Getting through the week

September is meandering along. It was so hot last week, upper 90s day after day, and the only thing that kept me from complaining (too much) was that California's heat was so much worse! Then, on Friday, the heat broke, and we had clouds and cold, rain and gloom. But again, California had a hurricane! We didn't have a hurricane. I wonder whether our rain had anything to do with Hurricane Kay -- don't think so, but I guess I don't know. 

Anyway, we didn't have high winds or anything like that. Just a soft drizzly rain that went on and on and ruined the annual neighborhood Pancake Breakfast on Saturday. We did go to it, toward the end, and the pancakes were very good. But it was cold and drizzly and not well-attended. I've never been to that breakfast when it wasn't really hot and the line stretched on and on, in the heat. No line this time. Another difference was that Teen A ate 9 pancakes (that's three trips through the (non-existent) line). Teen B ate 6, some with chocolate chips and whipped cream. In previous years they wouldn't even finish their first serving before running off to play on the equipment.

When Teen A got up to get his third serving of pancakes, I noticed that he was taller than two (adult) women who were standing near us, chatting. He's not that big, but he's getting bigger. It's interesting to watch. Teen B is getting bigger too.

There were no crises this week, cat or teen or other. After last week's trouble with Sillers, I committed to giving her a laxative twice a day every day. She gets a little Miralax in the morning, mixed with her dry food -- which I soak in water and she slurps it all up. At night before I feed them I bravely fill a syringe with Lactulose, pick up Sillers, set her in the sink, and then force it down her throat. Unlike an intelligent cat (for instance, Chester), she doesn't remember from day to day that this is going to happen. She hangs around the kitchen with Baby Kitty, meowing for her food, and then expresses great surprise when she is picked up and put in the sink. Afterwards I set her down and fix their food; while I'm doing this, she licks herself, looks disgruntled, and then resumes meowing.

This routine is working: she is pooping. Sometimes in the litter box, sometimes on the floor. I can deal with anything, as long as it keeps coming. Please no more trips to the vet to get her reamed out.

***

We're still adjusting to the high school world, but it seems to be coming along. I tried to set up a homework schedule, some way of keeping track of what they need to do and what's ahead, but I didn't have much success. Most of the teachers don't post their schedules very far ahead (if at all), making it hard for us to plan. This seems lazy to me -- when I was teaching at CU, I always gave my students a detailed syllabus that showed exactly what we were going to do each day, and I stuck to it. Papers were due on the day I said they were. If a student came to me saying "I have three exams on the same day this paper is due, can I have an extension?" I would say, "You have known since the first day of the semester when that paper was due. You need to plan for it, do it early if necessary."

Only the twins' science teacher is that organized. The rest are various degrees of vague. I don't have a lot of patience for vague.

But I am not the student here. I do what I can to help, and the rest is on the twins. And they seem to be handling it pretty well. We do homework together most nights, at their instigation, and even on the weekends. Teen A and I worked on Language Arts both Friday and Saturday night, and I'm sure I'll work with both boys later today. I don't have to nag (much).

Teen B actually went to a club meeting this week, on Tuesday. I was seriously blown away. I've been giving them the "you need to join things" spiel, but I didn't really think it would work. Teen A hasn't joined anything, though, so I get to keep bugging him. There was a football game and a dance this week, but neither boy attended either. The dance cost $20! I don't remember dances costing anything when I was in high school, but maybe they did and I've just forgotten. I didn't go to a lot of them, just the Winter Formal my senior year. I told the boys that if they wanted to go to the dance, I would pony up the $20, but neither took me up on it. Just as well.

Teen B asked me, while we were taking a walk one night, what clubs I had joined when I was in high school. That stopped me for a moment. I wasn't a joiner -- I remember intentionally not joining things at that age. But fortunately I was able to come up with a few things. I was a Peer Counselor and we had a practicum group meeting once a week. Most Peer Counselors never actually counseled anyone (I think I may have helped one person with their homework once), they just went to the practicum group meetings. So that was like a club. And the other thing I was in was Amnesty International. My high school had a branch of it. We wrote letters to prisoners, and later I learned that "my" prisoner had been released. I remember we also had a bake sale once and tried to get people to sign petitions for something.

I was also in the choir. But I think that was the extent of my high school activities. I had a very large friend group, so that pretty much occupied my time. 

