Ayn's Multiple World

Did I Hear You're Still a little Grumbly - fence-sitting at it's Best

Good morning, good morning it is me! We are getting a real late start though it’s already 10:15 am. CNN is on naturally in the background and Rich has left for work. He left about 8:30 am. He had a real nice slow getting up morning. He was going through his email on the computer in front of a fishy show when we got up. We’d gone to bed with him last night, but had woken up some time for about 30-45 minutes and then we fell back to sleep on the couch and slept until about 7:30 am.

I really liked waking up and finding him so close to us. He was being quiet so we wouldn’t wake up.

Last night after we finished writing, we’d gone to lie down on the couch. We were tucked under the covers and again I think we had fallen asleep. Maybe we’d been awake just before he sat down. I just remember the part of us watching CNN and when he wanted to turn it to another show, we gave him some trouble. His argument was that we had been watching it all along and it was his turn and our argument was that we’d just finally gotten up to Anderson Cooper and that it was unfair that whenever he came in we had to switch the channel.

I’m not saying either argument was better or not than the other, but the point was in the end as being I wasn’t going to make him watch something he didn’t want to watch. I said he could change it, but we were grouchy. He changed it to a fishy show. We handled that for a few moments, but then we got up and went to the computer. Our thought was that if we were going to turn off my show, he should have at least picked something we were more equally interested in. I didn’t stay long at the computer though. I had been lying down and I figured hmm, CNN is on his bedroom TV, I could watch that and lay down at the same time.

I know that he would eventually figure out we weren’t in the room with him, but I didn’t know how else to do it. We’ve got to be able to have SOME separation. I wasn’t moving to get him frustrated; I just would rather be lying down and listening to CNN. He might have stayed out in the living room for about 10 minutes, but then I guess he’d turned off the TV and went through the process of getting in bed with us. I felt bad, because I knew he didn’t want to watch that show and we didn’t want him to make us feel guilty, but we already were. Then he did something very sneaky. He rolled over on his tummy in his going to get a back rub mode and we just looked at him and said that wasn’t fair!

But, he was low-key and truth be told we almost always look forward to opportunities to be touching him. We checked in with his feelings and it seemed he was ok. He was just being drifty in a nice space. It’s really hard to be frustrated with someone when you are rubbing his back AND we were getting to listen to Anderson. He had on his co-host of the New Year’s celebration Cathy something I think. They were very funny together. Oh … that was convenient, they just said on TV her name is Cathy Griffin. I remember something about the chatter of always having her First Amendment lawyers. I gathered from their spot last night that she talks of others – ripping them as standard fair. I thought it was so funny she said she wasn’t putting up with Lou Dobbs and then she sort of groaned. I though AHA! That’s my girl!

She was very quick-witted and Anderson Cooper has such a wonderful demeanor and natural laugh. It was just a joy. I made sure Rich knew that out of all the goals for New Year’s Eve we would want to be watching Anderson’s special 2 hours up to the New Years. WOOHOO!!! It took Rich a few moments to get over it, but can’t do much more than that. To be fair though, I should give him options all the way up to that to be watching TV. I think he’s getting home about 4:00 pm tonight and we’re supposed to go out to the small Italian place. That will be nice, but I forewarned him that I would want to be talking about the next year and other future goals. He let me know that our views were contradictory and I wouldn’t want him to bring us down. Just thinking of it now - it seems that we should talk about the different views so that we can be working on combining them somewhere down the line. BUT, he’s right in that I don’t want to hear him start off cold … that he wants only a shack of a house, because he’s going fishing with all his free time. I think he’s then tormenting me.

Well, you gotta imagine we didn’t seem too frustrated with each other, because it was one of those “happy” nights. Pswhoo - our babe is hot!

There was this one bad part though in that I’d discovered he’d brought home leftovers. There was a little play as to whether they were mine or his. He had felt real good for not eating his entire dinner, but it was already 4-5 hours since I had eaten, and I know that usually Rich gives me the left-over. I think its part of him not liking left-over as much as me, but also because he might feel a little guilty for going out to eat so much without me. Either way … we did get the left-over and I felt bad, because I should have had less of it than I had. *Sigh*.

There has been some more time too between last night and this morning for skimming over pages in the book. I am very pleased that the print came out as well as it did. It seems easy to read and the quality of the printing is very good. It’s not faded or anything. It’s nice and clear. For the record, we used Cambria 10 pitch.

Because it’s double columns it seems just that much easier to read. Again, we’re going to want to start on the next book right away. Well, actually after we get some writing done, but pretty soon.

As to regular details though of what’s been happening, I don’t think I have anything else to be writing about. I’ve covered my bases. There are a few uncomfortable thoughts about doing bills and going back to work, but since I don’t HAVE to do those … we can let those thoughts go again. I am worried because I should have had a staffing on the newest person before we left and I didn’t. She came on December 1rst, so is due by January 1rst, but obviously we weren’t up to that point before the break and now coming back we’re going to have past the date. I should have had it before, but there is nothing I can do about that now. It’s best not to worry about it. I will take care of it first thing on Monday morning and there is now CSO people involved because she didn’t get that acceptance and financing yet, it’s just that when the state inspection people come they usually ask for the newest person and if they do … she won’t have been ready. Ok, you … nothing to do … let’s remain at a not petrified view, k?

Vacations always go by too quick.

Tomorrow is the big deal with the boys and I’m really looking forward to it. Rich won’t be there because he’ll be with his mother and Chris and Chris’ girl Christy.

I think he’s looking forward to that, but he was a little sad today because now both his other son and daughter have gone home. As we’d mentioned before they had a chance to go out last night, but he didn’t say too much about it. I think he gets sad when Jillian has to go home again. I know he’d like her to live here, but that seems very far-fetched. He’s handling it, just always Rich is the protective person. Things feel safer when he can come in to help out when necessary.

I don’t know if I mentioned it, but I did talk to my mother and sister on Christmas morning. I called from the house before leaving. There’s not too much to say about that either. They were both nice calls and I felt bad for my mother because she was sad her mother wasn’t there. It’s the first Christmas without her. I think we already mentioned she’d called while we were at the fishy store and that was a nice thing. She usually doesn’t call for anything unless there’s something startling that happened. She had just called because she’d heard about our bad weather. I think we’d be a lot more relaxed if she did that more frequently. It puts a lot of pressure on me to be the only one making the calls. It was the same with my grandmother and my sister.

I think there was a time we weren’t in the place where we wanted to receive calls, but I’ve tried to relax those standards over the last year or so. We’ll have to give it time. I wish I were better at calling people, but I get so engaged in work or the writing that I don’t think of much else. I feel the same in not calling Alexis. I worry about her and now it’s been about 3 times calling Thom where he hasn’t called me back. I think he’s coming in today, so we’re really hoping to see him tomorrow with the other kids, but it just hasn’t come together yet. We’re trying.

Hmm, Dr. Marvin said something last night about the writing. I don’t know how one thing leads to another, but he had made a comment something like we our writing was super-personal. I thought that was a strange sentence, so I asked him to explain.

He said a lot of people write about things that are personal, like they say what has happened to them, but we write as we are thinking which brings it that much more personal.

I should think of that for a moment, because it’s come back to me a few times as something important. At first impression, I thought of it as being a good thing. I think writing directly from thoughts although I hadn’t thought of this as something real different is really the most honest way to write your life story. I can still edit things out I don’t want to convey, but for the most part whether people take me to be a good character or not, it is really from our gut-level of being. What we write and how we write about it is really the way we think and are. I wish there were some ways of getting through life without writing what comes out as negative about others, but this wouldn’t be real.

It’s hear I think of Cathy Griffin’s First Amendment lawyers and I think I’m going to need one before things are done.

Dr. Marvin had something for me too after we sat down. He had printed out a book from Amazon where the writer had done the same thing as we had. The book was advertised as being unedited and telling of the story of the multiple’s life and that with her psychologist. There was positive and negative too that. I liked the idea that there really might be a market for it, but then too there’s the feeling that maybe someone jumped you to the punch-line, and that because the story and others’ have already been told, that maybe our own story wasn’t going to be as significant.

I think the next thoughts were a bit competitive. We saw that the author was asking almost $30 for her book, and we wondered what was making it so expensive. That’s about when we realized that it had just been put out in October, but in truth, the book was only about 84 pages. That felt almost insulting to us … like how could anyone tell a real story in so few pages. I wondered then if the book was more a picture book – there was a reflection of something like that as a cover page. But, I didn’t read anything about pictures. That would have been the only reason I thought such a short story to be told is if they were covering expensive color copies.

When we got home we thought to look up the ladies publisher, and then we discovered that she had self-published. That seemed to break the competitive feelings we were having. Our goal would be to be published by someone, but we don’t know how that’s going to work down the line. Again, we are going to put off our publishing thoughts until after we pick up the books on Monday from work. But, it was an interesting impression on Dr. Marvin. He said if this lady could do it, then our work had a better chance of being published. We asked him about talking of things at work and how that would work out, but at the time he wasn’t thinking it was a problem. The first year we didn’t mention the name of the center or people directly. We never mention clients’ names, but we do start to use real names later down the line.

Maybe this is something that is going to have to be changed, but then again I know there are other autobiographies where people talk about others they know.

