Romantic Gushiness

 Laura and I just talked about my blogging history here.

 She's out here shoveling her guts out for everyone to see. Telling deep, moving, impactful, important stories about the things our family is going through.

I dropped in to write a review about a silly cartoon.

 I offered to tell something real and true and romantic. She threatened to disappear with all our assets, because she's the only one who knows all the passwords. She made a solid pretense of being a flight risk, because she's a great actor.

She really could take off with all that's left with all our money. Whatever there is left of it. She really does have all the passwords, and it's not like I have any idea how much we have anywhere.

I kind of suspect this may matter to her. I think her last husbands were really controlling about this sort of thing. They seem to be people like my dad who think that the man's supposed to be in charge of all the finances.

I don't have a clue about household finances. I could barely remember to pay my electricity bill when it was just me. Which didn't matter much, really, when I didn't care all that much about things like keeping the a/c going. But it doesn't work all that well when you're trying to deal with someone else who doesn't cope with Texas heat all that well. Like, for example, a kid.

Laura has written a lot about her previous relationships. I haven't. Probably because she's braver than I am. I'd rather just ignore those failures rather than learn from them. Even the ones that I really hoped would be permanent were just learning experiences.

 I feel like I have giant spiders crawling all over my back just thinking about them.

 Maybe, someday, I need to face some of those down. But not today.

Today, I have this strong, wonderful, beautiful woman who danced into my life. She didn't waltz. She didn't tap-dance. She strutted and shared this idea that we could be partners together.

I'm pretty sure I've never published anything about this before, though she has.

Every other woman in my life (except my Mom, Hi!) has been all about our relationship as a conflict. And they were all correct. In a way. Every male/female relationship in our patriarchical society is based around male dominance.

I don't want to dominate the most wonderful woman I've ever met. I've never wanted anything like that. My parents taught me, long ago, that that's how it's supposed to work. But it has never felt "right."

I'm good at some things. She (or he...let's generalize and not judge) is good at other things. Why can't we support each other and try to find ways to make it all work?

Laura and I seem to be pretty good at that. We also seem to be pretty good at working together and combining figuring out how things work while actually making things work.

And, just because I know this will both piss her off and make her happy: she's my ooshy-gooshy bestest girl who's the prettiest I've ever seen. I love her so much; I wish I could cover her in flowers so I could help help her dig her way out. I promise I'd clean up the mess. 

Review: Coyote vs. ACME

 

I took my kid to see Coyote vs. ACME on Monday. I'm really glad we went. It's a good movie (despite whatever other reviews you've read, much less the notion that it wasn't good for anything except a tax write-off), and I'm thrilled we got a chance to see it, much less in a theater. My kid enjoyed it. If he'd grown up watching Looney Tunes, he would have enjoyed it a whole lot more. I think there were two of us in the theater who really got it. One of us would get a laugh out of the foreshadowing, then the other would catch on a few minutes later and also start laughing.

It's fun. It has a lot of heart. It's a serious* courtroom drama with lots of twists and turns and unexpected nuances mixed with corporate intrigue and blackmail. Along with the usual mysterious whistle blowers, sabotage, and baffling puzzles that go along with the genre.

 

I suspect the theater even goes as far as blowing extra dust through the ventilation system, because I might have cried at one point.

 

I don't have any idea what your summer viewing schedule might be like. I think I enjoyed this one more than the newest Spider-Man (which was awesome, in a totally different way). If you have the time and money, I highly recommend watching this while you can.

 

* Well, maybe not completely serious. It is basically a Looney Tunes cartoon in a multi-medium setting that I can't remember seeing since Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Reluctantly Grateful

My great state of Texas did a thing recently that I do not agree with: They instituted a "voucher" program where parents can sign their students up and get $10,000 to apply to private school tuition. In every state where this has happened so far, public schools have suffered. Although my kids haven't been in public schools, I don't homeschool because we hate the school system! I think public education is important and that it needs to be fully funded to meet all of the students' needs, not just the median kids'. This means special ed, English as a second language, 2e, kids at nutritional risk, etc. etc. etc. Money that we pull out of that system to fund people who are already making other choices is unfair to the students who are staying behind in the catch-all schools. 

One other thing here is that the state is funding each student to the tune of $10k when the average in public schools in our state is closer to $6k AND these private schools don't have to be accredited and therefore do not have to perform on standardized testing in the way that public schools have to perform. It's not a fair system, and it seems pretty obvious that the point IS to hobble the public school system further so that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy about how much better "the market" can provide for students... when the fact is that there are some students private institutions cannot and will not take on. They just won't. It's the same as with the postal service: many addresses in the United States would not be worth it for a for-profit delivery service to take on, or else they would have to charge hundreds of dollars to deliver to the hard-to-reach areas.

