Getting Out Again

After having been pretty much homebound and sick as a dog for the past two weeks, today was refreshing for all of us. The boys scampered and skittered. They felt good and had a great time. Zorak seems to exude a very "happy place" sentiment lately, too, which only helped to brighten today's outing. I was just very, very happy. And it's not hot down in the caverns, which was lovely.

Cathedral Caverns is amazing! If anyone comes to visit us, they must be wholly prepared to be dragged down there. Period. It's exquisite, in so many ways. Visitors only go about 3500+ feet into the caverns, although it's an amazing trek that takes about an hour and a half. You must have a guide in order to enter, but after taking you through the high points, he leaves you on your own to meander back through the maze of limestone and absorb some of what you've witnessed. The path is wide enough for wheelchairs, strollers, and those who just don't want to get too close to the edge. The best part: we're only half an hour away!

I would show you pictures, but we discovered a different feature on our camera: it has no internal memory. I'd popped out the XD card to download pictures to the computer so we could have a clean card on our trip, then either got busy tying shoes or loading stuff in the car. Whatever happened, I spaced the card and left it in the printer. :-( But I can say with all certainty that we'll go back many times. Like a great museum or a truly good book, I think you almost have to go back time and again to soak it all in.

We drove past a few more parcels of land, one of which needs further investigation, then stopped at the Western Sizzlin for supper before heading home. Good call! Two out of three were out cold before we hit the Madison county line. James swiftly readied himself for bed and the three of us spent half an hour snuggled up, chatting. He is such a neat child, wow. Now Zorak and James are off to dreamland and I am contemplating whether I would rather sleep or read a bit more... and wondering if there's any way to do both. (Decisions, decisions!)

Oh! I read two great books this past week: The Parsifal Mosaic by Robert Ludlum (author of The Bourne Identity), and The Devil in the White City (a true telling of the man behind the 1893 World's Fair, Daniel Burnham, and the parallel life of a psychopathic killer on the loose in Chicago during that time, H.H. Holmes). Both were good reads, although each for very different reasons.

Tomorrow is Father's Day (like y'all didn't realize that, I know, but it crept up on me this year). I'm at a bit of a loss. I'd planned to treat Zorak to an afternoon of fishing with the boys, but tonight he said he needs to spend time with the mistress after church. I guess she got a little difficult last week. So now I'm not sure what we'll do tomorrow. If I can get up and get the boys up in time, perhaps we can make cards in the morning. I hate that we didn't get this taken care of before. It's been such an overwhelming week, and I haven't even made plans for John's birthday on Monday, either. Thankfully, Zorak knows that our lack of organization in no way reflects the depth of our love and appreciation for him. I'm glad for that. (And I've got 48 hours to get prepped for John!)

Anyhow, I think I've decided that if I fall asleep reading in bed, that counts for both. The strongest need will win, and that can't be bad, right? And so, to bed. G'nite!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Wowsa! It's the weekend! I'm legal, we're healthy, what are you doing?

For many people, this means two days of playing and relaxing, mowing the lawn and catching up on laundry.

For the boys, this means bed sores from sitting in their carseats for 48 hours straight, and some kind of fungal issue from wearing spilled Bug Juice for most of those hours.

And yet, Zorak is home, so they don't really mind. *he he* Childhood truly is a magical age...

I feel terrible for them, though, with every weekend offering such a wide variety of nothingness. So we decided that tomorrow we'd explore Cathedral Caverns - er, *ahem*, after we look at one more property. It's just down the road from the Caverns... Think they'll mutiny?

****

I officially have an Alabama driver's license! I'm official. I'm sittin' pretty. I'm also... somewhat stunned, and y'all are gonna get a kick out of this! The name on my Social Security card does not, oh, how to put this delicately? It does not match my driver's license name. Or the name by which the US Postal Service finds me. Or even Costco. I do have a letter from the SS Office - dated March of 2001 - stating that I should have a matching card in two or three weeks and have a nice day! BUT, no card. And they accepted that letter as back-up to my mismatching identification, never questioning why I don't have the promised matching card to go with the letter.

