We have an announcement to make!

(my parents always said that when they were pregnant, and yes it’s a little annoying)

I’m not sure, but I think we might be proud parents of a dog… or a small pony, I’m not sure which.    If you’ve ever read the Mitford series, by Jan Karon then you’ll know his name “Barnabas” is no mistake.   The dog is bigger than a Pontiac.

  He was (is?) my parents dog, but they are moving to Guatemala, and after mom nearly gave him away to some guy in LA, we tearfully eloquently begged them to let us have the dog instead, because well…we love him.   The thing is, we weren’t supposed to officially make the transfer until next January, but we’ve been babysitting him for the last month and a half and I think he’s here to stay.   Thus, I introduce you to the newest but not smallest member of our family (he outweighs me by at least 5 lbs).  Barnabas.

He is a super cool dog.  He follows Jamie around, up cliffs, down hills, under rocks and pretty much everywhere else but up trees.   He even naps at Jamie’s feet while Jamie is using the bathroom.  Gross.   But somehow it makes me feel better to know that my ever moving son has a personal body guard who can leap over small trees and snap firewood in half like it’s brittle wishbone.   So just in case any of you were thinking of carting Jamie off for ransom…don’t.  Just don’t.    In fact, I would not recommend rough housing or play fighting with my kids either unless Barnabas has approved of you first.   His daddy is a police dog and he takes the family business very seriously.

Really, we have no complaints and the adjustment has gone beautifully.  He comes when called, doesn’t chew on furniture or bark unnecessarily . He eats his food with manners and his only vices are sneaking onto the carpeting (which he’s not allowed on), and running up to the main house to play with his brother Max.   It’s kind of problematic when your dog can open any door in the house as good as if he were human.  He sticks to us like glue until he realizes we are leaving somewhere and then he just lets himself out the back door and goes to his brother’s house.   It is far more annoying than it may sound.  Sunday, Jim had to go to work which left me and my non-morning self to somehow whip everyone into ship shape for church.  After I finally headed down the driveway, ten minutes late, makeup half applied and shoes in hand, I noticed Barnabas down the street.  Of course he pleaded ignorance at my repeated orders to go home, and he looked equally askance at my request to at least follow the car back, so I ended up leaving the car idling with the kids, and I running Barnabas home again.  Grrr…  Just what I wanted, another person in the house to take care of.  

But how can you be mad at that adorable face?  I certainly can’t.

Just in case you thought I was crazy for not liking movies, I’ll put your heart at ease and assure you that I am at least fair, I hold an equally cavalier attitude about TV shows (albeit for entirely different reasons).   The Washington Times recently published an article about not finishing books you don’t like.  “We should treat books a little more like we treat TV channels” it maintains.  And while I understand what they’re getting at, I’m afraid I have to respectfully disagree.   The list of TV show’s I’ve stopped watching is close in number to the amount of TV shows I love that get canceled, which unfortunately belongs to a fairly long list.    I typically have no qualms dropping a show that has taken a turn for the worse (ie, whereas a book has to be utterly wretched in order for me not to finish it.   Because with a book, you have a sort of understood contract with the author to answer *the question* even if its not to my satisfaction, or even if I don’t like it.    With a TV series there are no such grand allusions.  And generally after the first season it becomes a frantic race to see how many tricks and twists they can throw at a dwindling audience in hopes of keeping them interested (note the “generally” because there are exceptions for sure).  Some of this is not the producers fault. Actors have babies, quit, get roles in movies, die, and generally just wreck a different kind of havoc on a plotline than entirely fictional characters do.   But still, as much as I practically idolize characterization I like to at least have enough plot so that hope and optimism still dangle out in front of me like a carrot.  To know that even when I am annoyed by a particularly poor speciman of writing, at least it will lead you on a path to a finish line (at least we hope).    TV however, tramples on my sensibilities.  And I do promise that if Jim and Pam break up, I will stop watching The Office (at least I’ll try).  I don’t care if it has to happen or not.  

I do still watch an ample amount of TV.  I even watched one of my top three hated disney channel shows today.  Wizards of Waverly Place.    Mostly because it was a breezy 110 degrees today and I didn’t have the willpower to move my sluggish bones off the couch to change the channel.  We did however manage to muster the energy to go outside every hour and douse ourselves in the hose in an attempt to survive (We don’t have the ac hooked up).
I should only speak for myself however, because Jamie and Charlie had seemingly endless amounts of energy.  And I finally got some video of Charlie walking…even though I had to bribe him with food to walk towards me and not the direction of the dog.

