I am sitting here waiting for Mo' Nature to make up her mind as to whether she's gonna let me garden or not. Right now, it's not looking favorable, so I guess I'll write part II of the trip to see the 'rents.

It's been a while since we've seen my parents and brother, so when I saw my mom and dad at the airport I hugged the stuffin' right out of them. My dad probably wondered what the heck happened to the daughter who he had to chase around the house to get a hug.

Seriously, he'd chase me around saying, "give me a squeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzeeeeeeee" and I'd run. I was in my.... ummmm... 30's at that time. It was a fun game.

My dad has changed a lot since I saw him last. He's shaved the mustache that he's had since the 70's and he's changed his hair. He now has a metrosexualish 'doo. Kind of a flat top. It's SOOOOO cute on him!

I hope this doesn't insult my dad, but he's turning into a very cute old man. We all know how much I love old men. Now I have one of my own. tee hee.

Mom looked just like she did the last time I saw her, except she's now sporting an oxygen tank almost 24/7. I'm thankful that I've been around that sort of thing a lot between my Hospice experiences and BJ's dad- so I knew what to expect when I saw her. Quite honestly, I'm surprised she hasn't found a way to jazz the nose cannula up a bit. Surely there must be some sort of bedazzler kit for cannulas.

Of course, it's always shocking to see my parents after I haven't seen them in a while, because when I talk about them or think about them, I picture them in their 40's. Now I'm the one in my 40's, so I guess it stands to reason that they're older than that. And my brother Joel. He'll always be my 'little' brother, even though he'll be 42 in June. That's just nutty to me.

Dad took us for a short walk from their house to see the petroglyphs- aka blogging for cave dwellers. Looking at some of the petroglyphs made me wonder what story these people were trying to tell. I'm guessing that they had a more urgent reason got get to the point than I do. Not sure if I'd be so wordy if I had to carve my stories in stone.


As long as I've known my dad (trust me, it's a long time), he's always been a putterer. It seems that my dad is having a good time puttering in his yard, creating vegetable gardens and stone gardens. According to my dad, this stone garden represents the sun.


Mom is an artist as well as writer, so she spends a lot of time indoors doing those sorts of things. I gave her this for an early Mother's day present. I'm expecting to see some great digital art out of her. Hint, hint.... *When* she sends me something I'll share it here. I know it will be amazing. I think I became a photographer because of my mom's ability to draw. I was always envious of that talent.

My brother, Joel, is one of my favorite people to hang around because he ALWAYS laughs at my jokes. I like that in a person. Of course, the more he laughs, the more it eggs me on, so I get pretty obnoxious after a while. Poor BJ...... he tries so hard to convince me that I'm not THAT funny and then Joel has to go ruin all his good work.

I think- no, I KNOW- this visit was one of the best visits I've ever had with my parents. Something has changed in my relationship with them- especially with my mother- and I believe it's because of my blog. I send 99% of my blog entries to them (the 1% are things that they wouldn't want to know, like my second career as a table dancer. KIDDING!), and so now they know me and now I know they accept me for who I am (mostly, anyway). I never really gave them that opportunity before because I never really shared all of me with them. If for no other purpose, I'm glad that I started this blog because it brought me closer to my parents. Now they get "all" of me (probably more than they'd ever want to know... ha!).

My long-time blog readers probably knew me better than my parents up until the time I started copying them on my posts. Strange, isn't it? I'm not going to question the pathology behind what made me so secretive, I'll just be happy that I've stopped.

I enjoyed every minute of my visit with my parents and Joel, and for the first time in my life I honestly wished we had been able to spend more time with them. I like being in this 'space' where I enjoy my parents.

Mom and Dad, I love you so very much and it was very hard for me to say goodbye. How awesome is that? Lemme tell you... it's AWESOME.

More pictures of the trip (including LOTS of petroglyphs) can be found on my flickr account.

I think I have another post about the trip I need to add. It'll only interest the bird people. Stay tuned.

Finally. FINALLY!!!!!!!!! Gheesh, we got back home a week ago.

