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Jun. 22nd, 2010 01:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altarflameSister love. Annie is always reading to Elise. And wearing lipstick. And putting lipstick on Elise.
I called my sister's house on Sunday, and my Dad (who lives in Key West) answered. This was convenient as it was Father's Day. We ended up talking on the phone for awhile and he told me many hilarious stories about HIS Dad, my grandfather who is now living with him. This guy was supposed to die, according to doctors, over a year ago. Instead he's been engaged in a house war with my aunt's boyfriend that is petty and over the top and involves things like drinking blue cheese dressing out of the bottle, scooping mayonnaise from jars with fingers and peeing in someone's coffee mug. I could not help but laugh at his 76 year old antics (when he was here a few months ago I told him he looked so much better, and he answered "The last time you saw me I was half dead - now I'm only a quarter dead"). My Dad is never one to let go of an audience easily so he launched into older tales, like the one where another old guy in Key West's Senior Citizen building was waking him up at 5:30 every morning to give him coffee he didn't even want, and wouldn't take no for an answer. Finally Pa started stealing this guy's junk mail out of the mail slots downstairs. After a week, when he had enough, he chucked his own full garbage bag with all the other guy's mail in it over the railing and down into the courtyard. Obviously if the guy was kicked out he couldn't keep waking him up, right? I told my father that these stories were making all kinds of things about HIM fall into place, and he just chuckled darkly. I swear.
Sunday I was ready for my brother to have a hard time for Father's Day, because his Dad hasn't contacted him or even left a forwarding address in, oh...I don't know, some number of years. And that was kind of an improvement over when he was involved. Grant and I had talked about how Bob might be feeling down about the whole thing. But, he didn't seem to have any effect. He acted like he was at the high end of his own mood range, which is sort of what "neutral-mildy pleasant" is for other people. He got all of his chores done and came and told me since it was Father's Day it was cool with him if me and Grant went out somewhere together and he would stay here with kids. I thought that was cool. Bob isn't really much of a babysitter but he knows how to put on movies or make a sandwich for Elise and he's here to cover legal liability or get them out in case of a fire...overall they are pretty self sufficient as a group so it works out, he mostly sits around on the computer, and we always have our phones. But then Bob dissapeared? Like right as we were getting ready to walk out the door I heard he'd walked over to Grant Sr's? He acted pissed on the phone that we'd been "taking too long" to leave (?) and when he got back here (Grant gave him a ride) he was on this Playstation 3 kick again - he and Robby really want to use our PS3 and we keep saying no because of various factors, like that day I was telling him he gets super engrossed in video games and sometimes super angry, and I would rather he didn't play while we weren't here, as well as the PS3 being in the room with the only tv and big couches, where we would be putting on a movie for the kids. He kept coming up with every loophole variation on earth (the kids could all 5 crowd around the computer with a movie on while I take up the whole tv room! I could project it on this green wall even though there's no way to hook it up to the projector and they could all 5 sit on the loveseat! Nevermind that you don't want me playing video games while you aren't home!) It became very clear very quickly that he had actually only been offering to babysit as a means to get us out of the house so he could use the Playstation and we were ruining it, and he was so mad and just radiating tension and misery and unnapproachable hoohaw that I was finally like, yeah, not leaving my kids here alone with him. *sigh*
This launched a heavy talk between G and I about how Bob is really probably never an appropriate babysitter at all because you just never know when he's going to start acting like that (gritting his teeth, clenching his fists, turning his eyes but not his head to look at you like some kind of fucking psycho) and how in general his uber-depressive tendencies and all black wearing, zombie paranoid, weapon hoarding self is something we want out of here sooner than later because we are freaked to hear Ananda sometimes mimic his speech patterns, for instance. Or for any of the kids to think it's "ok" or normal for people to act like he does. I want his sort of behavior and attitude to seem weird and wrong and freaky to them, not like "that's just how some people are", like that's what they should seek out or accept for themselves... he is my brother and I love him, and I think this has been good for him; he cooks for himself, he's doing chores regularly, he's comfortably on public transporation now and is staying late at JobCorps to play pool with people. But we are gonna be presenting him with a "this is the date we want you out by" that gives him plenty of time to have finished up at JobCorps and had his job placement and his $1200 for finishing. Even if this is a year and a half out (I am really not sure how long JobCorps goes on for) I will feel better not seeing it as FOREVER and I think it will help him to shift his perspective to needing to be independent within a finite period.
Anyway. So classy, having Father's Day (partially) at McDonald's. The day actually really improved once we left the house - first we went to a fruit stand and cleaned up - I am so psyched about "discovering" the one closest to my house. I don't know why we haven't traditionally went there, it is so much closer than the others, but now that we have (for the lychees) I'm thinking of treating it like a staple store. Fruits, vegetables, eggs, honey, all super local, super fresh, super CHEAP. Anyway, I haven't went and sat in a McDonald's in...3.5 years I guess, since we stopped at them on the way to/from Boston for places for the kids to play after dark. It was bizarrely TRYING to be classy, with like hip colors and murals and Starbucks-esque coffee drinks advertised all over.
DO YOU SEE THE LYCHEES?!?! So freaking good. I do not understand how people in other places live without lychee season happening ;)
Anyway, the lure was INDOOR, AIR CONDITIONED PLAY on a 95+ degree day.
