Marry Me

My daughter got engaged last week... to this guy.... the singer. 

You can go ahead and feel sorry for me now.

I'm posting this one

I start so many posts. Then I delete them.

What have I been up to lately...

We made one last trip to the water park and splurged again on the cabana (and cabana girl). Once you've done the park that way, you're spoiled.

We spent Labor Day weekend in Arkansas, visiting Court's family. We both picked up colds while there, and then I got even more sick once we were back. I'm better now (after a trip to the MD), but still very tired. Fortunately I don't have a lot of work happening right now.

We had a good visit with Court's family. There were more than enough reasons to be worried for the kids. I'm relieved to say that despite all the adult dysfunction in their lives, the kids (ages 16, 13, and 10) are doing okay. One good thing going for them: they are involved in a really good church. People are looking out for them.

Court deserves sainthood for being nice to her parents and other sister (she's 25). And that's all I'll say about them.

We did our every-second-Saturday gay cafe this past weekend. We splurged on one of these. OMFG was it good.

Church is in full swing after a summer hiatus, and that has me busy. I edit the newsletter, I'm a trustee, and I'll also be leading a few services this year.

My mother called me the other night and we had a very positive conversation. This is really good. She and I have so much anger. It's time to just get over it.

So far so good with Amanda and her move from high school to the community college. The newness has worn off and now she's getting into the hard slog. She's upbeat. My days are filled with driving to campus to pick her up or drop her off.

We have a busy fall coming up. We'll be in Pennsylvania in a couple weeks to celebrate my mother's 80th birthday. We also have plans to go to the State Fair in Richmond, the Wine & Garlic Festival in Amherst, the Apple Harvest Festival in Winchester, and we'll be camping at Martinsville for a weekend of racing.

I'll also fly to Kansas City next month for two days of staff meetings. I'm not looking forward to that.

I'm excited for the Chase, NASCAR's version of a playoff, which begins this weekend. My driver, Tony Stewart, is second in points. He's had a bad month, and does not have good momentum going into the final ten races. I hope he turns things around. I'm really excited for the fall race in Martinsville. Hopefully Tony will still be in contention by that race.

Of course I'm loving football now that it's back. I married a Razorback, so they are a sentimental favorite, along with Pitt and Penn State. And then there are my hometown Steelers, who I think are the worst-looking good team of the bunch. I have a hard time watching them play.

I guess that sums things up for now.

End of summer purge

I'm sorry to see summer come to an end. It's been a good summer. It's the easy time of my calendar. Soon financial aid season will be upon me and I'll be at my laptop for hours upon hours, days and weeks at a stretch. Not looking forward to that. In fact, I'm dreading it.

I had my annual physical last week and though I don't have all the lab results yet, I don't expect any surprises. I'm feeling better than I have in a long time. The coughing that had me down during spring (likely allergies), is long gone. The nausea that began last year and worsened this past spring is also gone. It left with Celexa.

Speaking of Celexa, I think I'm finally through the withdrawal. Looking back on it, the process probably hit its apex when I was in Oregon in June. I was so miserable that weekend I wanted to die. I wasn't depressed or suicidal. I just wanted to die. Hard to explain. It's all behind me thankfully. I feel great, both emotionally and physically.

I think my thyroid may be off kilter a bit, so I half-expect to get a call from my doctor to change my Levoxyl dosage. I say half-expect because if my thyroid was off like I think it is, I'd be dropping a lot more weight. I have been dropping weight, but it's because I've been working at it.

After a seven month stretch when I took a break from weight loss and rarely exercised, I picked it up again, in earnest. I came off a stressful winter/consulting season with a serious case of cabin fever. When work wound down, I busted out. I've spent every possible minute of every day this summer outside (or in the pool), doing something.

The batting cage is the perfect compliment to Frisbee golf [I throw from left-to-right and swing from right-to-left]. Just saying.

I've had a lot of time for the outdoors because this is my off season. I've not been especially busy with work. I do a different kind of modeling in my off season. I do these cookie-cutter, assembly line, predictive models. I get a fixed price per model, and there are enough to do that I earn half of my year in my off-season. Yet I hardly work at all.

Unfortunately, the rest of my year doesn't come so easily. I haven't figured out how to adapt my econometric models to an assembly line system so that I can get the same price-to-effort ratio. I need to work on that.

When one can't work, one must play. Playtime aplenty has had its rewards. I dropped 10 pounds over the summer.

I've dropped 50 pounds since quitting my day job 14 months ago. My knees are a lot happier and I no longer suffer from GERD.

I'm working hard to drop 25 more. Then my plan is to clean up the rest of my act just long enough to pass a physical for affordable health insurance. The difference between Fat Trop and Lean Trop is about $200/month in premiums. Cha-ching.