And do ya seriously think I'm going to complain or point out this little incongruity on DMV premises? *snort* I have a license. They can't stop me, now. But seriously, who would you think more likely to engage in civil disobedience (I mean, terrorism is out, but a little civil disobedience isn't always a bad thing): me, or the Smidge? Hee hee. Yeah, me, too.

Sadly, I lied about rounded-off my weight. It's a seasonal thing, so let's just go with the yearly mean, right? And I was seriously tempted to cross just one eye for the actual photo. But I didn't. And I even told the truth about my hair color, although I think she corrected that, thinking I wasn't clear on the abbreviations. Heck, I ought to go check - she might have corrected the weight, too!

I could not, however, get Alabama tags. Evidenly, Maryland registered the 'Burban to Zorak AND I - while the absence of any symbol, direct or derivative of, indicating "and" (as well as the affirmation of the clerk who did the registering) led us to believe it was registered to Zorak OR I (OR, which is what we requested, specifically because nobody with three children intentionally takes all available adults into the DMV, don't ya know!) So no go. Four plus hours of waiting in line, hungry enough to hit up the four year old next to me for just one bite of her shiny strawberry-scented lip gloss (which she refused to share!), plus a frenzied Herbie The Love Bug-type driving course around town to find an ATM, get cash, and return before they closed the window booth... and I was dead in the water at 4:35. Ah, well, there's always tomorrow, if the satellite thing is open. And if not, there's always Monday. Or Tuesday. Can't go beyond that, though. Nope. I want my partial refund from the thorough fiscal pillaging the State of Maryland committed on us with their vehicle registration fees.

Yeah *he he* But do ya wanna see my new license? ;-)

****

Thanks for the prayers. This nasty ick just won't let go. Smidge is a thousand times better today. John crashed around eleven and slept until three. Hmm, I think he was just a wee bit beat? He seems better, too. And even I, the queen of wussdom, am feeling significantly more human today. It helped to get out. It helped to be productive. It helped to know people were praying. Thanks. :-)

And now, I need to get off the computer so Zorak can do more Zoraky things that I'm way too tired to understand. I'm going to go read The Golden Ocean (this is O'Brian's first sea-based novel! I'm psyched!) and see if can barter for a foot rub (is that better, Patty? *big grin*)

Y'all have a great weekend - what are you up to this weekend?
And kiss those babies!
~Dy

AllllllllRIGHTY, then

OK. We're up. We're about. We're up 'n about. We probably shoulda bought stock in Puffs Plus. That is some magic stuff - just don't grab one to wipe the lens of your glasses. The magic doesn't come off so easily.

I have to give a big, hearty, healthy {{THANK YOU}} to Melissa for letting me talk her ear off this morning. She also shared all her wonderful children and hubby stories and helped raise me from this tremendously overwhelming funk. For that, I am indebited. Deeply. Humorously. Truly. Thank you!

Aside from the heat and the exhaustion (I've said it before, it's not going away, I am a weather wimp!), things are cruising along. In circles. We are in the general vicinity of the goal, but the goal itself it's clearly defined yet, so picture the Suburban whizzing around and around on one of those horrible round-about intersections, unable to take an exit and start getting somewhere because we don't know which exit to take. While we aren't getting anywhere, we are singin' plenty of obscure songs along the way and stopping for coffee when necessary. At this point, I figure we'll gather so much force that the centrifugal force is going to fling us off an exit pretty soon, and the path will be chosen for us, compliments of the Laws of Physics. So, that overwhelming fear has been settled. *whew*

Zorak and I aren't what you'd call "long distance runners". We're more, let's say, sprinters... OK, Zorak, he can sprint. I've gotta be honest with ya, folks, I'm the guy that stands under the awning and shoots the starting gun. By the time I've chambered a round and done all that counting and yelling and firing, I'm ready to hit the beer tent.

