Susan’s Journal

I’m sorry. I know this probably isn’t funny to all the companies who are struggling today because Americans have to answer phones at makeshift call centers in the United States. To me, though, this is friggin hilarious.

I’ve been wondering for over a year, I suppose, what it would take for companies to realize that overseas customer service was not only pissing off American customers, but that it was also unreliable.

A friggin boat anchor, though? That’s just too much to read without sitting here giggling. You can’t tell me with multiple countries’ Internet connections counting on this apparent single-point-of-failure, they didn’t think about the million ways it could be severed.

Call me closed-minded. I can guarantee you, though, that I’m not the only American who would like to speak to an American when I call customer support of an American-based company.

Now this photo, to change the conversation, might flip you out a bit. Those are indeed vultures, and they do indeed look like they are waiting for someone to drop dead inside the building. Their actual goal is warmth, and they spread their wings and “sun” on the edge of the building, sucking in all the extra heat that permeates from the edges of the windows. Where I sit, I can watch them all morning long. This definitely strikes most people as a little creepy.

And on this day,
January 31, 2005… This is too much, Dylan said.

The good news for today is this–NO NITS. Obviously I’m not done looking, but this is definitely a step in the right direction. I guess the mayonnaise worked. Don’t ask.

Right now, Rain’s making a robot out of the entrails of a flowers box. Someone sent me flowers today–someone who sent a card with it that simply said, “smile.” That’s all they needed to say.

“Apologize” keeps playing on the radio (I have the radio on in the kitchen while we all play our own little games), and every time I hear it play I think of last week’s church service, where Eric Orsen sang this song, and I helped film it, and an awesome keyboard/scene video was blended in with it. The kids love it, and they sing along too.

I’m on the computer, and Rain’s in the flower box, and Dylan’s playing with these half-dozen mini skateboards that my next door neighbors got him for Christmas. I bet they’d get a kick out of how much he appreciates this little gift.

No basketball practice tonight, so all bets are off, persay… I don’t know what’s for dinner, the kids aren’t asking, and everyone just seems content for the moment in their own little corners. Carry on, world. We’ll catch up with you later.

Yes, that’s me, with my hair up. I just about never wear my hair up unless I’m either cleaning the house or going to the gym. This week, though, I’ve worn my hair up to work twice. Sometimes it’s nice to have it up and not constantly be playing with it; but, at the same time, when it’s up I’m constantly self-conscious about it. Is it straight, or is the bun all off to one side? Do I have tons of little pieces hanging in my face? I know some people leave little pieces down in the front to “frame their face,” but I’ve never tried that, and no one’s ever shown me how to do it. Know how I learned how to apply makeup? A girl in basic training showed me the day of graduation. Yes, you heard that right.

Anyways, it’s been a long week, and it’s only Tuesday. This morning was warm, but it wasn’t meant to last; around lunch time, this incredible wind kicked up. Now when I say incredible, I mean it was howling around the sky bridge to the garage, howling through the garage; and at a couple places while I walked to my car, the wind was so strong that it literally took my breath away–I couldn’t breathe for a moment. It was wild, and I didn’t like it. There was a scent of fire in the air, and I didn’t like that either. Fire warnings had been in the weather news… and my brain kept wandering to Luke, home alone. Obviously the odds were slim of him burning to the ground like the twig off a tree, but I still thought of him.

Tomorrow I work from home, and I think I’m going to get my tires rotated in the am after dropping the kids off at school and before work starts. If I’m reading the receipt from the car right, it should be free with the plan that was bought with the tires. I’m going to ask them to check the alignment too, which isn’t free, and I’m worried about running into a chunk of change. Oh well, has to be done I suppose. I’m certainly not made of money right now. Been eating at home a lot more, and though I’m not a gourmet cook, it’s sure been saving us a lot of money and making us eat a little better.

I really sound boring tonight. I guess I’ll just give in and call it an early night.

And on this day,
January 29, 2004… I was going to meet Sting the next day!!

