Back to School Shopping

Little One announced to me last week we needed to shop for school clothes. I was a little surprised at this, since her high school allows students to wear jeans. We bought 1,000,000 new tops last year and I honestly thought I was done for the high school career.

But, no. Varsity cheerleaders are required to wear dresses on Fridays (football players must wear shirt and tie). And, all her tops are sooo last year. But her shoe stock is plentiful (read that plen-ti-FULL), and her accessories, handbags are all in order. As a (grand) parent I feel underwear is our responsibility, and I'm happy to provide that end of things. (pun intended)

In years past I have served many roles on shopping trips: chauffeur, dressing room organizer, runner for other sizes, opinion giver, one who keeps her mouth shut on occasion, and censor. I've not often had to serve as censor as LO is quite modest and doesn't often look at inappropriate clothing. Usually I just have to ask her to consider the long-term usefulness of a given garment. Most of all I serve as the Almighty Wallet. I pay and pay until I finally draw the line.

This year I am aware it's only a few short years until she goes to college. I haven't really been fair to her by allowing her to be unaware how much things cost.

Because she only needed some tops and a couple of dresses, I set the budget at $200. Yesterday I gave her 2 crisp $100 bills and explained to her I will serve as chauffeur, dressing room runner, and opinion-giver, when I am asked. She is to select what she needs, what she wants, and budget it all within her clothing allowance.

I chose to give her $100 bills so the limitation would not be lost. It's easy to think you have lots of money with a fistful of $20s. I wanted her to see the $100s spend away a bit at a time.

On the way to Nearby City for the mall, Little One realized she had forgotten to bring her handbag and asked me to keep her money for her. No, sorry, I replied, the money is your responsibility. If I held it, her awareness of how much she had left might get lost.

She coped. Fortunately her shorts had pockets with buttons. So we were off.

We. had. a. blast.

Although she never said, so, I think LO really enjoyed having to manage her own money. I think she enjoyed the freedom to spend on what she felt was important, without my influence. I will say we were closer on this trip than on any other, because, I think, she was the Decider.

LO has never been one to look at sale racks. Did I say never? Never.

This time, she bee-lined to sales. She considered the relative value of the items she bought: "I can buy ONE of these, or with the same money, I could get TWO of those. But I like this one better. Hmm." It was truly a pleasure to observe her deliberating.

At the very end, she about $70 left. She tried on two dresses marked down to $23 each, but they required sweaters as one dress had spaghetti straps, and the other was strapless, neither of which is allowed at school without a sweater or jacket. She tried them on with cute sweaters, which of course, were not on sale, priced at $37.50 each.

Both dresses looked great on her. The sweaters were perfect for the respective dresses, as well.

Both dresses were certainly affordable with her remaining money. But the sweaters, cute as they were, were not. And to make it more challenging, the colors were so diverse that one sweater could not suffice for both dresses.

She considered and re-considered. Tried on both outfits again. Finally, and without drama, she selected the dress-sweater that looked the best and would serve the most occasions, and pleasantly returned the other dress and sweater to their racks in the store.



For her money, LO bought:

o 3 very cute tops from American Eagle, a pricey teen store where everything was 40% off.
o 1 little black dress, sheath style and a black-and-white sweater. Both on sale at Charlotte Rousse.
o 1 dressy spaghetti-strap dress from Aeropostale, ditto remarks on American Eagle. Sort of sheer with tiny floral print. Ruffle tiers down its length. Started at over $100, was marked down to $46, but everything in store was 1/2 off. Price: $23.
o 1 ivory cardigan with 3/4 sleeves, also from Aeropostale. $37.50
o 1 white cotton dirndl skirt with Battenburg lace at the hem.
o 1 navy peasant blouse with white embroidery.

Result: she has a comfy, casual skirt-and-top, a grown-up looking black dress, and a dressy, flirty dress. 3 tops for jeans or shorts plus the peasant top which can go with the skirt or jeans.

The experiment exceeded even my own best hopes and I daresay this is how we'll shop in the future.

Quick Update

TY to all of you for calls and love. I am somewhat better today. My head still pounds and aches when I stand up or sit down or lie down, but it is quite diminished. Before, it pounded so hard I was actually afraid I would die -- just fall down dead. Now, that is gone and the pounding, while still painful, is much milder.

And my appetite has returned. Remember when that was not a concern? I am glad that I want a bit to eat; I have been forcing myself to eat just a bit every day despite not wanting it; not fueling one's body can lead to headaches, and I've had enough of that for now. I did track how much I ate and it ranged from 200 to 420 calories/day, but that was all I could take.

I am still not eating much, but I do get a little hungry before I eat, and I am glad to have that back.

