I'm not sure how long I've blogged at HSB but it's been a while.  I've so enjoyed the people I've met here and I've appreciated the opportunity to have free blog space.  All this is to say that I won't be updating my blog here anymore.  I have way too much trouble accessing the site and I just don't have the time to wait for the site to load (yesterday it took upwards of 30 minutes before I just closed it down).  I have two other blogs that I update regularly (with roughly the same content):  http://lorislightextemporanea.blogspot.com and http://www.xanga.com/immax3 .  The Blogspot blog has an rss feed (for those of you who like that feature) but the Xanga does not.  By the way, thank you to those of you who have published an rss feed on your blog.  When HSB did the last browser change and it cut off easy access to figuring out who'd updated their blogs, that rss feed (and Bloglines) was a godsend.  Please consider publishing an rss feed if you don't already so I can keep up with you.

Blessings to you and yours as you do what the Lord commands!

Lori aka SlackerMom

Well.

It's been quite a whirlwind couple of days.  Last night Friend Gina and I had our little knitting confab.  I've made the executive decision to call it Our Own Knitting Group (OOKG).  I'll let y'all know when Friend Gina comes up with a spiffier name.  It was too fun.  We met at a local Starbucks (first time I'd set a toe inside one), stayed there almost until closing, knitting, talking, and cackling.  Well, I cackled.  Gina, being a lady of fine distinction, even if she does hail from Michigan, does not cackle.  She did, however, laugh when she saw The Bag.

Well, she wasn't laughing at The Bag.  I don't remember what she was laughing at but it made a good picture nonetheless.

She also showed me the second sock, of the two she is currently knitting.

She also showed me the utter cuteness of the swatch she's doing with her adorable sock yarn but I did not photograph it.

So, last night, amongst the cackling and imbibing of caffeine which I truly needed, I finished The Bag.  This morning, I tucked in the ends and began the felting process.

Now, the last time I felted a bag, I committed a Cardinal Sin.  I allowed the bag to go through the entire cycle.  Twice.  I was disabused of this idea through several discussions with Friend Gina this week and resigned myself to much sogginess of wool and other irritations.  As Friend Husband was leaving (late) for work this morning, I had a brainstorm!  If I put The Bag under the wheel of the car as he was pulling out, surely it would squeeze out more water than I was capable of doing manually, and would therefore dry The Bag more quickly!  I ran outside as he was about to pull out and said, "Wait!  Would you run over this bag for me?"

I wish I'd brought the camera to record the look on his face.

Being Friend Husband and accustomed as he is to my hairbrained schemes, he recovered quickly.  "Sure!" he said as I wrapped The Bag in a towel and placed it behind the back wheel of the car.  He ran over it, said, "I helped!" and scooted off to work.

Sadly, Abby was not happy with the amount of shrinkage that had taken place in The Bag, so she asked me to felt it again.  Back into the hot wash, but this time, I figured a way to just turn the agitator on instead of the whole shebang and it took much less time.  Then I rewrapped it and ran over it with my car a few times.  Yes, I did take a bizarre delight in doing so.

Oh, I have to relate this:  When I brought The Bag in for Abby to inspect, she held it up in delight, then said softly, "Oh.  This is sort of foul."  I had to roll on the floor with that one.  She comes up with the funniest things to say.

Anyhoo, The Bag is now happily sitting out on the front porch swing, sunning itself in preparation for being Abby's penpal's birthday present.  Of course, me being me, I didn't finish it until the very last minute (we'll see them this afternoon) but at least it's finished.

And for your viewing pleasure, a slideshow of the birth of The Bag.  Happy Weekend!

Currently Listening Bob Seger - Greatest Hits By Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band see related

Thursday Thirteen may have to wait until tomorrow.  It's been a skanky day, probably because I started to crack down on the girls and they hate that.

Anyway, look what came in the mail today!

WordlessWednesday

Although we did not get the storms that they did in the northeast yesterday, we had the wind.  Naturally, the children wanted to play outside.  So we bundled up and played out in the "fresh" wind.  I tried to knit but the turquoise thread was just determined to snarl up.  I spent hours untangling thread and speed knitting to try to knit in the thread that wasn't tangled.

For those of you interested in felting, here is a link sort of describing it.  I'm sort of running out of time so I couldn't find a better one.

And here is the bag last night:

I'm sorry.  It's just the whole shooting thing again.  What's up with our society anyway?  Of course, you never know when it's going to be your time to go but when I kiss my husband goodbye in the morning, I don't expect him to be killed at his university.