It was just a Monday night–an errand-running night. We stopped at Wal-Mart and got milk, sodas, and ketchup (can’t live without that last one). Then we swung by Game Stop and traded Ben 10 for a wrestling game that Rain picked out. Dylan was pretty upset that Rain picked the game, even though I explained to him that at least the last few times we have picked out a game there, Dylan got to pick it. Tears welled up in his little eyes. I had forgotten to get him some hair gel for his newly spiked hair (and had been avoiding it because of recent hair-events), so I asked him if he’d like to stop at CVS and get some. So we did. Six bucks and a can of pomade later (I’ve been calling it his “Dapper Dan”), we headed out of CVS, but not home–this time to the gas station. I put twenty bucks in and got a fountain drink. THEN we finally headed home. It was a night for skipping showers, for eating hot dogs with Chinese leftovers, and for just enjoying every moment I have with the kids.

This morning I rolled out of bed at 7am, threw my stinky butt in the shower, dressed in dark clothing, and headed out to pick up the kids and go to church. We’re supposed to wear dark clothing when we run a camera, and I was on camera 1 for two services this morning. I loved every minute of it. The kids were very well behaved during band rehearsal and sat quietly in the worship center while I manned the camera. My girlfriend that I met a couple weeks ago was working again today, and it was great to see her. We talked (probably a little more than we should have), and then we took my kids and her daughter to Fuddrucker’s after the two services were over. Man, they were expensive anyways; but their prices have shot up again, and I don’t think we’ll be going to Fuddrucker’s again soon on our budget. At least we got leftovers out of it, and that was half the kids’ dinner, along with some grilled chicken that I burned a little bit and some potato skins that they didn’t really like. I guess you can’t win all the meal battles. Then we bent down and tried to light a fire, which wouldn’t stay lit, and tried to make some smores, but I guess we weren’t warming the marshmallows enough because they didn’t smoosh quite right… oh well, the experience was fun, the house smells like fireplace now that the log that didn’t want to really light has smouldered, the dryer has stopped running (time to switch a load out AGAIN) and really what I want to do is crawl between my favorite flannel sheets and die. Holy crap, is it really almost eleven already??

And on this day,
January 27, 2002… Oh, how Rain loves her little brother.

I spent a lot of Saturday cleaning–washing clothes in hot water, washing blankets in hot water, washing stuffed animals in hot water, washing everything I could get my hands on in hot water. The kids stayed over Scott’s house for one more day, and I just hoped that would be one more day that one more buggie would die.

Around 3pm, I was going friggin insane. I caught myself staring out the back door; and while it’s a beautiful view to behold, I found that I just had this sudden sinking feeling that I just had nothing to do. I cured it by looking up movie times for Cloverfield and bounding out the door.

Now, as a video blogger, I’m sure you want to hear my opinion on Cloverfield. Let’s start by saying I didn’t get sick from all the motion. Let’s also say that at moments, including the very last ones, it did remind me of the Blair Witch Project if only a tiny bit. With those things said, I’ll have to not tell you much about it but simply conclude that I thought it was an awesone movie. There was something else too, though. I left the movie theater feeling like I wanted to make something–like I wanted to produce some kind of content, to create a new collaborative effort with video bloggers around the world. I can’t explain that feeling… but it’s an awesome, power-filled feeling… being empowered to change the way the world thinks.

To round out the evening, after doing some more laundry, I went out with my two-doors-down-neighbor’s sister, who is living with them for a while. She’s super nice, and we really hit it off well. The place we went was loud, hip-hop, and smokey, but I enjoyed the company and the break from life for a while anyways. I hope we’ll get to go out again soon.

Music:
100 years by Five for Fighting

To really make this post touch you, listen to that song while you read.

My Yahoo music jukebox just started playing “100 Years” by Five for Fighting, and my mind drifts. For me, songs often provoke a music video of my own. In this case, it’s a video I made for my daughter’s soccer team. The team has played together for five years now, and I have videos from when they were itty bitty on the field in their yellow jerseys with their towering Marine coach. Now, they’re as high as his chest, and have gone from red to silver to green uniforms. I took those videos, found each girl, and did a time-fade from little, to bigger, to bigger, to this years’s portrait with her name. The team is gathered in my media room, listening to Five For Fighting coming from the TV, watching this short but telling music video in silence. I look over in the corner… and there is my daughter’s soccer coach, the big, tough, wonderful marine that loves all the girls so much, wiping tears from his eyes. In that moment, every scrap of video editing I have ever done was completely worthwhile. When you can touch someone’s heart… that is everything.

And on this day,
January 25, 2005… just a day in my life two years ago. It’s absolutely amazing how much has changed.