I do spend time thinking if anyone knew my thoughts toward them; they will most likely never talk to me again if they read anything negative about themselves. I know we’ve said negative things about Sr. the other Q and the DSPs. Sometimes I think we have an era of superiority in that we think our thoughts and our way of doing things are better than others. I don’t think this has to be the case, because there are many things sister has done contrary to the way we thought of it, and we find her ways often to be workable. But, I don’t think it discounts the thoughts at the time that we are having opinions that are naturally different because they are coming from our perspectives.

I think on the surface though we are a little dishonest because there are things we wouldn’t tell a person directly that we do tell in our writing. I think one day we’ll be judged on this, and I hope all the judgments aren’t negative. I think if everyone were honest with their thoughts and feelings, more of these expressions would happen. I don’t think it’s good for peacekeeping, but it is an interesting issue. I think a few movies have been done where the star says everything truthfully what he’s actually thinking about – even if it disgruntles his audience.

It’s a strange phenomenon.

I would like to think the majority of my thoughts are positive and often I explain why I’m thinking one way or another. For example, the thought comes to mind the time Sr. was down on me because of the DSPs wanting to consider themselves more professional. I thought … if they wanted to be more professional, why don’t they read or learn things that at this point they seem resistant too. They do seem to want to learn, but they don’t want to put any extra thought into it.

Well of course, this then becomes my opinion. I do have one and I think this is true. Doesn’t seem to make the DSPs look positive though, so we’re left hanging with our thoughts, because expressed through the writing it makes things seem like I’m above them and/or are negative. I usually think of people who I consider to be easier to approach – maybe like a well-versed Priest. He must have ways of keeping people moving on a positive bend without pointing out what seems to be errors in their thinking. I think even though in that situation, the might be more upfront and honest. Funny I’m thinking now of the movie with John Wayne and that red-headed star where Wayne chooses her for his wife and they get in a big knock-down draining fight all across the Irish countryside. Thing is there were both a Catholic priest and a Presbyterian Minister and people in these kinds of roles are often depended on for stating the obvious honest situation.

I’m not comparing myself to be as intelligent as one of them; I would like to say though that I respect the point of view where they are trying to bring things around to a “right” path. I wish I had more confidence in my right path, but I think anyone that has read me to this point would know that I do some things to cover or avoid work. I think also I do things to make me feel somehow stronger or better.

Maybe this is a fault of the way I was raised. I don’t want to step out of responsibility, it’s just that I need to somehow justify why I can get by writing thoughts that I know would insult others.

I think if they were given the same task of writing as I am taking, they would do the same thing. This doesn’t make it right or wrong and in general brings to the forefront subjects such as little white lies. Like when I’m angry at Sister and I think she’s insulted me – the thing I do is to not say much of anything. I try to walk away. This would be a white lie in that I’m not being honest with her. I’m not in a position face-to-face to tell her you are making me very angry. I do however come home and often write out my feelings or thoughts or I talk to Dr. Marvin about it. Is this fair? I don’t know. At one point, Sr. challenged me on not being more objective in what I say to my therapist. It was after he told me that it was his impression that I might want to start looking for another job. We felt again insulted in the thought that she would expect me to be promoting her own view rather than my view when with my therapist. I do try to be objective and get in both view points, but why would I assume her point of view to be correct when I hold contradictory views.

Maybe this is part of being a nun AND a boss though to think your way IS the only way. I think no matter what the cause it is wrong thinking. I know I’ve also had problems over the years in her thinking that she can be so critical of us, but that we are expected not to say anything negative back. She doesn’t want to argue out points. She means for things to work HER way with no room for discussion. I think being in this kind of relationship offers built-in negatives. She can’t tolerate being wrong, but she expects us to be ok with us being wrong as often as she sees fit. For example, it is wrong in her viewpoint for us to wear pants at work or let our hair down. Things like this are just her viewpoint. There shouldn’t be a rule that I’m going to be scoffed if I don’t wear a barrette. I don’t wear these things at home.

I do want to look nice, but I remember the one time I cut my hair – about the time Sandy had died, she stated clearly she didn’t like the cut. I’ve never gotten a hair cut since that. I can’t blame this all on her, but point is there has to be some out-letting of frustration when you’re not given an option of confronting the situation directly. I couldn’t tell her I don’t care if you like my hair cut. It makes her furious to be confronted.

Hmm, I think this is about all I want to say on this for the present. I feel now that I’m having work thoughts and they are negative and I don’t really want to be doing that. It helps in building my resistances about wanting to work. I do feel I have a lot in stake in that I feel desperate to be moving on in my career.

I have been thinking well if I weren’t working than how interesting would my writing be. But that thought didn’t lie long before I was thinking about all the interesting things I could be reading that would help me become and write as a better person. You know that I would first pick up the material on self-determination and self-regulation along with self-object psychology. I don’t know if I wouldn’t go back to school too. If I didn’t have to worry so much about crowding in my time, I might really be in good shape to continue the education. I do like studying psychology, but I wouldn’t want to be expected to practice it other than volunteer work and writing. I like writing about how my minds process and think about things. I think life-experiences come often and you can apply new mind-sets to everything you do.

Like no-one had to teach me in particular, but when I went to the zoo this week, I naturally for me acted differently than some of the younger adults who’d obviously been drinking. By this I mean they were laughing loudly, acting boisterously and holding a beer. Through my whole process of rising myself – I’ve come to conclusions I prefer one behavioral style over another. I am a lot quieter and don’t drink in public. I don’t see any problem in putting great author’s in front of me and then comparing how I in actuality work their thinking into my own. Maybe some of the great thinkers were great drinkers – I don’t mean to strike a moral code here, it’s just that I’d like the perspective of being a more profound thinker and then from that perspective looking at my world and saying so now then what am I going to do about that!?

So that’s enough of that here. I figure I have about ½ hour more of writing. I had given myself a time period up to noon. I can always break that and I might, but I too have to justify some of my bending your ear for some purpose. Hehehe ok, that’s a problem … I’m not too profound yet. We’re trying!

posted by Ann Marie @ 12/31/2008 11:43:00 AM Comments: 0

Gifting the Gods

Good morning. This is me. We’re up early today – well at least about 3:30 am. It is now about 4:45 am. Rich is still soundly sleeping. We slept in the chair last night because we didn’t disturb and we wanted to be close to the computer. I think he went to bed about 10 pm and we went to bed about 11 pm.

The exciting part was that we’ve GOT THE BOOK!!!

I am just soooo very excited! We were skimming through it last night and now again this morning and we’re so goofy about it we could knock over Gumby if he were here.

Last night we had been up at the computer and Kinko’s had called about 8:45 pm. The guy said it was going to cost about $320 and that the job was complete. He said that we could pick-it up and that they stayed open until 11 pm. I didn’t understand what the extra cost was for I just wanted to pick up the book.

By the time we had gotten the call, Rich had finished cards and watching TV and was reading right behind me. The first thing he said was that he was comfortable and not going out and that the book could get picked-up the next morning. We were like … no … you don’t have to pick-up the book, we are going to get it ourselves and yes we are going as soon as possible. They said it would be ready by 9:30 pm. Oh man we’re we happy. We were even happier when we thought later that we might have a Dr. Marvin appointment today. I haven’t the faintest idea what time, but he was supposed to leave us a message.

We decided that we were going to wrap a copy of the book for him in one of those boxes of Rich and that we’d wrap another box for Dr. Woollcott. We’ll ask Dr. Marvin to get the box to Juanita, Dr. Woollcott’s old secretary. We’re pretty sure she will have the mailing address. Or, that she can keep it for him until he comes to UIC. He’s supposed to be in once a month.

After we’d gotten to Kinko’s – the trip was a blur, we went to the counter and the guy found our box under the counter. I thought wow … that was handy. I didn’t want to deal with the cost because I didn’t want the negative on the book or project. He said right away though that they’d printed an extra copy … I thought that was wonderful. After we got back out to the car, we took out a copy of the book. The box had gone to the floor of the back seat. I was very disappointed in that one of the tabs had gotten ripped off the book. I didn’t know if that had just happened when he put the book back in the box, or if it happened while it was in its printing process.

I thought about it for a few moments, while I allowed my heart beat to stabilize.

This wasn’t going to be an end of the Earth crises, right? I thought more patiently, they had given us an extra book, so we had no justification to bring it back in to say – do it over. I couldn’t have tolerated the extra time waiting for it to be fixed even if it weren’t at an extra cost. I had forgotten how displeased I’d been with this Kinko’s previously. I had to say a few positive things for them, in that they really knocked out that job in about 5 ½ hours and for the most part I was pleased. I would have preferred that the tabs had plastic coating, but I hadn’t seen that to have been an option.

It’s also a little clumsy in that the binding makes it difficult to place the book flat unless you lift a group of papers straight up before lying down so the pages don’t become twisted. I’ll have to remind myself later when we become rich and famous Hehehe … that we will not use tabs and we’ll get the book hard-bound rather that combed-edged. But, for now … what can I say – it’s our first book and the fact of the matter is that it is COMPLETE!!!