But Zorak, the Sprinter, is our motive power. He has great vision and the mind of an engineer (aka - a long distance runner). His plans spread out along the horizon and encompass the resources at our disposal. He's a cross between Frank Lloyd Wright and Jeremiah Johnson. It's amazing stuff. But it's all marathon stuff. If we could go out there and round up a crew of 12 highly-motivated (don't even have to be highly skilled, just enthusiastic will do nicely) workers, we'd have THE PAD in no time. And it would rock. It would blow your ever lovin' minds. Sadly, there are issues with funding for wages, lodging for the crew, and probably some immigration laws in there, to boot. That puts a bit of a kabosh on the marathon we need to run.

So, barring unexpected endowments from NAFTA, we have our team in place - a team of one highly emotive toddler; two highly enthusiastic, yet easily diverted small folk; the sprinter; and the bloated guy in the striped shirt. And with this team, we have to run a marathon... in 50 yard sprints.

I'm not complaining. It can be done. It won't be pretty. It should be fairly humorous, and once we get started, there will be blog grist galore. Look forward to some deeply self-depricating belly laughs from this blog in the months (or years) to come.

What's had me by the throat is knowing our genetic propensities, our heritage, our legacy with regard to momentum and project completion... this knowledge scares the living snot out of me. Do you remember the sheer elation (no exaggeration) I felt when we actually repaired the Suburban door handle the correct way - with the correct handle and all! Do you remember that? It was astounding. Not because we could not do it, but because it's reeeeely difficult to stay on track and get stuff done when bailing wire and duct tape will suffice.

It's not from a lack of know-how, technology, desire, or competence. We have all of those in abundance. It's just this... momentum issue. Stamina, if you will. I'm sure attention span comes into play somewhere.

In the end, we'll get there. The Suburban gets great gas mileage, we're all in it together, and I think Zorak can rig up some kind of thingy to carry the smaller ones when we really have to hoof it. I'll bring food and water. We'll blog.

Kiss those little team members!
~Dy

No Blog For You!

I am still sick.

I am not having a good week.

I am reeeeeeeelly grouchy at this point.

Many additional factors aren't helping, but my own rules prevent me from articulating them.

So.

HARUMPF.

That's about it.

The boys are fine. Smidge is improving.

I have nothing else to say, but didn't want y'all to think I'd been abducted by the Randy Weaver Fan Club (although our application is in... I don't know what's taking so long), or that I'd just suddenly dropped dead from lack of oxygen. O2 sat is still relatively high.

'Nite!
Dy

We're dot feelig tho well. I thidk we're thick.

I've been exhausted as of late anyway, but today I was downright narcoleptic. One minute I'm folding the wash and the next - *poof* - I'm face down in the sock pile. The last thing I remember before lunch, I was reading a book - the next thing I knew, I'd drooled all over the bit about anaphylaxis. Great. That was on the front porch. I really hope nobody walked by during that time.

At some point, I sat on the couch and that was a bad, bad idea. John curled up on the couch with me and we slipped into a blissful incoherent doze.

I slept so much today that Zorak took photos of the cute things the boys were doing so I could see them tonight. What a guy!

The boys are faring better. I don't think they've eaten a full meal all day, but they don't seem to care. They are drinking plenty of water and aren't lethargic, though, so it's not time to worry.

Zorak made little glider planes from egg cartons and the boys spent a couple of hours outside today, lost in boyish glee.

We *ahem* compared tractors and attachments. Ha. I laugh only because this, from a woman who ten years ago didn't understand why on earth anyone would want to own their own welding machine, really shows how much things can change.

I didn't put together lessons for this coming week. I didn't make it to Costco or to the library, and we definitely didn't go to church. All things we needed to get done, but not at the expense of making anyone else sick. Especially not with whatever this is.

I did try to do the Mommy Story thing tonight, but all I managed to do was make John cry - violently. I didn't expect James to ask if the dog was dead now... *sigh* SO I followed it up with a comic "The Most Horrible Dog in the World" story - a little redemption from that, but the sniffles that continued for a while anyway really made me feel bad. Stories from the imagination probably need to stay in Daddy's realm from now on.

Enjoy a beautiful week with your family and loved ones! Kiss those babies, and don't catch what we've got!

~Dy

Decisions, Decisions...

