Calm Returning, Sort Of

I have reread my entries for the last month or two, and it is easy for me to see in them that my stress level was rising. It is a bit lower, now that I've been taking it easy for almost a month. Piss & vinegar make me want to write, so unless I redirect my tendency for bitching (I get a laugh out of it, but I'm not sure anyone else does) into non-anger/stress driven humor, this blog might turn boring.

I can see the funny in situations that weren't, but I think I'm the only one there who will look back on it and laugh. Sometimes I say or do things just so I can laugh about it later.

I have Tourette's. I have never had the part of the syndrome where you randomly shout out swear words, thank God. But I have wondered if being a "blurter" as my family calls it, is the better behaved sister of the swear word blurting. The "twitches", shoulder jerking, throat clearing, finger flicking, eye blinking etc.. come and go, switch sides after years for no reason, and basically have a mind of their own. Some of them are quite painful and relentless.

As a little kid, the eye blinking was the first thing I noticed. My Mom would say that she thought I must be tired, when she noticed me doing it. But there was no name for it. I would lie in bed trying to go to sleep, and I could feel the blinking muscles going full out. It didn't make any sense to me; my eyes were closed, but my body kept trying to keep up the rapid blinking. I have been lucky, in that I can try to hide some of the twitches. In high school, because of the blinking, classmates would ask me if I wore contact lenses, I don't, but the other symptoms were mostly in remission or slight most of the time, back then, so I don't think anyone really saw much of anything.

Now, my husband will tell me when my symptoms are strong, because I can be twitching away, and not be conscious of it. The medicines for it suck, so I take one that doesn't control the twitches as well, but it doesn't make me too miserable with side affects. Contrary to most of the liturature you will find about Tourette's syndrome, my symptoms have gotten stronger as I have gotten older.

Mr. Savant Returns to College

Our youngest son is 21, and if you have read some of my previous entries, you will know that he became schizophrenic around the time of his 18th birthday. His life skills and plans were shattered. He is brilliant and usually pleasant, unless he goes off his medications. (He chose the pseudonym "Idiot Like a Savant" for my blog.)

He was recently given official disability status by the Department of Social Security. We first applied about three years ago and they lost his paper work, but didn't know he was in the group that had their applications mysteriously disappear, until we called to ask why we had never heard back from them. We went through the application process again. After a while, we got a letter from them saying that none of the doctors or hospitals had sent them the records they had requested. We were asked to see if we could gather the records for them, but just a few days later we received a rejection letter before we had even had a chance to begin gathering his records.
We gave up until recently. The last time he was in the hospital, I drove straight to their office and set things in motion again. This time he was approved. The Social Security administration will pay the applicant all of the money they would have received, had they been approved on their first application, plus a monthly stipend to live on, his medical care, etc..

He can not manage his own money, so his Dad will be his representative.

The real reason I started this entry is that Savant moved into his dorm Friday. He has been so bored, and seems delighted to have this chance to try school again. Though he has only completed two semesters, he earned many credit hours in high school and by taking CLEP tests, so he is a Junior. One of the perks of being an upper classman is that he has an on-campus apartment instead of a cramped dorm room. We don't know if he will have a roommate. The housing office has a letter from a past psychiatrist, the last time he went to school, requesting that he have a private room to reduce the possibility of an adverse reaction to the stress it would cause him.

Remembering to take his medicine has been much harder than you would think, but he has been doing much better about it lately. I also think that the dramatic rise in the amount of time Savant has been able to spend with his father, during his Dad's vacation, has been very beneficial to him. My husband works 7 days a week during the Habitat For Humanity build season and we all really miss him. They don't do any builds during the winter, so we have all been happier to have him home with us. There is still lots of office work to prepare for the building season of 2006, but we get to have him home on weekends.
Since he is the "Big Cheese" in the construction department, he is trying to hire more competent helpers and to change things so that he will have at least one day a week off, hopefully two, and a chance to squeeze in a few games of golf every now and then. He deserves it; I've never met a harder worker.

Stress->Pain->Migraine->Depression->Basil Fawlty

A.Beauty is back in the states now.