I don’t know what people are going to say. We did bring in a couple copies from where we left the box in the kitchen. We officially gave Rich his copy. He did put down his book and tentatively skimmed through a half a dozen or so sections just opening the pages randomly. He asked if I thought the boys would read it. I said honestly, probably not right away, but maybe one day. And, then I asked him if he was going to read it. He said that he would read some of it. I felt a bit of disappointment. Part of the joy in writing is to think that someday people will read you. But, I didn’t push him. He went to lay the book down and then asked if I would put it up so the cats wouldn’t wreck it. I did and thought ok, don’t go there … the fact of the matter is that WE WERE excited and as soon as we turned around and sat down, we would be leafing through the book.

We did admonish Rich a little. We told him softly that this was a big deal. He could agree it was a big deal, but then he looked at me as if to say, didn’t you know that this was happening? I don’t know … it wasn’t the reaction I was looking for. There were a few more things said, but they weren’t real heavy of dark. We had expected him to have a low tolerance for the project and we didn’t see the need to really push him. I think the last statement sounded something like, you know not everyone writes a book, one might think that if this happened there might be a little excitement. I think the reason I’m not really down on him is that he’s going to have to process it on his own level. I don’t know if part of his lack of enthusiasm is that he knows the book is going to be a little about him too. Besides Dr. M and the boys … he’s like the main character and due to proximity … he’s probably even closer than the others to me and to the center of the story.

I will say that in Book 1, he’s not really over-stated. We talked throughout of having a friend and sometimes we would say things in reference to that, but we never talked about being in a sexual relationship. In actuality, we didn’t even talk about being boy and girl friend. It just wasn’t proper at the time, even though we’d known each other for about 10 years. I’m not going to think through the math again … Just what’s there is there.

I will one day want to go back and connect some of the dots as to other years. But, I think sadly, just like the missing pictures in this book, we are missing parts of our story. The couple of direct years before this … maybe up to 5 years, we’d written to Rich and sometimes Dr. Marvin about our day to day life. I think we’d saved most of those copies on AOL, but it was at a time that AOL wasn’t saving the emails on-line. So, when we lost the computer at that time, we lost the writing.

There’s a slim chance, in that I think we still have the computer we were using.

I’d never found the files with those correspondences, but I like to think there’s a very slim chance it has survived on one of the old versions of AOL.

Since AOL supports so little of what it does, I don’t know even if there were that slim chance, if it wouldn’t be just that much slimmer. *Sigh* I know let it go.

There are a couple of other things too. Dr. Woollcott has a couple years of our writings and Dr. Marvin has many years of his notes and Dr. Woollcott’s. I don’t know if he would ever have the inclination to go back over them in order to contribute to a writing effort. I am guessing that Dr. Woollcott took the better notes. Dr. Marvin has talked a couple times of keeping notes that were pretty vague. I don’t think he trusts the situation of putting personal information on data files that others could access. He would have fulfilled the job requirements, but probably the records seem pretty sterile. If either Dr. Marvin or Dr. Woollcott had the inclination to write anything on my behalf, I would readily agree and look forward to the copy. But, I think we’ve discussed this before. Basically, that’s a lot more dream-like than most likely reality. *Sigh*

Do people ever really get past the thought they are someone’s center of the world?

Not sure. But, we’re going to at least frame it in that it’s a positive response to think you are important to others and your story is worth telling.

As to my thoughts upon skimming through the book – I have to say that each time I turn a page and especially when the contents of the pages become familiar, I am left to think … wow! I really told a story of my life. I wrote it and its readable and everything! I am having trouble thinking through how it might seem from another’s perspective. I suppose that will depend on whose reading it, but in general when I read the lines, part of it is fresh and other parts have memories connecting the lines to some real point of our existence. So, the affect is different than if someone else read it. I think these first copies going out to family and Dr.’s are going to be like that somewhat to them too. They will recognize either themselves or things we’ve told them about in the story.

I think the fairest judge is going to be Dr. Woollcott. He has a basis in knowing me, but in all reality – he’s mentioned the least of the small group of Dr. Marvin, Rich and the three boys. He’s also a writer, so I think he’ll be able to appreciate that words were captured. Then too … Dr. Woollcott was the one who started this entire thought of writing out our story. He thought that it was therapeutic to be writing or journaling. I’ve got so much toward him to be thankful for. If he’d not discovered me hiding in that hospital 18 years ago, none of my life would have occurred – at least not as it has. We had been heading down a path of being sent to a state mental hospital. That was the immediate option left next to him having taken over my care.

Ok, best not to go down all that now … just saying that I owe a lot to him. The others are equally deserving of compliments, but all those are more an immediate relation to me where there is more give and take. When I talk to Dr. Woollcott, I know that he’s no longer being paid and is responding to me as one old friend to another. He’s the one that leaves me feeling most nostalgic.

I think if there were one other person I would like to give a copy of the book to, it would be Dr. Luttmers. It’s a thought now really. I don’t know though if he’s still working at St. Mary’s. Hmm, I had TERRIBLE luck getting through on the St. Mary’s switchboard … the person answering sounded like he was high. He couldn’t hold together the entire spelling of the name. It was like here let me spell that for you. Now let me repeat that 5 times and then you get it wrong. I asked him when the next person came on shift, but he didn’t seem to understand that either.

So I just said thank-you I’ll call later and then we hung-up. He apologized, but sheesh – you would think this is an important link to that world? Maybe they should have someone who can answer the phone.

What did turn out was that I called back the directory and I found the in-town residence of Dr. Luttmers. I still have to decide whether or not to send a copy.

I’ll have to let this filter through. I know that Dr. Woollcott deserves one after all his year’s hard service, but then I have to think so does Dr. Luttmers. He was the one to put up with me those last two years from 97-99 and again in 90. If it weren’t for him, I would have never made it though the college experience. It would be a good way to say thank-you.

Hmm, we’re back again … It’s already about 7 am. Rich is up and is going through the shower. I forgot I probably should have waked him up about a half hour ago. It just doesn’t seem like a weekday. But, here it is already Tuesday. I’m so grateful of having this week off. You really live for a year just to say and feel this.

We’re back! It’s now just after 9:30 am. We checked with Dr. Marvin and it turns out the appointment is at 1 pm today. We should leave here about 12- 12:15 pm.

We’ll play it out then. I’m pretty excited let me tell you! We’ve been massaging Rich and then he left about an hour and a half ago. Wow … this last bit of time really flew by. We were in the kitchen and then the living room signing and wrapping the books for everyone. We did six of them. They went out to Maury, Thom, Joe, Dr. Luttmers, Dr. Woollcott, and of course Dr. Marvin. It is making me just soooo happy!

I think that we’ll go with Rich to the UPS store and have them box-up the package to go to Dr. Luttmers. We are going to give the boys their packages on Thursday, and then we’ll bring the other two doctors to the session with Dr. Marvin today. I don’t want to be in the position of asking for Dr. Woollcott’s address because I think that should be private, but I think I can get by with asking Dr. Marvin to bring the package to Juanita. We might have gone over that a moment ago … just it feels a bit jumbled in our mind because we want everything to go well and get out as soon as possible. I don’t know if Juanita will mail it to Dr. Woollcott or wait until he comes by. We could get it wrapped and put postage on it while at the UPS store, but then maybe he’s going to be here fairly soon. We’ll see. Maybe we will get better advice from Dr. Marvin.

Otherwise we’ve got to let it go. We thought all the time wrapping up the gifts how happy we hoped people would be to get them. It makes things so much more meaningful this year. Just dancing in my seat!

Hmm, we keep going back to review one thing or another on the book. We think of something and then we want to figure out what that person might be seeing if he or she opened the book in any one place or another. But, then we get into it again and time flows past. It’s now already 10 am. I don’t think we have too much ability to concentrate on writing this morning. Maybe we’ll be able to after we talk to Dr. Marvin. I’ll give us a few moments and if that doesn’t work out we’ll go over and start working again on book 2. I don’t really want to do the work, but then we don’t want it to sit not getting done.

I think after we get all the books written out, we’ll worry more about publishing them. I don’t know our heads are up to looking for opportunities. I think I would like to ask each of the doctors if they know of opportunities. I was thinking that St. Mary’s my old university have a publishing press, but I think in the story somewhere BJ comes up. I’m not sure then if publishing my work is something the University wants to get involved with. There’s a thought to of maybe getting a publishing agent.

Ok, we’re back AGAIN. It’s now about 6:15 pm and we’re just getting off the phone with Rich. He had just pulled into the restaurant where he is going to be meeting his kids. Apparently, he finally got out bowling. He went with Chris and Jill and Dawna’s son Nick. He is reported to have had a good time. He said that he won too. I think his score was in the low 120’s … eh … probably would have beaten me too. I think he was almost as happy for pulling in ahead of the Hummer to the parking spot. Silly goose – he’s got his competition up! He said that he’ll be back in a couple of hours.

Lots of stuff happened in the time we’ve been gone, but nothing real exciting. We were looking at publisher’s and publishing agents. I had one site where there was a list of them, so I sent out a few queries to try it out. I’ve officially had my first few rejections. WooHOO!!! That probably makes me a real life author. The first email I got back stating that I wasn’t writing the kind of book they work with also had a suggestion of how to get going. That was a nice thing to happen sooner than later. Oh and there was another agency who recommended an agent search site called http://www.aar-online.org/

We’ll probably go back there later, but we’ll wait for the books to come. We ordered two from Amazon. The first is the recommended one, Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors, & Literary Agents 2009: Who They Are! What They Want! How to win them over! And this book is in its 19th Edition. The second book was also highly recommended it was called, How to Get a Literary Agent. There is a lot to learn about publishing and it has to do with agents and editors and certain codes of behavior. So, I guess this is the formal start of all that. BUT, I forgot to uncheck the box at Amazon so the books will come by the end of the week, unfortunately, they will go to the center. *Sigh*.