We looked at a property today that captured my imagination. It's a close run against the previously mentioned property (if we could get that one without the house) - similar in size, similar in features, similar in price. There are a few things that tip the scales heavily in its favor: it has creeks on two borders, a spring, and a non-nasty pond; James didn't explode - and we walked the entire thing; it's prettier. OK, so that last one is relatively subjective and not necessarily true for Zorak. But, oh, that was fun!

I think a big part of our utter indecision is that we aren't used to having options. Seriously. We used to dream of buying a badly damaged repo in a mildly dangerous neighborhood. That was dreaming BIG, baby! Well, if not "big", at least "realistic". And we did try to ebb away from the danger-factor. Now, here we are, wondering where we want to live until we die, to leave for generations, and how we can make it produce benefits for society and for ourselves. Ooooooo. That's a titilating sensation. Evidently, titilation also takes the edge off. Hence, we sit here and oooh and ahhh and can't commit.

And at that point, my parallels begin to go awry and converge in potentially embarrassing ways...

So on to the boys!

The boys found a turtle, many tree frogs, a toad, and myriad other critters while we walked the property today. James and John concurred that this is one neat property! It's a universal fact: critters capture little boys' imaginations.

John took his homemade whip on the property walk with us, to protect me from wild animals. Unfortunately, this consisted mainly of walking directly in front of me. It was like trying to hike with a 50-pound housecat, and I nearly took a header down the mountain several times for all the weaving and sudden stops he performed. True to his word, however, we did make it back to the Suburban safe from wild animals. He's a good cat-like bodyguard.

The tick head is still stuck in James' neck, but there's no swelling or rash. He says his neck feels "completely normal". Dr. Deb said his body will either force it out or absorb it. (Ew.) So far, so good.

Amy (rightly) laughs at me for my tick-related issues and their eminence in the lifestyle we're pursuing. I know. It's goofy. But ya know, when we dreamed of having a ranch, well, first off it was always located where people had ranches, not farms. The high desert plains, where you can live for a week out there and nary a tick will you see. We've stayed in the woods, slept in the grasses, went so long without showering that the goats avoided us... and still never had so much as the threat of a tick infestation. The West is a magical place.

Actually, though, if you saw me when we pulled the first tick off Jacob back in '03 (there was a lot of shrieking and limp-wristed hand flailing on my part), and could see my tick-deadly proficiency in performing a tick check today (it makes the lice check from the school nurse seem slow and awkward), you'd be proud. I only cringe on the inside now. And when the boys do have a tick, I don't squeak aloud anymore. Daily tick checks are normal when we've been out in the boonies, as they will be when we have our farm. But... on a HOUSE DOG? Oh, for Pete's sake, get a tick collar and call it good! That thing sits on your LAP! It climbs on your BED! Ewwww. A thousand times, EW.

Zorak is sitting here, drawing plans for the live-in barn, and all I can think is, "Wow, this is my favorite grown up in the world!" I'll scan the sketches when he's done. They're neat, and he's fun to watch. He's amazing. I hope the boys inherited his ability to see and make it so. He's also funny. So not only does he inspire me, but he makes me laugh, too. Our adventures seldom go as planned, but we have such fun planning them, and then adjusting to their realities. It's been a wild ride so far, but I can't think of a better way to live this life. Yes, I think I'm going to like building a house with this man and our boys.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Blech * Shiver * Cringe * Ack

Yesterday, Zorak, the three Terroristitos and I drove to Elkmont to see the inside of the Mystery House. Third time's a charm! I suppose, technically, the old realtor was right: no, we really don't want the house. Where she was wildly, painfully wrong was in her insistence that we'd pay for it without seeing it.

Yeah - we didn't want to buy it without knowing exactly how bad it is. It's nice to know, first hand, that the place is structurally unsound - as in, Zorak won't let us live there while we build - as in, we couldn't in good conscience allow the current tenants to live there if we owned it. It's bad. There are termite mounds IN the house. The trusses are loosely scabbed together pieces of wood just waiting for another Isabel type storm to come inland. There's no foundation under half of it. There is ONE flat-floored room; every other room veers downward from there. Most of the rooms reek of urine and mold. Both are visible in most rooms. Actually, the structure is a liability and the property would be better off without it. We might see if we can offer to buy just the land, minus the house and one acre surrounding it.

