Ultimate Fighting Challenge

There are many sports watched at our house. Hockey - my husband is from Michigan and is a Detroit Red Wings fan. He graduated from Michigan State or is that U of M? (just kidding, honey) So we follow the Spartans football and basketball. We watch the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament. We watch the Superbowl - well, at least the commercials and I like to catch the halftime show. LeBron James and Ben Curtis are from 'round here. Golf and poker are on the TV at all possible times. All was well for me, the only woman in a house of three males. But then my husband discovered the UFC.

This no-holds-barred any style of fighting is too violent for me. The big talking is like WWF for intelligent people. So here I sit blogging and surfing the internet. Is there a UFC 'season'? I doubt it.

The Northside

Tonight my son played bass guitar on stage with his guitar teacher at open mic night! It was so exciting for both of us. He did a great job and will be going back often, I'm sure.

But the cat didn't come back

Not really knowing what could be causing her somewhat comatose condition, the vet put the cat to sleep last night. Actually, she has a name but we usually referred to her as 'the cat.' My husband took her from friends who rescued her as a stray. She was bone skinny, so he called her Bones, which is short for Bonita. We will miss her reading the paper in bed with us on Sunday and her playing with Mattie. After Mattie is ok, we'll think about another cat to keep her company. This time a short-haired cat because we won't miss the long white hair or lovely hairballs Bones left behind. My dad lives out in the country and has 14 acres of woods. He's been feeding cats for years and has a large colony of wild cats that just had kittens. Years ago, the kids and I took a kitten and it was the best cat - really beautiful and a great buddy to our other cat. When we moved, we were fortunate to be able to give them to a family so that they could stay together. My stepmom says the new kittens are really cute. My niece has taken one already. Mattie goes to the vet this morning and will still take medicine for another ten days.

The cat's turn

My husband, stepson and friend are taking the cat to the vet ER. She was lying at the bottom of the stairs, which is an unusual place for her to be, for the longest time. When I went to close the door and it got close to her, she didn't move a muscle. When I bent down to shoo her up, she just laid there so I called the guys to come check her. She was just lying there not moving and when my husband picked her up, she was just limp so we called the vet. My husband says he thinks she may have had a stroke.

You don't realize how much pets are part of the family until something happens to them. Mattie, recovering from her herniated disc, lost control of her bladder lying next to me on the couch. I thought she was slobbering on me until I saw that it wasn't that end that was wet! She goes back for a recheck on Thursday.

Our big worry is vacation coming up. My stepson is staying, but he works or goes to school every day. I hope nothing serious happens while we're gone. That would really suck.

Outer Banks Vacation

We're spending next week in Salvo, North Carolina on the outer banks near Cape Hatteras. My dad and step-mom rent a big house and all of us kids and our families spend the week by and in the pool and hottub, at the beach, fishing, surfing, kayaking, cooking, resting, playing games and visiting. We haven't been able to all be together for a while. My dad has four kids and so does my step-mom and we don't synchronize around the holidays as well as we used to. This is the third year going. There's about thirty of us. It is the absolute best time.

Bad Hair

I have a pet peeve about bad hair on TV - on people who should know better, whose livelihood depends in part on how they look. Assuming there's someone whose job it is to do the hair and makeup thing on these guys - they should be fired! Someone should do a reality show makeover of these people! Here are some of the people I see that I cannot believe have hair this bad:

Jim Angle - combover

Bill Gates - please get a good haircut

The Donald almost as famous for his hair as he is for being, well, "The Donald"

John Gibson

What is with these

guys on Fox?

chrisneedsaband

My son plays the bass guitar as well as the electric guitar. His teacher has just moved to a space in an art gallery above the Northside. They have an open mic nite Mondays and the two of them are working on playing there soon. How cool is that? You can hear him on Myspace or email him at chrisneedsaband@yahoo.com.

My Paintings

I've entered three paintings in a student art show! It opens Monday - they are judging today. I'm nervous, excited, proud and did I say excited?

Mattie our French Bulldog

Mattie our French Bulldog is suffering from a herniated disc. She's being treated with medication and cage rest. She's our baby.

Dulcimer Festival

Over the weekend we attended the Dulci-More Festival in Lisbon, OH at Camp McKinley, Ohio's most historic Boy Scout Camp. A delicious ham dinner was served Saturday evening including homemade desserts! The concert featured Tina Bergman & Bryan Thomas followed by Magpie.
The camp was beautiful with the sounds of traditional music, wildlife and water running through what was the Sandy & Beaver Canal. City tension melted away warmed by the first weekend of summer sun. Ahhhh...Summer!