So there you go: Mail and education are two things that should be level fields in the US. And we know education is not as schools in more affluent areas often have more resources, but at least that is the ideal and we should be moving more toward it instead of chipping away at it.

And yet.

As you've read about for the past 2 years: We are in a financial crunch. James might get to move to full time soon (or they're just dangling a carrot) and that will help immensely. 

But, given how things are, when the sign-ups opened, I put us on a waiting list. We were on "tier 3," which is a low priority for funding, and that was that. 

Then a couple of weeks ago, I got a notice that we'd been moved off of the waiting list and all we had to do was opt in to be funded for $2000 to spend at an online store full of approved educational items, classes, uniforms, etc. So I did. 

And now we have so many things in process, shipping, and that we've already received: a new globe (ours broke about a year ago), some STEM kits, crime scene science, space addition to our MagnaTiles, new crafting supplies like markers (I had just gone through and tested all of our markers and had thrown about 3/4 of them out) and self-stick foam sheets, a telescope, crystal-growing set, etc. etc. etc. Things that will make doing science and math easier. Some of the sets I bought are clearly meant for a small class or coop, so we'll be doing those things with our library group every so often. It's fun to be able to share!

Oh! One thing I got was a great set of magnet "toys" to do various magnet experiments. Last night, Malcolm and I spent a long time at the table stacking ring magnets on an upturned pencil so they'd hover and if you smashed them down, they'd bounce. It was very cool. D used to have the neatest magnets (I got rid of so much stuff when we moved, because I never planned to have another kid, much less homeschool again!) that I'd bought at a used curriculum fair for $5! This set was about $120, meaning I never would have bought it with my own cash money because... groceries and electricity and stuff.

So, yeah. I'm super grateful for the injection of materials our little schoolhouse is getting while still having really mixed feelings about it. It's basically like getting 1/4 of our property tax back. 

I was very surprised how much Abeka, The Good and the Beautiful, and Apologia materials I saw in this store that state funds are being used to purchase. I looked up some Spanish language supports (Malcolm has been doing Duolingo for a couple of years and is making progress) and one that  promised "Your student will speak Spanish in one year!" was called "Christ-Centered Spanish." What does that even mean?? 

Anyhoo... thanks to the great State of Texas, I suppose! My kid will be better equipped because of this.

The Agony of Defeat

A few weeks ago, I decided that it was time to replace our kitchen sink, which had been losing pressure for some time. We'd replaced it when we moved in, but it wasn't super nice to start with. We'd also replaced our garbage disposal, and it was nasty so I got one of those and figured I'd just do all of the things at once.

I got the faucet installed with no problem, but had some trouble taking the garbage disposal off, because it was all rusted and corroded, so we had trouble getting to this snap ring you have to break loose to get the base installation piece out of the sink.

Between James and me, over a few hours, we managed to get it all off and installed the garbage disposal! 

The only problem is that our old disposal was hard-wired into the electric system, and this new one (and all of the new ones) had a plug. So we did call an electrician to wire it for us. We asked about getting an outlet installed instead, since this is the standard now, but that was going to be about $450 instead of $235, so we just asked him to connect it.

In the end, he said that doing so would have invalidated the warranty on the garbage disposal, so he did install an outlet but he only charged what he'd quoted for the visit. Huzzah!

About a week later, I checked and noticed that some water was leaking under the sink. Some investigation showed that it was coming directly from the sink, from what below is labeled "sink flange."

Photo from familyhandiman.com

I pulled everything apart, reinstalled it, and it seemed to be holding tight. Great!

Fast forward to yesterday, and I told James, "I haven't checked it in a few weeks. I will just assume it's working okay.

But me being me, I did pull stuff out and felt around... and the bottom of the cabinet was damp. Not super wet, but the particleboard was swelling and it felt kind of slimy. 

"Is it time to call a plumber?" James agreed that it was.

I had to leave to take Mal somewhere, and in the meantime the plumber came out, found that the sink flange was bent, and fortunately had another one on his truck so we didn't have to buy a new disposal because I guess those single pieces are hard to find??

Later in the day, I was going through my email and saw the invoice from the plumber: IT WAS OVER $700. 

I immediately called the company, which we've used before but on big things that we knew would be expensive, and their service manager got back to me. He said that, yes, that was the price and they don't charge by the hour but by the service. He said they told James the price before they started, but I'm the one who usually does this kind of thing and if I'd been home, I would have told them no, thank you (and I'm pretty sure they would have still charged the $95 visit fee for nothing). 

I got on reddit and asked if I was crazy. People in Austin said they would expect to spend about that if they were also getting the disposal from the plumbing company, and also that this is the kind of jobs plumbers don't necessarily want to do, so they might overcharge for it to discourage having to lie at a weird angle or whatever. They suggested that next time I just get a general handyman. 

