mid night awakenings

I crashed into bed early last night. If you have read my last couple of posts that were the tip of my weeklong iceberg and I needed sleep-BAAD! In my sound sleep I heard a sound that needed my attention..no not the new puppy who is a dream puppy and sleeps quietly all night-no, this sound was more of a sobbing. When I woke up enough I realized it was my husband beside me in bed and the sobbing sound I heard was actually him laughing hysterically into his pillow. He was laughing so hard that he couldn't even tell me why he was laughing. The room was dark, TV off and as far as I could see there was nothing funny anywhere. Well, between gasps for air, he told me that he had just had the loudest longest deepest fart he has ever had. WHAT? You woke me up at 2:30 am to tell me about a fart? Apparently his Chipotle earlier in the evening was coming back to haunt him. Do you know what had him so hysterical??? Just when he was praising himself on the depth and resonance of his bowel sounds he heard our sons bedroom door shut..the son that is afraid of things that go bump in the night. He was hysterical because his fart was so horrendous it scared his kid. Did I mention that there was NO alcohol involved??!! This is just a man that easily amused and oddly enough it is one of the things I love about him. I am not sure what that says about me.

Very sad day in the neighborhood

Three children lost their mom last night. My 41 year old neighbor died from cancer. I can't even imagine knowing I was dying. Obviously I know that I will die someday but to know you have X amount of time would be absolute torture. I wouldn't worry about my husband, he would be fine. In fact he probably would have a new honey fairly quick as there are many women out there known as "badge sniffers" that would love to snag onto a guy like him. But I absolutely cannot imagine knowing my kids were losing me. I don't have an over inflated ego, I know there are other women in their life that could be there for them, but they aren't mom. I still miss my mom and she has been gone 16 years. This neighbors kids are 15, 13, and 9. Their entire world has changed and I can't think of one thing I can do to make it better for them. As I mentioned before, this lady and I were casual neighbors, you know the kind, wave, say hi in the store, chat in line at the post office but we weren't buddies. In some bizarre way I almost feel like I let her down.

Google rocked my world.

Google rocked my world two days ago. I was helping a blogger friend with some adoption information and accidentally and shockingly found our sons birthmother. She had posted contact information on an adoption site so that if son#1 ever wanted to find her, he would be able to without much problem. After I picked myself up from my boneless heap on the floor and took a Xanax, I decided to e-mail her. I got a new screen name, since AOL is kind enough to allow each account several names it was easy to create a new persona. I wanted something that wouldn’t be at all familiar to anyone. Anyhow, I wrote. Not a lot at first because I was stunned and really didn’t know what to say. My main reason for contacting her is that by my calculations she was probably married by now and possibly had children. Our son has some medical issues that can be genetic and if for no other reason, I wanted her to know that her other kids may develop the same condition. I did tell her a few things about him but not too much in case it was not really her…well, it was. She e-mailed back and told me things that only she would know and we have been sharing e-mails the past few days. I wasn’t sure when I was going to tell my son, or how he would react. He is a very sensitive kid and went through a tough period a couple years ago. Things have completely turned around for him and he is a very happy well adjusted young man now and I really didn’t want to churn up his heart and I wasn’t sure if this would or not. On the other hand, he turned 18 recently and has every right to be aware of his biological history. On the positive side, she sounds wonderful. I have always been very open and honest with my boys, sometimes probably too open but that’s just me and since they all feel close to me and are willing to talk, I guess they are okay. I decided to tell my son today about the contact. I practiced in my mind all day how and what I would tell him. Obviously it would be the truth but I wanted to make it as palatable as possible. I printed out our communication for him to read if he chose to then told him I wanted to have a chat. He is a very no-nonsense kid with a wonderful dry witty sense of humor and the whole time I was giving him the prelude he wanted the meat of the story…to quote him "cut to the chase Mom". I started to tell him the background of how I stumbled upon some information, yada, yada, yada and finally got to the part about corresponding with his birthmother. His reaction was a little less interested than I thought it would be. In fact he really didn’t care much at all. I gave him the highlights of her current life, married, children, job et cetera and that was enough and he went to the fridge for a drink of OJ before taking a quick nap and heading off to Starbuck’s with his girlfriend. Here I am, my head reeling like Linda Blair minus the pea soup (though I was close to puking several times the last couple days) and he says as much as –yeah, who cares? I suppose that is a good thing…maybe he doesn’t care because we have filled every one of his parenting needs and he is happy with the status quo. Actually there is a part of me that is ready to jump to the moon with happiness that he didn’t dissolve into tears telling me he had always had a longing to meet her. The other part of me is a bit confused. If I were him, I would be so curious about so many things. He really doesn’t care. When I asked him if he minded if I e-mailed her a photo, he didn’t care. When I asked if he minded if I asked her a few more questions, he didn’t care. I kept looking into his eyes to see if it was a denial thing or maybe shock or fear and all I saw was the same look I get when I ask what he would like for dinner…he didn’t care. I think I have aged 10 years in the past 48 hours.

