I slogged through work Thursday and Friday with this nasty cold that's going around thinking that the weekend would magically make it go away, except that it didn't, and so I stayed home yesterday and I did my very best imitation of a log. I didn't do anything. Almost anything. Well, okay, maybe I ran the dishwasher. And fed my animals and my kids, because letting them starve would be very wrong. And I drove my kids to school and I picked them up from school and I wrapped presents that the kids picked out for their dad's birthday. And other than that, I made like a very quiet, very motionless log.
I don't sound much better today, but I feel lots better. And lots better is still marginal, but it beats hell out of how I felt all weekend and yesterday. Onward and upward!
My husband got laid off this weekend. Its a long story having to do with industry stuff and basically a whole bunch of guys on this job had to be laid off for technical & budget reasons outside of their control. We don't know what it means yet in terms of whether he'll go to a different plant between now and March. There are some other possible options for contracts - some now, some next month, some in February. He found out today that the soonest possible option won't be until January, so guess what? HE'S COMING HOME! I'm probably a lot more excited about it than he is, but he's making tracks west tomorrow, and that's more than enough of a Christmas present in my stocking than I could have dreamed of.
I'm trying to schedule more evaluations for the little guy. We have one kind of evaluation set up for next week, and I'm trying to work with my insurance company and an out-of-network provider for some other testing. Unless my insurer can work something out with the doctor, I'm going to have to find $1300 lying around in a drawer somewhere so I can make sure we've covered all bases. Does anyone have any good connections with the Money Fairy? Just keep all things crossed. This doctor does not like to do single-case agreements with the insurers and so typically he would require payment from me and let me wrangle out the final settlement with my insurance. That's not quite workable for me, so we need some stars and planets to align in our favor.
Now that Christmas is drawing near, we sing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" pretty much all the time. The little guy was acting up in the car the other day and I said to him, "Shhhhh....Santa's watching. " He turned to me, wide-eyed and concerned. "But HOW does Santa know what I'm doing?" Santa's a stalker, buddy. I didn't even have to try and answer, Amazon Girl took over. "I think Santa's just like God. Except smaller than God. Just like God is all around us, Santa's kind of like that too. He's like God's little brother." She's almost at that age where she should stop believing in Santa. Every few days she comes home from school bent out of shape because some kids just won't stop talking about how they don't believe in Santa Claus anymore. I sense that she thinks they're probably right, but that she's not ready yet to give up the fairy tale. Fine with me - I want her to be a little girl for as long as she can. The teenage years will be here soon enough, and then she'll know everything and I'll know nothing and my makeup bag will be fair game. Stay little, baby.
Tomorrow is Pearl Harbor day. My Grandpa Smith was a WWII vet. He retired from the Coast Guard as a Lieutenant Commander, and he was stationed at Annette Island in Ketchikan, AK. My mother recalls being evacuated from their home in the dead of night to a ship out in the harbor. I can imagine that to a little girl it was probably pretty exciting, but maybe not so much for my Grandma. I visited the Pearl Harbor memorial when I was a senior in high school and my mom took me on a trip to Hawaii. I watched the bubbles of fuel and oil from the sunken ships breaking the surface, and it sobered me to realize that the harbor floor was littered with the skeletons of ships and men, this same harbor where tourists were flocking and enjoying the sunshine and the warm hospitality of the Hawaiian people. Every year I add "World Peace" to my Christmas list, and every year Santa fails to come through. Maybe I just wasn't good enough this year. Next year I'll try harder.