James mentioned that yes, they'd told him... and that he just was thinking about needing to get it done but that he might ought to have questioned it. Regardless, this seems egregious to me and I don't think I'm out of line. 

The service manager asked what I thought this should cost, and I said, "$250-300." He said, "Oh, yeah, we don't do anything that cheaply. We are not a sub-prime business." The general consensus on the local reddit thread was that $350 would have been reasonable. 

What's dumb is that the manager who told me that they don't charge by the hour also said, "He did spend two hours there." James then told me that the first hour was spent trying to sell us this platinum service plan. When I mentioned THAT to the service manager, he did offer to refund the $95 trip fee, and I said okay. He asked, "Will that make it better?" I said, "It will make it better, but not okay." And I was upset so I hung up on him. 

Why was I upset? 

Because I try SO HARD to steward our resources well. Obviously, I do minor home maintenance on my own when I can. I bought a couple of shirts yesterday for $5 each because a high-end store sends me a $20 gift card every year for my birthday and I go in, head straight to their clearance racks, and pick out things I'd never pay full price for. (Literally both of those shirts were originally $45-50, and there's just no way.)

Then something stupid happens like I get in an accident and have to have body work done on the car. Or a plumbing company charges us 10x what the garbage disposal cost to install it. 

James has to work almost 50 hours to pay for that repair, and that's basically two weeks' worth of work since he's still part time. We're fortunate to still have a little cushion, but what about genuinely poor or cash-strapped people who need home repair? We really need to replace a bunch of wood on our porch and get it all re-stained. It will be $7500-$10,000. We can't afford it, so we're going to end up like I did with the house in Sherman where there's so much deferred maintenance that we eventually have to sell low to an investor. 

That's why I'm SO frustrated. I cheap out on groceries; we almost never buy meat, and I always get the store brands. I look for sales. I say "no" to things all of the time. Then my stupid nickle-and-diming feels pointless when something huge like this happens that is totally outside of my control. 

That's it. I could rant all day, but I won't. You're welcome.

Happy Very Special Day to Me (and James, maybe?)

 

When you have been married three times, it seems like a lot of people think you don't take marriage seriously.

I do, and what I've learned over the last decade and a half is that being a partner who's trying to make a relationship works doesn't go far enough if the other person in the equation is checked out.

That's why I'm so grateful to have James to spend the rest of my life with, because for all of our faults and foibles and mistakes and difficulties, we're both equally committed to each other. 

The past 13 years and some change have been challenging at times. We've had issues with one or both kids at different times (and the same time). We've had pet stuff that has been maddening and devastating. We've hurt each other, and we've been too tired to put much of an effort in at varying moments.

But ultimately, we care about each other and respect each other. We love each other, and we even like each other. 

A lot of people encouraged me as I was proceeding with my divorce 15 years ago not to give up, and to keep trying to hold it together. But I was experienced enough to know that this was fighting a losing battle. I've never had that weight of hopelessness last more than a couple of minutes since I've been married to James.

We have both cared deeply for each other, and we've also hurt each other maybe even deeper, on accident. We've had misunderstandings and times that different people at different times might have considered deal-breakers. But we've also supported each other and lifted each other up and overlooked so much because ultimately, we know what we want out of our lives and we want them intertwined.

As of August 1, 2026, I've been married to James longer than I have been married to anyone else. It turns out that it's not that difficult; but I'm still really proud of both of us. 

There have been less weird weeks

Do you ever just have a time where it feels like you can't get your head above water?

Nothing terrible has happened this week. In fact, we've had some really sweet times with friends and amongst our household. But it's been... something else.

We were supposed to take Rudy to the vet to get his glucose monitor affixed on Monday, but the vet didn't sent a prescription for the monitor itself (we did get the insulin and the needles), so we had to wait until Tuesday.

Monday, Malcolm and I went to the last summer movie camp show of this season, Bad Guys 2. It was pretty cute.

Tuesday, D and I went to the vet with Rudy. They showed D how to give him his shots, and they jammed a pin into his hip. I mean, that's the business end of the glucose monitor, but it was a whole production. D said if they'd opened the unit to try to put it on themself, they'd have closed it right back and called the doctor to make an appointment. 

The first shot seemed to work, and Rudy's glucose got within range.

Also that day, Malcolm and I went to our regular library/park group and he was actually positively peer-pressured into swimming IN THE LAKE! He is not a lake boy by any means. They had a great time, though, and it was nice to be outside, even though it's been in the 90s all week.