I would like to introduce you

None of you really know me but if you did you would be impressed that I lasted this long without dog slobber all over me. I fell in love again today and my husband doesn't care. This little guy licked and squirmed his way into my heart and now the lady that wanted AN OLDER DOG at some point NEXT FALL, ended up with a 13 pound puppy in the middle of winter. (mom is a slutty sheltie that was hangin out with her neighborhood horny boy dog of unknown heritage)If you drive down the street and see a crazy woman standing in a blizzard or rainstorm with a puppy, that would be me. Please allow me to introduce you to Harley Earl. He was a Christmas present from a lady to her kids then they discovered that puppies are a lot of work-- DUH! and since mom and dad both work full time and kids are in school all day, this little guy has spent the first few weeks of his life in a cage..he has NO IDEA that today is the luckiest day in his life! So far he is very quiet, playful but not crazed and he hasn't peed in the house...so far..so good :)

Entering a contest

The following is a true story. It happened to me. I am hoping to win a contest for vacation nightmares...let me know if you agree that this should surely win! Again..I swear every word is true. Our cruise through Puerto Rico When our cruise ship docked in San Juan mid afternoon, they told us we had the whole afternoon, actually till we departed again at midnight, to do some sightseeing. One of the things that we had hoped to see was the El Moro (the famous fort) that afternoon before returning to the ship for dinner and departing to our next port. Being on a budget, we decided to take a local bus from the dock area to the fort instead of a costlier taxi. When I asked the driver if he went to El Moro, he said yes and we climbed aboard. We were pretty tickled because it was on 50 cents each and not only would we see the fort, we would get to see a little of San Juan also. We traveled along and picked up more people along the route, obviously going back to their homes at the end of their workday. It seemed as though we were leaving the city limits but we were still tickled that we were getting a $1.00 tour of San Juan even if we didn't make it to the fort before it closed. I did approach the bus driver twice to be sure he was in fact going to El Moro and he said yes. Well---about 25 minutes into what was to be a 5 minute bus ride and the workers were starting to be dropped off at their mountain side homes and I was starting to get nervous. We thought that at the very least the bus would make the turn around to finish its pickup/dropoff loop and we would end up back at the ship, hopefully not missing dinner. We were getting deeper and deeper into the mountainous forest on a very narrow, extremely winding road, with all that was visible were shacks built into the side of the mountain, a few bars and many many goats tied up to tree stumps. By this time we had been on the bus for over 45 minutes and we were obviously not headed back to San Juan. When we approached the driver again, we were the last people on the bus that had been standing room only 45 minutes before. We pulled into a deserted town and the bus stopped. The driver motioned for us to get off the bus. We once again asked him when he was turning around to go back to San Juan..this time he just laughed at us and told us we owed him an extra $2.00 each for the scenic route then he removed us from the bus telling us that he would come back the next day. Apparently the drivers take their busses home each night. He knew all along where he was going to kick us off the bus. Here we were stranded in this abandoned "town" that consisted of about 10 boarded up storefronts. As the bus pulled away I started to cry. Never had I been in such a terrifying situation. We were many many miles from San Juan, high up on a mountain with nobody in site. My husband is a police officer here in Ohio and his first thought was to find a police station. We started walking not knowing which way to go. The only way I can describe this town (Comarillo) was that it was eerily like the ghost towns in old western movies, quiet, boarded up storefronts and no people anywhere. We stumbled upon two men that leered and grinned at us and I was sure they were going to attack and/or kill us. When my husband asked for the "policía" they laughed and said no, never offering an ounce of concern in our direction. We very quickly got to the edge of the town, since it was only 1 block long, it didn't take much time. At the end of the road was a very small building that had a very old and small fire truck inside. We went inside and saw someone in the back with their feet propped up in a desk. When we approached the man, and asked him how we could get back to San Juan, he had no idea what we were saying as he spoke no English. That is when I started to come unglued. Now I wasn't worried about dinner any more, I was worried about our survival. After using as much sign language and hand gestures as we could I was losing hope of him ever understanding. Suddenly there was a voice in English saying "may I help you?" Finally someone we could talk to that would understand. We explained that we had been kidnapped/hijacked and he told us we were very very lucky that he was there. He goes to that town one day a month to visit his Mother and that was the day. He was getting into his car to go home when he heard English being spoken and nobody that far up the mountain spoke English so he came to see who we were. He asked if we could trust him to help usÂ…at that point we had no choice. Either he was a guardian angel or he was working with the bus driver and we were going to be led astray once more. We had to trust him. We got into his car and on our way back down the hill he told us that he is a teacher in a town about ½ way between San Juan and Comarillo. He would take us to a bus that for a fee, would take us to a ferry that would take us to the ship docks. When we arrived at that "bus" (actually a van) he explained in Spanish to the two drivers what happened and then turned to us, telling us these two drivers would take us the rest of the way to the ferry. Once again, we had to trust that we were going to be okay. After sitting still inside the van for 15 minutes we asked why we weren't on our way and the drivers said we had to wait for the van to fill.Well there was nobody around for miles and miles so we knew it wasn't going to happen. We offered to pay enough to cover filling the quota of the van, a price was agreed upon and off we went. By the time we got to the ferry, I could see the cruise ship far in the distance but it was still a wonderful site. Worst case scenario, we could swim! We did finally get back to the ship before it departed at midnight but not before a very drunken man tried to pick up my husband on the ferry. If I hadn't been shaking from fear it would have been extremely funny. I have a friend that grew up in Puerto Rico and have told her this story and she says that we were very very lucky indeed as that is a very dangerous area we were lucky to get out without incident. I have tried to find that guardian angel teacher and have never been able to locate him. In our state of fear, it never crossed our minds to ask for his name and address to give him a proper thank you for getting us out of the most frightening time in our newly married life.

