August Week 2
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August Week 2
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Saturday August 4, 2001 I slept in a rest area outside Gallup for about 5 hours I got breakfast at McD's.. . uck... Gallup is very Indian... no two houses face the same direction, everything is sort of hodge-podge, It is very difficult for a stranger to get around in that town... everybody just sort of builds where they want to... no rhyme or reason to it... if there is a City Planner for Gallup he is taking money under false pretenses Gallup is in a beautiful area, it's built in a wide canyon, flat, caramel colored canyon walls... bright blue sky... it should be a better town...there appears to be a lot of new money in Gallup... perhaps it's the casino's ...there is a lot of poverty too but there is a lot of money there too Car vapor-locked coming out of Needles, Ca... only at about 2000 feet...hotter than hell. It started right up after about 20 minutes and I drove it home. Vapor locking is making me crazy... only when climbing a hill... once at 11000 feet... one at 6000 once at 2000... not over heating, using regular gas I was told by a mechanic in Colorado that the High Octane stuff worsens the condition... they even add Diesel fuel to a tank of gas to lessen the chance... . 7748 miles... 14 days 16 hours... three days in Atlantic City... 8 stops to visit, three side trips... except for the three vapor locking incidents and that one time the engine started to over heat, and the 4 wrong turns it was a damn good trip... pretty busy time... I won't be doing that again for a while... I am disappointed I didn't get to see Dick, Leigh JoAnne and Leah Christy was still on her way home from church when I got home, but she arrived about 15 minutes later... she had 2 of Bonnie's girls and they stayed the night... Bonnie took "B" and Christian with her... After about an hour it was as though I had never left... so much for my vacation. Glad I went, glad I'm home, wish I could go again next week. Sunday August 5, 2001 Christy left at about 0800 to pick up Mike and Cindy at Camp Cedar Falls, she took Mokie with her. I had Autumn and Calie and two of Bonnie's Rosanna and Sarah. The are both good kids... Rosanna has a beautiful smile that seems to erupt in stages, like time lapse photography pf a flower opening... Sarah is a very earnest little girl, about eight... she has a bit of a stutter and big brown eyes... she is adorable... I wanted to take Calie out to buy her the flute she wanted so I asked the girls to pick up the living room, dining room and kitchen counters... they procrastinated and didn't finish till about 1300, I took them shopping for a flute, a Birthday Cake, and visited an ATM. We went to Taco Bell for lunch... I am not fond of that place but that's where they wanted to go. Christy got home while I was out with the girls... Calie decided that she wanted to go to Chucky Cheese for her B'day. It amazes me that they still like that place... but they really do... they play there franticly spending thirty dollars accumulating tickets to turn in for a few cents worth of crappy novelties. It galls me a bit to waste that much money but they do have a lot of fun and $56 isn't a lot for two and a half hours of entertainment Van's transmission (Clutch?) went out on the way home... I finally got it into gear by revving the engine up... it made it up the hill and I parked it that is going to put a serious crimp in our style... no way to find the money to fix it before October... bummer... Be more concerned about your character than about your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think of you. Monday August 6, 2001 Christy has three days of school in LA... I have all 7 kids for the duration....payback is a bitch Pretty hot here... bout 102... doesn't feel as bad as 92 in Missouri did. I took all the kids to Kaiser... Autumn needed more Phenobarbital and I was told that Mike, Cindy and Christian needed blood work and an EKG... I found out EKG's are not done in the lab anymore and I wasn't going to stand in line at the front desk with seven loony-toon kids...they were actually pretty good... considering they didn't have their medicine before the blood tests... Calie was a big helper with Autumn... We went to McDonalds and then home Mike took off with Justin and Christian, "B", Mokie and I picked up the trash in the back yard... it was such a mess it made me mad The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950) Tuesday August 7, 2001 I have some calls to make today and I plan to take Calie out to dinner as soon as Christy gets home... other than that all I have to do is wrangle kids... too damn hot to do anything else..
