Happy Thanksgiving

A safe and happy holiday to everyone. May you pull the bigger half of the wishbone and may your gravy boat never sink.

Ten Years Ago Today. . .

. . .it was Thanksgiving Day. My father had gotten out of the hospital a few days before, and I hadn't known or wasn't willing to believe that he was at the end of his battle against lung cancer. My parents had just elected to enroll in a hospice program after his discharge from the hospital.

At the time I worked for a UPenn practice in Northeast Philadelphia, and for whatever reason, the office manager (who was also a nurse, and the wife of the senior physician in the practice) told me to go home on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. The practice was aware of my father's diagnosis, and the office was great about letting me take day off during the summer to go down to visit my parents and hang out with my father during his chemotherapy.

The holiday was low-key, my mother made dinner, one of my best friends came over to eat with us. My father was in bed most of the day, but he did manage to eat and drink a little bit. After cleaning up, my mother and I both went to bed, and in that house, it meant I was in my brother's old room on the lower level of the house.

I still remember my mother coming into the room at around 8:45 pm and waking me up by saying, "He's gone." And since I was still half asleep the words didn't process because I remember asking her how could he go anywhere because he needed the both of us to help him get out of bed.

It was completely surreal taking my stethoscope upstairs to listen on his chest and neck and then giving him one of those obnoxious sternal rubs while telling him that it wasn't funny and he'd better wake up.

Then it sunk in and I called the hospice nurse on call for the weekend. She was phenomenal, showing up within 20 minutes or so, helping to call the funeral home, getting my father washed and dressed in pajamas. The funeral home guys were also very kind, but both of them were so grossly overweight and out-of-shape, I had visions of one or both having an MI while carrying the stretcher down the stairs and wondering if I could really do CPR (and glad that the other nurse was there.)

I remember calling my Tante Lydia in Germany, and what a horrible, horrible feeling it was to tell her, hoping this would be the last time I'd have to pass of someone's death on. (In 1982 while I was in Germany, my maternal grandfather died, and relatives took me to see his brother, who was now the sole remaining sibling, and feeling miserable that I had made my great uncle breakdown and cry.)

Thanksgiving just hasn't been quite the same for me since then. There are many, many things that I am thankful for, but I truly miss those Thanksgiving dinners with my family, and I'm sad that my father wasn't around for all the good things that have happened over the past ten years: two weddings, three grandchildren, other family weddings and celebrations.

I miss him as much in 2008 as I did in 1998.

Two Moments of Amazement

Moment #1: Micah and I went to the gas station this afternoon, and the Valero at Route 1 and Raymond Road had regular gasoline for $1.73/cash, $1.83/credit. I could fill the tank for $20, which hasn't happened since I don't remember when. So my mind no longer has to expend energy on thoughts of auctioning one of Steve's kidneys on eBay to pay for gasoline. Three free brain cells, I don't know how I'll manage to put them to use.

Moment #2, in a completely different, unrelated, and sad vein:
Last week a Philadelphia police officer died in a collision with a drunk driver, if my memory of the what I read in the on-line Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer serves. Today was the funeral, and the only reason I know that is that Micah and I took a quick trip over to PA and once we were in the vicinity of the Street Road overpass on I-95 something was up. There were cars seeming to be parked there and on the shoulder of the road but not due to a breakdown, and more on the Academy Road overpass, and still more on the shoulder. Then I noticed there was not a single car coming up in the northbound lanes. Not one.

A few minutes later a stream of police vehicles and buses with lights flashing. I was still clueless, it looked like a massive prisoner transport or something. (Thanks to those two not-so marvelous years working at the NJDOC's reception facility.) Then I saw that every northbound on-ramp was blocked by Pennsylvania State Troopers. What was amazing wasn't that all that was happening, given enough manpower, blocking access to an interstate is just a question of logistics and manpower. It was the number of regular people on the shoulder of the interstate and on the overpasses, with flags, waiting to show their respect for the police officer that blew me away. How did they even know when the funeral cortege would be going past? How long did they wait, standing on the side of a grubby highway on a rather cold day?

After another pause, there was an enormous motorcycle escort, the hearse and the limousine with family and then more police cars and other vehicles coming behind, and coming, and coming for what seemed like forever. The motorcade was coming from downtown Philadelphia into Lower Bucks, just north of where I lived for my first couple of years out of school.

Micah slept through it all, otherwise he would have been looking at the spectacle going "Weeee-ooooh, weeee-ooooh," the standard response for flashing lights of any sort.

Games the School District Plays. . .

I posted on Tuesday that the school district called on the absolute last possible day before it would be out of compliance to schedule Micah's evaluation. The message was from Sharon and she left her phone number/extension and instructed me to call back and confirm that her message was received.

And so as not to appear too eager, I waited until Thursday and called. Amazingly, I had the phone number in my head and was sitting at my desk with a semi-idle minute so I dialed.

She picked up promptly, I told her I was calling to confirm the date and time that she had provided for Micah's CST evaluation.

Insert sounds of me twiddling my thumbs while being placed on hold.

And then she came back on the line and said, "Oh, but you haven't turned in the form giving permission for the evaluation."

