The whirlwind of life

Okay, so I'm a slacker and never posted last week...but I'm not the only one...

So, where do I begin?

As usual, I've been swamped with scout stuff (curse baseball). We have only been getting 1-3 boys at the meetings (curse baseball). But, it's looking like our last two boys who plan to stay in will be able to earn their rank badge by the end of the month, so that's good.

Did you all know that I don't like baseball season? I really don't know why they bothered with giving us a schedule. Most of the games have either been rained, canceled because the coach didn't feel like interrupting his weekend or moved for all I can figure is just the heck of it. W is down to one more practice and two more games. Aside from being terrified of the ball, he's really improving. Last year D nailed him in the head with a t-ball at practice...well, it wasn't deliberately, but the weather was cold and it caught him right in a cold ear. So, I think I told you that he's been wearing his batting helmet out in the field...his black batting helmet...looking like Darth Vader. Then a week or so ago he was in the batting cages and the coach nailed him in the calf. So, now when he's up to bat, as the ball comes in he cowers and steps back then decides he can hit it and steps in and swings one handed. At practice last night the other coach stood behind him for awhile so he couldn't step back. W finally ended up hitting the ball...nailing the coach who was pitching. I think he was a little scared when the coach came charging to meet him at 1st. Oh, and then Monday night I came the last half of his game after scouts. He proudly told me that he was wearing his glasses while in the outfield. Hmmm, why didn't I think to ask where he put them when he was up to bat??? The last inning D and I were talking to another mom and W ran up screaming "look what the team did!!" In his dust covered, outstretched hand were his glasses. Granted it took a minute for that fact to register with D and I, at which point the other mom said "uhhh, I'm outa here". He had been setting his glasses on the bench in the dug out. His last at bat, he forgot to put them back on his face. They ended up being knocked down into the gravel where all of these dusty little boys ended up trampling them. At least I think that's what happened since we didn't see a herd of wild African elephants stampede through. OMG, he's only had this frame for a couple months!! One lens was popped out. Both, which were coated with the expensive bullet proof coating, were scratched. The frames. Well, if you can imagine what they would look like if the left temple hinged upward and the right temple hinged downward...So the next day I called the Dr. to see just what the "warranty" would cover. He didn't seem phased. D dropped them off after work and the Dr. was able to bend the frames back into shape, but there is a good scratch in the frame under one lens. It will take two weeks to get new lenses...but D didn't ask if they would be covered. (Curse baseball...and silly boys who don't know how to take care of their things)

Hmm, other news. D has spent the better part of a week trying to re-train H to say daddy. I don't know why, but for some reason he started saying "daddy-o". It's kind of cute, but it bugs D. I'm sure he'll grow out of it eventually.

Now that spring is almost over, we have started doing some yard work. Memorial Day we spent a few hours cutting out blackberries down by the lake as well as almost all of my creeping rosemary. It was just starting to look really good and was cascading over the retaining walls and planters. Then winter happened and almost all of it froze. I'm hoping maybe the roots are still alright and it will bounce back, but it's not promising. Well, anyway, D was burning as we were cutting. Just about the time I was thinking it was time to go start dinner anyway, the wind shifted and I was engulfed in rosemary smoke. Ughh, that stuff burns your throat and stings your eyes. For the next week I had this horrible smokers cough. Well, because of the smoke, I didn't pick up all of my stuff and though W and D would on their way back up. They snagged everything but my gloves. So this weekend I was going to do some weeding up by the house and had to go retrieve them. One had fallen behind one of the concrete benches. So, I had to lean over it and reach down the slope to get it. Our dumb ass dog must have thought that I was going to be weeding there, and she loves to get in the middle of things in case I unearth a grub or something she might consider tasty. Well, she spotted a snake and proceeded to do what she does best. She lunged in, grabbed it, stepped back and began violently whipping it back and forth. Well, normally I don't care if she wants to kill the snakes. However, this time we were shoulder to shoulder as she nabbed it. When she stepped back and started whipping it, she was beating me with this poor snake that had started at about 2ft long and was now closer to 3ft long due to the extra space between each vertebrae. In addition to that, she always foams at the mouth while doing this. I don't know if it's Pavlovian or some bitter defense mechanism that they snake has, but she just looks downright rabid. So, in addition to being beaten with a dead snake, I was being showered with foamy dog slobber. I kept telling her to drop it, which she did, but as soon as I would take a step to get around her she would pick it up and start beating me again. I'm sure that our neighbors thought I was some kind of freak yelling at the dog. Anyway, dog 1 - snakes 0.

MandM, Miss S and I had a nice lunch at TPauls today. They had never been there. And the menu had changed since I had. H opted to stay home for daddy-o time. Poor little Miss S. She just looked heartbroken. I could almost swear that for a brief second when she notice he wasn't there she was ready to turn around and leave. She's getting so big...and if you can believe it even more cute than when everyone was still here!! I just don't know what I'm going to do when they leave. H will be fine as he has a whole harem lined up, but it seems that my adult friends will all be scout people. And somehow we have ended up with all the ones that probably wouldn't be into sipping MandM size glasses of wine (BTW, as long as you only have 2 glasses, does it really matter how many bottles it takes to fill the glass???)

So, my dad got out of the hospital on Memorial Day. He was doing much better. He had been scheduled to have cataract surgery the day he was admitted to the hospital. So, they rescheduled that for yesterday. It's supposed to be a pretty simple thing. He said they planned to just dissolve the old lens with an ultrasound, make a small incision and "extract" it. Then they take the new lens that is folded and slip it into the little incision and unfold it. Well, after "extracting" the old lens, she went back in to make sure that she had gotten everything. And mom was talking to me from across the room on a speaker phone with dad snoring right next to the speaker phone so I'm not exactly sure what happened. But it sounds like a little piece of the cataract is still there and a part of his eye that can become very fragile in diabetics (which he is) collapsed. So, she pulled out, stitched it up and called a doctor in Portland (about 4 hours from where they live). So, the will come down Sunday and meet with a new doctor on Monday and hopefully have everything repaired on Tuesday. Ughh. I just can't imagine sitting there for the better part of a week with something messed up in my eye and not knowing if it could be fixed. His doctor is sure things will be alright...but then again as he now knows, you can always be on the bad side of statistics.

So, now I need to leave blog land and go back to planning everything for day camp.

Hope everyone has a good week.