TY again for your thoughts and prayers. I have an MRA, which is like an MRI of your arteries, I think, on Wednesday, to continue to see why this all started to begin with.

Tuesday will be a challenge as I have a meeting in the morning and City Council in the afternoon. I need to look well and "on the ball."

My older son and his fam are arriving any day now, and DH and I are getting ready for their visit. I so look forward to it. My red wagon from Traci's infancy is cleaned out and ready for little riders. :) We are taking an outing today to stock up on sippy cups. My first outing in almost 2 weeks. DH questioned the wisdom of going out today, and I posed the choice: go out today and possibly ruin a good day, or I go ALONE tomorrow while he is at work. He went for option A.

Noggin

It's 3:20 in the morning and I still can't get to sleep. I didn't nap today, except for that blissful moment when I did fall asleep and my gf, who has been on vacay, promptly rang the bell -- so that didn't count.

I'm guessing my system is telling me the 10 days I've spent in bed is plenty of rest and hey! we aren't tired anymore!

But I haven't been lying down because I'm tired, but because getting up gives me the damnedest headache you ever saw. It's a sudden and intense pounding and intense pressure inside my head, very painful, and very scary.

I usually avoid blogging when I'm angry, or sad, or don't feel well, as those who read it will think of me that way until I blog again, which sometimes could be quite some time.

Most of you know, though, that I haven't been well lately, so this posting won't come as a surprise.

It all started with a sort of normal headache, not like these, but a sudden, intense, severe pain that quickly caused puking, lots of it, and one, then another trip to the ER. Over the course of the two trips, they gave me a CT scan, 2 spinal taps, and finally an MRI. At first they were checking for an aneurysm, then for a mass, and both were ruled out with these tests.

Finally, coming home with a clean bill of health (sort of --but why do I get these headaches??) I should be ready and able to function normally. But for a week I could not get up without this pounding and pain. A trip to the neurologist diagnosed me with a spinal tap headache.

Ironically, they have renamed spinal tap to "lumbar puncture" to reduce the horror associated with it, but the headache is still called, spinal tap headache.

A spinal tap headache happens after, duh, a spinal tap. 1 in 20 people don't heal up right away, and the spinal fluid leaks into the body, leaving the brain sitting slap against the skull, instead of in a nice fluid sac that cushions it. This causes a nasty headache.

The cure for a spinal tap headache is called a blood patch. They inject your own blood into the site of the spinal tap; the blood clots, thereby plugging up the hole where the spinal fluid was leaking out. The body makes more spinal fluid and voila! the brain has its nice cushion again.

I had this done on Wednesday and should be feeling fine by now.

Of course, I'm special, and typically don't ever follow the rules set out for normal people.

The amount of time I can sit up or stand has gotten longer, we're talking 10 to 30 minutes at a time, but eventually, this pounding and pain starts and I have to scurry for bed to lie down. So I can do mini-tasks, like fold the laundry, or put in another load. Last night, um, make that, Thursday night, I even cleaned out and organized the freezer. The one in our refrigerator, not the chest freezer.

I had a particularly bad day today, whining and fretting and worrying that they'll never figure out what's wrong and I'll have to live this way forever. At one point, I told DH, "I love our bed, but this is getting crazy."

While I'm lying down, what do I think about? All the things I wish I were doing. And I have to admit, I have "asked" DH to do quite a bit today, to the point that he really seemed to get tired of it. Check. Lesson learned. Don't ask for something unless you really need it, dingbat.

My iPod has been my saving grace, and tomorrow I plan to ask LO to play cards with me. Anything to keep my brain occupied and my head healing.

Oops, I have been up too long, and must scurry off to bed. I promise to blog again with updates. Love to all.

The Clock

It's 3am and our crazy clock just struck 33 times. No, that's not a typo. 33 times. Don't mistake the number as having anything wildly related to the actual time; it might well have struck 9 times, or 22, or 3. The record number of strikes at one time so far, is 38.

At one time, this would've driven me bat-sh*t crazy, but clockmakers are highly overpaid, IMHO, and I'm too cheap to drive this old clock 22 miles to the nearest clock repairman (make that 44 miles, round trip, and another 44 miles to go fetch the thing) and fork over another $50 so he can make it strike the correct number of times, when I generally know what time it is, anyway, since we have another clock that plays well with others and strikes the correct time. And, although this clock strikes like mad, it keeps perfect time, so nothing really needs fixed.

