The Crab Chronicles

Home!

I am SO glad to be home! We had a great vacation. I was able to relax, and just read a book, several times. Lesleigh was great about doing things with the kids so I had a break. It was great to sleep late, eat very liesurely meals, and do what I wanted, most of the time.

I got my car back Friday and it drove like a dream, Les reported. She drove it home. I knew the air conditioner thingy was going out. I am just glad it was fixed and we didn't have to alter travel plans.

Before we left Hilton Head yesterday morning, Lesleigh took the kids out to the beach very early, and they learned about sand dollars and starfish, and watched the sunrise over the Atlantic, which is amazing. Mike threw starfish back in the ocean. We are trying to teach them to be very respectful of sea life, and not exploitive and destructive.

We spent a lot of time yesterday with mother's cousin Frank, who is like a brother to her. He and his wife have a beautiful home just off the Georgia coast, near St. Simon's Island. The kids swam in the pool, and we had a nice lunch. Frank and Karen both do amazing woodcrafts and make gorgeous wooden bowls and containers, giving new life to old wood. (We keep our two bowls on the mantel, as they are so beautiful.) We had dinner last night at a place called The Crab Trap, on St. Simon's, and had a wonderful meal. Frank's daughter and grandson joined us. I had crab cakes which were wonderful. Michael had shrimp creole, and Alesia had mahi mahi, a new fish for her. Everything was great, but the drinks. The water there is , um, different. My Sprite and Mike's water tasted odd. I got him a bottle of water and he was happy. The lowcountry also has a distinctive smell, of marshes and mud and sea life, and it can be disconcerting to folks not used to it...

The trip home today was bittersweet, as all vacation endings are, to me. We stopped at Denny's for lunch, and Mike was reluctant to drag himself out of the car and eat. After we got to the table, and he was Mr. Grumpy, I finally just lost patience and went to the restroom and gave Mother the signal to try and persuade him to eat. When I returned, he had ordered pancakes and hash browns. He ate an entire order of big pancakes, a plate full of hash browns, and part of Mother's club sandwich. Then he informed us that we should stop and get more snacks to eat in the car. I laughed. When we walked out of the restaurant and I asked him if he had gotten enough to eat, he said NO. I think he is growing. Just a hunch.

Here are a few photos from vacation... I will post more later.

 

 

 

 

Quickie Update

I have 5 minutes left on my internet connection so this will be a quick post.

We had a nice relaxing day yesterday. I forgot to mention I took the kids to play mini golf yesterday morning. I love mini golf. I got a kick out of the fact that on this particular course there were tomato plants growing in sunny spots. The owner must keep an eye on them when they ripen. I am sure there are other people like my kids who will pick ripe tomatoes right off the vine and eat them.

Michael and Alesia both whack the golf ball so hard we had to do dozens of "do-overs." It got rather aggravating. I kept telling them to calm down and tap the ball. It's mini golf or putt putt - not WHACK THE BALL AND HIT IT TO THE MOON.

This morning everyone slept late and we are doing very little. Tonight will be a funny hodge podge dinner, trying to clean up leftovers so they don't have to be left or hauled off tomorrow.

There are tiny rabbits on a beautiful lawn just underneath our condo balcony. The music from the Holiday Inn outdoor bar next door drifts over, which is pleasant. Last night the guy singing sounded great at 6, but by 8 was sounding drunk. We got tickled listening to him, especially his off-key rendering off Allman Brothers songs.

Tomorrow we are off to see my mother's cousin and his wife, and spend the night on St. Simon's, which will be fun.

Vacation Drama

I guess every vacation I have ever taken has had some drama. Yesterday we got the drama done, I HOPE.

Lesleigh took Alesia to run some errands mid day. I took Michael to the swimming pool and we stayed in the pool a long time and played. I got out to go lie on a lounge chair and Michael hollered that Granny was signaling me from the balcony. I ran upstairs in a dripping wet bathing suit and she said Les and Alesia were broken down. I called Les' cell phone. They were in the parking lot of a convenience store, fortunately.

I insisted Lesleigh drive my car because I just had it serviced. I had to call a tow truck, last night, and I got Les, Alesia and the groceries home, finally. I talked to the repair shop this morning. I need a new alternator and some air conditioner thingy and it's $800. YIKES. Les asked me if I was going to get different estimates. I am on vacation. I can't do that. I just need to get the car fixed so she can drive it back to Atlanta.

My car is 10 years old, but it's never given me any major problems. I was told by the Mazcare guys it should last another 100,000 miles. I plan to drive it until it falls apart. I can't afford another car payment.

