lots of stuff

I've been away from a computer since Saturday morning. I was beginning to experience pain.  Is that a bad sign?

Today I went up to help my best friend, whose mom died of liver cancer this morning.  Diagnosis to death was about a month.  Scary shit, that.  My friend, Stacey, just had a baby 11 days ago (that "penis" section of the last post is his).  She's had a hell of a month.  Of course, I had to coach Ben all the way up--"Aunt Stacey is very sad.  Her MOM died.  Do not ask questions about the body or the cremation.   Do not ask if we can have the parrot now."   I promised Marlene that we would take on of her 6 parrots when she took ill.  My kids have been a bit TOO excited at the prospect.

Yesterday, Steve worked from home because I had a dentist's appt in the morning (two fillings, but at least no root canal, yay!  And I again mangaged to resist the urge to stare into the dentist's eyes, yay!) and a school governing council meeting in the evening. Nice to have him home, but it meant I couldn't get near the computer.  What kind of cave family are we that we have only one computer anyway?  I mean, he works for AOL, fergawdsakes, it's not like he's a cabinet maker or potter or something.

The weekend was spent at my folks' house.  Dad's in Florida, obeying that weird southern-migratory urge that seems to strike the post-60 set.  I mean, Florida of all places.  There are other warm spots that aren't nearly as crazy.  I should probably offer a "sorry" to my beloved Floridian readers.  But really folks, it's nuts down there.
   Saturday night I went to a meeting to discuss organizing my 20th High School reunion.  I'd gotten an email through classmates.com from a girl I was friendly with in school.  Thought it'd be nice to see Barbara again, so I planned to go to the meeting.  Turns out that showing up meant I was going to be on the reunion committee.  Crap.  I'm so not a committee gal.  Barbara asked someone to be treasurer and I said, "ohhh, not me," prompting her to say, "Oh, Deana protested the most, it ought to be her."  I just said, "That would be a VERY big mistake.  Trust me."  I think she knew I was serious.  Thank goodness.  It was a fun night, for the most part.  One chick I could have lived without.  "Oh, my daughter is anall-star cheerleader...When I made the programs for all-star cheerleading...Oh our weekends are so busy with the all-star cheerleading..."  I wanted to say, 'Hello.  Look around you.  Three drama geeks, two of whom were also band geeks, another band geek, and a Latin club geek.  Do you think for a MOMENT we want to hear about all-star frickin' cheerleading?  And you're wearing too much make-up.  And what is up with your hair?  I mean really."
     I'd prepared for the night by digging old yearbooks out of mom's attic.  I found the one from my Junior year and was reading through it.  On the page with the boys' soccer there was a little scrawl to the effect of "I really liked eating lunch with you every day.  You're really funny and nice and I'm glad we're getting along better than we did in chemistry. Love, Al"  He's signed "Al" on all the pics of him on the soccer page, of which there were many b/c he was a captain.  And he was HOT.  He was a senior that year, so I looked for his portrait.  HOT.  And I had no memory of him at all.  I'd been dating an assortment of amiable dorks and this total jock hottie was writing nice things about me and eating lunch with me?  Probably gay.  When I first got to the reunion meeting there were only 4 of us and we had quite a laugh about  our realization that the popular, "cute" kids weren't all that damn cute and that we were ALL better looking than they were and why weren't WE getting the cute dates, huh?
   I also found my 7th and 8th grade yearbooks.  In the 7th grade one, I'd made notations next to the names--fully circled meant "a good friend,"  a half circle meant "nice," and an arc with two dots under it was a turned-up nose and meant "snob."  Cute boys got their whole photo outlined.  Of course, I had to share that at the meeting too.  We all got to swoon at Billy Ferguson again.  He really did look like Scott Baio.  Why do spouses go to class reunions?  It must be such a drag.  I think I'll absolve Steve.  I want to gossip, not introduce him a dozen times.  And he'd rather eat his liver than go.

Oh, AND we continued the Festival of Ben.  He got yet another birthday party.  And then bitched about me not buying him anything at Target today.