After the fruit stand and McDonald's we took the kids over to Teresa (mil) and Chuck's. Chuck apparently got a gold cart, and it cracks him up immensely as a "New Yorikan" (Puerto Rican from NY) that the golf cart is a Cadillac with fringe all around the top. When they weren't taking rides, they were playing Rock Band and coloring giant pictures for Grant for Father's Day.
Rock Band:
G and I wanted to go somewhere alone together, though we were still trying to figure out where. Then my mother in law asks if we want a Cheesecake Factory giftcard?! YES WE WANT A CHEESECAKE FACTORY GIFTCARD I mean, what, aren't you going to use it yourself? Apparently as the chair of every committee in town and being on the board at Patrice's charter school and all these things, she gets a lot of giftcards, because she pulled the Cheesecake Factory one out of a STACK of them held together by a rubber band. I've actually always wanted to go there and never had. And it was really good! The chicken pot sticker things, with ginger sesame sauce were incredible, and I actually got a pina colada with like, rum in it. That's half a glass of wine and a pina colada in one week, raging alcoholism in 3...2...;)
♥ Mango key lime cheesecake with macadamia nut crust ♥ Eaten in front of Weeds hours later while everyone else was sleeping. He had chocolate coconut O_O SO GOOD.
My mother in law is moving away in a few months, and I'm going to miss her a lot on a lot of levels. Elise spends every Wednesday evening with her while the other kids are off at activities and it's like their special thing. And Grant really loves his mom; it's gonna suck for him. He loves his Dad, too, but his Dad is way harder to get close to/feel comfortable around, especially for him. I dunno.
So yesterday we had this super awesome school day. It was the very first day Elise did any kind of schoolwork, though she's been asking to forever. We got her the Kumon "First Book of Tracing" for 2-3-4 year olds (supposed to be to help them master controlling the lines they make so they can move on to letters and numbers). She LOVED IT and wanted to do the whole book in one sitting (we actually did like 15 pages before I switched her to coloring so we'd have some for other days) and I was so proud of her.
...smile?
WHAT, McDonald's and coloring books in one post?!?! :p I'm sure you can tell we were collaborating.
Ananda took this last night, after she was done with her.
Foundation, Annie? Really?
My nephew Brian had a five minute long febrile seizure last night :/ He has had other seizures with high fevers before and they are basically harmless and expected within certain guidelines; something he'll grow out of, though they terrify Laura. But last night's was FIVE SOLID MINUTES - he was purple...so she had the paramedics there, and Frank came home early, while this poor 3 year old kid rants and raves with hallucinations and junk. I had to call the police department to get a message patched through to him, he was out on a rescue. I hear this heavy sound in my sister's voice that I remember feeling, when Elise was very small, and it just sucks.
He's better today though.
For those of you waiting on an Andrea update, I don't have one. The last thing that was posted on facebook, I posted on the previous comment thread. As soon as I know something, I will relay it.
Tags:
- ananda,
- bob,
- brian,
- elise,
- father's day,
- grant and i,
- homeschool,
- lychees,
- my dad,
- pa,
- pictures,
- teresa,
- weeds
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Date: 2010-06-22 06:30 pm (UTC)poor brian. :/ i worked with a kid who had febrile seizures, which was so terrible for his mom. she was always really concerned with not letting his fevers get too high, because of it. is he okay now?
and it's "nuyorican" fyi :)
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Date: 2010-06-22 07:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-22 07:05 pm (UTC)Oh, and yes, btw I said in the entry that he is better today...it's really bizarre how simultaneously TERRIFYING and...totally benign...they are. My sister is definitely hugely concerned about not letting fevers get high, though, which I totally understand.
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Date: 2010-06-22 09:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-22 09:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-22 07:40 pm (UTC)(2) Man, Elise (and all your kids) are so cute.
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Date: 2010-06-23 05:54 am (UTC)My youngest has febrile seizures, I was just thinking its coming up on six months without one but she was acting all twitchy and breathing weird last night during a power outage (it got super hot/humid inside) so I'm not jinxing myself. <33 to your sister. Did they give her any medication? They gave us a pen to administer for her seizes (they've all been 5 minutes+)
Cute bbs <3333
no subject
Date: 2010-06-24 04:40 pm (UTC)They don't have any medication for Brian, this one at barely 5 minutes is the longest he's had.
As for Andrea, Grace is updating her LJ now but it's locked, I think by default? I don't know for sure. She is still in the coma and on life support. She had the biopsy and it went well. There doesn't seem to be any kind of flu? And they're talking about 3 months in the hospital :/
Apparently Grace's cat, which was about to have kittens, was hit by a car right before Andrea was admitted, and now Peter is showing signs of strain and I think they are all just going through a lot. The updates are not daily; more like every 2-3 days, and they don't say much. I'm really waiting for a "She's awake!!" but that has not happened so far.
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Date: 2010-06-24 06:24 pm (UTC)I'm hoping to see the she's awake post SOON! :( This is so crazy, was she really sick prior? :(
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Date: 2010-06-24 05:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-24 04:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-24 11:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-25 04:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-25 04:46 am (UTC)2. I can't believe you actually made that icon.
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Date: 2010-06-25 04:51 am (UTC)2) I'M SO EXCITED!
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Date: 2010-06-25 05:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-25 05:22 am (UTC)