Does anyone else look for escape routes and plan for emergencies like the one that happened at VA Tech yesterday?  I do.  I think it's sick that I have to prepare to do something to help my children in such a situation.  Such a sad, selfish waste of life.

Bleah.

Well, now that I'm recovering from the hives (thank you, God!), let the race begin.  Not only the race to try to get my house back in order after 4 days of utter neglect but a race to get one of those cute little felted bags done for Abby by the end of the week.  She asked me to make her one but she needs it when she needs it.  I'm thinking it's doable, or I wouldn't have agreed.  I'll post a picture later on of what I did last night.  I've got to run now...y'all have an excellent Monday, if such a thing is possible.

Edit:  here's the picture of what I finished last night.

Spring in Siberia, with Steroids

This is April, isn't it?   

Since it's too cold to garden and I've been so stinking hyper on these steroids, I power-knitted the Buttonhole Bag, and felted it yesterday.  Here are the pictures.  I'm just so proud!!!!

David got his stitches out Friday.  Happily, my doctor called in a scrip for steroids that day too...I feel like writing her a formal thank-you note.  I was so so miserable and today is the first day that I've felt half-way human.  Better living through modern chemistry!

David was being goofy tonight and I thought I'd take a picture, looking toward future extortion opportunities.

Why didn't you people tell me that hives knock you out?  I depend on this information from you, you know.

Man.  Ok, so I broke out in hives Tuesday (or sometime Monday night).  Went to the doctor.  She said, "Oh yeah, those are hives," and prescribed some antihistimine, followed by the ominous words, "If it's not better by Friday, call me."

Yeah, ok.

It wasn't better by Friday.  I tell you that I have not spent so much of the night awake since I was in graduate school and I sure wasn't scratching myself raw then.  This stuff is worse than poison ivy.  At least with poison ivy, you can use the blow dryer trick and make the itch stop for a time.  No heat treatment for hives, it makes them spread.  The pharmacist recommended a 1% lidocaine spray.  I asked him, "Does this really work or is this what you're recommending so I'll go away?"  He said that, no, it really works.

Not.

Neither did calamine lotion.  Nor did mad scratching.  ARGH!  I did, however, try varying combinations of calamine and lidocaine and benedryl (at night).  Nothing worked.  At last, Friday arrived and I called the doctor bright and early, even before taking the girls to play practice and David to the pediatrician to get his stitches out.  Did they call me back?  Of course not.  About 3 ½ hours later I got a call from the nurse saying that the doctor was going to call in something that I didn't catch.  Yeah, ok, whatever.  By that point, I was too sick to care what happened.

Somehow I managed to get all the children home and fed.  Then I put the twins down for a nap and tried to sleep, to no avail.  I did finish one book that I was reading and get halfway through another.  Once I realized that the twins weren't going to go to sleep, I cast about for something to do until Friend Husband got home.  Something that wouldn't trash the house or make me work too hard, because I wasn't up for that at all.  I decided to take them outside and let them (all) run around in the warmth and sunlight.  Inspired choice.  I huddled in the shade and attempted to stay conscious.  Friend Husband, who was driving all around Cincinnati trying to find us a van to buy, called in on occasion and asked for more time to do so and I just said, "Yeah, whatever."  Sounds like my approach to most of the day.  At one point he asked me when I'd feel well enough to go to the pharmacy and get my prescription.  Um, let's see...packing up 5 children, including 2 hyperactive toddlers and driving to a grocery store to unload them and go inside to get medication.  How about in my next lifetime?  He got the picture and told me he'd pick up my meds and bring them by when his travels brought him near the house.  Yeah, whatever.

The night proceeded:  dinner and a bath for the twins, attempting to stay conscious for me.  Friend Husband brought home my goodies, which turned out to be almost the exact steroids that David is on.  Fine and dandy.  He urged me to partake of the marvelous Chinese food he brought home and to take my pills.  By this point, I didn't even want to eat (and you know I have to be very very sick to not want to eat) but I ate something and took my pills like a good girl, feeling all the while that they wouldn't help anyway.  He went back out on the van search and I put the twins to bed, where they proceeded to dump stuff all over their floor and get to Abby's treasures on the top bunk.  If you're guessing I didn't care, you're right.  Because the plague was spreading.