In an otherwise blissful marriage Jim does have one major teeny problem with me.  I don’t like movies. 
At least not in comparison to the other things I love like books, and reading (not to be confused with books), and food (and eating too for that matter).  It’s not that I think movies sinful, or stupid, but I either can’t get into the story at all and somehow remain detached and unexcited, or the movie plays me like a fiddle and I am tossed too and fro, from the edge of hysteria to heartfelt grief.  Will she live? Will the human race survive?!?!   Jim always expects me to know the answers to those questions and I never do.   Thus, he finds movies relaxing and entertaining, whereas I always feel like I just survived a bucking rodeo bronco, or am so sad I feel like my dog just died.   Consequently I prefer the intricacies and nuances of book reading, where at least if it gets too tense I have something tangible to grip and go white knuckled on, and I can put it down for a second and gasp “no he didn’t just do that”.  For some reason Jim doesn’t completely understand my need to pause a movie and just hyperventilate at the screen for a second before continuing.

Last night, at the invitation of Mrs. Smith, we went with them to Balboa park where one of the worlds largest outdoor organs lives.  They have a summer concert series and this was their “Silent Film Night”, presented with live organ music.  It’s like a typical Music-In-The-Park community thing, except with an old b&w silent movie, and a 4,500 pipe organ playing a soundtrack along with the movie.  All of which is a respected art form.  Who knew?  I certainly didn’t until last night, but now I’m a lifelong fan.  I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard during a movie.  You’d think with all the evolved movie making technology, that comedies these days would be substantially better than their Charlie Chaplin forefathers, and sometimes they are, but last night as I was wiping tears from my eyes and clutching my overused laughing muscles, I was shocked to uncover an entire new genre of enjoyable movies.
Can’t wait to go again next year, and if you live anywhere near us,  you’re welcome to join us. We’ll hopefully be packing a wine and cheese picnic with all the works.

taken with Jim’s phone

Wicked is playing here in San Diego and Jim got us tickets for our anniversary (along with a lovely weekend away from the kids in a fabulous hotel).   The show was incredible…but shocking.   Somehow, and I’m not sure how, I didn’t know the Elphaba was good.   In my mind, (and this mind you is after listening to the soundtrack dozens of times in the last few months) Elphaba was an outcast of sorts (true) and that there was some morally complicated dilemma (also true) that resulted in her going off the deep end and becoming the wicked witch of the west we are all familiar with (NOT true).    Truly, I sat in my theatre seat in astonishment.   But in a way, it made the musical all that more entertaining, since it didn’t hit me like a bolt of lightening till the very end.

Loved it.

Back before I knew Jim very well, and long before I had the faintest inkling we would be married someday with two kids, I already knew he was going to have Jamie.   He told me.
We were on a “group” walk down Saginaw, Flint Michigan’s illustrious downtown, when Jim steadily maintained amidst teasing, that his firstborn son would be James E. Ramsey IV, just like he’d been James E. Ramsey III and so forth.   At the time I obviously could care less, four years later when I was four months pregnant and a bundle of hormonal tears, I cared a whole lot more.  I hated it, “James” was so…old fashioned… and normal…and worst of all, the “E.” in their middle name stands for Earl. That’s right, James Earl Ramsey.    Like James Earl Jones:  “Luke, I am your father” but worse.    I fought long and hard against it, and in the end Jim changed his mind and agreed that we could name him something else, problem is he did as good a job changing my mind as I did his  (a frequent problem in this household), and I no longer despised the idea of a fourth James Ramsey running around.   Good thing I did too, because Britney Spears stole my chosen name a mere few weeks after Jamie was born.    I’d hate to think that was an unfortunate coincidence. 

I haven’t regretted the naming of Jamie once in the last four years I’ve known him.  I may have inherited my great grandmothers china, but Jamie inherited a whole heritage in his name.  It would have been different if Jim were an ass hole, his father an alcoholic, and his grandfather abusive, but instead it’s the opposite and Jamie has big shoes to fill if he plans on living up to the three generations of godly men who have worn the name well.  (despite the one time Jim got into trouble with our insurance company for a speeding ticket he supposedly got 20 years before he was even born).  
That, and the name seems to come with incredible stubbornness and the same exact terrible handwriting. 
I wish you luck Jamie.  Happy Fourth Birthday.

I don’t mind pain as pain, in fact, as someone who just got her wisdom teeth out five hours ago, I almost wish I was in more pain right now because it would distract my hyper active imagination from freaking out.  But too late, I’ve currently got a category 5 hyperbolic meltdown going on.