That, however, isn't the cause of the total ickiness that pervades me even today.

The tenant just got dogs. Cute little friendly puppies. Precious little things - they even convinced James that he'd sure like to have a dog. The boys sat in the kitchen (the flat room in the house) and played with the dogs while Zorak and I did recon on the rest of the place. (Hallelujah! The great cat debate has ended!) As we left, one of the precious little puppies got out. I tried to lead her back by her collar, but no luck, so I had to pick her up and carry her back into the house. I rubbed her head, then put my hands gently around her middle...

AND IT WAS LUMPY WITH TICKS!!!!!!!!!!!

*gag* BLAAACCHHHKKKKK! I haven't a strong enough command of the english phonetic system to reproduce the noises that came from my body. Many of them may have been Yiddish in nature, though - there was a lot of phlegmy gagging type sounds.

The drive home was the longest it's ever been. We did a quick tick check before getting in, but, well, we didn't figure stripping everyone down right there in Tick Country would be very wise. For an hour, I pictured ticks leaving the boys' bodies in droves to make nests (or whatever they do - burrows, hollows, covens) in our seats. Ugh.

We did another tick check last night before bed, and all was clear. ...Or so I thought. This morning I found a teeny-tiny tick on James' neck. It looked like lint, it was so tiny and all those legs sticking out looked like fuzz. I tried to get it off, and I beheaded it. DRAT! EW! *This would be a good place to picture a Steve Martin-type physical response.* Now, every stray hair, every string from clothing, feels like a menacing tick - the one I just know I missed, creeping up my body toward my hair. *shudder*

Oh yuck. Yuck. Yuck. Yuck.

Yuck.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Keeping the world safer, one stoopid directive at a time

The Social Security office informed us today that "due to his age" (19 mos) they cannot issue Smidge a social security card until they've verified our information. There is no mention of a policy like this on the SS card application. I did find one tucked under a Q&A page online tonight, though. On the actual application instructions, the only mention of anything similar is that if a minor over the age of 12 (or somewhere in there) applies for a first-time card, the SSA requires an interview with the child.

They cannot say how long this process will take, and they will not tell us exactly what the process entails. They did, however, print me out a nifty little ACLU-approved letter, the jist of which goes something like this:

"We aren't profiling you, but because of reasons of great national security we cannot issue you a card until we know you aren't a threat. Um, although we definitely aren't accusing you of being a threat at all. You know. We just need to, um, check and stuff. Thank you for your cooperation."

(Ok, side note- like I have other options than cooperation? Seriously, you now have my family flagged as a potential terrorist threat. I'm leery of undertipping, at this point. Like I'm going to nab the next social security number that pops up on the screen and run giggling down to the tax office brandishing our "new number"? *sigh* So weird.)

Evidently there is a rash of terrorists bringing their toddler-aged children into the country to be raised as tax write-offs and, in their off-time, indoctrinated to be threats to National Security. So scroll down to the Smidge-a-palooza pictures to get a good hard look at Our Nation's latest terrorist threat. Watch out, Secret Service, he may be well-documented, but toddlers are crafty that way...

This did not come about because I was unprepared. I had every document to trace our lineage all the way back to my great-grandfather, ready for inspection. Every name change verified. Every document an original with the little official seals on them. And every example came straight from "the list". The lady behind the desk was quiet. She checked his documents. She checked my documents. She frowned. She disappeared. She returned. I started to get a bit antsy. Finally, we dialogue.

SS lady: Why has it taken you until now to come in for this?
Me: (looking up from talking with the boys) What?
SS lady: Why have you not gotten him a social security number yet?
Me: Oh. Well, it wasn't a priority, to be truthful. He didn't need one.
SS lady: And why are you getting it now?
Me: Because we need it for taxes.
SS lady: And you didn't need it before then? You didn't need to claim him before?
Me: Um, ok, not sure you need this information, but no, we were a student family until '04. We had no money. We needed no deductions. As you can see, he was born in '03, still in what we call "The Broke Years". But we needed it for our '04 taxes, and since we didn't want a Maryland number, we waited until my husband's job moved us here.