My saving grace before was that the hives didn't reach the bottoms of my feet or inside my mouth.  I had them on the tops of my feet and a few on my face.  Now they hit the bottom of my feet (and you know how lovely that was...to have something intensely itchy on the most ticklish part of your foot) and my lips.  The lips thing really scared me.  The doctor had said that if my tongue started swelling, I needed to call immediately and I wondered if it was the next thing to go.  I took the precaution of reminding Sarah what to do in an emergency (like Mom passing out, for instance), and attempted to breathe through the pain.

Now I've said many times here that Lamaze breathing is no good for labor.  I had 3 9+ pounders and the last two I had without any drugs.  I've got amazing pain tolerance but to "breathe through the pain", pffft!  I have found it very useful for dealing with the children after they come out or dealing with other stressful situations.  But for labor pain relief, pffft.  It did help with the pain from the hives, though.  It was weird, the pain would come in waves (sort of like labor, actually) and I could stand there and breathe through it and it would go away for a while.  That was nasty.  I thought about it for a while and realized that I had not had enough compassion for people who have chronic pain.  I don't know how they do it and I understand now why it cripples your whole life.  I took the rest of my steroids for the day and went to bed.

Glorious glorious sleep!  But first, amazing hyperness!  Steroids do that to some people, including me.  I couldn't go to sleep for the life of me, so I went into the living room and knitted a few hundred rounds on my buttonhole bag (not really, but it seemed like it).  I was finally able to go to sleep around 1 AM...but it was so very worth it.  I slept through the night.  No scratching, no mad rush to throw on more lidocaine for the 30 seconds of relief it provided.  Ahhhh...This morning I woke up in a much better frame of mind, and was much less itchy.  I'm very very tired and very very loopy but at least I'm not doing St. Vitus' dance.

I still have Sean Astin's lips though.  If you find him, could you tell him to come get them.  I don't want them anymore.

Snow on the ground

Well, I really didn't think I'd be crunching through snow on my deck again before December.  There's not that much but there was enough to crunch when I came back from provisioning Lucy the Wonder Dog this morning.  Wild.

Sarah had a nice birthday.  Unfortunately, the "big gift" we got her hasn't yet arrived.  Friend Husband is hoping for today but, pessimist that I am, I think it'll take longer.  It's coming media mail and that can take up to 2 weeks.

For the first time in a couple of weeks, I'm able to grade and plan.  Yeehaw!  I'm off to do that and maybe to scope out a yarn shop.  I'm a lot more squeamish about buying yarn than I am about buying fabric.  I hope it wears off with practice because it's quite a blow to the old self-esteem.

Y'all have a good weekend!

Thursday Thirteen # 45

Thirteen Things about my daughter Sarah, on the occasion of her 14th birthday  Sarah was, of course, our firstborn child.  Funny thing was, even before I was pregnant, I knew our first child would be a girl.  I could "see" her in my mind's eye and it never occurred to me for a minute that she could be male. She was born a bit after 5PM on 4/5.  I remember the nurse telling me (after I'd been pushing for 2 hours) that if I could just push a little harder, Sarah could be born before she went off shift.  I remember looking at the nurse (who I really liked) and saying, "I.  Don't.  Care."  She weighed 9#, 6 ozs. at birth and was so ginormous that she broke her collar bone being born. Friend Husband picked out her first name, I picked out her second middle name and we both picked out her first middle name. Sarah had her days and nights mixed up for quite some time after she got home.  She slept so little that I hallucinated severely after she was home a few days. Getting her home from the hospital was quite a challenge to begin with.  She was born with 3 heart defects:  ASD, coarctation of the aorta, and a hole in her heart.  She was supposed to have surgery when she was 4 days old but when they did an ultrasound on her heart before the heart surgery, they discovered that the thing they wanted to go in and correct had corrected itself.  Praise God!  Today she merely has a murmur. Sarah was our only binky baby until Keziah came around.  She loved her bink and would pop one in and contemplate the world around her. Sarah is very bright but steadfastly refused to read until she was almost 6 years old.  Did I mention she's also stubborn? Sarah loves to write stories.  She doesn't believe that I also liked to write stories when I was her age.  Mom is just so dull, how could she love the same things I do?  But I do and she does.  Of course, I wrote short stories and poetry and she writes novels... Sarah loves Star Trek:  TOS.  Not The Next Generation, not Voyager, not anything else but TOS.  She considers all others to be mocking of TOS.  I did mention that stubborn streak, didn't I? We started homeschooling mainly because of the issues that Sarah had in public school.  Bringing her home was one of the best things we did for her, IMHO.  She's really bloomed over the last several years and I think that her self-esteem and self-confidence is very strong as a result.  Not to mention that she's had the opportunity to write lots of novels in her spare time. Surprisingly enough, Sarah is interested in writing for a living.  Although I was also interested in that, I never pursued it as seriously as she does and never at as young an age as she has. Sarah is starting to think and act as an adult.  She is dependable, competent, and thoughtful.  She doesn't always enjoy the hijinks which come with being the oldest of 5 children, but she has a lovely soft side that she shows to me on a regular basis.  She continues to surprise and amaze me. So here's to you, Sarah...live long, and prosper. Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

