I sat down and wrote a worst-case scenario for the business deal I was stressed over. It was really close to what our original plan was.
I also got up and walked away for awhile. I paid attention to kids and refocused myself into what really matters to me.
I feel much better now.
I have been head down in business concerns for two days. I’ve spent a lot of time, energy, and effort trying to help a friend hammer out a business/bookkeeping plan. We hammered and worked and then presented it to the people it is supposed to benefit. They panicked. They didn’t understand it. They felt like we were trying to take over. Not what I wanted to have happen. This reaction means somehow we failed to present it correctly.
Things have calmed down now and people are starting to talk politely, but I’m still residually stressed. Can’t I just go back to being a mommy and not being partially responsible for a potentially lucrative financial future for two families?
Last friday Howard took Schlock Mercenary off of the keenspot site. It was a step that we’ve needed to take for a long time. Now we don’t have to care when there is a keenspot internal political/ interpersonal mess. It is very tempting for me to explain in detail all the events which led to this necessity, but I could not do so without saying very unkind things about people whom I’ve never actually met. I’ve done a lot of thinking and I’ve decided that I am not going to say anything that could add to the mass of hard feelings that some of these people have for each other. Rudeness only adds to problems and keeping mum does me no harm at all.
I like the new site that Howard and Chalain have designed. I especially like how fast the archives load. I’m curious to see what the Google ad revenues will be like.
I’m also relived that we’re finally getting to the crisis in Howard’s current storyline. I’ve known that this story was coming for more than a year. I’ve been actively nervous about it since Schlocktoberfest 2004.
This may be silly, but Howard is out of the house for an evening and I’m feeling lonely. I’ve gotten so used to him being here 24/7 that when he’s gone somewhere for more than an hour or two I have to quell impulses to call relatives long distance so that I have someone to talk to. This does not bode well for when he actually goes on a trip and is gone for days. I’ve forgotten how to manage without him around. I’m not complaining. This is a problem I longed for less than a year ago. I’m just babbling into my journal because my Howard is gone for the evening.
Today I read this article: (http://tv.ksl.com/index.php?sid=158841&nid=5) It is an example of alarmist marketing.
“Statistics show that roughly 2,000 children are reported missing every day.” That is probably true, but they fail to mention that the vast majority of those “missing” children are at a friend’s house, with a friendly relative, asleep behind the couch, or have some other benign reason for not being where they were expected. Most of the kids who appear on those Missing Children mailers have been abducted by a parent in the course of a custody battle. This is heart rending for those involved, but does not reflect the risk to the average person’s child at all.
Next statement: “Police say the first three hours are the most critical after a child is taken.” This is a true statement. If a child is truly abducted by a “friend” or, much more rarely, a total stranger then the first hours are critical. Having your child’s picture and vital statistics ready to hand CAN be a big help the police greatly. So the idea of carrying the info with you is a worthwhile one whether you choose to keep a photo in your wallet or a USB stick on your keychain. Unfortunately most parents go through the effort once and then, feeling secure, fail to update the photo and info regularly.
What bothers me most about the article is the way that they imply that child abduction is an imminent threat to ALL children. This simply isn’t true. Child abduction with the intent to harm the child is rare. Parents do not need to live in daily nail-biting fear that someone will steal their child. What parents need to do is take proactive steps to minimize their risk. Identity kits are a good step. Teaching kids how to evaluated and talk to strangers is another. Evaluating all the adults whom you allow to have unsupervised access to your kids is yet another. Talking through with kids how to react to a threatening adult is a great idea. Reading Protecting The Gift by Gavin De Becker is a fantastic place to start. There are so many things that parents can be doing to make their children safe, but unfortunately many parents just wring their hands and sleep poorly at night instead.
Only days ago I was lamenting ear infections. I’m about to treble that lament. Kiki and Patches both have infected ears today. The good news is that I was able to get both of them diagnosed in one visit so I’ll only have one co-pay. The bad news is that when Link came down with his infection last Friday afternoon I had a choice of going to the emergency room (And paying grundles of money) or filling an antibiotic prescription in Kiki’s name and giving it to him. I chose to give him the prescription. Only now that Kiki needs antibiotics, the insurance company won’t pay for them because according to their records she’s already on antibiotics. The solution is simple I called the doctor’s office and requested that they reissue Kiki’s prescription in Link’s name. Whee.
Why do they put the toys and candy right next to the pharmacy? While I was trying to sort out prescription nonsense and waiting for the doctor to call the pharmacy and make things official, I had to field begging from Kiki and Gleek about shiny Polly Pockets and I had to stop Patches from filching candies from the bins. Finally I realized that I did NOT want to spend and indefinite length of time at the store waiting for the doctor to call. I carried screaming Gleek and protesting Patches away from all the shiny plastic packaged happiness they didn’t believe they could do without. Gleek tantrumed all the way home. I’m tired and grumpy and I STILL have to go pick up prescriptions. This is NOT how I wanted to spend my morning.
A couple of days ago we recieved a call from Dillard’s credit collection department about Sandra Tayler’s overdue account of $1100. The only problem is that I’ve never shopped at Dillard’s. Howard bought a suit there once, but the most I’ve ever done is walk through the store on my way into the mall. The collection people had my name, my phone number, but someone else’s address. We told them they’d gotten ahold of the wrong person, end of phone call. But the incident preyed upon my attention. Since identity theft is the popular crime these days, I decided to check my credit report. I surfed to annualcreditreport.com to get my free report. There are other sites which offer this service, but their “free” reports come with strings attached. My credit report was exactly how I expected it to be and there was nothing on it from Dillards. I breathed a sigh of relief and expected that to be the end of it.