We’re going to need to put that to bed for a while. No sense beating ourselves up with it. In the meantime we wanted to say something before finally posting tonight. We went to Dr. Marvin’s and then we went to the UPS store and then we took a nap. Pswhoo - it’s tiring being me!

As to the short ones, the nap was delicious! It felt extravagant to crawl into the corner of the couch and pull the blanket over me. When I woke up the news was still on and I had matching kitties on either side of me. They seem to seek out these times as the best! Well, other than getting fed. Oh that reminds me … we had left-over from last night too. The UPS store was to take care of Dr. Luttmers though I might have already mentioned this. I was happy to find the store all by myself.

It’s tucked into a quiet corner in LaGrange. I should know it well enough because Rich picks up his mail there. Just usually don’t pay attention to the streets he’s turning down. Yes, this could be a testament to my levels of awareness.

There weren’t any problems there so we’ll just move along. I do want to say that I’m very happy with myself for sending the book to Dr. Luttmers. The guy says that he will get it on Monday. Chances are that it will be about time to start classes again. I could have gotten it to him by Friday, but it would have cost twice as much. Dr. Luttmers was the guy that has always by means of being a University professor had to be frugal. He would understand taking the slower boat out of China. I didn’t really leave him with much contact information. The guy at UPS had our name on the computer and it was pulled up by giving him my phone number. I imagine then that he has my address too and that will get put on the label. I gave Dr. Luttmers a short note, but I didn’t remind him of our phone or email. I want this package sent to him to be a gift. I don’t need to ask anything from him. I think mostly I want him to be proud of me and remember how much he’d been a part of my life and how much I appreciated him for helping me out at a time of one of my greatest needs. He was my superstar for more than 2 years.

There was another stop in that I checked out at the main psychology switchboard to find out if they knew where Dr. Woollcott’s old secretary Juanita worked. She was on the 6th floor. We found her after Dr. Marvin’s appointment. Maybe not directly, but I knew that Dr. Marvin would have helped me if I’d asked for it, but in general it was nice to know that he would back me up if necessary. Juanita seemed happy to see me. I think both of us appreciated how much time had gone past. She said that Dr. Woollcott hasn’t been in for a while, but that she would call him and let him know there was a package there from me. I thought that was real nice. I felt very confident in having left the box with her. I did tell her at the end that it was a book and that Dr. Woollcott had always thought writing was important. I told her that he’s going to want to see this book. I felt pretty much like a glow-worm. It was a good stop.

Then of course was the big stop … we made it to Dr. Marvin’s on-time. After we sat down there was one of his psych students who came to his door to have something signed. The guy had known Dr. Marvin had open time from noon to 1 pm, but he only left about 7 minutes. When Dr. Marvin did come out, we pointed in back of him where the student was. The student he needed something signed, and then after he started to talk over a problem, but Dr. Marvin reminded him that he didn’t have time to talk. I was really proud of him for protecting my time with him. It meant a lot that I wasn’t going to be put off his and my schedule, just because this guy happened to be around. Good Dr. Marvin!

I think Dr. Marvin probably noticed the packages as soon as we walked past him. We put them down on the corner of his coffee table, and we sat down quickly stating that only one of the packages was for him and the other was for Dr. Woollcott and we pushed Dr. Marvin’s package to him. He looked a little confused though I have to admit he was looking real fine today! He’s done his hair a little different and its real sharp! He was looking so good though that I forgot to notice his tie and shirt. I think it was new, but I can’t bring my eyes back to looking in the right spot. There should be a rule about stunning people that way.

Dr. Marvin asked if he should open the package and I think we almost jumped him. Of COURSE OPEN THE PRESENT! He’s such a cutie! His eyes just sparkle. I don’t know if I can recall his exact expression when he removed the paper to uncover the book from the box. I think we were holding our breath waiting for him to respond and we didn’t want to break the charm of there being a surprise - in general though I can honestly say that he was very excited to see the book. I might have been so talkative I talked over the point nervously. You want someone to be excited, but you don’t want to talk yourself up so much that he might have been forced to cover other opinions. Of course, I’m reading way into this more than I should. I know Dr. Marvin, and I know that he would appreciate this gift.

One of the things I said right away was that now if he gave a lecture to his students on multiplicity he should have to then require reading the book, but that they’d have to pay $50 first. He said something to let me know this was a good idea. I don’t think they really make them pay for a book for a lecture, but I would think that he might be proud of having done such a good job with me. Later toward the end, we were pointing out that most people probably wouldn’t read the book, and then we thought of him and we figured we better get that straightened out right away. We asked him if HE was going to read the book. I saw him draw his breath and I felt bad right away because I know how valuable his time was. I think his response was a bit of a compromise, he said he would read parts of the book. He had mentioned earlier that he hadn’t had before the opportunity to sit down and read it like a book. Of course you gotta KNOW … we would like him to read the material.

I think we’re way far overextended when we say that we would hope after the 6th or 7th book, he might be inspired to write something too, but I’m pretty sure that is WAY down the road. I think he said too something that made me know he thought it looked very professional. Most of the time we were there though we were busy going on and on in about a million miles per hour. We didn’t give him much chance to get words worked in edgewise. I told him all we wanted to talk about was the book, but even at that some other stuff got squeaked in. I think we told him about being at Rich’s Mom’s and we talked to him about being at the zoo and that we were going to meet up with the kids in a couple of days.

We tried though to understand our thoughts on the book. We told him about us being pretty obsessive in picking it up and trying to figure things out. Dr. Marvin talked about being disjointed in that our thoughts don’t necessarily follow a particular straight line of thought. He was right in that we don’t remember where we are and this happens a lot. I think on the positive side is that I seem to be able to hold some of the story … well at least some of the time, but then it’s a difficult matter of putting together what everyone has thought whose been out in any given amount of time. I told Dr. Marvin we are like summarizers and that each time we sat down to write … somehow our brain figured out with that amount of time and that particular mood, what it was that we were going to be able to figure out and convey.

The whole book was like that … I told him that we are summarizers and we are trying to figure out simple things like even the general categories of things we were writing about. We want the story to make sense to us, but we’re still having problem putting together even the front and back of a 2000 character story all in the same set of thoughts. We can’t do it and its driving us crazy. It seems that we’ve gained some ground in that sometimes when we are skimming through the book we recognize stories that we are either holding or are less knowledgeable of. I think being familiar must be some part of that battle.

I think Dr. Marvin knew what we were talking about and he tried to let us talk it through even though we didn’t seem to be getting far with it. He tried to make it easier and we tried to let his thoughts come through, but we were blocking them in our effort to figure something out that we couldn’t quite grasp. There was a real sense of neediness about it. Maybe we can go into this again in the morning. I don’t think we’re going to write a lot, as stated earlier, we are going to want to get back into the editing, but this whole question of having done what we did needs to be addressed some more. It’s not sinking it proper yet. Maybe that will occur over time, right?

For now good night - we’re going to give our poor fingers a break. It’s about 7:30 now so we might just lie down for an hour until Rich comes home. It wouldn’t hurt also to take our medicine. It’s been a pretty emotional day. I remember telling Dr. Marvin when he asked us if we wanted to stop thinking about the book that our head was hurting. It was hard to close the book on his table so that we could move out the door. Dr. Marvin said though it would be a good idea to put some space around it. Ya gotta love Dr. Marvin.

posted by Ann Marie @ 12/30/2008 07:43:00 PM Comments: 1

Today is the day we've publishing our first book - and the zoo too!

Hi. This is me. It’s an unusual time for me to be writing so I don’t know how long I will be going on. It’s about 5:30 pm on a Monday night before New Years. I think New Years actually falls on Thursday AND on that Thursday; we are going to be getting together with the boys and theirs. There’s probably a bunch of stuff though between now and then that we should try writing out. We’re at odds tonight, because plans aren’t going well with Rich.

The first thing that happened is that he called an hour before he got home and he was telling me to get ready to go bowling. He’d talked about it maybe being a plan last week, but he didn’t talk about it happening today. I told him that he had to give me more time. I told him we’d just finished our major project and that I could get ready, but I didn’t want him busting in the door and pushing me. I would in a few moments get my shower, but I would need an hour for my hair to dry. I told him that we were going at a different pace.

I did work for a few moments longer and then I took my shower and then I went back to the computer and he came home. BUT, he was like busting down the door saying we had to go right away. He had thought that the leagues started at 7 and it was 4:45 pm, but I told him this is exactly what I didn’t want. I wasn’t going to be pushed past our part’s ability to make the switches necessary to get us out the door. We had to take it slow or it would be a forceful switch which makes us crabby. We don’t like being cranky. He said we had to leave in 10 minutes or we wouldn’t be able to go, so we said fine … we won’t go then. I told you I wasn’t going to be pushed.