Wordless Wednesday

Have you ever had one of those ideas that seems good at the time but comes back to bite you in the end?  Well, that perfectly describes today.  One of those days when, if your life were a movie, the dramatic music would be burbling off in the background.  Yep, that was today.  And I didn't hear the music until it was too late (I guess that's why all those people in those movies get axed...they didn't hear the music until it was too late.)

My brilliant idea:  take the children down to the Reds' Opening Day Parade.  Yes, sometimes I am that stupid.

I did prepare ahead of time.  I purchased two harnesses to try to keep the twins from running away.  They did keep them from running away but not from attempting to run amok.  David attempted to dart away through the crowd twice and we parted the seas of humanity with our tethers but he didn't get away.  Hooray for the harnesses!

So we parked across the river at Newport on the Levee for $2.  At the end of the day, I was wishing I'd forked over the $15 to park in Ohio.  But that's another story.  We walked across the Purple People Bridge, which the children thought was totally cool.  I like the idea of being able to walk all around places, which was what Friend Mattie did when she and her family lived in Covington, but after hauling the twins all over creation today, I think I've changed my mind.

Ok, one thing to remember:  know where you're going.  I sort of knew where the parade was going to be, but not exactly.  My plan was to get to downtown Cincinnati and follow the people walking around in red until we got to a lot of people sitting around in red and sit down with them.  This plan did not inspire the girls much.  We did make it without incident but I think they thought I'd pretty much lost my mind.

Another thing to remember:  the harnesses will keep the twins from running away but they will not carry them when they are tired.  Just for the record, I thought about taking the stroller but I wasn't entirely sure that the whole route would be accessible.  And how much room would be available for strollers once we got there.  And how far could it be, really?  Those words would come back to haunt me, but big.

Yet another thing to remember:  bring plenty of diapers.  Yes, there's a story there too.

And finally:  the thing will take longer than you think.  Be prepared.

Ok...so we walked across the PPB, found the parade site and settled in quite comfortably in the shade of the Chiquita Center building.  I was comfy but I have my own subcutaneous fat layer to keep me warm.  Sarah and Abby, on the other hand, got cold quickly.  We were all huddled in a mass of Us until the parade started.  Once the parade started, we were on our feet and somewhat warmer.

The parade was very cool.  Parades generally are.  We liked the motorcycle precision team pretty well, although the sirens terrorized Keziah no end.  And so did the walking mascots.  Any time one of those came near, I had 3 bodies (the twins and Abby) attempting to burrow into my backbone.  They didn't like those things at all.  One guy who was walking alongside one of them offered to take a picture of the children with his mascot figure (forgot which one it was) and Sarah said, "No offense, but I think she'd rather not."  There were many marching bands (we read that 18 were coming), many horse-drawn carriages, many many more politicians than I wanted to ever see in one place...lots of marching humanity.  In fact, the early lament of "Are they starting yet?" was replaced by, "Oh.  Another marching band.  Look.  More horses."  The girls wanted to go at one point and I told them that I wanted to see the guys that I listen to in the morning on the radio so they good-naturedly decided to stick around. I also thought it was kind of a chicken move to leave a parade while it was still ongoing.  Shows ya what a provincial hick I am.  People drifted away and drifted away until there were precious few left.  Including us.

