Slackjaw's Forum

One thing we’re discovering about the new double wide is its lack of adequate insulation, especially when it comes to the area of ones feet. It’s gotten so bad these last few weeks that it’s painful to wander through the house without both socks AND slippers on, as if it’s just one or the other, the cold pushes the flimsy foot covering aside and settles right in next to the bone. We’ve made the appropriate phone calls. Gotten bids on new windows and insulation both top and bottom and so far they are sitting on the kitchen counter, waiting for us to make pick up the damn phone and make the phone call. Yet we hesitate… It’s not just the money; we have enough to pay for it without going into debt to do so. But there seems to be the underlying feeling that the more we do to this house, the longer we’ll feel obliged to stay, and right now the house has an unusual feeling of temporarity that we just haven’t been able to shake. I’m sure this happens to everyone at some point and maybe for us ...

I was having a little trouble trying to figure out what I wanted to talk about this week as it’s been so quiet around our corner of the city. We’ve been in hunker-down mode, building fires in the fire place and playing the new board games the Older Boy received for his birthday. Sweetie said I should write about last weekend, as there are friends and acquaintances that might be in need of guidance in the ways of the lazy and slothful. Veterans Day weekend was spent doing nothing—three days of nothing as a matter of fact. On Sunday, Sweetie and the boys didn’t even get out of their pj’s. Granny came over to visit Saturday and that was the extent of our excitement. We read books, played games, watched movies and cooked dinner. On Sunday, there was a pile of old papers that needed going through and a Seahawks football game on TV to watch, so we did both of those things and then just hung out until it was time to start cooking. It was the first three days we’ve had in who knows how long, w...

We have new person watching Ike these days, as we think the other woman we had hired was having difficulty NOT trying to buy drugs while she was watching the little man. Fortunately for us, the late night wrong phone number calls also seem to have dried up with her departure, so Sweetie and I no longer have to look at each other trying to figure out who the hell would be calling us at 11 o’clock at night. As I've said before on this site, Ike is really pretty easy to take care of. He likes to watch a little TV, he likes to have books read to him, he enjoys going out for walks if he’s warm enough and if you can handle pumping gas, you can handle the feeding part. I think that if you just have a little common sense it’s a pretty good gig, if you don’t mind the boredom part of it. So yesterday is this woman’s first day with the boy, and not five minutes after she arrives, she’s telling Sweetie all about how her roommate’s son was removed by Child Protective Services due to a misun...

It was really just the way I thought it would be. Hot days reaching into the upper 90, cooling off in the evening in the hours before the park closed. Monday and Tuesday they open the park an hour early for the hotel guests, so bleary eyed and staggering, we made out way into the park early Monday morning so that we could do the big rides without having the customary wait. We took Ike and the Older Boy on just about every ride we could take them on. Some of the rides there even had special cars outfitted to allow Ike’s wheelchair, so that we wouldn’t have to transfer him, although Ike’s still light enough that we are able to carry him on without too much trouble. Since it was Halloween and all the hotels gave out candy. We dressed up the boys in some makeshift costumes we had remembered to bring and took them from Guest Services to Parking to the hotel’s café and bar, to the front desk. At another Disneyland hotel they had some games laid out for the kids to play, but the lines were to...

Back at last. Much fun was had by all, even though the heat reached into the upper 90's for a few days. We hid out at the pool for the hotter parts of the days, going into the parks in the morning and evening, when the pavement heat wasn't as punishing. Ike prefers doing everything at night these days anyway, as long as he's warm and there are pretty lights to look at. I'll post more later, after I finish transferring all the data from my old laptop to this new one. The new ones big and fancy and so far, works like a dream.