I remember when we bought this clock. A local auctioneer used to have auctions at the VFW Post around the corner every couple of months or so, and DH and I considered it a night out. We'd gather up LO and a quilt and some toys for her to play with, and go sit and look at stuff and watch people vie for it and sometimes we'd vie for it, too. That's how we got our English banker's chair, a swivel one, for $12 -- and odd tables around the house, and our brass bed for $60, and some of our Depression glass, and lots of my linens, and our church pew, now proudly, beautifully refinished by yours truly -- and the clock.

We brought the clock home and proudly set it atop something in the kitchen. It worked from the day we got it. The face and pendulum are fronted by a glass door with folk art painted on the inside of the glass. But one can't see the painting from the inside, as it's painted over with black paint. It's old, probably pretty old, and is made of walnut. The backside of the clock is made from some pretty rough wood, and has the remains of an old label inside, although not enough of it remains to be read.

Within a month, moths had infested our kitchen. At first, we had one or two lazily taking a circuit during dinnertime, and we thought nothing of it. Later, though, I found their larvae in everything -- flour, sugar, teabags, even a can of Campbell's soup, even though I never figured how the momma got inside to lay her eggs. That was some kind of maternal determination. They had come from a teeny web-like thing in the corner of the wooden box that I never noticed then, but would carefully search for if we got it today, now that I'm older and wiser.

I threw stuff out and threw stuff out for a year or two, assiduously cleaned, and finally, ahh. It was over. We never had moths again. (Find some wood to knock on, quick.)

In the meanwhile, DH had built a proper shelf for it from walnut he had purchased at a woodcrafter's estate sale. He got a truckload of wood pieces for $1 at the very end of the auction, and we loaded armload after armload into the bed of his little green truck. This piece was from an old bowfront dresser, and the cove molding made a beautiful shelf for the clock.

The erratic striking would once have made me crazy, as I said, but now I listen to it with a sense of humor. After all, who else has such a crazy clock? It only seems more dear to me now.

TV

I've never considered myself much of a TV watcher until recently. In fact, for several years in my 20's and 30's, I prided myself on not even having a TV.

As we've crept into our 50's my dear hubby has morphed into this TV-watching beast, flipping from manshow to manshow, abandoning ALL pretense of watching anything remotely woman-friendly. From How That's Made to the true story of the Atlanta kidnappings, he seems fascinated by murder, mayhem, and science.

I've responded by a parallel retreat into all things estrogen. I follow every Housewives, from Atlanta to Orange County to NY and NJ. I love to chance upon a Dear Genevieve on HGTV, and will watch pretty much anything on Bravo.

Except Top Chef. I hate it. They're too over-the-top dramatic for me. Background drum rolls heighten the tension as the judges insult the poor contestants. "You burned the eggs." I fold a shirt and think, "Who cares?" -- pick up the clicker and check out what's on QVC. Meanwhile in the next room I hear bombs exploding and gunfire.

I wistfully remember the days when DH and I watched -- and discussed-- things together. Real World on MTV. Survivor. Movies. It was such fun!

There are a few things we still watch together: American Idol is one, although he has been disparaging it lately, and I think those days are coming to an end. Currently we watch So You Think You Can Dance as a family. LO loves dance, and I enjoy our togetherness as much as I enjoy the show itself.

I have recently "discovered" a new show that I can't seem to interest DH in. The show is called, Nine by Design, and it came on Bravo. I think it's over for now but I hope it will return next year.

It's a reality show about a real-life couple in NYC who discovered they had a talent for design. Every time they design a home for themselves, someone comes along and offers them zillions of dollars for it, and they have to move again.

They have 7 kids, all with unusual names: Major, Wolfie, Bellamy, Tallula, Breaker, Five (yes, they have a child named Five!), and Holleder.

The parents, Cortney and Bob, stray for the norm by being, well, extremely normal, on a reality show. They don't yell at their kids, they don't yell at each other, they care about others, they work to contribute to the well-being of others, and they work hard at their work.

In-between the adventures (getting lost in London, scheduling 2 charitable events in the same week,) we get glimpses of their extraordinary and unique design. I love this show and have been known to watch it over and over on Hulu. Check it out.

So yes, I'm over 50 and my days of disparaging TV are long gone. Nowadays I notice what days various shows come on and plan my time accordingly. It's a huge waste of time, doesn't make anyone's world any better, and I do it anyway. Welcome to America.

Duality

I receive a daily email from Writer's Almanac, a digest of sorts of writers who were perhaps born on this day, or wrote something noteworthy on this day. The email features a poem to start, then explores writers and gives a brief but witty history of their accomplishments.

Sunday's poem was especially poignant for me, so much so that I forwarded it to my MIL. She hasn't slept well in months and I thought she would identify. She must have. She replied, "I loved the story too. But too bad, I do most of the guard duty. Love, Mom."