Oh yes, the cautionary tale about diapers.  Or maybe it's a self-congratulatory tale about how very inventive I can be when really put to the test.  At one point during the parade, I noticed that Keziah's diaper was beyond-the-pale drippy.  Yuck.  Naturally, we're in the middle of downtown Cincinnati with numerous signs on all the buildings making note of the fact that there are no public restrooms within.  Not to mention that I don't really relish the idea of abandoning the rest of the children to change K.'s diaper nor do I want to drag everybody away at the beginning of the parade (this would have been much different had it been at the end).  So I thought about it and realized that Keziah's voluminous dress would hide my diaper change activities.  I arranged the rest of the children in a semi-circle around us (skirts make good screens to hide all sorts of activities) and changed her diaper.  I congratulated myself on my ingenuity.  Not too long afterward, I realized that David was also soaked.  Obviously, David was not wearing a voluminous dress (although I now understand why mothers of yore kept their sons in dresses until they were toilet trained).  I arranged the girls in a semicircle around us and proceeded to change David's diaper in a semi-modest way involving strategic placement of clean versus wet diapers.  Yay me.  I've finally turned into...what would that make me?  White trash?  I don't know.  I didn't feel as happy about my ingenuity the second time.  I decided that the best thing to do (after copious use of wet wipes on my hands) was to not make eye contact with those around me.  Yeah, that works for me.

I kept asking the girls if they wanted to leave, figuring that I'd missed my morning radio guys anyway and we may as well leave but they wanted to stay to see if they were further on in the parade.  They were!  I bellowed at them, waved hello, and received a stare that said to me, "Do I know you IRL?  No, you must be one of those weird suburban housewife groupies we get."  Yep, that's me...weird suburban housewife white trash groupie.  I know my mama's proud.

When we finally decided to go (at the end of the parade; we marched alongside the final high school marching band), I didn't remember which street we'd walked up and we had to backtrack a bit.  It became very evident to me that David was about to crash.  I'd put him up on my shoulders and he'd lay his head down atop mine and become very still.  I asked the girls if he was asleep and they'd say, "No, but he's very zoned."  As we were drawing nigh to the Reds' new stadium, Zi suffered a wardrobe malfunction.  That is to say that her diaper tab came off.  I just hate it when that happens.  Of course, we had no other diapers to put on her and we had no pins, tape or anything else to attach her diaper.  I was stumped.  I kneeled there on the cement, thinking for a while, then decided that I could remove the tether from her harness, wrap it around her middle like a belt, and tuck the diaper up under there.  It worked for a while, but the girls steadfastly refused to carry her as they were afraid of further malfunctions and further damage to their own wardrobes.  I carried both twins for awhile:  David on my shoulders and Keziah on my hip.  By the time I was ready to put Keziah down, Sarah and Rachel were ready to take turns carrying her (since the tether was now missing, I didn't want to take the chance that she'd run into traffic, as she was in an ornery state at that point). 

We continued to make progress back to the van but it sure seemed to take a long time.  One of the reasons why was that David was now sound asleep and dead weight in my arms.  Keziah decided she had to walk, so she held Sarah's hand and proceeded down the sidewalk.  We wove our ways (in all our hick white trash splendor) through crowds of yuppies waiting to get into some bar/restaurant down there that was apparently the hot place for the young undressed to go.  Sarah kept saying something to me but it was drowned out by my mind's saying, "Ten hup!  Right, left, right, left."  It finally filtered to my brain that she said, "Mom!  Keziah's diaper fell off!" 

"What?"

"Where?"

"Back there."  And she pointed back through the crowd of young beautiful undressed people of which I guess my little girl was now a member.  I will confess that I toyed with the idea of just leaving it there but I haven't reached that level of white-trashedness (can you be white trash if you're a transracially adopting parent?) so I sent Sarah back for it.  Instead of picking it up, rolling it up into a discreet little ball and walking non-chalantly through the crowd (no eye contact, please) which would have been my plan, she picked it up as it lay, attached on one side and one side unattached, slightly urinated in.  She carried it in front of her pinched between the tips of her index finger and thumb with a look of mild irriation on her face.  Come to think of it now, the crowds parted well for her then. 

I looked at Keziah and told her, "Kuh, you're going to walk to the car with no diaper on.  Do. Not. Pee.  Ok?"

"Ok, Mommy!"

Ah the many lovely memories my children will have of our trip to the 2007 Reds Opening Day Parade.  That's what the whole thing was about, right?  Making memories.  One day, I'm sure we will laugh about this.  I was actually laughing so hard I was crying when I was telling Friend Husband about it but the tears might not have been entirely because of the humor of the situation, if you know what I mean...

FAQ's:

Yes, David did sleep all the way to the car.  David weighed close to 35 pounds this morning.  How many calories do you think I burned carrying him from downtown to Newport?

