randomly chaotic and frequently mundane

Got his bus assignment Wednesday so he went to school yesterday.  It was so cute when he got on the bus.  He was all kinds of eager.  He had his little Batman lunch bag and hopped up on the bus.  Then he sat right down in the same spot he sat on the bus last year.  I talked to his teacher, he did pretty good except for a few fits at school.  Those were expected.  He had a few fits at the start of last year, too.  I also found out that he used a urinal all by himself.  As far as I know, he’s never seen a urinal.  So I’m guessing that seeing a peer use it was encouraging to him.  Got some information about the class, and his teacher is going to call me after school everyday next week to discuss his progress and adjustment and stuff.

A “Captcha” is a bot blocker.  The squiggly letters/words you seen when logging in or registering for a website.  It’s a human test.  If you can enter these characters correctly, congratulations — you are presumed to be human.  If you can’t enter them correctly you’re either not human or don’t have prefect eyesight.  Fortunately for those of use who have less than perfect eyesight you can usually keep doing the test until you get it right.

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Gage still doesn’t have a bus assignment.  When I talked to them last week they said 5-7 working days.  Well, Monday was 7 working days.  I’m irritated as hell, to say the least.  I have another call into transportation.  They only check voice mail twice a day and will get back to me the next day, according to the message.  So I should hear from them today.  If I don’t hear from them by 2, I’m going to call and express my irritation more aggressively.  I just have to try and avoid 4-letter words while I’m doing it.

I was watching Les Miserables in Concert yesterday.  Gage seemed to enjoy the music.  He was humming along.  I’ve been working on getting him to say a few more words.  Particularly to vocalize the things he wants.  Instead of just bringing me something he wants and saying please, I’m trying to get him to say “waffle please” or “movie please.”  I’ll work on the specific names of the movies later.

Depending on the resource you’re checking, my name means either “pearl” or “of the sea.” Maybe that’s why I’ve always quite liked pearls. I think it would be nice to own a pair of lovely pearl earrings. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen any genuine pearl jewelry. I know I’ve never worn any. You don’t really see pearls in jewelry stores that often, do you? I know I haven’t. I’ve seen pictures of black, white and pink pearls on a few websites. Also multicolored Tahitian pearls, which are very pretty. I think if ever I were to buy myself some pearls, that’s what I’d go for — Tahitian.

I’m not sleeping well lately.  Waking up a lot in the middle of the night.  Gage does every now and then as well.  Usually when he wakes up in the middle of the night he comes and sleeps with me.  Which is cute, but he moves around so much that I spend the night getting kicked.  This morning he was on the couch.  Which was really cute.  He does tend to fall asleep on the couch a lot, and it IS a comfy couch. I’m so exhausted.  I keep meaning to take a sleeping pill to help me sleep through the night.  And then forgetting.

Still waiting on Gage’s bus assignment.  If I don’t get a call by noon, I’m calling the school.  Yesterday was 7 working days from registration.  They said 5 - 7 working days.

My best friend lives in reasonable driving distance from Lake Tahoe, as does my brother. I think that it would be great someday to spend winter break there with them and anyone else who would care to join us. Family, friends and kids welcome, of course. I might even give skiing a try. Of course I’d be more likely to spend that time in casinos or the many other activities they have there. I’ve been looking at this interactive Lake Tahoe ski resort map. It’s pretty cool. It shows activities that I didn’t know existed, like Waxen Moon, which is a place where you can create your own candles and Northstar which looks to have just about everything. The map also shows locations and descriptions of restaurants, casinos, coffee shops/bakeries, bike paths and everything else.  It would definitely be fun to spend a few days or a week with some people I love at Tahoe.

and by the trilogy, I mean THE trilogy — there’s only one “The Trilogy.”  Star Wars, of course.  I put in A New Hope yesterday to see if Gage would watch it.  Lo and behold, he did.  Intently.  He even hummed along to the music and mimicked light saber noises.  A couple of hours after watching it, he brought me the tape and handed it to me — his way of telling me he wants to watch a certain movie.  So I put it in again.  He watched again.

Today he asked for it again.  Instead of A New Hope, I put in Empire Strikes Back.  There was humming, light saber noises even blaster noises.  So when Empire ended, I put in Return of the Jedi.  Again, Gage watched.

Now he’s humming the Imperial March — indeed, he is my boy!*  It’s so very cute.  I could certainly deal with an addiction to Star Wars.  Personally, I could watch the trilogy over and over again (oh wait, I have).  Maybe he’ll get some Star Wars toys for christmas or something.

* - for those of you who don’t know, when I got married I walked down the aisle to the Imperial March, and I woud do it again.

TNT is showing Lord of the Rings this weekend, and I’ve been watching. I can’t resist. And of course, every time I watch it, I feel the need to hit you tube and play this. What can I say, it cracks me up. I know, I’m crazy. But it’s funny. And every time I watch LoTR and Legolas says “They’re taking the hobbits to Isengard,” I have this tremendous urge to log on and play it.

I think that the Lord of the Rings is my 3rd favorite trilogy behind Star Wars (#1) and The Godfather (#2).

Speaking of Star Wars… I put in Star Wars (A New Hope) yesterday and Gage watched intently. And then an hour or so later he indicated he wanted to watch it again, but bringing me the tape and making light saber and blaster noises. It was SO cute. Maybe I should dress him up as someone from Star Wars for Halloween. A Jedi or something. That would be cute. I don’t know, I haven’t decided yet.

