We are fam-i-ly!

My parents spent 5 weeks in Germany this summer.  I was in town for a funeral and I stopped by thier house to get something.  After I was done I went to the freezer to get an icepack and when I opend the freezer...BAM! I got punched in the face!  I shut the door.  I slowly opened it again and my nose began burning, my eyes were greeted with the moldy, maggot filled mess that the freezer had become.  I shut the door tighter.  I checked to see if it was plugged in...yep.  I opened the fridge and my worst fear was confirmed.  The light inside came on but there was no cool.  The next few hours were spent with a lot of squirming, gagging and cussing.  (My guess is that 5 minutes after they left for Germany the fridge went "kaput".) At one point I picked up what had been a pound of hamburger and the paper disintegrated and a pound of happy-to-be-alive maggots fell out onto my arm and did a happy dance!!! My only defense was to think of something else and to begin blaming others.  Naturally, I thought of my siblings. I began to imagine what each one of them would have done had they been in my shoes.
John: 37 years old, married 13 years and has two preteen kids.  He is a large person.  One would think he could just tape the doors shut and carry the whole mess to the back yard with one hand.  That is not what I imagine John would do.  I think he would taste something.  I have no idea why.  I don't usually understand him. I do think he would have a solid explanation/justification for why he chose to taste something.  I'm guessing moldy, maggoty beef is a delicacy somewhere and what better opportunity for him to feed his curiosity than this.  He would have been proud of himself.
Peter: 35 years old, 4 kids ranging from kindergarten to high school, a self described knuckle-dragger with a degree.  He's an animal. Not like a wild, crazy eyed animal but like a giant mass of meat.  Working out is his love.  Not cardio, weights.  I think he would have called some meat-head friends, grabbed some beer and somehow made a game of who could lift and carry the damn thing out into the yard.  He wouldn't have taped the doors shut.  Shit would have spilled.  It would have been a bigger mess when he was done than when he started but he and his friends would have had the time of their lives.  He might have laughed hard enough to puke but no one would even notice given the rotten smell and the smell of sweat that would have already filled the house. He would have been proud of himself.
I'm next in order and you all know what I did.  I took care of that shit. I cleaned out the fridge, got help moving it to the back yard. I made sure someone would come pick up the old fridge, the garbage truck would make a special trip to pick up the trash and a new fridge was being ordered and would be in place when my parents got home. I rock. I am proud of myself.
Matthew: 29 years old, married 4 years and has a newborn baby girl.  Matthew would have shut the door quietly.  Made sure that his photographic mind placed everything exactly where it was when he walked in.  Wiped the whole house down so there was no prints and gotten rid of any DNA evidence he was ever there.  He would have spent more time and effort making sure there was no sign of him than he would have if he had just taken care of the fridge mess.  No, he would have disappeared and been shocked when he "found out" that the fridge quit.   He would have been proud of himself.
Hannah: The baby of the family, 26 years old.  She would have opened the door, closed it again and immediately called Dad and told him to come home from Germany to take care of the mess.  He would have been there in minutes.  He would have taken care of the mess and then cooked her a nice meal and thanked her for her quick thinking. They would both be proud of her.
As hard as I try, I can not imagine what would have happened had my parents found the mess.  My best guess is that Dad's head would have exploded and Mom would have chalked it up to a character building experience.

Remembering Bryan

I have had such a mixture of feelings since hearing of Bryan's death. There is a group of us who knew Bryan best before his deployment. He was fun. He could laugh so easily. I had so much fun with him and Jess as a couple and have some really great memories of the two of them (whether they were on-again or off-again). One of the ways he touched my life was with his understanding and patience.

Bryan and Jess showing their mad skills at my house after his first deployment

After his second deployment he was a changed man. It seemed like he cut his oldest friends and family (Jessica and Braydon) out of his life.  It seemed like he started a new life as a different person.  After reading all the posts and memories from his Army friends I have realized that his personality didn't change... he had been changed.  His Army family knew the same silly, fun Bryan that we knew he just couldn't be that person with us anymore.  The difference was that after being deployed Bryan knew things about life that the rest of us, safe and unaware in Hays, KS didn't know.  He looked at us through different eyes.  He had seen the world and it's harsh reality. And we didn't make sense to him anymore. He had an unbreakable bond with other Army soldiers who had witnessed what he had witnessed.
After my first husband was taken from me by a traumatic brain injury I looked at my friends and wondered how they could be so clueless.  Thinking their problems were so important I couldn't relate to them.  I had seen a much bigger and painful picture of the world.  I could see things that only experience can show a person. 
Bryan had experienced something that we could never imagine.  And after that he found a comfort in his Army family that he could never find in the people he grew up with.  Once he was able to surround himself with people who were like him he was able to form a bond with Braydon and they were closer than ever before.
I am finding comfort in hearing what a great friend and brother Bryan was.  I am sorry that I never took the time to think about what life might have been like for him after being deployed and I am sorry I misjudged him for the past few years.  I am sorry but I don't feel guilty because there was no way I could have known this until reading all the posts and stories that are being posted about him by the people he spent the last few years with.  He was the same fun, caring, person, just with a different group of people.  People that had an understanding of him that I couldn't possibly have had.

Spotlight is on....ME!

I'm loving this blogging thing.  It's the perfect setting for me to be a complete show-off, crack myself up and entertain you!