Yes, David did wake up in the van, but only after ice cream for lunch was mentioned as a definite need.

No, Keziah did not get ice cream as she proceeded to fall asleep once we were underway.  And she did not befoul anyone's wardrobe in her diaper-free hours.

Yes, we finally did find the van but only after searching 3 floors of the Newport Aquarium Parking Garage. 

Yes, I was stupid enough not to remember which level we came in. 

No, I was not the only mother who did that.

Yes, we finally got home but it was 4:30 and we'd missed a meal.  We made up for it by using Friend Husband's gift cards to Graeter's.  Oh.  Yeah.

And the Reds won their opener for the first time in a while...go Reds!

Pictures to come...I'm going to bed.

Currently Reading The Last Days of Henry VIII: Conspiracies, Treason and Heresy at the Court of the Dying Tyrant By Robert Hutchinson see related

Wordless Wednesday

Currently Reading I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away By Bill Bryson see related

Monday Memories? Wordy Wednesday?

I don't know...I'm all messed up here.  We spent yesterday morning tramping through Rowe Woods.  It was an unbelievably gorgeous day, hot for spring but sunny and delightful.  The grounds of the Cincinnati Nature Center are covered in daffodils.  Unfortunately, they weren't in profuse bloom yesterday but we did get to enjoy a fair number of them.  Apparently when the land was privately owned and someone lived on it, that someone planted many many daffodil bulbs and they spread and you have this marvelous display of daffodils.

Since this was the Nature Center, we also got to see many different kinds of wildflowers.  The hills were lush with one yellow one with dark green leaves.  I can't remember the name of them but Sarah does.  She said that they were outlawed in ancient Rome because wives could brew them into a tea and poison their husbands with them.  Come to think of it, were those the flowers that David would surreptitiously eat when we weren't looking?

Anyway, here are some pictures I took of our adventure in the woods yesterday.  This is the first time that we've gone to Rowe Woods and I didn't consult the map once.  We just bumbled around, enjoying the scenery.  If I had looked at the map, I might have noticed that we were taking the rock stairs of doom and I might have gone a different direction...one which would not have caused my calves to ache so intensely this morning.  Anyway, it was a marvelous time.

These are the infamous rock stairs of doom.  Pretty and unassuming, aren't they?  Don't you believe it!  We went down them to discover that the trail led over a stream.  It was not my idea of a good time to walk the twins across rocks over a rushing stream, so we went back up the rock stairs soon after having gone down them.

But, of course, they make for a wonderful photo op...

Does anyone know what this flower is?

Here are the flowers that were banned in ancient Rome, in case anyone wants to know for reasons which I won't ask about...

The children were pretty patient with my constant need for picture-taking.

And, of course, it was just warm enough for us to really appreciate an ice cream treat afterward...

and just plain tired....that just about describes my state of mind right now.

My grandmother died Wednesday night.  This is the woman who I've thought of as my grandmother since I was a child.  Unfortunately, she's also the mother of my stepfather, who decided that I didn't need to know that she had died.  He's called me every other time she's been admitted to the hospital and asked for prayers.  I've duly prayed for her and for him and called to check up on the situation.  All of a sudden I am persona non grata to that family.  I give up.  I just give up.  I think the man was honestly afraid that I'd show up to his mother's funeral.  I called their church to find out if there were any organizations they wanted donations for in lieu of flowers and the church secretary (whom I know well) asked me if I wasn't coming to the funeral.  I said, "Bobbie, I just found out about it this afternoon.  He just didn't let me know about it."  The funeral is in Texas, I'm in Ohio.  No, I don't think I'm coming.  But at least the people at his church will know that it's his fault I'm not there, not mine.

I was very tempted to go, just to see what he'd do.  I think he'll be (unhappy, stunned, shocked) enough that flowers are there tonight from my brother and me.  Of course, he'll probably throw away the card so that no one else can see that we sent flowers.  Why?  Because he is not a decent person.  We are decent people.  We sent flowers with our condolences, sincere condolences.  But he will find a way to twist it around so that we look bad and there's not a thing we can do about it.

Sigh.

Anyway, I've had to do a lot of talking to myself and reminding myself that he will catch up with him and that I have a great life.  Why is it that I have to continually backtrack and be constantly reminded of this wretched upbringing and its effects on me when he gets to get off scot-free?  GRRRRR!