I have a lot of family in Florida, so I spent many summers and Christmases in during my childhood in Florida. Lots of trips to Disney World, the beach and various other parks in Florida. I know a couple of people who have Florida villas for vacation purposes. My sister’s in-laws, for example, have one on or near the Disney property — which my sister’s family uses every year when they go to Disney World. It’s been a dream of mine for a long time to have some kind of vacation property down there. To make it easier to visit family and take Gage to Florida. I believe that he would love the beach, and that Disney World would hold more magic for him than it ever did for me (and that’s a lot). I think it would be fun to spend the holiday season down there sometime — spend Christmas at Disney. I hear that their holiday decorations are spectacular, but I don’t remember ever going while the park was decorated for the holidays. That’s something I would like very much to see. Something I’d like very much for my son to see also.

Piano is gone.  I moved the dining room table where it was, and the kitchen is really opened up.  Now I just need to find a way to get a smaller dining room table.  This table could seat 6.  I want something that seats 4 at most.  I’d also like actual dining room chairs, instead of metal outdoor chairs.

I also had 1 of my ebay auction winners come and pick up his item, which was nice.  Less packing and shipping for me to worry about.

Gonna pack up what I can before going to the grocery store.  There’s a mailbox there I can drop stuff in.  I probably don’t have the materials to pack up any auction stuff, but I can pack up some paperbackswap stuff.  A couple of books, plus we’ve got an ongoing “swap” on there where people offer up items they don’t want/need anymore and others request them free of charge.  No shipping, no credit, no payment necessary at all.  The sender covers shipping.  So essentially it’s a random act of kindness, except that the recipients choose their items.  I have a few things en route to me.  And a few things that I’m sending.

I had a few ideas for things Gage can make for people for Christmas presents… I just need to get the stuff.  I think he’ll love doing it, though.

Woody has sleep apnea and let me tell you it can be pretty scary. Waking up in the middle of the night because the person next to you stopped breathing. I used to shake him (and wake him up, from time to time) when that happened. One of my biggest fears is that he might have passed it on to Gage. There are times that I check on him and I can’t hear him breathing or see his chest rise and fall. It scares the heck out of me, that’s for sure. If it becomes necessary, I think I would take Gage to a sleep study and see if it’s an issue that warrants concern and some kind of action. I don’t know that he’d do any better with one of those breathing masks than his dad would do, though. I think Gage moves around way too much for something like that, it’d never stay in place. I’ve considered going to a sleep disorder center myself, for insomnia. I’ve always suffered bouts of insomnia, every couple of years. Some of them were short — a month or two. Some were longer. I had one that lasted almost a year. It was not fun. I’m on the 4th month of an insomnia cycle at the moment.

I keep getting compliments on his coloring, as if I had something to do with it.  People seem especially intrigued with the fact that his markings extend all the way down his tail as opposed to that dark line down the top of the tail that so many dogs have.  He’s collar-less at the moment, he shook his collar off in the yard somewhere, and I haven’t found it yet.  So I guess I’ve gotta get him a new collar soon.  New tags as well.  I did find a site recently that sells them for $3.50 each and $2 shipping no matter how many you buy.  I like to get extras.  Tiger tends to lose his tags more than his collars.  So right now he’s a naked puppy.  Which is nice.  The reason we always get him a chain collar is because it doesn’t interfere with the visual aspect as much as a nylon or leather collar does.  Unfortunately, they are easy to shake or scratch off.  I don’t think it’s intentional though, because he gets so excited when he sees that I have his collar and puts his head right through.

Woody’s grandmother suffers from Alzheimer’s. It’s so sad, because she’s such a kind and wonderful woman. I’ve adored her from the first time I met her. Even more heartbreaking to me is that she’ll never really know some of her great grandchildren. Memory Walk is something that I’ve been hearing about for years. It’s a great charity event that endeavors to raise awareness and funds for Alzheimer care and research. I’d like someday to participate in the walk, but for now I have to content myself with promoting the event and sponsoring a walker. It’s only a small contribution, I know… but it’s a contribution nonetheless. And every little bit will help, of course. Besides, it feels good to do something that will hopefully help someone who has to endure this heart breaking illness.

They still need team captains to sign up, so if it’s something that you’re interested in, you should definitely visit the site and sign up — especially if you’re a good motivator. It’s very easy to do, just make sure you sign up early enough to be able to get a team together. Put together a team of your friends, family members or colleagues. If you do sign up, let me know. I’ve made a small general donation already, but I would like very much to find a 2007 participant to sponsor as well. Alzheimer’s is, unfortunately, a medical concern that effect just about everyone eventually. Whether you’re the person who suffers the illness, or the family that suffers the heart ache.

and no bus assignment.  Apparently, they’re backlogged pretty bad at the districts transportation department and half the students attending DPS schools don’t have their bus assignments yet because they’ve either moved into the district or moved to a new home in the district over the summer.  Bleh.

The piano will go today and I’ll get the remaining $45 balance.  Good.  I need to go to the grocery store and get some packing supplies.  I’m outta tape, and I need that for boxing up stuff and shipping, ya know.  I also need a few mailers.  At some point today I want to go through and pull out some more stuff for ebay listing.

Like any girl, I love pretty things. Silver Jewellery is one of my favorite things to shop for. I especially love browsing it online, because you can usually find a good price online, not to mention finding exactly what you’re looking for. Rings are my favorite pieces to shop for, but every now and then an anklet or a pendant really catches my eye, like this one which is available at ElementJewelry.com. What can I say, I’m a sucker for pretty silver and garnet jewelry.