Today I got two more phone calls. During the course of the phone calls I determined that the Sandra Tayler they are looking for has a different middle initial, different social security number, and lives in a different town. How they managed to attach my phone number to this other person’s account I’m not sure. I AM sure that there is no way they can legally stick me with that $1100 account payment. This is good news. The bad news is that credit collection agencies are notoriously persistant. They expect people to deny responsibility. They expect to be lied to. I’m afraid that I’m in for nuisance phone calls for quite awhile until they manage to actually track down this other person.
I’ve never been on the recieving end of credit collection before, does anyone know what tactics they may mistakenly attempt to appy to me while trying to collect from this other person?
EDIT: April 10, 2005 — The problem is resolved, they’ve stopped calling. Yay!
Tomorrow being Easter, today was the day for the annual coloring of eggs. Patches had never before participated in this ritual, but he has regularly eaten “Daddy eggs” (soft boiled eggs in the shell) and so he reacted to the sight of a row of eggs with joy. He imeadiately picked one up and smacked it on the table. In theory a cracked egg is no good for coloring, but since I use the food-coloring-in-hot-water method I knew it was completely non-toxic. I let Patches have at it. He happily smashed eggs, partially peeled eggs, colored eggs, ate egg bits, spit out shell bits, and then did it all again. The end result was completely ugly and fairly inedible. Fortunately the point of coloring eggs is not having eggs to eat, that’s just a happy by-product. The other kids all colored eggs without cracking any, so I have plenty of hard boiled eggs for next week.
Tomorrow afternoon will be our annual easter egg hunt in the back yard, but that will feature plastic eggs not real ones. And that is the extent of our secular easter celebrations. We will also attend Easter Services tomorrow morning where we will contemplate resurrection, sacrifice, and eternity. I have many many thoughts on all three concepts, but I can’t seem to craft words correctly to reflect the depth of my feelings. Suffice it to say that I am grateful to be here. I’m grateful for the family that I have. And I am grateful for the hope that existence does not end at death.
Gleek had a nasty case of croup last night. There is nothing more terrifying that watching your child struggle to breathe; unless you’ve seen it a dozen times before and you own a home nebulizer for administering albuterol, then it is only alarming. We had about 30 minutes where we were actively treating her and entertaining the idea of a trip to the emergency room. Then the crisis was over. It is nice to not panic when faced with croup, but it isn’t so nice to realize that I’ve lost count of the number of times that I’ve dealt with it. Since croup usually strikes between midnight and 3 AM, we didn’t get much sleep. Even once the emergency was over and Gleek was back asleep, I still woke up every time she coughed or even breathed funny. Part of that could have been because she was in bed with me and was coughing/breathing right next to my ear, but mostly it was the mommy radar on high-alert status. Sometimes croup goes for several rounds in one night, fortunately not last night. Unfortunately further rounds with croup are highly likely in the next couple of nights. We’ll be taking preventative measures, but nighttime mommy radar will be in alert status for several days, so my sleep is likely to be interrupted.
Ear infections are the other ailment that I’m far too familiar with. 3 out of my 4 kids have a genetic suceptability to them. (Inheirited from me.) If you read literature on childhood health care, you’ll know that ear infections are considered a common childhood ailment because most kids will have one before age 4. That’s common? What about one a month all winter long until you put tubes in? Supposedly kids outgrow ear infections by age 3. Tell that to 7 year old Link who is currently suffering from his third infection this winter. My treatment of ear infections would proably be made much much simpler if I had a good otoscope for peeking in thier ears. Then I could be peeking in ears regularly and giving preventative decongestants when I detect fluid. Unfortunately good otoscopes run over $150. There are some discounted ones available on ebay or other internet stores, but I’m reluctant to plunk down money without being able to test whether the device is worth the money spent. The most frustrating thing about ear infections is that the standard treatment for them is antibiotics. Unfortunately doctors are no longer supposed to prescribe antibiotics sight unseen. So even though I KNOW the child has an ear infection and I KNOW they’ll be prescribing antibiotics, I still have to drag multiple children to the doctors office for an hour of “No don’t touch that!” and I get to pay a $20 co-pay for the priveledge of doing it. Then I get to drag them all to the pharmacy where I pay full price for an antibiotic for which generic is unavailable. At least now all my kids are old enough to tell me that their ears hurt. Babies just cry while their mommies have to guess why.
Since three is an aesthetically correct number (3 fates, 3 wishes, 3 act plays) it seems appropriate that I finally got my thyroid test done this week. My levels came back mid-to-low normal. This means that I can’t blame my lethargy and weight gain on my disfunctional thyroid gland. Instead I’ll have to blame it on not exercising and eating too much. It was so much nicer to think it wasn’t my own fault. On the other hand it is good to know that my thyroid condition hasn’t worsened. Now I just need to make exercise happen every day so that I have the energy to do all the other things in my life that I’ve been too tired to do. Speaking of which, I need to do something other than sit at the computer now.
“It’s not like the old ‘Star Wars,’ ” Lucas told theater owners at the
ShoWest convention. “This one’s a little bit more emotional. We like to describe
it as ‘Titanic’ in space. It’s a tearjerker.”
Titanic was one of the most over-hyped, over-long movies I have ever been exposed to. I’ve been planning on seeing Episode III in the theaters. I’m starting to reconsider that intention.