Yesterday, I had every intention to make it a kickass “my life in pictures” day, as you can see… I was going to post them way into the night, maybe even past the midnight mark… but something happened.

You’ll notice that the last picture was this one, of Dylan still at daycare. I was picking them up, and noticed how long his hair is getting, and thought about the free-haircut-coupon sitting on the kitchen counter. Come on, I told the kids. Dylan’s going to get a haircut. We stopped off at home, grabbed the coupon, and went on our merry way again.

At the haircut place, there was no line, and the lady signed me in via the computer (in these high-tech times we live in). She propped Dylan up on the kid-block, put a smock around him with little fishies and sea-horsies on it, and asked me how I wanted his hair cut. I leaned down and said Dylan, how do YOU want your hair cut? I want it spiked, he told me. So spiked it was. Rainlin was sitting in the waiting area where I could see her, thumbing through a People magazine like a grownup, so I sat in one of the salon chairs across from Dylan and out of the way. He was really good, well-behaved, and at one point I stood up to walk over and talk to Rain.

“Ma’am?” I heard from across the salon. I looked up, and Dylan’s hairdresser was looking my way with a smile on her face. Uh-oh, I thought, she cut his hair crooked or something. I went over to her, and she lifted the comb through his hair, and she showed me a buggie. At first, I thought great, he’s been rolling in the dirt at school or something; but then she ran the blowdryer on his head, showing me random black dots on the back of his blonde shaven head. Dylan had lice.

I can’t explain to you how I felt, other than to say I was absolutely horrified. We paid with the coupon (and I left a big tip) and left. I went straight to Walgreens to get some medecine (which thankfully my healthcare plan paid for). I called Scott. I took the kids home, got Dylan in the shower to wash his hair, started gathering all the bedding in the house to wash hot, then thought hmm, I’m going to call daycare. So I did. She told me don’t pass go, don’t collect $200, bring them back to daycare.

Now see, growing up in New England, I honestly cannot remember ever hearing about anyone with lice. I think at one point, years ago, when he was tiny, we had a head lice scare with Dylan; but we completely shaved his head, washed everything, and was done with it. But now, it’s been just me and the kids, they share everything, we share brushes, they sleep with me about once a week, Rain was parading around in my jacket the other night, playing…

So anyways, here was a woman at the kids’ daycare, so nice to me, telling me that she could tell right away if they had lice, and tell me what to do about it, since her own kids had had it before and since she knew how to treat it. I brought them back in, and she said Dylan looked fine… well, his head was shaved, and I had already treated him… but Rainlin, my poor, beautiful baby Rainlin, she had nits (or eggs or whatever you call them) all through her hair. It took everything I had to not stand there and start bawling. She was so nice, showing me how to pull them out, telling me what to buy, telling me what to do, etc etc… then we left, and I sat in the car, and I just finally lost it and started bawling. That’s how I drove home, bawling. I just felt absolutely horrible.

When we got home, I continued the laundry crusade. Oh, and somewhere in that mess, on the way back to daycare I guess, I had boiled two hot dogs, and I had had the kids eat them on the way. I hadn’t had dinner, but I wasn’t hungry. I was a mad cleaning tornado, stuffing animals into bags, gently pulling blankets off all the beds, stuffing clothes and blankets and pillows into the washing machine one load at a time. When it was Rain’s turn to take a shower, she complained that there was no hot water; sorry baby, just get in and get it done…

After she washed her hair, and I treated it, and she rinsed it out, I blew it 3/4 of the way dry, and then got out the little nit comb. I tried to pull several out with my fingertips the way the lady at daycare had; but (1. I don’t have steady hands like that, and (2. They are so tiny and my eyes are so bad that when I pulled one out, I couldn’t find it on my fingertip. I just found I was having much better luck with the comb.

Just sitting here telling you this story, I have a ball in the pit of my stomach. No matter how many people tell me I’m a good parent, I still feel absolutely horrible. One good side story, though is this: last night, I sent my friend a text message, saying, “Let me guess, it gets better, right…”

They wrote back not a moment later, saying, “better than being able to take care of your kids when they need you? Maybe, but I don’t know when or how…” You know, my friends are really good at putting things in perspective. I’m so lucky to have my kids, all the time; and in good times and in bad, showing them how much I love them.

And on this day,
January 24, 2003… We were in Aruba. Man, I would love to be in Aruba right now…