Later in the day, I called the doctor's office because Rudy's glucose was still within range. They said that unless the glucose was below 100, go ahead and give him the next shot. We did... and then I woke up at 3 AM because Aish was acting weird. I looked and Rudy's glucose was near the bottom of the "green" zone and still going down. I was awake for about 2 hours before it started evening out. The monitor will send out an alarm if it gets below 55, but we wanted to avoid hypoglycemia. I finally went back to sleep when it looked like it was evening out.

The next morning, we skipped the shot since his glucose was below 100. After he ate breakfast, though, it started going up again. I did a lot of research and this doesn't seem to be normal. He reacts A LOT to insulin. 

On Wednesday, I was supposed to take Malcolm to Volente Beach, but I asked James if he'd do it so I could rest. I'd also learned that because I paired my phone with the app, my phone had to stay with Rudy or we couldn't get a reading on his glucose since it's a Bluetooth connection. Sigh.

BUT James got called in to work (we need the 8-hour shift!), so I took Malcolm. We had a nice time and, again, "touch grass" is a command because it works. 

Wednesday evening, Rudy's glucose was 350, D gave him a shot, and it tanked again. This time, we were both awake from 1 AM until 4 AM before his blood sugar leveled out and we were EXHAUSTED.

By the time we woke up, his blood sugar was going back up, and while D didn't want to give him a shot, I talked them into it. Two hours later, James took Rudy in to the vet because Rudy was having trouble keeping his legs under himself. We'd given him some corn syrup but it wasn't moving the needle. The vet sent him back home, saying he seemed fine, but that we could bring him back in if he was hypoglycemic... which he was, and we did so ???

Low blood sugar is an acute situation that can cause death. High blood sugar is a long-term situation that can eventually lead to organ failure and diabetic ketoacidosis. I was beginning to feel crazy and hopeless. I think it was the sleep deprivation.

James told me he thought I'd smeared some eye makeup under my left eye, but it was just dark bags from two nights with incredibly interrupted sleep. I felt like a newborn parent whose baby is very ill. 

During that time, James DID take Malcolm to Lago Vista to the swimming pool. When they got there, though, they were told that a kid in swim practice threw up and they'd need 15 minutes to clean out the pool. They went to the hardware store and when they came back, they were told that actually, a supervisor was coming in from Austin so it would be another hour or two. 

James had to work at 6, it was already 2:15, so they came home. Malcolm was so disappointed.

Now that I knew that my phone had to stay at the house, I messaged the whole Friday Urban Air crew to see who was going to be there, since I wouldn't be reachable once we left the house. One family was going to see a movie, one family is out of town, but the other family said they'd be there. Friday plans in the bag.

The vet said to change Rudy to only a half unit of insulin, and only to give it to him when his glucose is over 300. We saw it going up last night, but we needed to sleep so didn't give him a shot.

Malcolm had a very emotional time, loving on Rudy and worrying about his dying. "I can't imagine life without him."

This morning (Friday), D gave Rudy barely .5 unit and it worked; he just needs a TINY drop more to get him into the green zone before it finally bottoms out and is steady. It seems more hopeful today than it did yesterday. 

Malcolm and I went to Urban Air and about 10 minutes after we arrived, I got a text (via my computer and wifi; I wasn't sure that would work until it did) from the ONE PERSON who said they'd be at Urban Air today that she just couldn't get out of bed and her kid didn't feel like coming. BIG SIGH.

Anyway, if you're wondering how we're affording all of this diabetic care for Rudy... we're liquidating one of our old accounts. It's just money, right? And actually, if we don't keep having to take Rudy in to the vet, switch meds, and all of that junk, the actual insulin and accouterments will be less expensive than the food we're feeding our senior cats! Did I mention that D is pitching in? They're really stepping up for this thing.

Now we have a weekend that will hopefully be pretty quiet. It's hot, so we'll be doing a lot of staying inside, except when James has to work in the garden center and when I have to water plants. 

Here are bookends of my day today: Sunrise walk, and golden hour plant-watering. 

This is my neighborhood and I get to see stuff like this on the regular. #blessed

This is my view when I'm squatting down filling my watering can at the rain barrel.

Oh no; I just pulled a Mom move

Just now, Malcolm came in to tell me that the scene in Disney/Pixar's Cars where a group of cars comes up and messes with Mac (Lightning's tractor trailer who transports him to races) while he's nodding off has become a recent meme. Apparently when those cars come onscreen, people love it because it looks so cool. You might remember that Malcolm used to have die-cast cars of every major, minor, and incidental character in all of the movies and those cars were some of his favorite.

I asked, "What was the name of their gang?" Mal said, "I don't remember." I offered, "I think it was something like the Rowdy Ramblers." Malcolm was skeptical but didn't care too much and went about his business.

I did care, so I looked it up and they were the Delinquent Road Hazards (or just Road Hazards, for short). It cracked me up so much. What an old mom thing to do!

Rowdy Ramblers ride!!