***

Tomorrow is Rocket Boy's birthday, so I got him a cake at King Soopers (even though he's in St. Louis). I had thought we would save it until Monday, but once you have a cake in the fridge it's hard to say no, wait two days. So we had some last night, after first decorating it (see photo). It's a yellow cake with caramel frosting, not a flavor I ever remember having before. The twins like caramel -- that's why I chose it. I suppose it would be considered a fall flavor. But it was nasty. We were all kind of grossed out by it. Too sweet.

Though just now, this afternoon, we all had a second piece. So it can't be that bad.

I told Rocket Boy I'd save him a piece for the next time he comes home, which will probably be in October.

I did pretty well with cooking this past week. As planned, I made some things with fruit. The most successful were the delectable open-faced melted brie & pear sandwiches we had on both Monday and Friday (the twins liked them so much, they requested a repeat). Least successful was the fruit soup I made on Thursday. It called for 3 lbs of peaches and I only had 3 peaches, so I added some plums and some orange juice, and, well, it wasn't very good. Another miss was the delicious couscous salad I made on Wednesday. It's a recipe I used to make for potlucks all the time. I really like it. But the twins weren't impressed. And it makes a lot, so I'll be eating it for a while. Tuesday we had quesadillas and melon, because I was tired of making tacos every week. And last night we got Subway sandwiches for the kids, while I finished the fruit soup, with some couscous salad on the side.

I need to plan this week's menus today. Not sure what to have. It's supposed to be in the mid-80s all week.

***

I had some trouble with depression this week. No particular reason, though the two cloudy days didn't help -- I'm so sensitive to the lack of sunshine. Hard to remember how much I used to like cloudy weather, when I was young.

I wasn't sad about anything. It was just an inability to feel pleasure. Nothing tasted good except my morning tea, and that not as much as usual. Music didn't lift my spirits. Reading bored me. I liked the book group book, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, but about halfway through I suddenly understood that it was going to have a sad ending -- because how could a book about people living in a slum in India end any other way? Sure enough, sad ending. And that kind of colored the week, even though my own life could not be more different from the lives of the characters in the book.

Also, I filled the hummingbird feeder one last time, but no hummingbirds came to it. I'm not sure we've seen the last of them for the year, but it's possible. They need to get down to Guatemala, or wherever it is they go. I will miss them.

I realized after a day or two that the only thing that helped with the depression was activity -- specifically, chores and errands. Those things didn't make me happy, but they passed the time, filled up the time so I didn't have to spend it being actively depressed. The Flylady was very helpful here. I've been trying to get back into her routines and having some trouble, but this week I broke through that. 

I even managed to take some old clothes to Goodwill. Goodwill is approximately 1 mile from here, maybe not even that far, and they have it set up so you just drive up, hand over your stuff, and drive away, takes about 2 seconds -- but for some reason I was filled with anxiety about it and couldn't get myself to do it. This week, fighting depression, I managed to fill three large garbage bags with the kids' outgrown clothes (all washed and sorted into pants, shirts, and pajamas) and dropped them off. I'm so psyched about that. This coming week, maybe I'll take more.

With Flylady, this week we were "in the kitchen," as she says, and I cleaned several things in the kitchen, most notably the refrigerator, which was so dirty and gross I was embarrassed to open it in front of other people. I scrubbed all the containers in the door and threw out a LOT of moldy icky stuff, including roughly 1000 little packets of soy sauce, mayonnaise, etc. Of course I don't have a "before" picture, but believe me, it was so much worse than this.

And then I spilled some fruit soup in the main part of the fridge, and I haven't cleaned it up yet, so, yeah, this is a work in progress.

I felt as though Flylady made a mistake this week, because her "detail cleaning" suggestions were identical to those from the second week of July. I don't know how often she repeats herself intentionally, but I don't think it's every two months. But, I hadn't done most of the kitchen cleaning in July, because Rocket Boy was here and I was having trouble doing Flylady while he was here, so this worked out quite well. I hadn't done the August kitchen cleaning either, so I made a list of all the July and August suggestions and just did the ones I wanted to. I dusted, and wiped down the cabinet doors, and spent a long time on the fridge. 

This coming week we are "in the bathroom and one other room." She says the "other room" this month should be the room where you toss things, which for us is the office, and since I also didn't do the bathroom and "other room" cleaning in July and August, I've made another large list with all the things from three months on it. I'll just pick and choose from it, whatever looks good. 

I have a few other things on the calendar this week: a support group meeting on Tuesday and an orthodontist appointment on Thursday. Also our next-door neighbor is going on vacation and I'll be bringing in her mail and watering her plants. What a thrill my life is. But it's OK. The weather should be good and I have lots of things to clean.