Huh????? My jaw dropped. The form that Micah and I dropped off at 1:15 pm on October 29, 2008, handed to the receptionist (whose name I noted on my copy of the form with the date and time.)

Once the shock abated. I recapped that SHE had called ME to schedule the evaluation, so that must mean that the school is in possession of the signed form.

Insert more sounds of me twiddling thumbs while being put on hold, yet again.

Then she came back on the line and confirmed the appointment.

This is an example of a person I am supposed to entrust with the care of my child.

Fat freaking chance.

Cheap Decorating Thrills

I' ve been redecorating the blog. It's cheaper than re-doing a house (though the house needs it more desperately).

Since reader comments have been few and far between, and http://www.blogpatrol.com counter didn't give me a precise lock on who is reading this, with the exception of my husband whose email address shows up on the activity report while everyone else remains anonymous, I put the Feedjit map as one of the widgets. Now I can guess, based on location, who is out there.

The Baltimore flag is my cousin, but I knew that already from the comment she left (and I wish she'd email me the name of her blog. Hint, hint.) Illinois is Steve's brother. Somehow the stupid Feedjit thing calls our home location Belle Mead instead of Princeton. Texas is likely my best friend since freshman year of high school.

King of Prussia is a mystery. I hope its not someone from our former adoption agency because that would be too weird and nosey.

California is also a question mark, though I think that might be a mom who is a member of one of the atresia/microtia groups on Yahoo! that I belong to.

It feels a bit like cyber-stalking, but it doesn't cost a dime so and it keeps me occupied - otherwise I'd be changing the font colors sixteen times a day trying to find the palette that goes best with the background.

Not much else is new. I clipped a Land-o-Lakes Best Sugar Cookie recipe, then actually read it. Two tablespoons of orange juice is part of the flavoring. What foulness! Blech, blech, and double blech. Into the recycling it went. I was looking for a good recipe to make cookies with the kids since I discovered my cookie cutters in an obscure corner of one of the kitchen cabinets.

Wednesday Triptych

Good news on the answering machine: Micah's service coordinator at Early Intervention called today. The application for the second BAHA has been mailed. It gets sent in to "the State" whoever or whatever that is.

Please let the bean-counting, penny-pinching faceless bureaucrat be in a good mood when the envelope arrives in his or her in-box. Light candles, sacrifice chickens, make offerings to the deity of your choice, keep a good thought, Mama wants a BAHA approval in time for Christmas.

And if approved, I then want JFK to order it quickly, Cochlear to send it via overnight express (the company charges enough for the damn thing, it can spring for FedEx, dammit.)

And I want our audiologist not to be taking any time off if and when the approval comes through so she can order it and get it on Micah ASAP.

I know I want a lot, but Micah deserves it.

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Meanwhile back at the ranch, my Kodak Easyshare printer is only printing half of the pictures and the help page on Kodak's web site and http://www.fixya.com/ were more or less useless. Someone put in the suggestion to unplug it for awhile, as if that is somehow a magic bullet. Duh, tried that one myself before even going on-line to look for answers or suggestions. May that twit's email inbox be deluged with Viagra-by-mail and penis enhancement spam forevermore.

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After group at Summit School today, Micah and I went to visit Marleen and Aliya. Marleen and Pete were in our first adoption travel group, and their daughter Kitty is a few weeks younger than Thea. Pete just came back from Kyrgystan with Aliya who is now seven months old.

Micah was quite taken with Marleen, behaved well around baby Aliya and was quite intimidated by Boomer and Sweet Pea, the two English setters. Who as dogs go are total pussycats - they napped in the sunroom while Micah played with their dog toys. The baby is adorable and just happy to crawl and roll around the floor amusing herself. When I said it was time for us to leave, Micah pulled his "almost all done" routine and then patted Marleen on her thigh for emphasis. He managed to scam several stuffed animals from her, so it was an all around good afternoon for him, even though he got shorted on nap time.

One More Hoop. . . .

. . . . yesterday the audiologist at JFK called. She is providing her part of the paperwork that will result in Micah's second BAHA, if all goes well and the approval process doesn't go beyond March 1, 2009 when Early Intervention washes its hands of us. And she needs a copy of the "Medically Cleared to Wear Hearing Aids" prescription from Dr. Choe. The one that I sent to our service coordinator more than a week ago. Don't these people talk much less share information?Sheesh.

Fortunately I am extremely neurotic about that sort of thing and I still have the originals as well as copies so I could fax it off this morning. And I've already called JFK to confirm that the fax arrived (missing the cover memo, but at least the important stuff made it.)

I am hoping that Santa Claus is going to bring us a second BAHA since it's about the only thing I want for Christmas, but I don't know if my patience is going to hold out, especially if any more roadblocks are tossed at me.

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And today the school district called (on day #19.5 of the 20 calendar days it had to respond) and left a message on our voice mail to schedule Micah's evaluation. December 18th at 10:30 am. I am wondering if the Child Study Team is hoping I'll say 'no' since I think they were told I work Tuesdays and Thursdays, and it's one week before Christmas.

Fat freaking chance, let the games begin.

At least I'll have something to talk about at group tomorrow. . . .