Beta No. 2

So whenever your ready with the real thing, Bill - just let us know.


computer

My Engaging Daughter

Another Mother's Day weekend treat - my daughter and her boyfriend put an engagement ring on lay-away!

She is so excited - it is wonderful to see her so happy.

We went shopping for vintage dresses - perfect for her - she is petite and they all fit fairly well. The first one may be the one she gets and it will only need shortened and any changes she wants.

They plan on a Fall 2007 wedding.

War and Peace

An interesting op-ed on the history of Mother's Day ran in the Akron Beacon Journal today on the same page as an article about the war on terror.

Contrary to what card makers would have us think, Mother's Day wasn't always a Hallmark holiday. The first Mother's Day proclamation, written by Julia Ward Howe in 1870, was a rallying cry for mothers to make their sons and husbands quit the business of warfare.

There has never been an age without war, not ever. Mass violence is a continual aspect of the human condition. Peace, like good weather, is always local and temporary. And what is peace anyway but the result of past victories in war and the effective threat of future war against would-be aggressors? We play with our children, read books, go to work and enjoy recreations only because people with guns stand ready, willing and able to kill other people with guns who would kill us if they could.

While best known for writing the Battle Hymn of the Republic, Howe lived through the Civil War. She was horrified by the violence she saw, and used her poetic gift to pen a proclamation against war -- a proclamation that birthed Mother's Day.

``Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause,'' Julia wrote. ``Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.''

It's sweet to forget this and therefore difficult to keep it in mind. ``It is hard for those who live near a Police Station to believe in the triumph of violence,'' as the poet T.S. Eliot wrote. That's us -- we Americans, protected by a mighty military that by and large obeys the rules of our republic -- safe enough, and keeping much of the world safe enough, so that we find it hard to believe in whatwould happen if that protection failed.

But these fighters do keep us safe. And because keeping us safe is harsh, dangerous work, we should glorify them, exalt them in story and song by way of appreciation.

Her solution? Women should join to ``promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.''

For the sake of mothers in the United States, Iraq and Iran, we should heed Julia Ward Howe's 1870 cry to ``Disarm! Disarm!'' and find the means ``whereby the great human family can live in peace.''

...it's not bloodlines but national creeds that make a people. And while even so great a creed as ours can't guarantee the decency of individuals, evil creeds surely sweep them up into destructive madness and therefore must be opposed.

Today, we face an enemy in the grip of a belief system just as evil, just as destructive in its intent as the system we fought back then. We were attacked at home in this war as we were in World War II. The outcome of the struggle is just as much in doubt.

Worse, because Islamic fundamentalism supersedes nationhood, the danger it poses is more protean and diffuse. It's easier to pretend it isn't there, more tempting for the war-weary and the fatally foolish to waver and sound retreat.

While assessing the intricate failings of our moral history, many of us have lost sight of the simple truth that the system that shapes us is, in fact, a great one, that it has moved us inexorably to do better and that it's well worth defending against every aggressor and certainly against as shabby and vicious an aggressor as we face today.

When war comes, as it always will, and when it is justified, as it is now, nuances and shades of gray have to be set aside. It is time, instead, for faith and for ferocity. Our enemies have these weapons, after all.

We're going to be Grandparents!

My stepson and his girlfriend are expecting a baby. It is an unexpected surprise for all, but we are looking at the bright spots. I've been in the 'in-between' group of my friends. One has small children, getting started with her family in her 40's. Pregnancy, childbirth, babies, toddlers and children - all wonderful memories now. When I watch her chasing after her little one, I am grateful that that exhausting time is in the past. Another friend has five children, the oldest of which has two children, making her a grandma. Last year, my sister became a grandma and this year she will have two more grandkids. Even though I admit I was jealous, I realized that our kids were young and it would be a while before we would have grandkids. Well, now that is in the future and my grandma fantasies can become realities. In the children's department at the library, grandparents bring their grandkids to story hour. They read to them, pick out books, put together puzzles, look at the fish and our turtle, Spike. We have books on grandparenthood, activities to do with grandkids, etc, etc.