Christy got home at 1700... I took Calie and went to The Red Robin Restaurant. It is a tradition, she has been going there every year since she was three... she doesn't eat the sundae they give her or really enjoy the food all that much. She likes when they sing to her... she is so adorable
Wednesday August 8, 2001 I left Christian and "B" home alone while I took Autumn and the girls to Therapy... not exactly the optimum arrangement it seemed like a good idea at the time, ... It worked out OK... the boys were fine when I got back and the house was still standing. Autumn is still weak, at least she appears to be to me... Jamie concurred when I picked Autumn up. The other therapist came out and said she couldn't work with Autumn because the confirmation from Dr. Apel didn't arrive... it is so exasperating to be confronted by the reality of where we stand in CCS's bureaucratic scheme of things. They can make a phone call and get a FAX from Apel... this happens every six months, it is up to them to request an extension on the prescription, and they punish Autumn by withholding services when the arbitrary paperwork isn't done... It usually has to be FAXed about 3 times before they can get it through their antiquated systems... it just galls me when they tell me they can't see her, implying that there is something wrong at Kaiser when in reality it is their own incompetence that is causing the problem. I took Mike to the dentist... left "B" and Christian home again... When I got home Christian was watching a Mel Gibson Movie where he can read women's minds... it is a cute show but Christian taped it and it ran out of tape before it finished... I liked at the tape he used and it was my copy of the 13th Warrior... then Cindy asked if she could watch the Dragon tape and held up Me Myself and Irene... Christian taped a cartoonish SciFI movie over the top of it... I was furious... I have to rent three movies again to fix it... Christian is really getting to me... I have to try to stay away from him... even though I am convinced he is manipulating me. Every time I try to talk to him I end up angry and have to walk away. I asked him to help Mike clean the kitchen and he had a fit... he acted like he was the only one being asked to do anything and cried and carried on like I was persecuting him. He went into his room and slammed the door... he does this almost every time I ask him to do anything...According to Mike and "B" as soon as the door shuts he stops crying and plays Nintendo. Christy to church with Cindy, "B" and Christian Thursday August 9, 2001 Autumn Therapy Autumn's new walker I got my silly butt embroiled in an online rant about Shrub and his "Agonized decision and high moral stance" on Stem Cell Research... every one hanging on his pronouncement as though he had the final say and his presumption that he was tuned in to the moral pulse of the country... he made the expected politically expedient decision... ho hum... anyway the list of folks I was sending emails to has degenerated into a flame throwing contest... it is getting personal people are ripping each other up
Friday August 10, 2001 Christy's car... Van Transmission... Mike's hair.... Christian's hair Saturday August 11, 2001 I went down to Oceanside to attend The Annual Brink Bash... The trip started out with a 20 minute wait on Hwy 138 at 170th Street while the Cops and Fire Department cleaned up after a bad accident someone got T-boned right in the drivers door... they need a stop sign there... they need a freeway there...138 is a death trap... 40 miles of 2 lane highway... trucks, campers and cars all trying to do 65 MPH on a 55 MPH road with LOL's and LOM doing 45 MPH... There was a big jam up in Temecula too... a mile of parked cars trying to get off the Freeway, I don't know why... Dick said later that it was for the Casino traffic I tried taking the inland route instead of the coast down 101... It was terrible traffic on Hwy 76 but it was not nearly as bad as the coast... my drive took two and a half hours... the coast route took four and a half hours... 12 people were supposed to be there but 3 of them called in with last minute bail outs and 2 were no-shows... Sunday August 12, 2001 Christy's dad was admitted to the hospital last night... his pulse rate was down to 37 BPM ...she went over there and spent the day... I had some trouble with Cindy. About 1130 she got angry at Calie... she was cussing and swearing and starting to hit and kick, Calie was in tears because Cindy was tearing up one of her books, I finally had to grab Cindy and physically restrain her. She was screaming hysterically it was sorta scary, I had to hold her head and yell in her face to get through to her, it took a good five minutes to get her calmed down... After she calmed down she ran into her room and slammed the door, she was asleep in about 15 minutes... She slept to about 1600. "B" came into the living room and was getting mad at me for "hurting Cindy" he didn't understand... after it was over Calie and I explained what had happened... I think he understood, I hope so.
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