Is the week over yet?

I hope I can make it one more day to the weekend. This week was busier than I imagined it would be. Being sleep deprived hasn’t helped any, either. It makes it harder to cope with stressful stuff, like when my son’s middle school called me on Monday asking if I could help them track down the check they accidentally put into another student’s account.

Looking ahead to the weekend, the calendar is actually empty. No ball games, track meets, holidays, or business trips. What am I going to do with myself? Sleep? Nah. Clean? Maybe. Get caught up? Never!

My daughter’s track season ended with the sectional meet on Tuesday. It wasn’t a good meet for her or her team. None of them advanced to the regional meet. Bummer. She’s a freshman, so she has 3 more years– it was a year of learning about high school track. I feel bad for the seniors, though. They just fizzled out. After the meet, the coaches asked everyone to turn in their uniforms that night.

Despite the team’s loss, I had fun at the meet. My best friend met me there and we had a blast sitting in the stands eating gross cheeseburgers and comparing our stressful days. I was planning to leave after my daughter finished her events, but decided to stay until the end. I was glad I did.

In the final laps of the 3200 meter race, we noticed lightning. Usually meets are cancelled for lightning, but this was the sectional and it was almost over. In the last heat of the 1600M relay, big fat rain drops started falling as soon as the starting gun fired. It was as though they were shot loose from the clouds. They morphed into a downpour while lightning flashed and relay runners ran their laps, each girl becoming soggier than the last. The raced ended with an upset of the favored team.  Everyone bolted for their cars. Minutes after the race finished, so did the rain. But by then everyone was leaving as school buses and cars streamed out of the parking lots and into the streets. I don’t think anyone was left in the stadium when they announced the final team results.

My son’s baseball game last night wasn’t nearly as dramatic. They were losing when I left to pick up my daughter from gymnastics practice. I was hoping to return to the game before it was over, but was surprised to find out there was a meeting about summer gymnastics camps after practice. The meeting dragged on and on for almost 45 minutes. Needless to say, I never saw the end of the baseball game. Unfortunately for them, they lost– again.

Full week ahead

Can I take a vacation from my life? Is there a place where moms can go to escape the demands of work, family, and home, without having anyone file a missing persons report because the dirty dishes piled up? If we didn’t have so much junk under our beds, maybe I could hide out there. Or maybe in a cluttered closet, where I could blend in with old shoes or forgotten toys. Or I could switch places with the cat. She seems bored and overly rested, since she chews on my houseplants and sleeps on every comfortable surface in the house.

This week promises to be busy if track meets and baseball games aren’t rained out (again!). My daughter has her sectional track meet Tuesday night, which is the same night her brother has a baseball game. I’m going to watch her track meet, since it may be her last for the season if she doesn’t advance to the regional meet next week. No rain is forecast Tuesday night, but it is forecast for Wednesday when my son’s baseball team plays their make-up game from last Friday’s rain-out. Then we have another game Friday night, if it doesn’t rain again then.

At least I got my tomatoes and green pepper plant in the garden last Saturday before the icky weather set in on Mother’s Day. If I can keep the Bermuda grass and other miscellaneous weeds out of the garden (and the rain spigot doesn’t completely dry up like it does most summers), we might have some decent tomatoes to eat later this summer.

Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day was okay, except for the weather. It was windy, raw, and rainy here, so all I wanted to do was hibernate. It was a typical spring day this year– wet and cold.

Except for taking my mom to church with us and going out to eat afterwards, it was an ordinary Sunday in many ways. I cooked, washed dishes, grocery shopped, did laundry, and helped one of the kids with their homework. I didn’t find time to do the work I’d brought home with me from the most recent business trip, but hey, I can only do so much on my day off. It was supposed to be a day off, wasn’t it? Oh yeah, that’s right– it was Mother’s Day. Hmmm…. wasn’t my family supposed to do some of those things for me? Oh well. If the weather had been nice, I’m sure I would have added yard work to that to-do list.

Hope your Mother’s Day was nice and if you aren’t a mom, that you spent time with yours. Thank her for all she does for you and your household, even on her day off.

Alone, but not lonely…

Although I miss my family when I’m out of town, I have to admit it’s nice not to have to cook and clean and hassle the kids about homework and… you moms get the picture. On this trip I have a room to myself, so I’m enjoying the fantastic peace and quiet. There’s no TV (it’s not turned on), I can read or write or surf the Web with no interruptions, and I don’t have to beat anyone to the shower in the morning just to get hot water. Ahhhh… such selfish pleasures. I should feel guilty– NOT!

The only bad thing about my hotel room is that it’s near a highway where traffic never seems to let up, even in the dead of night. When you sleep lightly like I do, it’s easy to wake up when a semi-tractor trailer downshifts as he passes the hotel. Tonight I’m trying the earplugs I brought and hoping for a deeper sleep than I got last night. Then tomorrow morning maybe I won’t look like I’m carrying my belongings in the puffy bags under my eyes.

Another missed home run

I was out of town again tonight and my son had another home run. There must be some magical combination of my absence and his ability to really hit the ball hard (although he told me this one hit the fence and bounced off– he just got lucky). Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to win the game. They were down too many runs. I told him to do it again on Friday, since I’ll still be on my way home when he has another baseball game. I’m still hoping to see one in person, though…

I struggled with the Internet connection in my room tonight. The front desk clerk sent up their technical person. I pictured a white guy with a pocket protector, glasses and a crew cut. He turned out to be a black man wearing a navy jumpsuit speckled with white paint and speaking English with a thick accent. He got it working, though. He pulled a spare Ethernet cable out of a pocket in his jumpsuit and when that didn’t work, he called Wayport, who jacked something on their end to get the line to work. I could tell they had trouble understanding him too, since he repeated the name of the hotel and my room number several times. Made me feel less guilty that I could hardly understand a word he said. As long as I have my Internet fix, I’m happy.

Baseball victory

While I was out of town last week, I got an urgent phone call from my son. I was in a restaurant waiting for our meal to come when I got the call. He doesn’t usually call me when I’m out of town and rarely has much to say if I try to talk to him when I call home during business trips. But this night was special.

He told me he had his first home run in a baseball game. I was so proud of him! It helped his team win the game. I could hear the excitement in his voice– it was one of the few times he was really thrilled about his performance in a game. I was disappointed that I missed his milestone because I was out of town. Sometimes that’s just the way it goes.

Two years ago, the same thing happened to a father whose son was on our all-star team. We were in a tournament and his son hit not one, but two, balls out of the park that night. He loved to see his son play baseball and we all felt bad for him that he missed the milestones that night.

I’m leaving Tuesday for another business trip and my son has a game that night. I told him to get another home run for me. I’ll miss a second game this Friday when I’m on my way home, so I’d better order up a home run for that game too. I’m sure he’ll hit a home run when I’m watching– if not in the regular season, then maybe in the all-star season. We have a lot of games ahead of us this summer.

Chain letters

I’ve always hated chain letters– from the time when they were on paper to now, when they live on in email. I don’t know about you, but I NEVER EVER forward them so I can reap the rewards promised at the end of the message. Who has the time? Who wants to annoy their friends with useless email that clogs up their inboxes? I can faithfully report that nothing bad has ever happened to me because I haven’t forwarded a chain email. I seriously doubt anyone keeps track of who has or has not sent a chain letter back to them.

Now there’s a study by Cornell University about chain letters. They found out that information spreads in straight lines through narrow social networks, rather than fanning out widely throughout society. This is true of both the Internet and in daily life. Computer science professors at Cornell and Carleton College studied two Internet chain letters and discovered that messages echoed through overlapping circles of friends. That explains why I’ve gotten the same chain email letter from different people who know me, but not necessarily each other (yet another reason not to forward them).

It’s good to know that even though chain letters are annoying, they’re reaching a more limited audience than I previously thought. If I continue to delete them rather than forward them, I can not only break the chain, but also the straight line in which they were travelling.

Too busy to write

Sorry I haven’t written for a few days. I took a vacation day on Friday to prepare for a trip out of town and darn near wore myself out! I don’t know why, but every time I’m about to leave on a business trip, I feel like I have to do everything before I leave. I guess it’s because deep down inside, I feel like if the plane crashed, at least I’d be caught up before I died. I did laundry, washed dishes, went through papers, paid bills, vacuumed the main floor, vacuumed gobs of cat hair (or maybe it was 1 whole cat) off two chairs, planted annuals in containers, trimmed bushes, pulled weeds, and I still wasn’t done by 10 pm that night. If only I had 48 hours in every day, not 24, I could accomplish so much more.

Saturday was no better. I went to my son’s baseball game, watched them get run-ruled (again!- so sad), drove 45 min. to Mt. Vernon, IN, to watch my daughter in an invitational track meet and hang with my best friend, who bought me lunch. We had a lot of fun. My daughter did okay for a freshman who ran against older, faster girls. Her high school track coach was my track coach when I went to the same school over 25 years ago. It’s both nice and weird to have her at my high school all these years later. It’s the same school where I met my best friend.

Later on Saturday, I crammed errands into one trip, with the goal of visiting as few stores as possible. It’s amazing how efficient I can be when I don’t have much time to spend shopping. I had to hurry because I still had annuals to plant, bird feeders to refill, clothes to pack, and dinner with my husband to celebrate our anniversary, since I’ll be out of town on the day of our real anniversary. By 10:30 that night, I was doubly exhausted and could hardly keep my eyes open.

I know when I return later this week the laundry will be piled up again, untrimmed bushes will be even hairier, cat hair will have taken over the house, and dishes will be piled up in the sink– all waiting for me to come home and pick up where I left off. I sometimes wonder if my family misses me when I’m gone– or if they what they really miss are my cleaning services.

Barack Obama visits Evansville, Indiana

Barack and Michelle Obama came to Evansville last night, after waiting for the polls to close in Pennsylvania. They came to Roberts Stadium, a large venue that holds up to 12,000 people. Due to my son’s rescheduled baseball game and my daughter’s unknown arrival from an out-of-town track meet, I was unable to attend the rally. But I was able to catch it on TV, as the local stations were broadcasting it live. I was glad he started with a rally in Evansville, since our southwest corner of the state is often overlooked, even by our own capital.

People began lining up outside the stadium before 5 pm, although the doors weren’t going to open to the public until 7:30. For awhile after the baseball game ended, I was torn over whether or not to still try to go, since John Mellencamp was supposed to give a concert before Barack arrived. I’m not a super big fan of Mellencamp, but the media hyped his appearance with Obama, so I was temped to go see them both. As it turned out, Barack didn’t arrive until 9:30, so I was glad I stayed home.

Mellencamp’s ‘concert’ was just him performing one song live on stage, in between canned renditions of his songs being broadcast over the speakers. He struggled to play the guitar to a sluggish tempo for Small Town, then left the stage. He reappeared briefly after Barack finished speaking. To say his performance was a disappointment would be a huge understatement.

When Barack appeared, he seemed to be tired and a bit bummed over the Pennsylvania returns, which revealed a narrow win for Hillary Clinton. He congratulated her on her win, which I thought showed his character. He could have said something nasty, but didn’t, despite her attacking him with hateful campaign ads in the days before the Pennsylvania primary.

Barack’s speech was okay, but I’m sorry to admit, it wasn’t what I’d hoped for. It was the same generic message of hope and unity he’s been talking about for the whole campaign, but not specifically geared towards Indiana. He tooka few jabs at John McCain and made vague references to Hillary Clinton, but he just wasn’t fired up. He spoke for only 30 minutes, which was another letdown.

When he was finished, Michelle joined him on stage. They left the stage and shook hands with people on the floor, then went back on stage, where they shook hands and spoke with the lucky few who were sitting right behind the stage. John Mellencamp reappeared then too– I guess he didn’t want to be forgotten. Then Barack and Michelle left, shaking hands with people on their way out. Only the people on the floor and the seats right behind the stage really got to see the Obamas. The remaining 8,000-10,000 people who were there never got a chance to get very close– not like they should expect it with those numbers, but still– he didn’t stay very long and work the crowd like Hillary did after her rally. She made two laps around her stage, then met with the media and people who were in an overflow room at the high school.

On the plus side, watching the rally on TV at home wasn’t too bad. My daughter watched it with me and we got a kick out of a local reporter who stood in front of the camera with a blank look on his face, not sure if he was on air or not. He tried to summarize Obama’s speech before he was done speaking. All he had to do was turn around and see the man still standing at the podium– duh. I reveled in the thought that while everyone was fighting traffic getting out of the stadium, we turned off the TV and went to bed. Best of all, we didn’t spend 4 1/2 hours waiting to see Mellencamp and Obama make their disappointingly brief appearances.

I hope Barack returns before the Indiana primary on May 6. I’d like to see a more energized, focused speech or maybe even a town hall meeting, where participants can ask questions. I have a vote to cast and I want it to be for the right candidate.

Perplexing wallflower

My son is ever the wallflower when it comes to events at school. He tried out for the middle school track team, but as the season draws to a close, still hasn’t qualified to run in any event. When asked why he hasn’t yet qualified, he hems and haws, coming up with obtuse excuses. From what I can surmise, everything from the wrong shoes to the absence of someone to challenge in a race has kept him from a chance to run the 100- and 200-yard dashes. But it’s not his fault, he assures me.

He missed the cut for the middle school basketball team because he was whispering to a friend (who also didn’t make it). The coach thought they weren’t listening, so he passed them over in favor of other boys– whose listening skills were better than their basketball skills. The lesson was lost on my son, though. According to him, it wasn’t his fault the coach didn’t pick him.

His losing team in Little League baseball is solely the fault of the coach, he says. When offered the chance to play for another team this summer, he says he doesn’t like the field they play on, doesn’t know the kids (he does), and doesn’t want to play for two teams. Wow. I guess that’s somebody else’s fault, too, right? I don’t dare ask.

This is the same kid who has selective amnesia when it comes to turning in homework assignments. He has any number of reasons why he has missing assignments or bad grades on some tests and homework. Again, it isn’t his fault when grades don’t get entered or group assignments get turned in without his name on them. He forgets to use his agenda book to write down his assignments, but assures me it isn’t his fault. Asking his teachers to help make him accountable to them doesn’t work either– he says it’s their fault they don’t ask him to show them his agenda book.

He’ll probably get married someday, only to get a no-fault divorce down the road.