We had lunch today at the marina at Sea Pines, which was fun, seeing all the boats, but HOT. We were sweating up a storm. Then when I pulled the car in front so the kids could help Mother get in, some guy behind me kept beeping and making rude gestures. He wouldn't go around. Young punk. Then he parked in a handicapped space! I should've given him the finger, but Mother would've been horrified.

I plan to do NOTHING tomorrow except eat up the leftover food in the condo and lounge around. That's the plan, anyway...

I will post photos when I get home on Sunday.

Y'all stay cool....

Winning the Games

Things are rocking along here at the beach. I hate to think we have to be home Sunday.

We had a great lunch yesterday at kind of a pricey restaurant called Truffles Grill. The food was wonderful. I had rasberry lemonade that was delicious. The waiter was really somber and wouldn't smile, until I finally joked him into it. Mother left a nice tip. Then we got a big smile from him. He had braces, poor guy.

Lesleigh took the kids to the beach yesterday, which left me free to lounge around and get some reading done, a rare treat.

Last night, Lesleigh was playing Othello with Michael, and she said "Wow, this is a fun game. I really like this game." Michael's response: "You like it because you're winning!" We thought that was pretty funny.

We like to play games a lot on vacaiton. We played a great game yesterday called Apples to Apples. It's a fun way to help kids learn new vocabulary, plus for my kids it introduces them to some American culture. Look it up, if oyu have older kids and are looking for fund educational games.

The internet cafe here is 5 minutes from the condo, so easy to do, which is great. I let the kids get on the internet, a rare treat for them.

There are thunderstorms expected today, so we may hit a movie if the kids get restless.

Third Day the the Beach

We are having a great time at the beach. Things are very relaxed - just hanging out, for the most part, swimming, walking on the beach.

We eat lunch out, but all other meals in the condo, which saves money. There are still a lot of people here, which is sort of annoying to me, as I hate crowds, but it doesn't bother the kids.

We had lunch yesterday at a restaurant called Skillets, an informal place. I had seafood crepes, yum. The music being played was all hits from the 1970's. I heard songs I haven't heard in years. My kids get annoyed if I start singing along, however softly, but I like to warble and get a groove thing going a little just to see them squirm! LOL [I don't make a spectacle of myself, just enough to be funny...]

Michael's shoulders are peeling now. He is fascinated by it. Coming from a place as cold as Kazakhstan, I can understand his lack of experience with it. One entire wall of our condo is mirrored, so he checks himself out there every time he walks in that room.

My cousin Lesleigh came in last night and will be with us a few days, which is great. She is like a sister to me, and the kids love her. So her presence will make things more fun.

To all my friends at work reading this - wish you were here! Seriously...

Greetings from the Beach

We are here at Hilton Head! We got in about 4:30 yesterday after an uneventful trip. I gave the kids Dramamine and they slept part of the way, which was great.

 I had thought Michael was getting a terrible cold but today he seems fine. Of course, I’ve been giving him Vitamin C supplements.

 The condo is really nice - not so "beachy" - looks like a normal apartment. There are 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. Kitchen is big.

 The island is crowded but we hope some of the crowds will thin out maybe tomorrow or Tuesday as the holiday weekend passes.

 The kids and I went swimming this morning and the water was COLD. The ocean was cold, too. There were 5,000 people on the beach. I am not much into crowds. I like to just walk and look at the ocean, not worry about drowning toddlers or cringe at tacky tattoos.

 Rain is predicted for the week. Hopefully we can get in some swim time in the mornings.

 We had a wonderful lunch at a place called the The Black Marlin at one of the marinas. Mother wanted the kids to see all the boats. They were not all that excited but I enjoyed seeing the many boats. I am entering my second childhood, it seems. The restaurant has Wonderful food. The kids got sushi salads. I got eggs benedict over crab cakes, with cheddar hash browns! Every single food was excellent. We got 3 go boxes – and we rarely get go boxes! LOL

 I was in the bathroom at the restaurant and I just got this feeling of happiness [no, not while tinkling] – just because I thought, I am listening to Van Morrison’s Moondance [one of my favorite songs] and we’re at the beach! There’s noplace I have to be. We can relax. Hallelujah.

 The internet cafe is a bit pricey but we will probably come over for a little while every day or two.

 I am SO glad to be on vacation.

Fleeing the Backslappers

I am so proud of both my babies today.

