End of April

We are so close to done, it's freaking me out. Two more weeks of classes, then finals, then graduation. Three weeks from today I will be writing a post about how I have two high school graduates (actually I might have to wait until the following Monday to write it -- Sunday will probably be a busy day, with my sister visiting and all). I'm panicking, quietly, trying to think of all the things I should be doing before time runs out.

What always happens in spring, and it's happening this year too, is that plans get interfered with. Last week was a total loss for my plans, due to illness (and the effects of the shingles shot). I didn't do any yardwork or really much of anything else either. No walks, no exercise of any sort. A little cleaning, a little writing, a lot of reading. I didn't eat much, wasn't hungry, but gained two pounds. Sigh.

This coming week it's supposed to rain every day (maybe). This will be wonderful -- we need it SOOO badly -- but it will interfere with plans. I will try to do a little yardwork in the mornings, when it is less likely to rain, but there will probably be days when I skip it altogether. 

I can only work in the front yard, though, because of something that happened this past week in back. A house finch pair decided to build a nest in the pieces of wood that are sticking down from where a tree branch punched a hole in our patio roof two years ago. 

We have never gotten this fixed because no handyman would touch it, and quite honestly, Rocket Boy doesn't want to touch it either. The only real solution is to pull the whole structure down and start over, and we don't have the money to do that. So in the meantime some stupid finches decided it was the perfect place to build an incredibly messy nest. This is a finch thing, apparently. Just throw a few sticks together and call it good.

So now I can't really work in the backyard. Maybe once the eggs hatch I could do a little work, carefully, but right now I think I should leave Mrs. Finch alone. I believe she is already sitting on eggs, and it scares her so much she flies away if I even look at her through the window. We have started keeping half the curtains closed, to give her a little privacy. (She very bravely put up with me taking this photo, but I closed the curtains again right afterwards.) 

On Thursday, Rocket Boy and Teen A flew to Los Angeles to attend his cousin June's memorial service. It turned out that it was really more of a funeral than a memorial service, at least the way I understand the meaning of those words. There was a coffin and a wreath and all that. I told Teen A that no one would be wearing a suit at a memorial service in California, so he didn't need to bring his. I suggested he bring one of his button-up shirts, that would be good enough. He chose the blue & green plaid one, which looks very nice on him.

But then, for whatever reason, on Friday, the day of the "memorial service," he wore a gray t-shirt with a picture of a Camaro on it. If I had been there, I would have made him change, but Rocket Boy didn't realize that he had brought anything better to wear and didn't say anything to him. And, it turned out that almost all the other relatives were wearing black (one was in dark blue), and some of the men wore suits and ties. Oh well.

Rocket Boy had prepared some words to say about his cousin, had worked over them, typed them up, etc. But the "memorial service" was run by a minister who never gave anyone else a chance to speak. At the end of his talk, he asked the attendees to think of a single word that described June. Rocket Boy's word was "gracious," which I thought was very nice and very accurate. I don't know if Teen A offered a word.

Oh well. It doesn't matter. As Rocket Boy said, philosophically, his friend Chris came to the service too and he "looked even worse than [Teen A]." So there you are.

Also, Teen A had photos on his phone from prom that his girlfriend had just sent him (I haven't even seen them yet!) and so the relatives got to see him looking good. Rocket Boy said that Teen A was the object of great interest, since many of the relatives had never met him (or hadn't seen him since he was a baby). So it all worked out OK.

They are coming home tonight, with a flight scheduled to arrive at 6:15 pm. I just checked, and right now they are early (the flight hasn't left yet). 

*** 

Despite illness, this was a productive week for me in some ways. I dosed myself with cold medicine every night and some of the days, so I never had a lot of "symptoms." Teen B has had this thing for over two weeks and he's STILL coughing, because he refuses to take cold medicine. 