I walked out of the room for a little bit and came back in and I asked why he didn’t call in advance. I reminded him that when he left the house today he said he might or might not be with his daughter. I didn’t mind either way, but the thing is that I was unprepared. I really don’t like being jumped. There was some smooch face stuff happening in there too, but in general … that was pretty much it.

Rich asked me if I wanted to eat. Our first response was “No.” Then the next response was like, well “Yes maybe.” And last, “Well yes, we’d like to eat.” By then there was no problems left. I went back to the computer and Rich came out after a bit saying something about drinks. I know that’s my cue to get the glasses filled. I gave in with no trouble. BUT then, Rich came out with the plates and turned the channel to be watching West Wing, but there wasn’t anything there. We had the DVR 51% set, but all the shows he had set-up were gone. Yeeks! That didn’t put him in a good mood. I think he was more mope than cranky though – it just kind of wrecked things up a bit.

He turned on an action adventure move and we didn’t like that cuz it scared our parts, so we came back to the computer and we’re leaving him to find a nicer space.

If he wants us over there … you know wears off his funk, he’ll put on something softer that we both like. But, I’m in no rush. I’d like to write now for a bit because I’ve lost my writing time today to the editing.

To skip that story a bit … About 4 pm, we finished the editing for the first book and we placed our order with FedEx-Kinko’s. It was smooth. We took our time though and did it really slow. I didn’t want us to make mistakes. Plus, we were getting into seeing their copy of our work. We are soooo excited to be having this part done. We can hardly wait to see what it is going to look like. Our special instructions had been to make copies of the cover pages in color and then do the other 322 pages in black and white. There were other instructions too. The cover is going to be in better thicker cardstock paper where the regular part of the book is going to be 30% recycled stock paper. I am having them print 7 copies of the book, because I thought I really would like one more copy to send Dr. Woollcott.

He’s the 7th person. I did send Vickie and Vince a copy through the Internet so they can read it from the computer if they want, but not from hard copy. The copies at a 7 unit discount came to almost $40 a book. I think that Kinko’s keeps the copy for up to a year, so if I want more copies I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask people to pay for them. It might be a little tricky because just one or two copies wouldn’t allow me to get the discount which seemed about 8-9%.

I put the comb-binding on the books and plastic covers. The special instructions were to have the covers both facing out. I also went with tabs, which cost a little more, but I’m looking forward to the effect. It’s a little less straight book like, but we have in our imaginations the feeling of looking through the CARF Standards book. It also has the comb and tabs. We put on each “CHAPTER 1” or whatever and then under that we put like “August 2003.” I like that we can get through the book and know where we are at. I had made sure during all the edits to make sure the chapters started on the odd pages, because we’d figured before that’s the only way you could fix properly the tabs. It seemed to go without a hitch.

It was really easy to make the order. You like go to their site, and then upload the work, and then you go to one of three tabs to figure out the paper, the binding, and the hmm, something, I don’t remember. I don’t think we used the last tab. You are given opportunities to look at what your work was going to look like throughout, and all options remained open until you tapped that final button. Even at that, I had to call in to confirm the order because there had been the special orders. The order goes right to the Kinko’s you pick out. My Kinko’s is about 3 ½ miles away.

The notes on the screen tell you the cost, but my cost wasn’t quite as firm because of the extra instruction, but it should be about $260 for the 7 books.

The guy on the phone was real nice. He said that everything had gone through fine and that he would work on it right away. It sounded like he was going to do the job before he went home tonight. He said they were open until 11 pm. Like Wow! That’s cool. The on-line order told me that it would take only 10 hours, so it would be ready no later than 2 pm tomorrow. I’m so stoked! I gave them the instruction to call me if it got done sooner. You better believe I’ll be dressed by 8 am, just in case it means getting out the door sooner to pick-up the books.

I did feel bad about 1 thing. I had put on the back cover that there were 6 first copies and I’d forgotten to change that when I added Dr. Woollcott’s. I would have liked him to see his name on that first run. But, I didn’t catch that until after the order went in. I remember from Dr. Lutmers my psych professor at St. Mary’s that you don’t have reprints just to correct small errors. Like Whoops!

Now I’m going to need settling my mind down in regard to having printed up the book? I’m really glad we didn’t go bowling tonight. I just couldn’t have stood that option. Rich doesn’t want to talk about the book. He’s like well, you printed it … what else – change over to the next thing. Umm, like OH is only ONE of us obsessive-compulsive? I have the copy up as a two-sided document and periodically I flip through pages and read random paragraphs. It’s like … uh-huh, uh-huh … it still SOUNDS like a book!

Ok, it’s a while later. It’s almost 7 pm. I was over in Rich’s world to see what we could shake through there, but he’s still kinda funky. He’s been finding shows to tape and has watched a little news, but now he’s going through a sports channel.

I asked him if he found something to watch tonight. He takes forever to get an answer from. He finally said he might have something, but then we asked what and that about stretched his mind to the max. Yeeks! We’ll check in there again later. But, for now might as well be back here processing things.

We found a copy of the covers and are mentally checking that out. I don’t think the covers are real fancy, but I enjoy them. I’m not going to know for sure how I feel over them until I see them tomorrow. I’m close to going to be now just so I can wake up and it’s the next day. I think this generically is “My Day before the State Fair” frame of mind. I don’t remember anything I looked more forward to than going to the State Fair with the exception maybe of Christmas.

Let’s see … any other thoughts I should be having about the book? Maybe just that I have to be patient - I figure if we can’t stand it much more that we’ll have to start up with the next one. We’re willing to take a SMALL break on that. I think there was something over the last couple of days where we were thinking that it would be something to have gotten through all the books by the end of 2009. That is a real tall order though. It’s helped a lot that we’ve gotten the holiday to be putting through this much. About here we jump ahead and imagine ourselves wrapping the boys’ gifts. I’m going to want to be there for that first few minutes after they all realize what they have.

It could end up positive or negative. Not sure where that one is heading. I think of Maury mostly. I think he is the one son that realizes that I’m doing something special with the books. Maybe the others do to, but Maury is a collector. I think he will want to have a copy of his inheritance. I figure then if it’s not getting published real proper that everyone is as at fault as the other. I should probably too right before we leave for the dinner on Thursday send them the copy on the Word docs - that way if any of them ever make it to a publisher before me, they will have the up loadable copy. If they don’t keep it … well, then we could guess that they just won’t be the one to do the work. *Sigh* might fall back to me. Shoot, well somebody has to make the first 3 million - Hmm?

I thought about that the other day too. You can really get a nice place to live for a half million dollars. I’d sure feel good if I could give each of our boys that start. But, we still need to be working more on writing things that are important enough for ourselves and others to read. There’s only so much of our monetarism is going to excite a reader. Hmm, but we need to be writing what’s on our minds. That has been the secret all along. I know I know … we can progress ourselves here a little bit, hmm?

Hmm, we are doing a lot of “hmming.” Ok, you let’s not get silly, HMMM???

I think we have some more back-up work to be doing. Things have been happening and I don’t think we’re getting them all down. I’m not sure if we got through the trip to Rich’s parents for Christmas and then last night we did something with Rich. We went to the holiday special at the zoo. Why don’t we look at that first?

Rich was the one to come up with the idea and I’m sure that we gave him some trouble, but maybe not very much. I have to think now how that all happened. What was I doing? Guessing that for the most part, we were working on the book - let me concentrate. I need a marker point.

Ahh, we cheated a little bit. We went back to the blog entry from yesterday. We just looked at a couple of the end paragraphs, but we figured out that we’d just been going through with Rich’s new blog and then we were going to edit for a bit.

It was Saturday. Ahh, I remember that part … Rich was with his kids all day … Saturday? Let’s see he got home Saturday about 9:30 pm. I think we went to bed with him, then the day happened and we know that we left the entry officially by about 2 pm, but now putting it together we had posted on Saturday at 2 pm and I guess we didn’t write anything yesterday.

Ok, if that’s the case … I do want to say that we weren’t real happy with Rich at first. He called about 7:30 pm to let us know that he was on his way home from Jon’s. We asked him some questions, but did not get a lot of information as to how things had gone. I think it must have been ok though because he didn’t seem in a real bad mood. But, then just before hanging-up we told him that we had a surprise for him and that we’d been working on a blog so that he could journal his fishy stuff. But, then before anything else he jumped me saying something like he didn’t want anything to do with blogging. I think it got a little rougher than that, but not so much because Rich isn’t ever terrible. But, it was pretty insulting to think that he wasn’t going to make himself even available to see what I’d been able to do for him.

He must have guessed right away that his response was stunning me because I remember him telling me that if anyone was going to talk to him that we could call back in about a half hour. I don’t think anyone called him before he got home. I don’t remember exactly our position … wait … I think just before he got home, we took our shower and we’d lain down on the couch. When he came in we were hiding under the cover. I think that between the two of us – though I don’t remember who took the lead – we went through that maybe he’d cut me off too abruptly. Within a short amount of time we both got to saying what needed to be said and then he was saying something that he’d like to look at what we’d done. I thought that was the nicest thing for him to have said.