Alesia’s grades are 3 A’s, 4 B’s. Pretty impressive, huh?! Last semester she made 2 A’s, 3 B’s, and 2 C’s. I know she has worked hard this year and has really developed better study habits. Most importantly she is starting to really understand the importance of doing well in school. I have seen a lot of growth and maturity in her. I told her that the other night. Sometimes I tell her in Russian, “You are SO smart. I am SO proud of you!” I think she likes hearing it in Russian.

She has to take the graduation test at school next year, so I am going to get her to do some studying for that this summer. I am not really worried about math and science, but English and History are hard for her. I don’t know why they start the kids taking that test in junior year - maybe just to practice?

Michael graduated from the 5^th grade this morning. I cried throughout the whole thing. Heck, I got teary in the car on the way to school. I didn’t blubber loudly, but I had to keep a Kleenex in my hand. Michael won an academic achievement award. He also got an award for running the mile in just over 8 minutes. I told him how proud I was of what he has achieved. It’s remarkable, when you consider where he was just two years ago.

He seems like a big kid to me, until I see him with his peers. He was among the smaller kids in the 5^th grade. About half the girls were bigger than him. Some of the boys were taller than me. It was an extremely diverse group, too. I only counted a handful of Caucasian kids, which is fine. A lot of the kids were Hispanic. Several are Asian or Indian.

I could not get him to wear dress pants. I tried. All the kids looked so nice, some even wearing suits and ties. Mike wore blue jeans that were too big. I did get him to put on a white dress shirt and his new tennis shoes.

After the ceremony, I was talking to some other parents and somebody slapped Michael on the back, which provoked an outraged "OW!" from him. His back is still tender, despite repeated applications of Lidocaine with aloe. So as soon as he got that back slap Michael looked at me in alarm and said “Let’s get OUT of here!” We exited. Not even cookies and punch could keep him in the room with backslappers.

Mike played his T-2 match today with the sunburn still bothering him, despite another liberal application of lanacaine. It also started raining towards the end and he was worried about getting his prosthetic wet. Poor kid. He lost. Maybe getting back into lessons in June will help. He is not as cocky as he was just a few months ago. He is starting to see that to really excel at tennis he’s going to have to work. That’s OK. It’s good discipline.

He always complains when he loses that “the net was too high” or “the balls bounced weird” or “The color of the court was distracting” – a million excuses. I just listen and say nothing. When he gets a little more mature he’s going to have to own his performance and not blame externals.

To play any sport well you have to have not just good muscles but a good brain. Champions are not made from brute strength or agility, but from being able to focus on the game to the exclusion of all else. I am not a sports person but if I can teach the kids  that, then I will be happy.

I need to take a photo of my raised garden bed. There are cucumbers, beans, and corn plants poking up! YAY!! I am ridiculously excited.

I came home tonight in horrible traffic. Took me an hour. Usually takes about 30-40 minutes. Holiday weekend traffic, grrrr….

 

I had to take the car to get washed and detailed. I had to run to Publix. I took Alesia by the mall to run in to GNC and get more vitamins.

 

Michael hates his sunburn even more now because Granny told him it’s probably going to peel. He has never peeled before. Mother’s remark, “Don’t worry if you scratch that place and end up with skin peelings in your hands” officially freaked him out. Of course, we don’t think it’s any big deal. He thinks it’s horrifying.  I told him would be more a-peeling [get it?!] but he didn’t see the humor there. He has never faced this before because I always slather him with sunscreen repeatedly before he hits the pool or beach.

 

Dinner was fallout. I needed to clean out the fridge, so I unloaded all the leftovers on the counter, and that was dinner. Mother had tuna salad. Michael had vegetable soup. Alesia had beef leftover from the philly cheesesteaks the other night and a huge bowl of green beans. She loves green beans. I had a ham sandwich and some Fritos. I was whipped.

 

Tomorrow will be insanely busy, before I get in the car and try not to fall asleep. Alesia will load the car with a precision not unlike her great-grandfather Hasty, who could load a 1952 Pontiac to hold 500 suitcases and 200 assorted bags and packages. Mother will tell me how to drive periodically. She will ask me at least 6 times where her purse is located. The kids will watch DVD’s. We will stop at truck stops where Michael will want to buy every doodad and I will say no. I will hear “He’s touching me!” periodically. I can't wait.

 

So vacation will last from tomorrow until the 31st. I will try to find an internet café and post a couple of times next week. Check back with me.

The Blistered Boy

Michael was The Drama King this morning. He complained and fussed and moaned and groaned like he was being tortured by demons with tasers, all because his shoulders were sunburned. They were a bit red, yes. I could tell it was painful. But you’d have thought he was fixing to pass out, the way he carried on.