     I’ve gone over the paper work a million times, memorized every little jot and tittle about no straws, putting tea bags on the holes, (how often I can take vicodin)  etc. etc.   They specifically told me they were not doing local anesthesia, only general, they also warned me that was a very small chance they’d hit the nerve which would cause my face to go numb, and that even more rarely, it never goes away.  Well I cannot feel a single thing on my damn lower lip or tongue, or lower chin area.    Multiple people keep trying to assure me thats normal.   Really?   It’s normal to be numb without novacaine being used?  It’s normal to have feeling around the area of the extraction, but completely numb in areas that shouldn’t be affected at all?   It’s normal to have complete function with said numbness, just the complete inability to feel any sensation?   I mean I really want to know, I’m dying to know actually,  I’ve googled the crap out of it and didn’t really make myself feel any better about it (go figure).  So I’m swearing off google and trying to remain calm, but if I remember correctly from the little video they made us watch (and mind you in my hyper drug induced state at the moment, I’m not sure I even remember my own childrens names correctly, so there’s a good chance I’m remembering wrong),  the video said that in the rare case you experience numbness it will probably go away in 6-12 months.   SIX TO TWELVE MONTHS!!   Are you freaking kidding me?   The idea of not being able to taste my food, or not being able to kiss for up to a year is making me choke up….and not from the blood, although that too. 

Someone please tell the narcotic stuffed version of me that it’s all going to be ok. 

I admit to having an affinity for fast driving, and I have a great deal of respect for people who can do so with skill and ease.   But of all the memorable moments I’ve had while in vehicular motion, I had never (till Saturday) found myself careening down the 163 in a limousine with my legs wrapped precariously around a stripper pole for balance, while I manhandled a bouquet of pink roses in one hand, a satin clutch in the other hand, and a cell phone glued to my ear where a very distraught groom was incoherently going on about his garage door.   …As in he left it open, and would we be so kind as to stop by and shut it.   Really.   I snapped the cell phone shut and very nearly went flying headfirst into the lap of the bride, my cousin Heather,  as we went careening around a 25 mph curve in a stretch party bus at roughly 65 mph.   She however was as calm and serene as the Queen of England.   Really. Strobe disco lights, purple floors, dancing mother, flying bridesmaids and all.  
Not surprisingly we made it to the ceremony on time despite our detour… remarkably we were all still alive.
It would have been a shame if the wedding was ruined over a garage door, or an overturned limo by the zoo, because it was a truly beautiful day, a beautiful wedding and an even more beautiful bride. 

I love you Heather.  Congratulations.

(photo compliments of Sarah Shreeves)

(photos compliments of Diane Lemon)

Sometimes I feel like I make up for being the most irresponsible creature in the world, by adding “foolish” and “silly” to the mix for balance.    Somehow, out of eight great-granddaughters, I’m the lucky one who ended up inheriting my Great Grandma’s wedding china.     As thrilled and fortunate as I feel about that, I often wish it had gone to someone else.   In fact, up until a few days ago I didn’t even think it existed anymore, thats how badly my possession of it has gone.   The precious stuff made it safely to Ohio after we got married, but it was the hasty retreat back to California six months later that was its demise.    I don’t know if I didn’t pack it well enough, or I just don’t know the proper way to pack China.   Whatever the case,  somewhere in Arizona we went over a speed bump so fast the trailer got air, and the box of china went up and down where it landed with a mighty crash.   Such was the state of my heartbreak, I couldn’t even look at the poor box of broken heirlooms for weeks.  Entire generations worth of memories and heritage gone in a single misplaced mishap caused by poorly painted pavement.    
How my Grandmie could go 80 years without breaking anything but one teacup, when her hapless great grandaughter couldn’t make it 6 months without destroying the entire set is beyond me.  Obviously.    One day I finally nudged the box with my toe and heard the depressing sound of tinkling broken glass and decided I just wasn’t ready to open the box.   As long as it was closed I could pretend that it was still whole.  
I managed that kind of denial for almost six years, until this weekend I was cleaning out the garage and finally worked up the courage to open the box.    I tearfully picked broken glass out of the newspaper only to discover, piece by piece that all my china was actually…completely unscathed.   Someone, (presumably myself) had set a pottery barn drinking glass in the top of the box and it was the guilty culprit making all the broken glass sound effects.   Everything else was in tip top shape.    I couldn’t believe it.  All that guilt for nothing, and all those years I had a full set of china and didn’t use it. 

Bah!

Thats a lesson for me. 

Ohio was…fantastic.    This born and bred Cali girl loves her sunshine and beaches, but our rainy season was disappointingly un-wet this year and my bones were begging for some luscious greenery and summer rainstorms.
I got both.    At one point Gab and I were picking blueberries in the rain, next to a picturesque pond in the rain, complete with grazing horses and wooded backdrop in the rain.   Did I mention it was raining?!?  It was perfect. 

In Ohio they also leave abandoned machinery lying around.