I got sick in Italy and we had to leave early. She was wonderful. I know it couldn't have been easy for her to deal with the situation. I was very stressed before I left, but a vacation turned out to be the wrong cure. I was getting out and doing touristy things for the first few days, two of them were in London, before I met A.Beauty in Rome. I did get to see some of the Rome must-sees and had a great day in Pompeii, but I had been tolerating neck and body pain and a pre-migraine headache that morphed into a bad Migraine that left me unable to leave the room after that. I had brought some old Imitrex with me, but I had too few.

What made it even more difficult is that we were changing cities every day or two, and we had all of A.Beauty's belongings with us, because she was not going back to Rome. I was a useless vegetable. She was wonderful and continued to see the sights everywhere we went.

Stress->Pain->Migraine->Depression->Basil Fawlty.

I was so outraged at the hotel in Siena where we had no heat the first night, we were freezing!And we were rationed 8 hours of heat per 24 the next. The migraine hit full force after spending the first night dressed in multiple layers of clothes, and using towels and our coats in addition to the bedding to keep from freezing. They did not answer the phone all night.
When we checked out I restated my displeasure with their policy of withholding heat from their guests. They were RUDE!! A simple sticker on the heater, warning of their peculiar policy, would have been nice. A warning on their web page would have been even better, so that travelers could stay somewhere else.

I did not conceal my anger, but I did hold back on my overwhelming urge to break into a full, John Cleese as Basil Fawlty rant, ie: "Rationing?! The war ended 60 Bloody years ago! You'd all be speaking German if it wasn't for us!" This would, of course, be accompanied by the high goose-step with two fingers held in mustache position. I decided that I didn't want that to be among the memories of "Mom" that would be told around the Thanksgiving table for generations to come. Though I would get a great laugh if it was!

My perceptive daughter called her Dad and they arranged to get me home asap. I spent the next 2 1/2 weeks in bed in a state of mental mush, with some new Imitrex and Rx for the bronchitis and associated infections that came along for the ride.

"The boot" has been crossed off of my future vacations list; but Venice, which is not in said boot, is still on it, unless I find out the average Venetian is rude, lies, and will shove you down while you are trying to exit a train with your luggage.

We vacationed in Paris a few years ago. Go there. Overall, the Parisians were polite, helpful and classy. And the city really is as beautiful as it is said to be. Don't believe the rumors that say Americans won't feel welcome there.

WWJD: What Would Jackie Do?

"What Would Jackie Do", I was so surprised to see this book title at Costco, because I've been using that phrase ever since I saw my first WWJD bracelet. They are popular here in the bible belt, What Would Jesus Do, for those of you that don't know what I'm talking about. I was never going to write a book on it, but I thought it was my own little private joke. Jackie Kennedy, for those of you who still don't know who I am talking about.

I started asking myself that question when posed with a dilemma where the classy response was what I desired. I haven't perfected it yet, but I have WWJD there as my guide toward a better me.

Childhood Memories: From Rattlesnakes to JFK

I lived in Austin Texas for part of my childhood, and had a run-in with a rattlesnake once. That was when I realized that I do not have a natural fear of snakes.
It was at night, at summer camp. I was walking down a path to the latrine using my flash light, when I heard the rattles under a bush right beside the path. The flash light revealed a big, coiled up rattler, about two feet from me. I just stood there looking at it and when someone else came by, to use the latrine, I asked them to tell a counselor that there was a rattlesnake by the path.

I don't know if the light from the flash light made any difference to the snake, but I just stayed there with it, and it didn't move. I was very unhappy that when the grown-ups got there they killed it; I naively thought they would just relocate it. It didn't seem like it wanted to hurt anyone.

I rode horses frequently in Texas, so I always felt safe if I saw tarantulas, snakes, scorpions, etc., while riding. By the way, the stings I got from Texas scorpions, hurt less than a bee sting.

When we were little we lived in Japan, and my brother would catch various big beetles with huge pinchers and put them in jars for us to marvel at. I've never seen any like them anywhere else.

Then, there was the time I walked up to a black bear in the Smokey Mts., to take his picture. I thought they were used to posing for pictures. Warning - they are not tame! Luckily, I made it back into the car before he had to get serious with me!