I’ve had worse sunburns. Back in the day, I was telling Michael yesterday on the way to therapy, we only had Sea N Ski or Coppertone. Mother slathered us with Sea & Ski and we still got sunburned, often. We were a lot more hearty when I was a kid. I used to get burned to a crisp several times every summer. I have the wrinkles to prove it. I can remember sleeping being painful where the cool white sheet touched my blistered body.

Michael was really being a baby.

Finally, in the car on the way to school, I said “Son, I’ve put moisturizer on your back and shoulders. I’ve given you aspirin. You’re wearing the softest shirt you own. That’s ALL I can do right now. You need to just suck it up and deal with it. You are not going to stay home because of sunburn!”

Suddenly, he quieted down. It was remarkable.

Michael came home from school today very excited. He passed the 5^th grade CRCT. He was elated. I was not terribly surprised. He’s a smart kid. He didn’t want to go to summer school. He had gone to the Thursday tutoring sessions for the test. However, when you consider that he’s been speaking English less than 2 years and skipped the 4^th grade, it’s pretty remarkable.

He asked me for a reward for passing the CRCT. Mother told him getting a week at the beach was reward enough.

Michael was supposed to play his next T-2 tennis match this afternoon, but it was sprinkling and we changed it to tomorrow. We’ve had so much rain it has made it really tough to schedule the matches. Everyone is so busy, too, that it’s tough. If you’re not familiar with T-2, it’s a service that schedules tennis matches for people of the same age bracket and skill level. So far Mike has lost all his matches but one, but it’s good practice for him to do these singles matches. Maybe after some more lessons and the tennis camp this summer he will improve his singles play. He’s going to tennis camp the first two weeks in June, but it’s only for an hour a day.

When I came home from work I loaded up the family and took Mother and Alesia to get haircuts. Michael and I went to Walgreens. He complained bitterly the entire time. “I can’t wear a shirt. It HURTS!!!”

 

“Michael, if you don’t wear a shirt, they won’t let us in the store!”

 

I bought some last minute items to take to the beach, and some Lidocaine with aloe. The only good thing about listening to Mike’s endless kvetching is knowing he will NEVER forget sunscreen again. Not even on a cool, cloudy day.

 

I want to go to the beach NOW.

This is the only decent photo of my mother pregnant. It was 1959, so Bruce was in there. I wasn't born yet. So were other relatives of mine, pictured here, but for the sake of their privacy, I won't name them. See the bracelet Mother wears? It's in my jewelry box right now.

A Recovering Addict

I spend my lunch hour either trying to write or compulsively reading blogs by other mamas.

I am always amazed when I read where people spent their entire evenings obsessing over a TV show. How on earth can you spend hours and hours every week watching drivel??!! I don’t understand.

These were listed as the top shows of the week: American Idol, America’s Next Top Model, Lost, The Office, Ghost Whisperer. I have never seen any of them. I sincerely hope I never have to see any of them.

When Mother was going to the vascular doctor, the waiting room contained a large TV, and it was blasting The View, one morning. I tried to read but I couldn’t escape the voices blaring from the TV. Why do people watch that? Why do you want to see a bunch of women squabble with each other? I don’t understand that.

Now, lest you are reading this and thinking I am someone you can’t stand, because I don’t watch American Idol, or anything else, I must confess something.

I am a recovering TVaholic. Yes, I must be honest. I was once a slave to the idiot box.

As a child, I can remember my mother yelling at me to turn off the TV and GO OUTSIDE AND PLAY! Why? Because from the time I was able to crawl over to it and fiddle with the knobs, I was mesmerized by the TV. One of my earliest memories of being on the planet is me lying on my blanket on the floor watching Captain Kangaroo, then Andy Griffith, Gilligan’s Island, Bewitched, and later in the morning, Hollywood Squares. As soon as we moved to Knoxville when I was 8, I watched the 4:00 movie every afternoon - from 3rd grade until I was out of high school.

My parents didn’t watch a lot of TV, but I remember the entire family watching All In the Family, the Mary Tyler Moore Show, MASH, Sanford & Son, and Three’s Company. My mother and I in the later 70’s watched Carol Burnett, Love Boat and Fantasy Island every Saturday night.

