Just Another Day

Not too long ago, Hubba-hubba and I were able to get some babysitting (i.e. pay someone a boatload of money to come to our house, ON TOP of the money we were spending to go out. Yay?) and went to one of our favorite bars.  This is fairly ironic, because we don't drink a lot, yet the first place we thought of going when we knew we were going out alone was there.  Well, I'll be honest, we really only have one favorite bar.  I think at this point we are just looking for a place that we can be sure has NO CHILDREN.  Because honestly, we are SICK OF THEM already.  I don't want to pay good money to hang out somewhere where there are children, because if I wanted to hang out with them, I would just STAY HOME.   Anyhoo, we get there and strike up a conversation with the bartender, which we often like to do.  He is friendly, as befits a bartender, but for whatever reason he really started warming up to us. This particular bar is famous for it's ve...

When you have a child with a disability, one of the first things you try to do is get help. Help can come in many forms, from therapists to doctors to the school system. When my daughter was first deemed "disabled enough" (my term) to qualify for our school district's Special Education Program, I was thrilled.  I was coming off long days and nights caring for her, taking her to therapists, and basically struggling by myself as my husband had to, you know, make a living. Therefore when they told me she could be in the Pre-kindergarten program they have for children ages 3-5, I was over the moon.  My god, two hours to myself!  Every day!  She would be given some speech therapy and she qualified at the time for occupational therapy as well.  Didn't matter that the occupational therapy was twenty minutes from the school and I had to sit in the school parking lot while she was there, it was like 45 minutes of heaven to me at the time. When children are accept...

A few months ago at a community garage sale, my son wasted some money on an Anaheim Angels clock.  I'm sure whomever he bought it off of heaved a huge sigh of relief as he left their yard.  He isn't even a big fan of the team, I think he just liked the way it looked. It's an old-fashioned looking clock, with little feet and fake alarm bells at the top.  I'm sure I did not describe that well at all.  Let's see if I can find a picture that sort of looks the same. There we go, it looks exactly like that, even the same color.  Except picture the maybe not-so-famous mascot of the Anaheim Angels, the Rally Monkey, dancing on the face. For the longest time it just sat around, first in my son's room, until my daughter stole it and then it sat in my daughter's room instead.  Simply a change of locale. It didn't actually function, it just looked sort of cool, apparently. Finally, my daughter found some batteries and put them in the clock....

In California, we have something that is called "Transitional Kindergarten."  This is an all day program created specifically for children who have late-year birthdays, such as my daughter who was born in November.  Since they moved the minimum age of entry into Kindergarten back to being 5 before the beginning of the school year, they created TK for children who missed the cutoff, but could still benefit from an all day program to get them ready for Kinder. So, seeing as how my daughter has attended Special Day Class since the age of 3, I was not aware that she was a candidate for TK.  When we held her IEP last March with all of the various staff that make up the IEP team, no one even mentioned TK.  A couple of months ago, another parent asked me why my daughter was not in TK, at first I didn't really have a reply.  Uh, because she didn't qualify?  No, she said, they will assess each SDC pupil on a case by case basis if requested by the parent. Shit....

I am always shocked, shocked I tell you, at how long I go between blog posts. I used to be so paranoid that I would go a day without posting and then what would the universe possibly do without my contribution? We are gearing up for Thanksgiving, but I have decided that the four of us are going to do our own thing, probably the beach in the morning and maybe barbeque something and eat out on the patio with the twinkle lights on in the evening.  We don't normally eat on the patio, so it will definitely be something out of the ordinary. There is no real reason we don't eat there, mostly to do with my daughter and how she is only now entering a phase where we don't feel we have to watch her every single second she is outside.  Not that she doesn't still get into trouble, but she has a better sense of what can and can't hurt her now, so we feel comfortable taking our eyes off of her for a few minutes here and there. We have scheduled another developmental assess...

I like to play Words with Friends on my phone.  It keeps my mind busy, and I prefer it to browsing the web on my phone or playing something as stupefying as Candy Crush. I have several games running at once, mostly with people I've been playing with for a while.  Hi Nance ! Nance usually kicks my arse.  Once in a while, though, I will press the "Random Opponent" button and match up with an unknown.  I've come across some fairly weird people.  One of them berated me for not playing "faster" and making (I am assuming it was a him, based on his user name) him wait for two whole days.  He then insulted me and resigned.    I asked for a rematch, and then told him that I was sorry I had made him wait, but as my phone had broken and needed to be repaired,  his priorities were not at the top of my list.  Well, I said it better than that, but I know I made him feel like the jerk he truly was.  Then I resigned, because I al...

Yes, that is correct. I found a scorpion in one of our bathroom sinks. There I was, around eight at night, innocently going to the bathroom, which is an en suite attached to the master bedroom. I go to wash my hands, and I see a sudden movement in the sink. Needless to say, there should never be any sudden movements in your bathroom sink. Stuck down at the bottom was an honest-to-goodness scorpion. I think I have only seen a couple of them in zoo/museum type places, and I had to look up a picture on the internet just to confirm what I thought I saw.  Because I certainly wasn't going to go stare at it. Hubba-hubba was working overtime at a community festival, and I called him on his cell, which I something I never do when he is working. Especially when he is out and about and not in the office, he tends to be very busy when he is out in the field. So he picks up his phone and says, "This had better be good." "There's a freaking scorpion in one of...