopped at Walmart, Target, or K-mart for their clothes.
Pshwoo … lot of packages!

Whoops sweeties up!

Ok back for just a minute … sugar is in the shower. WOOHOO~!! He’s umm the non-dissolving kind hehehe

We’ve been up talking for about 75 minutes and doing stuff … Like he went down and got that first load of clothes, and we both hung stuff up and he checked his email … and we drank coffee and just talked. It was very nice. He’s going to be away most of the day so we had to get in some good listening time especially. He’s leaving in about 45 minutes or less (after the 2nd load of laundry) and he’s only coming home for a quick pork chop dinner about 4:30 – 5:00 pm, and, then he’s most likely going to leave again to meet his brother over at his mother’s. His brother is an over-the-road truck driver and he drives from coast-to-coast and isn’t in that often so its kind of a big deal when he is here. They have to be careful though not to interrupt plans for the mother’s and Bud’s anniversary at the hotel.

Rich commented older people do things one at a time … hehehe like ME! Whoops speaking of … I sense a naked man about to cross my periphery vision. You know I’m going to be all for that!

Wow! That was intense … we spent another ½ hour with Rich, but now he is gone. He left a $10 bill in case something happens. I’m thinking he’s thinking that he might go straight from the game to his brothers, because he was waffling on being here and maybe cooking the pork chop anyway at 9 pm just to get it cooked. It’s 11:15 am now already and there’s a good chance I might not be up at 9 pm, but we’ll try. It’s harder though to think he won’t be in for that intermission time. Had kind of hoped for that. Long day of writing and reading I’m thinking. I wish that we’d have open the military chat room on Saturday’s. But, at least the Board is open and if nothing else, we could go back to figuring out about that other chat room … I forgot how to get there though. How was it??

posted by Ann Marie @ 3/20/2008 12:04:00 PM Comments: 2