When I got a bit older and was in college I watched St. Elsewhere and Hill Street Blues, obsessively. When MASH finally ended I was in college and I watched the final episode with the phone next to me so I could call my friend Robert during the commercials and we could discuss it. He was as big an addict as me. He’s now a doctor, so obviously there was more of an influence there, although being a radiologist in a small town in Georgia can’t really compare to being a wartime surgeon in a MASH unit…

One of my all-time favorite shows was Moonlighting. I never missed an episode. I LOVED Bruce Willis' character from the moment I saw him. I wanted to find Bruce Willis, track him down, and attack him with kisses. I had such big hair and shoulder pads in the 80's I probably would've scared the poor man to death!

 

Once I realized Bruce had married Dummy Moore, my crush just died. Then they had the kids and gave them those wacked names and I thought, boy, you have seriously lost your mind. And your hair. Oh well.

When I got grown, I was a Murphy Brown fanatic. I actually dropped out of the Knoxville Choral Society in part because rehearsals interfered with watching Murphy Brown and my VCR wasn’t recording properly.

I watched Seinfeld and Friends obsessively in the 90’s. I picked up Rachel’s habit of saying “so” as in “I am so not interested in that!”

The last show I remember regularly trying to watch every week was Ally McBeal. It was completely unrealistic in its portrayal of law firm life, but it was fun and whimsical. I loved the dancing baby.

Around 2001 I started spending a lot of time writing, working on screenplays. I pretty much quit regularly watching TV. I realized that if I was ever going to do something with my writing, I would have to work on it at night, which would cut into my TV time. There were no TV shows that I really loved any more, so it was no big sacrifice.

However, I never missed Queer Eye or America's Castles on A&E and I watched Entertainment Tonight about every night. So I wasn't free of the addiction.

Since adopting my daughter, I have lived a TV-free life. Hallelujah!

I HATE commercials and I refuse to get a TiVo.

I hate the Disney channel, with a passion. After an hour of watching Disney, my kids are sassy and uncooperative, and I blame the Disney people.

If nothing else, TV commercials show my kids all the stuff they don’t have, and they feel inadequate and resentful. I remember feeling like that. I remember thinking I was the biggest dork loser kid in the neighborhood because we didn’t have a Rock “Em Sock ‘Em robot or a Lite Brite.

I still remember pestering my mother mercilessly to buy me a ballerina doll that spun around when you mashed her crown, and when I got the doll, I played with her 5 minutes, then went on to something else. Thankfully, I also remember feeling regretful that I had been such a brat about the silly doll, and thinking wow, Mom was actually right. It was a waste of money! I should have listened to her!

Oprah is doing a show called What Can You Live Without? about a family forced to live without cell phones, computers, and TV. That describes how I lived just a few years ago. I wasn’t miserable. I look forward to being on vacation, where the kids can watch TV in another room and I can spend the evening READING. [Vacation is the only time they get to watch television much.]

I think every family should turn off all electronic devices for a week or ten, and reconnect as a family.

I told my kids a few days ago that in order to do computer games or Nintendo from now on they will have to earn that time by reading books. You want to Nintendo for an hour? Fine. First, read for an hour. So far, neither kid has taken me up on it, although Alesia is reading more. She likes teenage vampire books and there are plenty out there for her to read right now. Michael is urging her to play board games and go outside. He doesn’t like to read. Hopefully that will change one day soon.

The exception to the rule is educational computer games. Alesia was doing one tonight when I got home.

I made the philly cheese steaks for dinner. They turned out well except the meat was a little tough. I will try them again, though. Maybe after another time or two I will get it right.

Michael's class had a pool party today, and his back got terribly sunburned. I don't know why the teachers didn't reapply the sunscreen - the kids were out there 4 hours. He's in real pain tonight. I put moisturizer on his poor back and gave him some Motrin to sleep. I hope it goes in quickly.

I am SO ready to get to the beach!

So Tired

It's been a very long day, packed with activities, and I simply am too tired to write much.

I did one final edit on my book Adopting Alesia, and it's ready to go to press soon. Hopefully in about 2-3 weeks I will have copies in hand! I am so excited.

Alesia had her first tennis lesson tonight. I was very pleased. Coach said she has a natural athletic ability and good coordination, and was able to skip some steps he usually has to teach people. She was a bit giggly and distracted, but she will settle down, I expect. She and Michael are both taking a weekly lesson in June, which I think will benefit them enormously. Hopefully she will like it enough to take lessons in July, too, and perhaps they can go down to the courts and hit several times a week. 

In relation to the essay I have in Call Me Okaasan, you can read an interview I did here. 

Here are a couple more shots of my backyard, from the other day, both with and without kids...