Teen B had his yearly physical on Thursday (after Rocket Boy and Teen A left for the airport), which was one of the reasons why I didn't want to go to LA. I desperately wanted to show Dr. Johnson the neuropsych report, but felt as though I couldn't give it to him, because Teen B is now 18 and in charge of his own health. Right before we went into the medical center, I said to Teen B, "I brought a copy of the report from that testing you did and I want you to give it to Dr. Johnson." He didn't say no. But then when he was called in by the nurse, he insisted that I go too. I said, "You're 18, I'm not supposed to go with you anymore," but the nurse said, "You can come in if he wants you to," so I did. And I gave Dr. Johnson the report. And he read it quickly and then we talked about it. He gave us a lot of his time -- he's such a good doctor.

The upshot is this: we're going to do auditory testing, as recommended by the psychologist. We're not going to do any anti-anxiety medicine because Teen B hates taking any drugs and didn't want to take this kind either. Dr. Johnson said this summer would be a good time to try it out if we wanted to, before college starts, but Teen B said no, so we respected that. I mentioned that I felt guilty because everyone I knew with a kid like this has had them on drugs from a young age. Dr. Johnson said, "With a kid like what?" And I said the word: "autism." Dr. Johnson said, "There's no drug that treats autism," and he kind of half-smiled at me. "It's best to just learn how to live with them. Autism's not a disease, it's just a different way of being." I got tears in my eyes. This is how I've been starting to think, from reading these books. I just can't seem to drop this idea that I've let Teen B down by not getting him all sorts of "treatments." Maybe I can finally let that go.

I thought Teen B would be mad at me after the appointment, but he wasn't. He had to get a vaccination at the end, the second Meningitis B shot, so his arm hurt, and we laughed about that, comparing it with my shingles shot. We went to Starbucks for a late lunch and then went home and crashed. And it was OK.

Friday night I had gotten tickets for the spring play at the other high school. Most of the high schools do a musical in the spring, but Fairview does their musical in the fall and a serious play in the spring. Last year they did "Macbeth," which was of course pretty gloomy. This year they did "Almost, Maine," which is a series of sketches about love, so it was more upbeat. Of course, Fairview like all schools has trouble coming up with enough male actors, so they didn't have enough boys to play the male parts. This meant that several of the sketches appeared to feature lesbian couples (one of the sketches is actually supposed to be between two women, but the others aren't). I thought they did a really good job and I enjoyed myself. Not sure what Teen B thought.

Saturday afternoon Teen B had a haircut appointment -- another reason I didn't want to go to LA. Those haircut appointments are REALLY hard to come by. Melisa is so popular, you have to schedule your haircut several months in advance. In fact, I have already made his next appointment, for early July.

And today it was pouring rain, with some thunder and lightning, but we braved the elements and went to Starbucks as always. Now we're just hanging out. I'm trying to think about what I should do before Rocket Boy and Teen A return. Oh, right, laundry! I'll go start a load as soon as I finish this. And maybe some other tidying. Mostly I'll just enjoy the solitude. It's been really really quiet while they were gone. They're both sort of noisy, messy people, whereas Teen B is very quiet and doesn't take up much space.

What about the week ahead? Well, as I said, I probably won't get a lot of yardwork done, due to the rain. Ditto walks. Maybe I can lift weights and do some stretch videos instead.

Many things are scheduled: the band concert on Monday, the orchestra concert on Wednesday. On Tuesday morning I have a mammogram (oh joy), and on Friday Teen A has his yearly physical with Dr. Johnson. I bet he won't want me to come in with him, which is fine. He'll have some private things to discuss with Dr. J.

And the book group is coming the week after, so I need to get serious about cleaning. I haven't been getting emails from the FlyLady for a while, so I went to her website to see what was going on. And oh my goodness, the whole thing has changed. All the good useful stuff she used to have on there -- gone! It's bare bones, and not very useful at all. But I decided it was OK. I learned everything I needed to know from her a long time ago, and I can keep going on my own. I made a new weekly schedule (not that much different from the old one, just tinkering), and I'll work with that.

The last few days of April. After this, I'll never have kids in local public schools during the month of April again.