Horses have weenies

Tonight before her bedtime Nadia and I were searching the house for Purple Blankie.  When we finally found it in my bedroom she put it between her legs and started to gallop out of the room with most of Purple Blankie dragging behind her.  On her way out the door she looked back and said "I gotta horse weenie!" and galloped on to her bedroom.  ummm, WHAT?!?  Two thoughts immediately came to mind; first, was she referring in any way to the size of the long blanket trailing behind her and if so, what horses has she been looking at? Second, I flash back to the night before last when Brad was getting up from the couch and accidentally caught his foot right between Luka's legs.  He said to Luka, "Ooops! Sorry dude, I didn't mean to kick you in the weenie."  Nadia thought this was hilarious and worth repeating at least three times. Brad and I smiled at each other but said nothing so we wouldn't draw attention to it.
So tonight when we got back to her bedroom I needed some answers.   "Nadia, does your horse have a weenie?"  "YES, Mommy!"  "Do YOU have a weenie?" "Yessss."  "Where's your weenie at?"  "Right here." (She lifts her leg and points to.................her knee! Yes, her knee!)  "OH, you mean your horse has LITTLE knees!"  "Yes, Mommy.  That means she has wee-knees!" I laughed so hard I think I scared her a little.
Later in the evening I was thinking about the whole thing.....Brad seriously called it a weenie.  That thought cracked me up all over again.

This must be what hell is like (a repost from October)

I posted this on fb as a note a while back but wanted to include it on here so when my kids read this in the future, they'll know how they chipped away at my soul.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 9:18am

Soooo......Nadia has been working on potty training and yesterday did awesome. She used the potty every time in the morning and kept her panties dry all morning. She ate lunch and was so sweet and I was so proud of her. She got done with lunch, got down from her chair and asked if she could go take her nap! What a dream, right? Little did I know what I was in for....
Maybe not my brightest idea of all time but I thought I would see if she could stay dry for nap time. I put the potty in her room and talked to her about using it if she needed to. What's the worst that could happen? I might have to wash her sheets if she wet the bed... wrong, oh so wrong.
She laid down and didn't make a sound. After an hour or so I could hear her playing quietly and then could hear Luka too and they sounded happy so I just let them play for about another hour while I did some housework. What a great day this was shaping up to be!
So I went in to get them up and was instantly knocked over by the smell that hit me in the face when I opened the door. It could have gagged a maggot. I knew what was coming and though: I've dealt with this before, not a huge deal. Then I looked down and saw poop everywhere. My best guess is that Nadia pooped in her panties and then took off her pants and undies, only she's not so good at this so they kind of roll down while she's pulling on them. This smeared poop all down the backs of her legs. Once she had the prized piece of poop she went to town like never before. She used it as a ball and rolled it in and out of all her toys making them sing when she rolled the poop through them. When that got old she got out all 5,000 of her little plastic animal toys and used the poop as clay to make them stand up straight. So all these animals where ground into the poop. She also put some in her purse, ground it into the floor and got it all over her potty; top, bottom and sides.
It gets better.
I took her to the bathtub and put all her poop stained animals in with her. The water was immediately chocolate colored. As I was rinsing each animal (gagging and crying the whole time) I debated on putting them into the washer or the dish washer...I decided that I would rather have fecal residue on my clothes than my dishes and started throwing the rinsed animals into the washer. Once they were all rinsed off I put in the soap and was pouring the bleach when I heard a crash followed by screams. I looked over and Luka had fallen into the fecal cesspool face first fully clothed! REALLY!?!?!?!
After cleaning both of them the rest of the night was spent smelling toys and cleaning toys. Cleaning the carpet, the bathtub and the washing machine. To top it all off Nadia just kept asking me, "Mommy happy now?" I wanted to scream at her HELL NO, MOMMY"S NOT HAPPY NOW!!! But I just kept quiet. So I told her that since the animals played in poop they got sick and can't play for a few days and she's lucky she didn't get sick too.
I'm much better today and while it's still hard for me to laugh about it, I thought my poop story followers deserved a good laugh. So laugh...laugh hard...that's right...go ahead...laugh! :P

 

The business of homelessness

Author's note:  I write this for my Dad who has told me I need to write this down, since the first time I asked it.

My first encounter with the homeless was in high school when I went to KC to serve soup at a soup kitchen.  My next encounter with the homeless was almost ten years later when I moved to KC.  I was working for the Area Agency on Aging and had to drive all over Johnson County, mostly taking the freeway.  As I pulled off and on the on and off ramps I saw homeless people.  Homeless people who were vets, homeless people who needed gas, homeless people who were out of work, homeless people who would work for food.  So this is the question I pose:  Where does a penniless person obtain a thick black marker? 
I have thought about this a lot, way, WAY too much actually.  Does one anticipate homelessness and take stock of all possible forms of weather proof writing utensils?  Do you panhandle by mouth and throw in a "oh, and I could really use a black marker, if you have one"?  Does a homeless shelter keep an old record bin with pre-written cardboard signs filed in some sort of 'by need' order?  If worst comes to worst, do you trade in one meals worth of money and just buy one to make the sign that will be your livelihood?
This also leads me to wonder about the network of homeless people.  Do you do any research before making your sign?  What gets the most money?  Should I go alone or take my baby?  Are other homeless people willing to share their secrets?
While I have no answers to these questions, I have decided to keep a stock of black sharpies in the glove box...just in case I come across a sign that says "anything helps. God bless".

Ear drum

Luka bashed his head into the coffee table while playing chase with Nadia last night.  This is the result today, poor little man!