We are all starting to think of each other differently. They are starting a family, a new life and moving from dependence on us to having someone depend on them. You can tell they see us as parents - not the authority figure of their childhood but parents like them. We have this in common - expecting a baby. What greater event to expect? They can tell that we know how excited and scared they are - that we've been through the long wait of pregnancy and the uncertainty of childbirth. It may take a while for the reality of not only a life - but a lifetime of a child is ahead of them - their child to love, teach, take care of and enjoy. They are no longer young adults trying to find their way - they have the path ahead of them now.

This is How I Am

Just a rambling post about how I feel today, which is like a slug! I've been lazy, unmotivated, blah, a couch potato, dragging, limping because of my heel pain, sleeping so hard during my nap that my husband greeted me with 'nice drool' upon seeing my pillow. My usual routine consists of the morning routine: get up, bathroom, coffee, let dog out, have cigarette (unless I've quit smoking that day), make simple breakfasts for hubby and son, pack lunch for husband, kiss him goodbye, take son to school. Then if it's a work day, I get ready & go to work for 5 hours shelving books at the library - a job which I LOVE for so many reasons: it's peaceful, I love books, no late fees for employees, coworkers are great, boss is even better and I have the best schedule in the world - I work Tue, Wed & Thur. Yes, 5 hours 3 days a week with a 4 day weekend every week at a job I LOVE. But if it's not a work day, I come home & tidy up, work on laundry, grocery shop, clean house, do errands, lunch with a friend - but only one of those. One activity a day is usually all that's accomplished. I'm a very low energy person - a type B personality, perhaps with adult ADD, an underactive thyroid (I take synthroid), depression (ditto on anti-depressants), aches and pains (anti-inflammatory meds), sleep apnea or maybe I'm just relaxed - a little too much. Once a week or so a spurt of energy shows up in time for me to keep my head above water. All this - and it's so much better than it used to be when I was a divorced, full-time working mom of 2 finishing college at night with an ex that didn't pay child support consistently for so long, he's $25,000 in arrears. Then I had NO energy, but managed to take the kids to their sports practices and games, scout meetings, friend's houses, movies, museums, fire station open houses for the free pancake breakfasts, the library (of course) and even saved for a vacation to Disney World. My house looked like it should be condemned, but everyone said the kids are only young once and they don't care. Well, at 19 and 15, I can see that was right - I am enjoying these young adults and am proud of our life. Things were not perfect - you do your best, work on priorities - but there will always be some things that were hard. I had to learn to make decisions even if there was no really good choices or outcome to be found. Adulthood - Responsibility - not always fun and games.

Choosing a Nursing Home

In anticipation of the possibility of admitting mom to a nursing home, I've found this site which will work up and email a comparison report. I'm also talking to her doctors, nurses, social worker at the hospital, and her case worker at the Area Agency on Aging. Mom's been a Passport client for many years, which has enabled her to live on her own. If you have aging or ill parents, contact your local Area Agency on Aging - it is an excellent source of information and assistance.

Parkinson's

Mom was diagnosed with Parkinson's a couple months ago. After falling again, we stayed with her around the clock as she was in a wheelchair and needed assistance for everything. Last week, she was admitted to the hospital for more rehab. The neurologist increased her medication and she's getting intensive therapy. The Parkinson's was much more advanced than they first thought. Now we need to figure out if she will be able to go back home on her own. She could spend some time in a nursing home until she is able to be safe by herself. She's 70, has osteoporosis, diabetes, bipolar disorder and now Parkinson's - it's likely a nursing home is in the future.

Washington, DC

My son and I spent part of spring break at our nation's capital. It was my first visit and I can't wait to go back. At the zoo, we got a great view of Tai Shan. All three pandas were sleeping - Tai Shan in a tree - but it wasn't crowded and was so great to see them up close.

At the Library of Congress I applied for a reader registration card which gives me access to most of the reading rooms and we headed straight for the main reading room. I could spend an unlimited amount of time here among the 22 reading rooms and 3 buildings.

It was cherry blossom season and the spring days were beautiful. My son especially enjoyed riding the metro and we spent some time at Union Station where we shopped, had lunch and saw "V for Vendetta" because when you're 14 and sight-seeing you must spend a lot of time doing things that you could do at home!

Child Bride

This report really was amazing. I wonder how many innocent people are living in similarly evil situations. Far too many I am sure.

Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone From Yahoo! News

Change in Antidepressants May Beat Depression

A report at Forbes.com goes through the trial and error of getting the medication cocktail right. There are a lot of people who give up before they get better. The search for the holy grail can take some time.