(note to self- 100 sit-ups or some other excruciating punishment next time this happens).

It takes two flights on two different airlines to get to my parents' place. The first leg, Alaska, had problems from the get-go. Here's kinda how it went. Note- the pilot came out to make every one of these announcements. We later discovered that he was just as yacky when behind the wheel.

"Ladies and gentlemen, it looks like we're going to have a slight delay. The temperature controls aren't working quite right so we've decided to fix it here, since we have the parts. It should only be a few minutes. "

20 minutes later

"Ladies and gentlemen, we thought that this would be something we could quickly fix, but once we got it apart it was apparent that we needed a part that we don't have here. Someone is driving to the Boeing plant to pick up that part. It looks like we have tail winds going to our destination. We should be able to make up the time."

20 minutes later

"Ladies and gentlemen, we've picked up the part and we're now installing it. We should be boarding soon."

....and we did- approximately 1.5 hours after we were supposed to leave.

Still, we thought we'd make the second flight because we had 2 hours between flights. We weren't worried.

Until......

"Ladies and gentlemen, you've probably noticed that we've been sitting on the tarmac for quite some time. Apparently a passenger got on the wrong airplane and we have to wait until they taxi that plane back to the gate. We should be on our way shortly. Please stay in your seats. "

OK, that's when I started to panic. I'd asked my parents to pick us up from the airport at 5:05. I had no way to call them to tell them that we might not make that flight.

The story is getting long enough. I'll end it by letting you know that we did NOT make that flight. Since there were no more flights going to that airport that night, Alaska set us up in the roach motel and gave us food vouchers for the night.

::I'm not kidding about the roach motel comment::

We left the hotel at a bright and early 6am and caught the first flight out in the morning.

Stay tuned for part II

We spent last weekend with my mom, dad and Joel; Kathy invited me to have a girls day with her today; Jessica said that they (Jess, Riley and Casey) were all mine for Mother's day; and the weekend after that we'll be joining my mother-in-law in New York to attend a wedding reception for BJ's cousin.

That's a lot of weekends with family, and I wouldn't have it any other way. SCREECH...... I would change something. There is no mention of Heidi or Michael in any of these weekends. If they were thrown in the weekend mix, that would nirvana. I miss my sis and brother.

I still need to blog about the visit with Mom, Dad and Joel- and hopefully will get to that tomorrow. I'm running out of time this morning because I need to get ready soon for my girls day with Kathy.

I hope y'all have a fab Saturday. Mine is looking up to be a spectacular one.

See you in the 'hood tomorrow. Well, unless it's a really sunny day. In that case I plan to soak up the sun working in the garden.

Think about this poor bird



::SPLAT::

I'm so behind on reading blogs and writing about my adventures visiting the parents. Work is JUST.CRAZY. But then, y'all know I like it that way.

Well, to a degree....

I have a follow-up with the neurologist on Monday. Can't come soon enough. I'm feeling a little bit of a slide in some areas. I'm hoping that it's just because I'm so tired. I know that does have an effect on things.

I'm having nightmares and acting out my dreams almost every night and I'm having problems with the dyslexic typing and random spelling of words again. On the other hand, everything else (except the missed word here and there when I talk) is pretty much OK.

I am pretty certain that my meds need to be upped. I started out with 25 mg on the Seroquel (I think) and now am up to 100. Soon, I'll be getting into the levels that qualify for crazy meds.

Not such a stretch, eh?

What stinks about this particular med is its side effect is weight gain. That completely sucks. Of course, the candy of the devil peanut butter M&M binge I've been on certainly isn't helping. I need to get back on the stick before Casey and Jessica's wedding. I'd really like to show the man who divorced me because I was fat a thing or two. OK, OK, that's not nice. (but it's kinda true)

The klonopin has been at .5 mg since the beginning and I think it needs to be at least doubled. The jerking is driving me insane. I'm afraid of that one because it is an addictive drug. I'll tell you this- I'm addicted to NOT jerking, TYVM.

Next post will be about my trip to visit the fam. Pictures too! Those petroglyphs were amazing.