Womb transplant

This morning on Good Morning America there was a 10 second blurb about physicians beginning the process of planning the worlds first womb transplant. They are screening infertiles and hope to perform the transplant later this year. YOOHOO, over here....I would feel blessed to be able to give my no longer needed womb to someone. I find it strikingly odd they have never done this before. In the age of medicine we are in, I would think this had been going on for quite some time but it apparently hasn't. For me, infertility was a horrendous time in my life. From the time I was a very little girl when people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up..I thought they were nuts.OBVIOUSLY I wanted to be a Mom..what else was there? Sure I could have been an astronaut but not if it meant I couldn't take my kids with me. I am sure it comes from the fact that I had a wonderful relationship with my own Mom and Grandmother, two very strong but gentle women in my life. Anyway...if any of you infertile blog buddies out there can figure out how I can give you my womb, let me know. I would be happy to oblige.

Where do I begin?

Well--the game sucked but the trip was a blast. There is quite the story to be written here as things didn't go completely as expected. Our "free" tickets fell through. So here we are game day trying to get scalped tickets, cheap, for the game. Scalpers were asking $1200.00 EACH (yeah, I think I just found my new job!) so we waited till the game started and figured the price would come down since the scalpers didn't want to get stuck holding worthless tickets. For about 15 minutes it looked like we were out of luck and we were on our way out to the parking lot to tailgate with the other 10,000 people that didn't have tickets. As we were on our way out, a man, a VERY LARGE man, (seriously think 6'5" about 325-all muscle man) sauntered up to us asking if we wanted to get in. He somehow had acquired (I am positive it was all legal) 4 ALL ACCESS passes. The deal was that he would wear one, take 3 of us in wearing the 3 other passes and come back out to get the 4th person and the money. I was scared shitless since hubby was the one that chose to stay out with the money and get taken in last. Without giving away any secrets, hubby is in law enforcement, and carries a badge and gun so he figured it anyone was gonna "get rolled" it should be him because he could at least maybe scare the guy away. The three of us went inside and it seemed like an eternity till hubby walked through the door with the VERY LARGE man. The way I figured it out, as I had seen this man earlier doing the same thing over and over...he honestly raked in at least $20,000 that I could figure. We figured out that the lady at the door was getting a cut each time she allowed him to bring people in. It was a very lucrative night for her and the VERY LARGE man. Once inside it was standing room only (since we didn't have "tickets" we figured inside standing was better than outside standing.....then...friends that did have seats called our cells and said there were seats near them that had been open the whole 1st quarter and to come on down, all they could do was have us move if the seater owners showed up so off we went. We ended up 3 rows from the field..AMAZING and I don't even like football. I think hubby had a series of strokes from shock as he was drooling all over himself. The whole thing was an unbelievable adventure. There were many small details that I am leaving out because it would take too much time to write the whole story but suffice to say, it was one of those once in a lifetime stories that will be told over and over. And no, I still don't like football.

I'll be back-GO BUCKS!

Just a short break...this week has been nuts at our house--I have been reading blogs but there hasnt been enough time to write. Now I am packing and leaving for the Championship game in Arizona....I will be back on Tuesday and will post pix for any of you that may be Buckeye fans! (As you probably remember, I don't give a shit about football but I DO give a shit about getting out of town for 3 days)..Arizona-watch out, here I come!)