She re-read all our documents. I'm starting to wonder if things are better in East Germany now... or what used to be East Germany, as it seems to have migrated West a wee bit. (For the record, yes, there was a really funny internal side-monologue going on, but none of it made it onto tape - and our whole conversation was taped.) She tittered (I kid you not, tittered nervously) and disappeared again. When she reappeared, she had the Monty Python version of National Security spiel and the printed letter.

So. Three hours in the Ministry of Silly Walks, er, Social Security Administration office and all I got was a lousy flag with Dept. of Homeland Security. I could've at least had a t-shirt.

I'm going to go beg Zorak for a foot rub, man. I'm tired.

Kiss those babies! ~Dy

Generations of Comfort

When your Perpetually Ravenous Son crawls into bed in the morning and rather than asking for food, he falls back to sleep, you sense that something's amiss. When the other two climb in with him, and they all stay there long after you're up and cooking in the kitchen, you know you're in for a day. Something's descended upon the house, and it isn't friendly.

After a day nursing three sick children, fending off the evil critter that's causing this illness (it attacked me at lunch), and trying to keep an even keel, I'm feeling particulary wistful tonight.

The boys are tucked safely, if sniffily, in bed, given "The Granny Treatment", 'nuggled and kissed. They're happy. They're not particularly healthy right now, but they are happy.

Zorak and I are sitting here, listening to Glen Campbell sing The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, which is such a beautiful song.

And in spite of a bone-weary exhaustion, I'm content and happy, myself.

Something I've pondered today, while rocking one child after another, all of various sizes and lengths, is the comfort of generations. The things that brought us comfort when we were children are often the first things we offer to comfort our own children. The things that make us smile are often the first we'll point out to make others smile. They usually came from somewhere before our parents and their parents, but have filtered down to us in soothing memories and reassurring images.

Through thousands of years, mothers have caressed fevered brows on small children, rocked them gently and spoken in soft tones as wee bodies succumbed to restful sleep. Good medicine? Not really. The wise among us, without medical degrees, have always recognized the healing power of touch, but it fades in and out of fashion among the medical world.

Intuition? Perhaps, although anecdotally I've known so many people who weren't offered those comforts, and don't have any intuitive sense to offer them to passing generations, that I doubt the intuitive nature of it.

Generations, though, may be the key. Scientists claim that having a healthy, strong, well-developed network of family helps fend off illnesses and brings about faster recovery from injuries. Elderly people tend to experience failing health more rapidly when they live separated from their families. There was a source posted on the WTM boards not too long ago citing a possible correlation between this inter-generational support system and lower rates of degenerative diseases. For all today's fast-paced, mostly-transient, uprooted lifestyles, there is comfort in generations. Comfort that goes where we go, and is at our disposal if we will open the stores and pull it out.

For us, it's Gram, Granny, Grandma, the Great-Aunts and Great-Uncles, cousins, neices and nephews. There are so many sources of comfort that we have inherited, and we are eternally indebited to the generations before us who taught and passed along the things that bring us comfort, strength and joy today.

The rocking chair we have was Gram's. She's Zorak's gram, the boys' great-grandma. Her husband bought it for her for their 25th anniversary. The boys never tire of hearing how he ordered it through the catalog and when Gram came back to the house from working, there was a rocking chair perched atop the mail boxes alongside the road. They're awed to think of that excitement, cheered to know their favorite chair was such a cherished gift when it began life in the family, and really think it's just the bestest thing in the world.

We rocked today, one after the other, and although we're thousands of miles from any family, blood or adopted, it was comforting to rock the babies in the same chair Gram rocked her babies in. It was a comfort to bring smiles with stories (even the unemployed gypsie stories come in handy in a pinch! *wink*), tender touches, and reassurring smiles. Yes, from my Mom to Zorak's Mom, and going back and back... those women were with me today, lifting my spirits, lending me words, showing me tricks and tips to soothe and heal.

Generational comfort, indeed.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy