15 minutes or less..

Someone is crabby here because part of a tire touches their lawn. Crabbiness all around (from passive/aggressive.com)

I had my thyroid gland destroyed by radiation 17 years ago because my Graves' Disease could not be controlled. The process was easy. I swallowed less than a teaspoon of salty solution containing 131Iodine which is radioactive emitting beta rays. Fortunately they don't travel far but they destroy everything in their path. I am now dependent on taking Synthroid and ran out yesterday.

All over the pharmacy are signs saying that your script will be filled in 15 minutes or they give you $5. There were no other customers. Presumably my primary had phoned in a script a few months ago but then I never got confirmation. Fortunately they found it in the system and said just wait 15 minutes. I picked a few other items while I waited which they overcharged me for and were mad that I made them start over. Even though I was the only customer, the script took 20 minutes to process. I asked about their promise to fill it in 15 minutes.

Well we didn't write down when we started.
Well I did.
They gave me the $5 but were crabby.

I always wear a running watch. My watch strap broke in the middle of the night so now I am wearing Steve's which is only a bit more ugly.

I've been crabby myself. I have to find myself out of this.

Later that day I misplaced the drug. Did I leave it at Naomi's? Did it fall out of the bag? How will I get new drugs? I hate being dependent on it. I must have put it in my purse for safe keeping but I had not made a mental note.

My grand baby is the size of a small strawberry

A couple of weeks ago, I was discussing the size of my new grand baby with Naomi while standing in line buying yet another load of wedding supplies. I had told her that at that time (I was a week off) that the baby was the size of a kidney bean. A woman behind us overheard and said that her grand baby was the size of a plum but once was only the size of a blueberry. So some sites compare sizes to fruit and some to nuts and beans. Shanna was told 'brazil nut' for comparison.

This week the baby developed distinct fingers and toes as opposed to paddles. He/she is due towards the end of March: a spring baby though Shanna has a tendency to go into labor early. She had the dates confirmed by ultrasound last week when the little one was just 9 weeks along. At this stage, there isn't much variation between babies.  Three babies under 5!!! Another miracle in the making.

Good night Irene

Naomi and Don'tae on the Coney Island Boardwalk a couple of weeks before Maya came out.

Above is the first food stand one comes to southwest of the aquarium and about a half mile away from where Steve grew up. This area was evacuated yesterday. The Weather Channel has stationed some of its cameras right where Naomi is standing here. The windows are closed; the clams sign has been put away. However not much hurricane action occurred here. They put the microphones in the air so the viewers could hear the howling but even with a little wind, the air resonating around the nearby tower makes a strange sound though usually it is hard to hear above the cacophony of the trains and amusement rides which are silent today. This place is usually quite noisy. Since there was no air conditioning in the bedrooms of Steve's parents' apartment, the windows needed to be open in the summer. It took a while to be able to sleep through the rumbling of the trains, car sirens and the amusement parks.

 Much ado about nothing.

In Boston, they usually have several Nor-easters a year more impressive than this. The hurricane seems to have lost its eye and has been down graded to a tropical storm.

Here in Michigan it is still, cool and sunny. Leaves are starting to change.

path near Shanna's place. This usually is about 6 feet higher than sea level.

Decompressing

This from Josh's friend's blog. The salt flats of Bolivia. Miles and miles of salt. I think these are road markers

After a week of fretting (or years of fretting depending on how I am counting), we seem to have a plan in place towards Naomi achieving independence. Still an uphill battle..but we all feel better about things.

I am tired. I was trying to make up for lost time by running extra far for most of the week but by yesterday,  I was beat and decided just to chill all day. I met with a friend for a long lunch out on a patio next to train tracks. When the Amtrak comes through just feet away, we get to experience our own earthquake. I missed the one the other day though others in Ann Arbor felt it. Since our venue was so small and Naomi insisted on inviting certain people who in the end didn't even show, I was unable to invite everyone I wanted to. But it was fun catching up. I reviewed the menu with him. He is African American..Chicken roulades stuffed with sun dried tomatoes? No wonder adults tried to take the kids' macaroni and cheese.

We had custom ordered M and Ms with Naomi and Don'tae's picture on it. Someone asked Naomi how the picture got on..she told them that I hand painted them with a tiny brush....

Bugs have been destroying my summer (and others too). Never have there been so many. Last night wiping myself off with wipes impregnated with Off!, we were finally able to enjoy our patio bite free.

Hurricane Irene slowly goes up the coast. If Steve's mom still lived on the barrier island The Rockaways, she would have been evacuated for sure. Steve's remaining family though is not in the evacuation zone but can expect lots of flooding. It appears that it will go inland by the time it inches up to Boston where Shanna and her family live right on the coast. I don't think she'll need to be evacuated but power outages and flooding...yes.

We had a pleasant lunch with Josh and Julia who are taking much of our leftover liquor for their own party tonight.

Maya sort of said a word today. La-la-la. If you ask her to sing, she goes La-la-la. But she is expanding her hand signals..hands are  in constant motion.

The Boy who couldn't Read

There are these quiet, dark whispers incessantly nagging: What is wrong with my child?

He was a stunningly beautiful  boy with large blue eyes fringed with thick black lashes, always smiling. Over ten pounds at birth, he continued to grow faster than his peers. At one, he was the size of a two year old. He hit all those gross motor skills milestones very early but by two, all that came from his mouth was gibberish.

I tried to do all the right things, read to him, sing to him, reward any attempt at speech with applause. Gradually words came; very poorly enunciated, but words nonetheless. At four, he was the size of a six year old but spoke like a three year old. I sent him to speech therapy. Before the insurance would pay for this, he needed to be 'professionally' evaluated. The evaluator's conclusion: not only was he grossly deficient in speech but he seemed to be mentally challenged as well. I had no business sending him off to kindergarten the next year as he so woefully was behind. Well my baby boy could play chess and passed every little logic test that I could think of. I knew he was bright though maybe I was just a blind mama bear thinking the best of her cub. The speech therapist  worked wonders. Although he had vastly superior gross motor control, he had no control of his tongue.

By kindergarten, he no longer spoke 'funny'. He also had  superior social skills and usually found himself to be the most popular boy. He was the first boy to be picked on any team and invited to almost every party.

All was going well except for that he could not read. He disguised it very well and listened carefully to classroom discussions. He took home all his books which I read and told him the highlights. As he became older, more and more books for me to read and quiz him over. If some of you wondered why I couldn't find time to clean my house, well this is a hint. He did fairly well in school. He was able to parrot back what we went over. Spelling however was torture. At one point he was in a third year advanced French class. This turned out to be impossible, learning a foreign language was just too much. He did well in math. What is going to become of a boy who couldn't read? How will he earn a living? He worried about these questions himself. I suggested that he become an engineer as he had the math ability and there was no foreign language requirement. As he was fascinated by cars, I suggested he go to this engineering school affiliated with the auto industry. Sure, sign him up.

During his senior year, we took the family to NYC for X-mas. With us was Julia, his girlfriend of 6 months and Shanna's fiance (not whom she eventually married). He was recovering from mono and still felt quite ill (Julia did not catch it). I had bought books for us all to read for the long ride including a Harry Potter book for Naomi (who turned out to have a more severe reading disorder). At some point, Josh took Naomi's book and didn't put it down. He then started reading everything he could get his hands on. Even today, he reads well into the night. A light suddenly dawned on him. Before it didn't occur to him that he needed to actually pay attention to the words written.

He did well in college though there were a lot more non-engineering classes he had to take thus more books for me to read and discuss than what I had hoped. The guys in the fraternity would study together. He helped them out with CAD classes in which he was a whiz and they helped him with everything else. He went to a co-op college: classes for 3 months then work for 3 months: back and forth for 5 years. His corporate sponsor kept him and gave him credit for his co-op years so he has a fair amount of seniority for one so young. With all the slicing and dicing in the auto industry, he is one of the youngest left. They think quite highly of him. He was the principal inventor on a patent which saved his company millions. Recently they offered him a promotion in charge of eight engineers. He was hesitant to take it as it would take him away from designing but to get ahead, you need to be a supervisor. They told him he could spend time designing also and do special projects involving international travel. When it comes time for someone to present the department's work to those above, Josh is the first that they ask to do this; my little inarticulate bear cub all grown up.
There are a few left overs of his challenges. He can not spell or remember names. He mispronounces simple words. Yesterday he called me to look at a map and try to figure out the name of a street he needed to go to in Plymouth. He had written it down somewhere but lost the strip of paper and didn't want to pester the person again. Sounded like Fairfax or something. I blew up a map and carefully pored over it looking for something that would sound similar to his ears and  guess. As he did not call me back, I must have guessed right. I am trying to get him to learn at least a little Portuguese for his trip in a few weeks but I know he won't. In Germany, he couldn't repeat the name of his workplace as it was a compound word a mile long. He just hoped to find it on his own.


So there are happy endings. Will a miracle occur with my baby who is still finding herself?

Where do we go from here?

From Campanastan

This is a work in progress. So many unknowns...

Picking up the pieces

At the rehearsal BBQ

Doing the cha cha slide. Steve's cousin's wife in the gray suit. Josh is right behind the pink lady

Chaos at my house last Friday morning. Maya asleep in corner

Licking wedding cake off Don''tae

Fixing hair at Josh's. She slept with the help of a boppy pillow in curlers

Naomi and Julia. Julia did her hair

We are trying to get back to normal here. Classes begin Friday. Naomi went in Monday to discuss switching programs. She was told no problem but when she tried to register yesterday, all sorts of error codes popped up. After numerous phone calls and e-mails, it looks like she might have to sit this semester out. We are making one last ditch effort...

My poor garden is quite neglected. Being attacked by swarms of mosquitoes has limited my time out there. One bright spot: my bromeliad, an air plant which looks almost dead must not be as it is sending up pink and purple blossoms.

It was in the high 40s yesterday morning, perfect for a long run. I've become so puffy and lethargic  in the last few weeks, I hope this will help. Although it is supposed to be 92 later today, it still felt cool this morning.

I did not feel the earthquake as others did yesterday. Shanna being on the 5th floor in a building in Boston felt the bed she was sitting on shake. Hurricane Irene is coming her way.

Ceiling: I loved the swirling lights. It gave the room a magical aura. Most of the pix I posted for these past 2 days is from one of the Moms. I am grateful for her 170 photos