He let me sit down at the computer and we opened up his blog and looked through it one portion at a time. I don’t think he realized in the least what we could be doing for him. I knew that he was accepting it somewhat because he showed interest and curiosity. He was also patient in letting me go over the details slowly. I really appreciated that. Even if he never looked at it again it helped me that he would look at it objectively.

All in all, he said some positive things and gave me the impression that he’d check it out again the next day which he did. One of the things that we’d saved was a link to the product manual for the sonar system he was looking at. We saved a lot of things and I think we really surprised him with it all. We did come to an agreement that I would help him coordinate the entries. It wasn’t important to me who did it, just so that he was going to have a space he could come to that would encourage fishy business. I don’t want to go all through that site again … I should say that improvements were made since we updated in the blog, but the differences aren’t real critical to be going through right now.

If I recall right … someone also might have gotten lucky that night *giggle.*

I think that Sunday was pretty much a slouchy day. We were working primarily on the book. Rich watched TV in the morning and somewhere in there he started laundry and we helped him get through it. I don’t remember when exactly, but I know that groceries have been brought into the house. There’s a lot of space I’m not accounting for, but I’m not going to let that bother me too much. I still am not though placing how it was that we got out to the zoo. Somewhere in there I must have taken a shower. I do remember getting dressed. I had put on my tan pants that were too big, but I knew that they’d keep me warm at the zoo. I was showered and dressed before Rich.

I think we went out to the zoo after dinner. Rich had made a great meal of pork roast, sauerkraut and dumplings. He also let us eat a piece of cheese cake he’s been slowly doling out … I don’t know how he hid it from us. AND, we helped watch him as he made a couple of apple pies for after the walk at the zoo. Life doesn’t get much better than all of this.

I remember talking to him on the way over that we’d a chair at the zoo so we could spend time looking at things without going out of our way to find a bench that wasn’t covered in snow. To that, I will say that there were a lot of thunderstorms for the 24 hours before, so almost all the snow in our area had melted with the exception of some of the places that snow plows had piled it up. There was a little grief, but not much. I didn’t seem to have much problem walking the long distance up and down the hill past the tunnel on the North side of the park, but after standing a while waiting for the assistant to help us with a chair my back had started to ache. We had to watch someone cut in front of us and get the last working electric chair. That was a disappointment and had put us in a little cranky space to need using a regular wheel chair. But, the truth was we were glad to have it.

I remember telling Rich not too much later that we were done being cranky. I’m sure that made HIM happy! I wish we didn’t have to be soooo terrible, but we are. It takes us sometimes a bit to get over things.

We took the path over by the cats and saw one of them out. We stopped when necessary or at one point or another to avoid some noisy crowds. About the worst thing is equally spent on drunken young people or really obnoxious kids. But, I guess that’s the nature of the beach. You run into all kinds at the zoo and it’s especially inviting on such a strange night where people are out after dark. That was all getting use to being outside and trying to get over cranky. It’s just that noise is intimidating to some of us. We walked over by the East side of the zoo and the best part was that we came back around where the polar bears were. We might have spent about 20-30 minutes there.

There was first one polar bear and then another and they were pretty active. After a while, one of the polar bears found what looked like a bone – big one – and he brought it down to the water and then he jumped in. Everyone watching was like OOHHH!!! It was very mesmerizing. The bear was very theatrical. He dove in and swam around and turned somersaults and a hundred other captivating things. He was very entertaining. We watched until he finally climbed out and shook him off. Rich seemed just as excited as we were but after a while he seemed to be getting cold, because he recommended heading over to the enclosed parts to have some hot chocolate. He’d brought a thinner jacket where we were much better off with our long wool coat and scarf. Each of us had gloves, but he was still cold.

We found a place in this round enclosed eating area and began to get warm right away. I held the chairs while Rich got the hot chocolate. I don’t know after he got back how much we talked, but I think both of us were tired but in a good mood.

We were looking forward to hearing some music, but we got that part confused and found ourselves at the wrong end of the zoo to be catching the light show. We had thought it was going to be by Roosevelt Fountain like the year before, but we guessed wrong. So, we left.

There was one other part too. The children’s zoo was open to everyone and it was free, so we went through that. We saw some neat animals like cows, roosters, horses, goats and geese. Oh and we saw a hoot owl. That was cool. We later found the reindeer over by where the hot chocolate was. He was laying in an enclosure for photo ops with the group. I thought it would be nice to get a picture taken with me and Rich and a reindeer, but Rich thought not and then we decided that after all it was a very tired looking reindeer. Rich said he was resting up from Christmas Eve.

We of course could understand that kind of logic.

Hmm, I think this is where the shopping came in. We had had the best spot we had ever gotten while parking at the zoo and Rich was pretty sure I’d stay happy if he got a few things including our fudgsicles. Well, you can’t go real wrong with that logic either! So we drove over to the grocery store. He said that he’d only be 15 minutes and so between us, we decided to stay out in the car. Just as Rich was pulling up we got a call from Joe. How VERY VERY nice!

We waved good-bye to Rich and we talked to Joe the entire time that Rich was in the store. That kid is so special it sends chills up my spine. We talked a bit about his relationship with his girl Carrie and we talked about the holiday in general. I was glad to hear his girl was coming out with us on Thursday. Joe sounded so happy. We weren’t real surprised by all of his news, though we felt it was the end of an era. But, not to be more specific it was a very good conversation.

Did I mention apple pies? That is what was waiting for us when we got home. Rich makes them in double mid-size tins and they are just heavenly - Especially, after having been out in the fresh air.

That was that and today is today. Almost the entire day was spent with the book.

Like we said, we finished it up about 4 pm. and you know all that has happened since. Rich talked to his daughter for a few moments and he’s been talking to his friend Bob. They are playing poker together on-line. Rich still insists that we wouldn’t get along with Bob because Bob is so much more active than we are. I know he is right. I think I could be a little more active, but he’s talking about keeping his time for Bob as special between him and Bob, and he’s talking about the part where he says Bob can be mean if things aren’t going his way. I think he’s trying to protect me from Bob, though I’d like to think that Bob could be nicer than all that.

I think too that we need to still talk about being over at Rich’s mother’s house.

But, we’re going to check on that first. Hold on … gotta go back and read from the journal. Whoops, I guess I’ve already covered all of that so we aren’t going to go back into it – needless to say, we had a very good visit and a very good Christmas!

Ok, if that’s been said, then I have to ask myself if there is anything else worth going back into. I think more than anything we’re still hovering over the excitement of the day’s work with the book.

It’s about 8 pm now and I think we have to figure out where Rich is going to be.

Larry King came on and we’re not too interested in his guest tonight. It is an illusionist - Chris Angel or something like that. Rich is just getting done with his poker game. He’s on the phone with Bob again and telling Bob he’s done for the night. Maybe I should post now then and look toward being with him an hour or so.

Seems good? Tomorrow though – we figure that we’ve got the time so I think we’re going to start up the new book. There is no time like the present and we’ve still got time on our hands. Be taking care!

posted by Ann Marie @ 12/29/2008 08:08:00 PM Comments: 0

Let's Introduce You to Rich's Fishy World

Good morning this is me. It is a Saturday morning and about 5 am. We’ve been up for about 45-50 minutes and we found ourselves sitting down to see the Donnie and Marie interview on Larry King. That was pretty good actually. I wasn’t so sure I wanted to see it especially last night because she seemed pretty goofy. She laughs a lot or at least did on the show. But, I paid more attention to the message rather than the delivery this time. I know I liked them when I was a kid, but we weren’t like way out in our liking of any singer. Just we knew of them. I never watched their day time show so I don’t really have an opinion of it, but you gotta like something about a mother who has 8 kids. Wow! Go for it!

They said that they think one of the kids started a fire in the garage that burnt down half of the house. Yeeks. Kids are tough – she also talked about one of the kids going through drugs. Plainly she’s gone through some hard stuff. I would be difficult not to. I think kids of stars have it pretty tough … there are so many things to live up to and different variables about.

Wow … We’re really having a loud thunderstorm.

Whoops … went back to bed and now we’re up again. We slept for an additional 2 hours. It’s now about 8 am and fishyman is up too … he’s watching his fishy shows and having some coffee. He’s going to need taking a shower soon, because he said he had to leave by 9 or 9:30 am. Today is the day he’s going to meet his two oldest at his mother’s for their Christmas. Pretty certain it’s not a good idea for me to be there. Afterward his daughter and her girlfriend and the girlfriend’s son are going back to their mothers and then Rich is going to take his son back to Joliet. It’s his birthday and he’s going to a party with his friends. I think that Rich isn’t going to be home until about 10 pm tonight. It will be a long day, but hopefully we have plenty to keep us busy.

Yesterday we almost got a couple of chapters edited. We left out on having to read chapter 11 for content. We’re up to June. This chapter is about 50 pages long – not too bad. I was pleased with where we were going, but at some point we had to stop so we could get in some writing. I don’t think that was a complete effort either. I think we got further, but haven’t gone into having been over at Rich’s mother’s and Bud’s. We’ll get there today. I have to think though if there isn’t any left-over’s that I have to do to get other parts written out. I think we’re going to need skimming what we already wrote about.

Ok, we’ve got to wait on that because the Internet isn’t responding directly. But, we will do that in a moment. We might as well start on the situation at Rich’s mother. We know we haven’t done ANY thing there yet.

Hmm, the first thing is that we left the house here on time. We left about noon.

I’d gotten prepared a couple of hours early so I wouldn’t slow Rich down. I think we were working on our book before that, don’t recall really, but that makes sense.

The ride out to their place was nice. I don’t recall too much of it except that I really was looking forward to seeing them again. There might have been a little anticipation about meeting Rich’s brother and his brother’s kids, but in general I was in a good mood.

Rich’s mother was in the sunroom when we came in. She had said to put the coat in the back bedroom, so I did that after giving her a smooch and I heard back in that area that the shower was going so we could figure out that the brother was still getting ready. Later he said that he’d expected Rich and us to come in a little later. That worked out fine. It gave us a chance to talk to Rich’s mother and Bud a bit before adding that extra pressure.

I wish I could remember more the conversations, but I’m not at that point yet. I do remember that I was worried that Bud and Rich’s mother were a little crabby toward each other. It seemed that they were pushing some envelope. We stayed clear of that and just maintained our lighter conversations with Rich’s mother. Rich and Bud were back and forth between the sunroom and the kitchen. Rich was being a little fuss-budgety. He seemed to be pushing his mother on this issue or that. I tried to stay out of it, but we talked about it a little last night. He seems to think that he’s doing his mother a favor by challenging her and a little bit of managing her, but she’s aware what he’s doing and obviously doesn’t want to be managed. I can see her point in that I know how Rich could be.

On Rich’s behalf though, he’s doing it out of tough love, because he doesn’t want to see his mother deteriorating. So, basically, he is trying to keep her safe and she’s like rebelling against the parts of being managed.

I find that when I’m there that I gravitate toward being next to her. I saw that when we first came in and sat with her in the sunroom, and then later when we sat in the living room for the gift giving part. She seems to appreciate being to turn toward me and having a nice light chat. I don’t have to be in the position of Rich or Bud of trying to make sure she does things right. It’s not that I don’t care; it’s just that it’s not my role. My role seems to be of an appreciative girlfriend of Rich who has waited forever and a day to meet her and listen to her stories and concerns. I really, really like her.

She seems to make sense to me. We talked to Rich a bit about it last night when we were driving to or from the fishy store. Our thought was that he cuts off his mother if he’s heard the story where our thought is that questions need to be asked to progress her conversation. I like always to ask questions to figure out where people are or what’s important for them. If she’s telling a story then it’s for some purpose and I want to understand what she’s interested in with each particular story.

I think she also appreciates having someone to listen to her. I don’t think that many of the others are patient enough to go into details. But, I’m not sure about that. I got a chance to see how everyone reacted to her … and maybe more specifically how her grandchildren reacted to her. They seemed to do it well. They were like not disagreeing with her like some of the other, but they’d watch her carefully and do a little chuckling. It was done in good spirit though. I really had the impression that they loved her a lot. I think there isn’t over communication though, because Rich’s Mom said something to them about not calling enough. From what I understand they live closer to her than anyone else, but most likely as young people go they get caught up in their own lives.

Maybe we should stick with them now just for a few moments. I really, really have to say that I liked Rich’s brother and his two daughters a lot. It seems like there relationship might be a little strained too, but maybe because he doesn’t seem to read them on an “In-the-know” manner. Mark’s grandson was there too and I think the part that blew me away was how the entire group of them – with the exception of Rich and us was into scolding the younger child. He was just 5 years old. They talked about paddling him and things like that. I think the grandchild was confused by everyone being on his case. Sometimes he cared and other times he didn’t. He was being controlled more by the gifts and other treats than anything else. I think that Bud and Mark were the worst.

They seemed to want to up-do each other in being the one who got Chance to listen.

He seemed like a nice kid, but he had energy to spare and it was tough for him in such a small place not to be moving around. He had this cute little electronic guitar that played music he could move too. That’s the gift that he brought with him and captured the majority of his attention. He didn’t seem like he was into trouble more than any other kid. Actually he was pretty well disciplined. The other thing he wanted was to swirl in one of the chairs that Bud had been sitting in and Rich’s Mom usually sits in. I thought it was pretty creative for him to find such a simple pleasure. But, this wasn’t something that the older folk seemed to want him to be doing.

We sat down at the end of the table where the girls were. I was really happy about that. I was also across from Rich’s mom and even though the girls were toward the end, I had a very comfortable seat at the table. I don’t know how it happened, but we started interacting with the girls. Their names are Crystal and Brandy. They are really nice. I felt bad for Brandy though because she had a cold and wasn’t feeling tip-top. I think one of the coolest things bedside they seemed very honestly nice was that they were such good friends of each other. You know in the way we talk about our boys that we appreciate kids who get along with their siblings.

One of the things we talked about and I was real excited about was that it appeared that both of them had lost a lot of weight. I was interested in how they did it and they seemed interested in the surgery. There wasn’t a lot of time to go into anything in real depth, but they were the kind of people that I would like to talk with some more and get to know. Rich didn’t seem to know a whole lot about them. I think that they may not have gotten together for over 2-3 years. This is a big shame, because if Rich could know them, it might be a good relationship to them.

Rich in general though around the girls seemed pretty formal. He said that he didn’t feel it appropriate to really getting to know them as in having interactive talks. I thought that was a shame.

On the way home last night it came up again. Rich seems to think of his family as uneducated and I think this somehow causes differences in the way they respond to each other. He was saying that I was treating them different than people usually do in his family. I thought we were having a good introduction conversation and Rich seemed ok with me relating to him, but I think I talked to them more in one day than they had talked to Rich in a lifetime. Rich is a little strange here in that he’s really concerned with not getting into the business of other peoples’ kids … he does it the same way with Bob’s kids. So in general, they don’t as adults talk too much about the kids. It’s a lot different when we are with our kids. I think that Rich’s kids might have a more open relationship to his wife’s family too – especially Jill to her aunt.

I don’t know more of that than that though. Just know she really likes her Aunt and the Aunt seems easy to talk to.

Rich had a chance to talk to his Aunt last night too. He seems friendlier on that relationship. It seemed that they were genuinely interested in how each of the other was doing. Rich talked both to his Aunt and Uncle. There was a little part that I could hear about his Aunt saying something about her sister – Rich’s mom drinking at 9:30 am. I know that Rich had said something before about that being one of Jill’s experiences. He thought out loud though that Jill wasn’t around enough to know that … so he discounted the message that the Aunt was searching out.

I think they are all trying to help and I have no reason to doubt that Jill saw what she did, but it was most interesting that Rich defended his mother with both his Aunt and Bud in saying that he didn’t think she was drinking as much as all of them did.

As proof for his pudding he said that she’d gotten a drink at dinner about 3 pm, I don’t know if he saw that it was topped off, but he knew she got one more drink – a dramboey (sorry messin up the spelling on that one), but then everyone got one of them and it was used to make some toasts. The thing was that she was still working on that dream when we left about 6:30 pm. Maybe the point most interesting was that as interested as Rich was in helping his mother including the drinking, he didn’t seem to like that all others were making her out to be a bigger drinker than he would publicly admit.

We’ll let all this go though. I am concerned for Rich’s mother, but it is not my duty to be a mother hen with her. I get the best role in just listening and talking to her. With that I’m just having the best of times. I think she still likes me and both her and Bud on our way out the door was very clear in asking that I come back any time. I told his mother on the way out the door that after fishy season started that Bud could go with Rich fishing and I would come and stay with her if she liked. We were on our way out and there wasn’t much time for her to respond, but I think she heard what I said.

I think that the slight friction built up with Rich and me last night talking about the situation is that he was seeing as does Bud his mother from a caregiver’s perspective and at that they see her as not very cooperative. That’s not my role, and it won’t be my role even if I’m there to be with her if Bud was out with Rich.

I would be in a role to make sure things were safe, but I would be listening for her cue.

It’s now 9:40 am and Rich has just left. We talked a bit about the families. His daughter called while Rich was getting dressed and I was glad she called back a second time to say that Dawna and Nick were going with. Rich is still trying to make out that his mother is somewhat out of it, but this morning he said only by 2% … I can live with that … I’m pretty sure I’m out of it a lot more. Rich sees his reactions toward his mother as keeping her tuned-in. He wants her not to lose her cognizance. I don’t think that’s one of her goals. I see him worrying over her moving a bit so that her body doesn’t atrophy. I think it’s hard, but that kind of concern from the mother’s perspective has to come from a really deep place. I think part of that is in general as we age, we want to consider ourselves valuable to the people in our life. Hopefully, that will inspire her forward. I think really though she needs more conversation as to everything in general and not to be JUST told to do such and such.

I don’t know if I finished it before, but we were saying that Rich considered the kind of talking I might do as foreign to his mom, brother and the brother’s family because of my education. I think people can be educated and very unintelligent as to their relating to people. I like the sincerity I feel between the girls and how everyone feels toward Rich’s mother. They may think she’s doddering, but there’s no doubt they all love her. I don’t think I’m in a position of becoming her best friend, but we have a big affinity toward her because we both love Rich so much and I know that Rich loves her and I want to do everything I can to appreciate those spaces.