One last story.
On November 22nd, 1963, when President Kennedy was assassinated, I went to O'Henry Jr. High School, in Austin, Texas, the same school that Governor John Connally's daughter, Sharon, went to. I was getting out early that day to go to Bergstrom Air Force Base to greet The President on the tarmac when he arrived from Dallas (my dad was an officer in the Air Force). I had my permit to leave, and passed Sharon in the hall. She was crying and being comforted. There had been no announcement over the P.A. yet, so I didn't know why she was sad. When I got in the car, my mother told me what happened, so that explained Sharon's distress. Like everyone else, we spent the rest of the day glued to the TV.

Inner Uber-Bitch

I'm sorry that I let my inner uber-bitch have the password to my blog yesterday.

But, now that she knows it, there is a chance she might post entries when ever she wants.

Buzzards, Turtles, Cats, and Road Kill

I like buzzards.
They can't help it that their Momma and Daddy were ugly. It's like assuming women with big tits are dumb and want bige ones. They had nothing to do with it, it's just the DNA code they ended up with. Obviously buzzards aren't aware that they aren't cute, and that rotting meat isn't yummy.

We have a very tall TVA tower on a back corner of our property. In the summer, during the day, hawks perch there. We planted lots of pine trees, and some day we won't be able to see it at all. But I've grown fond of watching the huge flock of buzzards that use it for a roost. Every year the flock seems to double in size. When all the space on the scaffolding is full, the late-comers line up on the power lines. I've never seen a nest anywhere, so I looked up their nesting habits. Our buzzards have black heads and their nests are on the ground or on tree stumps or in a hollow in a tree. This year there are well over 100 birds there. The winter winds must be very cold up there. They gather in the evening, spend the night and head out when the sun starts shining. I'm glad they like our tower. I just want to put little sweaters, hats and boots on them.

One year we had an ice storm. When I woke up and went to the kitchen to make coffee, I realized that the ground in between the house and the woods was covered with ice clad buzzards. They had ice on their heads, backs and wings with little icicles hanging off of them. They were standing around on the snow waiting to thaw out. Some of them could open their wings. Some of them picked at the ice. One couple picked ice off of each other. When the sun came up, more of them stood with their backs to the sun and opened their wings. As each of them thawed they flew away. I wish I had pictures, but I still haven't learned how to operate my new camera.

I thought they were ugly and creepy when I was younger. We all see their road crews at work and recoil at the thought of what they are eating. It is hard to imagine salivating at the smell of bloated carcass. I thought the name of a road we traveled frequently, should be changed to "Dead Bunny Drive". Another rural road out here has a beautiful name, "Snow Bird Hollow Road", but you are likely to see more flat 'possums, bunnies, little birds, turkeys, squirrels, turtles and dead deer, per foot, on that road, than any other road out here. And cleaning all that up is the buzzard's job.

Road kill turtles are the ones that freak me out the most. There is no excuse for running over a turtle. You can't get away with saying, "He just ran out in front of me before I had time to react!" You hit a turtle, your only excuse is you just weren't paying attention. I have moved lots of turtles, big and small, out of the road. Around here we have box turtles and snapping turtles. The snapping turtles can get very large, much bigger than a dinner plate, but smaller than the tire on your car.

Box turtles are easy to pick up. I used to bring them home and put them in our creek. The first few I put in would sink to the bottom and not move. I would stand on the bank searching my brain for any box turtle knowledge that might be hiding in there. I'd be getting very nervous, worrying that I had just drowned them. With the first couple, I just hoped for the best and left, but I hated not knowing how things turned out for them, so with the next one or two, when I couldn't stand the suspense any longer, I'd retrieve them and put them on a rock at the edge of the creek, so they could decide whether to head for land or water on their own. Now I skip the dunking and just put them on the rock.

My best intentions sometimes go horribly wrong, like the time I picked up a box turtle that was near a parking lot and dropped it over a wire fence, into a wooded area behind the place I worked, an old log cabin that had been turned into offices. The next day a lady from the office that had windows on that side, asked me what I had dropped over the fence. She was curious anyway, but mainly because she saw a coyote walk over to it right after I left.

The big snapping turtles are a whole 'nother problem. First, they can be huge and have very long necks. Making a bite from that strong beak easier than you would expect from a turtle. Second, they make a point of shitting inside your car. Big and messy. I know these guys like the water. I was more cautious with the last couple that I took off the road. I tried to shove them into an empty gym bag that was in the car and put them in the trunk. No way I'm fishing a foul smelling snapper out from under the car seat again.

A lady pulled over to help me with the last one. It was really big. She wanted to know why I was doing it. Did it have anything to do with soup? I drove to a river and carried it in the bag to the bank. I dumped it out, but the bank was steep and it slid to a stop, upside down, wedged between various sized tree trunks and brush. I couldn't leave it like that, so I made my way down to it and moved it with my foot until it toppled into the river and swam off.

The most horrible turtle story was when I was stopped at a light and saw one in the right hand lane up ahead. I had every intention of doing my thing, when the driver of a mini van that had made it through the light saw the turtle as it passed it. The van stopped, began backing up, ran over the turtle and sped away! I freaked out, screaming at what I had just seen. It was outrageous! I was too shocked even, to chase them down and flip them the bird or ram their mini van or force them off the road and beat the driver to a pulp. I may be a girl, but I can get one hell of a bitch on with assholes like that. Bring it on turtle killers!

!@#$%&*(x+!@#$%&*!

My cat died in November. That morning, before I woke up, I was dreaming that Sox had changed into a bird and flown away. I was not worried about him. I knew he would be happy to be so free, to fly as a bird and would no longer need us. I told my son about the dream when I woke up. Around noon, I started looking for him, to feed him. My husband usually feeds him breakfast while I'm still sleeping.
I saw him "sleeping" in the grass near the back porch and tapped on the window to get his attention. No response. I opened the window and called to him. No response. Then I knew. He was in his comfortable, napping-in-the-yard position, so I guess he went in his sleep. He was a beautiful cat, 11 or 12 years old.

I haven't told my daughter yet. She won a goldfish at a school carnival when she was little and after it spent most of the day in a plastic bag, it didn't look too perky. She named it Skippy and it died within a day or two. When she discovered him dead, she became inconsolable. She mourned for Skippy so deeply, after only having him for such a short time, that I was really moved by her pain. We had a little funeral, not the toilet kind, and she kept sobbing, Skippy, Skippy. So I want to break the news of Sox' death to her in person, maybe when we get back to the U.S.

I made a deep grave for him and lined it with a layer of pine needles, and covered him with a layer of pine needles before filling it with the dirt. I covered it with flat stones because I didn't want anything digging him up. I found a really nice flat stone and wrote his name, etc. on it with magic marker and sprayed a clear finish over that, so it wouldn't fade.

I'll Be On Vacation

In a few days, I'm going to England and Italy for a couple of weeks, to spend the holidays and travel around with my daughter, A. Beauty.
After she graduated from college, she moved to Italy, and has been working there as an au-pair, since the end of the summer.

She's decided that she's not the nanny-type; she's really the world traveler type. But she has learned so much by doing it. The life changes, of motherhood, won't be a total shock, should she ever decide to become a parent, after 24/7 with twin babies in Macerata. She was really surprised by the "macho absent male + chattel" family dynamic. The wife didn't speak English and A. Beauty had no way to get to town to take an Italian class. There was no way the mother was going to accommodate her anyway. She was too isolated in the country villa to explore the area, which was something she thought she would be able to do on her days off. There were no days off. She said, on a visit, one of the Grandmothers kept yelling "Schwepps" at her. She still hasn't found out what that means other than a soft drink brand. But she said the context for these outbursts made it unlikely that she was asking her if she would like a soda(A. Beauty doesn't drink sodas.)

She terminated her services with the first family and found a great family in Rome, who drove all the way to Macerata to pick her up. They have two young boys, early elementary school aged. Her main function beside keeping an eye on them after school in the afternoons is to teach the children English. The parents speak Italian, Thai, and English; the kids speak Italian and Thai. She's much happier living in Rome and has lots of free time to see the sights and she likes this family. The small private apartment she has attached to their villa is nice too, it even has a kitchen. It's too bad that she got so burnt out with the first family.