I think about duality a lot, as I clean house or go about my day. "I think about DH in this way. What if he thinks about me in that way?"

Or inversion: I see LO in this way, and she sees me in exactly the opposite way.

And then I wonder, "Do other people think in this way? Do other people wonder about the wondering, itself?"

Clearly. I have too much time for thinking.

Those Red Shoes

I promised a few days ago to post the pics of LO with Mr. Red Shoes at the production of Wicked we attended in Nearby Big City.

I completely forgot said promise until I was cruising her Facebook page tonight, saw the pics, and gave a little gasp.

Enjoy!

End of School

In years past, the end of school was marked with a flurry of dance recitals and sports banquets. Now that we're in High School, these festive events are replaced with Studying for Exams.

We left church yesterday and skipped Sunday School so LO could come home and study for her Biology exam. She felt a little too stressed to wait out another hour. Her exam is on Wednesday.

In our state, high school students must pass state tests on some key subjects in order to graduate. One is biology.

We spent about an hour making flash cards: Who discovered the double helix? What is mitochondria?

She studied all morning and afternoon, stopping at 3pm to wash, dry and straighten her hair, then back at it.

At about 7pm she moved from the kitchen to her room, where she listened to her iPod and continued to study. I would hear her singing one moment, and the next, hear her muttering about CO2 and H2O.

She feels that she did well Friday on her Honors Geometry exam; plz send out good vibes for her on Wednesday.

Pops @ Post

Tonight we attended the Pops at the Post, which I wrote about a few days ago.

Rain and thunder teased us off and on from 5pm to about 6:30. Showtime is 8. We scurried to an unusually empty parking at 6:15 and began unfolding our camp chairs, table, and picnic.

We had our choice of real estate there on the parking lot. The real tailgaters, those with the 10x10 tents and grills, had been on the perimeter since about 2pm. But the most of us, those who roll in a small meal, blanket for babies, that kind of thing, were mostly missing.

The family was confused. "Where do we set up?" they asked. With so much space to choose from, nothing really stood out. "There." I pointed to a spot with "no parking" painted on it. "But we'll be out in the middle," they said. "Folks will show up and come in all around us," I said, and sure enough, they did.

I took this photo during the 1812 Overture. You can see the large screen erected on our parking lot; there were 2 others on other parking lots. Just past the screen on the right, you can see the loading dock, where the symphony was actually located.

From this vantage point, the crowd appears small. We were quite near the front, with many, many people behind us, and there is another very large parking lot to the north.

The event was well-attended, after all, and the music was delightful. Good time had by all.

Weekend

I'm not usually a person who highly anticipates the weekend Even when I had a 5-day, 9-to-5 job, I tried not to. I've always felt you can waste 5 days only cherishing the 2. That's 71% of your life you can waste, only appreciating the remaining 29%.

But this weekend is a biggie.

Several years, our local newspaper celebrated its 150th anniversary by hosting a free concert by our local symphony -- outside.

Turns out the loading dock of the newspaper building, there in the middle of downtown, made a great "shell" to resound the music.

Who knew?

It was a huge, extravagant event, complete with large screens and speakers in parking lots for viewers who couldn't locate their camp chairs close enough to see. Cardboard fans on wooden paddles also served as the program for the music.

That first concert had a patriotic theme, and the paper arranged for 2 Black Hawk helicopters to fly over downtown. The finale was the 1812 Overture, complete with cannon.

The city went mad for it! Loved it! Begged the paper to repeat it the next year.

So they did. And they repeated it the next, and the next. The music, helicopters and Overture became tradition.

The first weekend in June has become the traditional Pops at the Post weekend, and people now organize tailgating parties starting as early as 2pm. Streets are blocked off and it's a free, family-friendly, see-people-you-haven't-run-into kind of thing.

We love to go. We carry our canvas chairs and pull our rolling cooler along behind us, filled with picnic goodies. We eat in our laps and chat, get up and wander around and talk with friends. The blocked streets also host vending booths where restaurants offer food to those who don't pack their own. Our local soda pop company, Cheerwine, offers free drinks to all. Our local grocery chain, Food Lion, has coolers of free water for the taking.

Little One typically brings a friend or two and they wander around, meeting up with their other friends. We are nearby and check in from time to time on her cell phone: "Where are you now?" -- just for safety. She is not allowed to be out of the company of friends.

Then, when the sun is just about to go down, the magic begins. By the time the Overture starts, LO returns and sits with us.

At the very end of the 1812 overture, when all the bells ring, is the most magical moment of all. People are stationed in the bell towers of all our downtown churches (including ours.) At just the right moment, they all clang away like mad. It's so exciting and fun. And it happens tomorrow night.

Hope to see you there.