It might seem like I’m doing or saying stuff that isn’t my business, and I think that Rich’s kids might think that, but as Rich’s love I feel it important to appreciate his family as much as I do my own. He was right in that the gift-giving was slim, but that might be how our family should be. Rich gave his brother a $50 gift certificate and the brother gave Rich a $50 bill. I think that was sort of funny. Rich and his brother both got trailer hitches with was the greatest gift.

The guys tend to get shirts the women pajamas scarf’s and mittens. Chance got the best gifts … he got an assortment of nice toys. I think there were train and trucks and such like that. He seemed pretty happy and he wanted to get right home after the gifts were open. I don’t think he’s particularly comfortable, but more that he was tired and might have wanted to play with some of his Christmas gifts. In general, kids do their best at their own places.

That’s about it on family for the time being. I’m still thinking that someone is going to say something and the kids are going to know I was at the grandmother’s. I hope that will be fine, but in general I see just that relationship will be the center of their conversation with each other and with their mother and most likely other in-laws. I don’t like being put in that position, but it seems fair. I like to think of the relationships I’ve just been in and I’m pretty sure it’s a human thing to do this in general. I don’t expect that they are going to like me, but the best scenario would be if they were interested because I’m important to their Dad, rather than somehow being the one that is making their lives hard. I don’t mean to hurt any of them. In this respect, I will stay low back as long as Rich and his family need me to be there.

I do see a little something though in that the kids seem to want more of the truth. It’s just that Rich doesn’t seem to think they can handle it. This is more like the management kind of stuff we’ve been talking of with Rich’s mother. I know it’s done because they all love each other and are trying to take care. Just there needs to be some honest and less protective conversations. I think they have to be safe, but I think people in general do better with the truth, then in being subverted from knowing what’s going on. As to Rich’s wife – I’m sorry for her situation. I do feel she had an extra 20 years she could have improved her relationship with Rich – and I felt all along that Rich was looking for that. But, at some point she’s going to have to cut her losses and move on. We can’t be doing every mention of my name is a major disaster and attack on her and her family. Life happens.

I know I’ve got 14 years on her in handling her as “the other woman.” Most likely this is a great part of where I am now and she is not. I don’t want to talk about anyone overly though. They all need a chance to work through their thoughts and feelings, just as I do here in my blog. I think that if I ever were to really publish, then these thoughts are going to become not to private. I guess in saying just this little I have today and along the way … it is hoped most that they will one day understand that I was concerned with their welfare … just I fell in love with their Dad and he me. There are others that appear nobler in turning away the love of their life because of previous arrangements. I guess neither me nor Rich could be considered noble. But, they might one day appreciate that we both lived with him remaining married to the mother to making her life and their relationship as whole as it could be. No one has ever wanted her to be hurt, although it was obviously one day going to happen. I know how she holds on to this, and I can only hope she won’t use it to make the rest of her life miserable. Or, for that matter the life of her kids. One day … we’ll all just move on.

I would like to know the kids one-on-one, but I’m also prepared to have a separate life from them, if that’s truly what they want. We’ll have to see how things work out, right? Ok, good enough … let’s try now to move on.

Where I’m at mostly is that if I’m not writing I will go back to editing. We tried to do that a little this morning, but didn’t get real far. There’s a couple other things that I wanted to talk about.

I guess we’ll start with being in Rich’s fishy-world last night. He came home fairly early from his poker game and napped while my hair dried, and then we went to the fishy store. It was very, very foggy out there and hard to see too far ahead of ourselves. Rich did manage to find it though *giggle.* He drove our car because he said that he wanted it not to just be sitting. That was fine with me. I don’t really recall what we talked about on the way there. I think basically, we were both getting a little of our day communicated. That seems to be an important step of bringing us back together. When we are separated – he has experiences and I have experiences and it’s nice to share the basic of that because we were both in places important to us, but then the point of being in a relationship is to then share an experience and then go on from there.

Sharing the fishy store was something I’d been looking forward to. Mostly we’re just a follower and we want to be open for Rich to talk about whatever it is that will come to his mind. He had decided a head of time that he wasn’t going to buy anything, but he did end up buying a lock for his boat and a cover for his motor.

Poor guy … he knew that from the start he was going to keep track of anything necessary for the boat.

I had in mind the idea that he was going to need looking and being putsy, so we let him know we were going for the little motorized cart thing. He hemmed and hawed for a few moments, but I think we finally both came to terms with it. He said that half the point was to get me out walking and I said half the point was just to get me out of the house. That seemed like a draw between us. When we got to the store though, someone else had already been using the two carts they have there. So, what we did was to take one of the two wheelchairs, so I could walk to wherever we go, but then sit down while he was looking through things.

I didn’t know if he was going to look for any boat thing in particular and we did end up just walking up and down to get a general idea of what was there. He was seeing a lot of things that he was going to need, but he only got the basics of what he needed immediately. He was appreciative that Bud had shoveled the snow around his boat hitch so that no one could get at the boat. The thing that he spent the most time with was that he was looking at a Hummingbird fish-finder or depth-finder … whatever they are called. I think he was looking at a 900 series, but now I see by going to the Hummingbird site that there is an 1100 series that seems to be about the same amount of money that he was looking at yesterday. We’ll have to bring this to his attention.

Already looking at the top model which is the same price as the lesser one at Bass pro it seems they have a map on it that covers the question that Rich was having yesterday. Basically how do you know the footage of things going closer to the shore. You know is it 15 feet, 10 feet, 4 feet, etc. Now I’m looking at the 1197c SI Combo NVB for $3000 I see that there is a special map just for that purpose. He didn’t see it nor was the salesman very good at the store. The description on the Hummingbird is that it features a massive 10.4% display, Sid Imaging and DualBeam PLUS sonar with up to 8000 Watts PTP power output, GPS Chart-plotting and advanced Fishing System capabilities. It includes unit cover and in-dash mounting kit. It also includes Navionics Gold and HotMaps Premium charts that are pre-loaded.

WooHOO!!!

This is what they look like:



cool, Hmm?

Fishface is going to go all out on this one I think. We teased him about not having spent much on fishing over all these years. And, then we reminded him how old even his golf clubs were. He says that he is going to do it right the first time and then hold onto it forever. I think that’s pretty cool. I can see too that these sonar systems have updating features where you can get new stuff off the computer.

That seems like a good deal. This tool is about the only one the boat didn’t come with. It looks like batteries though – he needs two more are going to cost about $60 each. He’s worrying because and I would most likely agree … there is a lot to be purchasing.

We looked at life preservers, fishy nets, anchors, rope and a whole lot more, but didn’t pick up anything else. We did ask the fishy guy and he said that probably about January 8th or so there will be a fishy show and he might be able to pick up there some kind of good deal. This above item hopefully will be found for less, but one way or another it seems to be an extremely big part of Rich’s needs. He’s really bent on learning everything about it. He sees that other guys have sonar’s, but really don’t know how to use them. He wants to know it all!

AHA! He will like that. I found the manual for the sonar above and we’re downloading it. I will send him a copy. Then he can start reading up. He’s really bent on fishing by February. He wants to go south. Oh man … he’s going to like that … it comes with a 196 page user manual. Hehehe better get this to him right away! Shoot, my screen is frozen … this will take a few moments. It’s ok, we’ve got some time to devote to fishyface.

Ok, ok … that’s a done deal. Moving on … basically, I think that this is the most expensive other object on the boat. BUT, yes everything is going to add-up … He’s going to keep a journal. I would like to teach him seriously how to keep a blog.

Hmm, maybe I could open one up? Or at least find a fishy cover. That way he could access it any time he was on his computer. HMM??

Hmm, maybe I could help him start something up. Looking now for skins. But, I’m thinking he already has a list of stuff he wants … I don’t know if he has the receipts with him though of the things he bought yesterday. We would like to show him that he could collect a picture of the item along with the receipt cost. Think it would be a real good deal for him. And, then like when he was there (he always brings his computer) it would be there too. He could show his site to the fishy guys AND, he could be downloading pictures to the site of the events he’s at. It be a REAL good idea.

Shoot the Internet is running slow this morning. It’s taking forever to load and it’s incomplete at that. The Internet is working … just not so great.

AHA! We started a blog for Rich … we’ll have to see if it takes. This is what it looks like …











I’m going to close it now for awhile. I don’t know what he’ll think of it, but we’ll try to show him how adaptable it is and convenient to his being on the Internet. I picked out a design that had a lot of room for changes and additions.

It’s got a lot of places and numbers of widgets. I tried to be a little creative in what kind of fun things he could include, but I wouldn’t be disappointed if he cleared the whole thing out and started fresh. THAT’S IF – he would like to keep his journal online. We could pass code it to be private so the only ones that see it is the one’s he chooses. But, for now it's at Richsfishyworld.blogspot.com

One way or another at this point, it is certainly fishyman friendly!

Ok, now … gotta get out of that space too. We’ll have to wait until Rich wakes up tomorrow … we’ll try to let him have a cup of coffee first to wake up and then maybe if he takes his computer over to the table and opens it up then we’ll show it to him. Hmm, maybe we could just email it to him … that would be a nice surprise. Let me set that up.

Ok, done deal. I’m not getting too much done though of what I need to be doing. I think I’m going to post now and get back to editing. My play stuff is all worn out. Just love that gosh darn nice fishyman!

posted by Ann Marie @ 12/27/2008 02:06:00 PM Comments: 0