Someone in her Italian language class said that if she ever considered marrying an Italian man, her advice was, "NO, RUN!" A. Beauty is very independent and I guess that would be a problem for many of the men she has observed there.

I can't wait to see her. She has planned out our travel to various cities, hotels, etc. I'm going to spend a couple of days in London, so I can get over my notoriously crabby jet-lag, before I join her in Rome. I have a few museums I want to see while I'm in London. She will be returning to the U.S. with me just before New Year's Day.

I hate to fly coach, but I'm in a coach kind of income bracket. THE SEATS ARE TOO SMALL!! I have gotten plump, but I carry my fat on the front, not on my hips. I'm no wider than an average man, but THE SEATS ARE TOO SMALL! My brother gave me some good advice. If they have perfume dispensers in the toilet rooms, dump them all down the toilets after take off. Perfume makes me feel like I'm going to vomit. Nice Brother; one of several habitual world travelers in the family. Sometime I'll have to get a copy of my youngest sister's "Flight From Hell" story, on a Korean Airline, on her way home from Hong Kong. It is hilarious the way she tells it.

I Finished a Faulkner Book!

This was my second attempt to read something by William Faulkner, and I have to say I feel like I just choked down a dirt sandwich. It was "As I Lay Dying". Addie's stench is still making me queasy. To make it that real is pretty amazing. Faulkner really has a unique story here, and I liked the short chapters, each told by various members of the cast. If you are going to get inside the heads of strange people, and let them tell the story, their way of expressing themselves is bound to be difficult to understand. And if some of them are idiots they are bound to get into some excruciating situations. He did that masterfully. I want to read for pleasure not a work-out, but I bet I'll read it again someday.

I tried to read "Absalom, Absalom!" and I just couldn't make it to the end. I know that people of certain eras had to beat around the bush to tell something scandalous, without actually using the words that would tell you what they are talking about. Being frank, was considered rude. Well, actually, it still is, but half way through the book, I realized that I was mentally shouting at the book, "Spit it out, already!" I couldn't take it. I had to read an on-line synopsis to bring down my blood pressure.

I have "The Sot-Weed Factor" by John Barth and "Swan's Way" by Marcel Proust on my bedside table, next in line for my tandem reading style. Get sick of one, try the other one for a while. I can run through a stack of Kurt Vonnegut books without any frustration. I'm just curious about what all the fuss is about with the "classics". Any blood pressure warnings would be appreciated.

About-Face on the Insanity Defense

Back before my youngest son became schizophrenic, I used be very cynical about the "insanity defense". I did agree that drowning all your kids, like Andrea Yates did, unquestionably qualified for the insanity defense. But, I thought the measuring stick for insanity should be something similar to: If the accused could drive a car and remember to stop at stop signs and find their way to a specified location, then they weren't insane enough for me. I was really convinced that I was on to something.

I was wrong. We live we learn.

It is strange how certain parts of a person's brain can be disfunctional while others seem unaffected. Needless to say, I have done an about-face.

We just got word, that his second attempt to be designated Disabled by the government was approved. The first request was denied because they did not receive the medical documentation from Hospitals, Doctors, etc., the paperwork that they needed to complete the process. This time we hounded everyone to send in the paperwork. He was also examined by a psychiatrist designated to do tests on him for the Social Security office. His father will be in charge of managing his money; they are sending him a packet of papers to fill out first. Hopefully this is a step toward being able to live on his own someday and get a chance to have part of the life that was robbed from him.

He knows his life has changed drastically from being the "Golden Boy" before his illness struck. The local newspaper even came out to our house to interview him and my husband and me. A reporter had contacted his high school, because they wanted to interview a student who was one of the best and brightest, someone who broke the mold of the slacker image of High School boys. His school suggested they interview Savant and his parents. I don't remember if this was before or after it was announced that he was the only Merit Scholarship Finalist in the whole school. He was pleasant and brilliant and normal. The cruelty of this illness is immense, partly, because he can remember when the world was his oyster.

This isn't the only horrible affliction, of course, but it is the one our family deals with. As his parents, it has broken our hearts and been very frightening and difficult, but we don't have the disease. I really can't come close to imagining the full extent of the suffering, confusion, frustration and isolation that Savant experiences.