spoken for

When Mom and I went to see Cats, I had been going through her purse for something, and I pulled out this Pampered Chef cheese knife she had in there. I said, “What the heck are you trying to do? Get us arrested?” She laughed and said that that had been in there from some picnic they went on the other day and she kept forgetting about it. And her attitude was, “It can’t hurt anyone anyway.” But you know how they are these days. I knew that they checked coolers at the Muny, but couldn’t remember if they checked purses or not. So we took it out and left it in her glove box.
So yesterday, I had a chance to go see George W. Bush, like I did four years ago… Do you see where I am going with this yet? Anyway, mom called on such short notice that I didn’t feel I could get ready in time to go, and I also didn’t know what I would do with Elijah. So I turned her down. She seemed a bit upset about it because she’d told George she’d take four tickets, and it looked like only she and G were going to be able to go.
Anyway, today she calls me and tells me that by the time they got there, they were about to close the gates (once they close the doors, no one else gets in) and so there were a lot of people running to get in.
The Secret Service busted my mom. Yes, they did. They confiscated her cheese knife, and now she has to buy another one. lol
I was like, “Do I have to follow you around everywhere and take that thing out of your purse?” And she’s all, “I use it all the time, I took it to [my uncle's] the other day because of the dish I brought,” etc.

My mom, busted by the Secret Service.

Now that’s funny.

Um, in other news these past couple of days… (skip to bottom for “pain… great pain”)

Sunday:
I feel like I totally screwed up. I made so many mistakes directing. At one point I put camera on the screens too early because I misread the schedule of events. I didn’t start the 2nd VTR when I was supposed to. And because of that, for all the music, there was no sound going on the monitors throughout the buildings, just video. (Who would have thought, it was just the stupid little ‘record’ button.) I had three camera guys: one is experienced, but tends to zone out and let his camera show it; the other was a kid; the other is kinda new. I could have had B, but the director had already chosen the other three guys and they all showed up. So basically, I am used to having at least two guys (who were out of town) that take initiative - they get their shot, you use it, they get another one. While this would irritate many directors (as my old boss used to say: ‘the director is god.’), I find it useful for a beginning director, especially when there are so many other things to worry about not typical to directing. So anyway, I had to keep telling the three exactly every little thing to do and it just was one more thing I had to worry about. Arg. I know the director will be like, “it’s okay.” But I just feel like I screwed up so bad.

The shower:
Was okay. I mean, I felt like I was on a yo-yo with that. First I’m told, no games, just door prizes. Whatever, I say, people expect games, me and G will come up with a couple of them. Then it’s still - no games. Okay no games. Then we’re started and it’s - hey got any games? We just did door prizes. And then I guess I was a little too loud when I complained for two seconds to Sheila and my mommy-in-law and I guess my step-grandma heard me. I didn’t mean to hurt her feelings (if that’s even possible), but I was so stressed out. So then I attempted to cover, not sure how well it worked though.
I guess it all-in-all was alright. M didn’t seem to mind too much. And then we were even out of there by about 10 after four. So that wasn’t too bad.

But then when my great-aunt got there, she says to me, “I have something for you.” I’m like, “Me????” So she took me into another room and gave me this envelope with my name on it. And she’s telling me that it’s not a big deal but she didn’t want to ‘rain-on-M’s-parade’ basically and that she’s been in the process of doing this for all of the great nieces and nephews. I’m thinking this is going to be an old photograph - probably the one that was still at the farmhouse a while ago, that no one knew who it was, but I figured it out. I borrowed it and copied it sometime ago. But then I open it and there’s money in there. And I’m all, “You guys don’t have to do this you know.” And she’s all, “Yes I do, I want to, get yourself something you want, or do something fun. You can share it with Steve and the baby… if you want to.” I kinda laughed. But I was crying, too. Because the thing is, I guess she thinks that she’s dying. Recently they found out that her ovaries are about the size of pecans, when at her age, they should be much smaller. I don’t know if they know if they are cancerous or not yet. But even if they are, it doesn’t matter, because they can’t operate. Her emphazema is just too far, the doctors won’t authorize an operation. So she was explaining that to me because NO ONE EVER TELLS ME ANYTHING and then she’s all, “oh now they’re going to want to know what I did to you to make you cry.”

She said I could tell my mom but not the other kids (lol), so I was talking to mom in the parking lot later and she said, “Well how much did she give you?” I hadn’t even looked at that point, so I did, she had given me $50!

Yeah, so that $50 ended up being the remaining $50 we needed to pay Steve’s truck insurance.

Some fun that was, wasn’t it?

I don’t know what to think.

But I do know that if my aunt finds out where the money actually went, she won’t be too happy about it (”do something fun…”), so I guess I will have to make up for that next month.

You have to understand, too, some things…
My aunt had one sister, my grandmother, who died in 1963. That made her an only child. Each of them had three children of their own, two girls and one boy. On our side, her great-grandnieces and nephews number a total of 10 (4 boys, 6 girls), one great-great-grandniece, one great-great-grandnephew (Elijah), and one great-grandniece that died in 1992. On her side, she has four grandchildren, one boy and 3 girls. Her son doesn’t have any kids. Her mother, Elijah’s great-great-grandmother is still living, she’s in a home not too far from here - she has Alzheimer’s and has lost the use of the right side of her body, she doesn’t know any of us anymore, only my great uncle it seems.
I just want to make her happy.

Okay I think I’m just rambling now and not getting to any points…

Then after all of that, M and I went up to Garden Ridge to pick out some flowers for her bouquets. We ended up getting orchids and lilies. Okay, not we, but she. I was just there to help her figure out what kind/colors and tell her what she needed. She ended up spending like $64, which isn’t bad, but it’s more than I thought they were going to be because some of them ended up not being 50% off like we thought they would be. But they are all really pretty and I told her that if she needed help putting them together to get me and I’ll come up there (I did mine).

Then I went home and Steve’s family came over here for Elijah’s birthday. They wanted to come on Sunday instead of Monday because Sarah was leaving Monday morning for camp. This is totally wierd. A week without Sarah. He got a Cat in the Hat (real not Mike Meyers) ball, that he always tries to stand on now, a set of Bob the Builder books, and some bath/pool toys. He didn’t get any cake though, we don’t yet trust him with that. ;-)

Monday:
I can’t remember Monday, lol. I must not have done anything interesting.
Oh Elizabeth did come by and bring Elijah his present from her, some little Star Wars books.

Tuesday:
We just went over to swim at Steve’s family’s house. Steve laughed at me said, “Valerie skipped seeing the President to go swimming.” LOL We’re still trying to get E good and used to that water for the float trip on August 14th. Which I have yet to pay for. *sigh*

Pain… great pain…
Okay so I have three of my wisdom teeth in. However, the fourth, lower-my-right, has been bugging me since Sunday - all day every day. I think it might be impacted? Or maybe that’s not the right word? Either way, I think it’s pointing the wrong direction and it HURTS. The others, although there’s really not room for them either, did not really bother me. I didn’t feel the top two coming in at all. But it’s not really the tooth itself that hurts as much as it is the part of my gums that which it is hitting.
This only stresses me out because this is now the fourth day of this, usually it’s only a day or two. And because I really can’t afford getting them out right now (or I might have already done it). And because the pain is stretching farther up my mouth than it ever has before.
I kept eating all these marshmallows last night over at the in-law’s because it was like the only thing I could eat and not feel at all.
So I don’t know what to do. We don’t have dental insurance. And of course, my readers out there already know about all the other medical bills we have.
Do I wait and see if I can put off the surgery any longer?
Or should I call now?