I've blogged enough for now about banjo, except for this cute thing. The kid in the lesson before mine is an 8-year-old girl learning guitar. She's just starting out and already she's doing a respectable rendition of Walk the Line. When her lesson was wrapping up, I overheard her tell the instructor "They're going to make a movie about me, just like in Walk the Line." So. Cute.

If there was a movie about your life, what celebrity would play your part? No clue who would play me in a Trop biopic.

Another reason I'm sad to see summer end: Amanda. I enjoy being home with her through the day. I'm so lucky to have that. We'll still have it after school starts, but it won't be the same.

Amanda has been pumped for school after her first two orientation classes; her full schedule starts tomorrow. I hope she takes to college the way I did. I hated high school so much that I almost skipped out on college. As it was I delayed college until I was 20. That was the right thing for me. I hope this is the right thing for her.

I am so desperate to see Amanda blossom.

Courtney and I spent a lot of date nights this summer at city stadium, where the Hillcats play. Minor league baseball is a lot of fun. We went to the game last night and saw a great fireworks show afterward. I'm going to miss nights out at the stadium.

NASCAR has been SO much fun this summer because my guy has been at the top of the charts most of the season. He had a bad night last night though. Hope that's the last one. NASCAR lasts until November, so there's a lot of racing left.

Finally, I'm sorry to see summer end because with fall comes another birthday (October). I'm going to be 49 this time, and that's hitting me HARD.

I hope I'm doing the right thing

I'm taking Amanda out of high school this year. She would have been a junior.

High school wasn't working out. The problem? She's a truant.

The battle over school attendance began a long time ago, in second grade. It's grown progressively worse over the years. On this one I am a miserable failure as a parent, because I lost the battle.

Everyone always asks "Why doesn't she like school? Why won't she go?" I wish I knew. I wish SHE knew. Tens of thousands of dollars in hospitalizations, medications, and therapy have been spent on these questions. We still don't have an answer.

It's not that she can't do the work. She's in the advanced honors track. And despite missing more days than she attended, she did well on her AP history exam and easily passed her 10th grade standards of learning exams. Last spring she took a college placement exam and tested into college-level English and math.

Having lost the battle, I can't lose the war. So much is at stake.

So, we are changing course.

Tomorrow I'm enrolling Amanda at East Jesus Community College, where she'll earn an AA&S in liberal arts. She chose liberal arts over general studies because of the more rigorous language requirement (she's had three years of high school Spanish). I submitted the plan to the superintendent of schools, and today we got the letter approving the plan.

Having worked there I know EJCC like the back of my hand. I can steer her to better teachers and courses. More importantly, I have friends there who will keep an eye out for her.

Academically, Amanda can hold her own with adult college students. I'm more than concerned, however, about her social life at EJCC. On the one hand, I desperately want her to make friends (quite a few HS-aged kids take classes there). On the other hand, I worry because, though she's only 16, she looks 21. And she's attractive. I think you get where I'm going.

Just the same, this has to work. I don't know what else to do.

I keep coming here looking for a new post

Then I snap out of it and realize I need to write a new post if I want to see one.

I haven't had much of a muse for blogging.

The truth is, I haven't felt particularly well. I've seen my doctor and we're working on a few things. I'll see her again in a month for a more thorough assessment.

Emotionally, I've had some really bad days lately. This is to be expected, I suppose, given that my brain is adjusting to no antidepressants. On a bad day I'm not nice to be around, and I know it. I'm hoping this rough patch is just a phase of my withdrawal.

Yesterday was Amanda's last day of school. I've never been so happy to see a school year end. Though she just completed 10th grade I'll be enrolling her at the community college in the fall as a regular freshman. She tested into college English and math, so she's good to go. By the time her high school classmates are getting their diplomas, she will have, hopefully, completed her first two years of college. I hope it's a good move for her. High school just wasn't working out.

In other good news, my chapter 13 bankruptcy, stemming from my first marriage and subsequent divorce, was discharged (paid in full) on June 1. I am debt free. I cannot describe how free that feels.

You know you vacationed with your teenager when...

Your picture of her is this...










and her picture of you is THIS.

Apologies

Had I known it would be five days until I got back here, I'd have never left that depressing post hanging out there for so long. Sorry.

Saturday we hosted another every-second-Saturday cafe. We had low turnout, which wasn't unexpected given that it was a holiday and a lot of people told us they'd be out of town. Nonetheless, we ended up with about ten more than expected, so that was great. We had a few first-timers, and that's always VERY encouraging.

It always surprises me that people come early and stay late... to a church, where there is no alcohol, on a Saturday night.

Who'd have thought it?

It just shows ya how desperate gays are to find other gays... so desperate that they go to a church on a Saturday night.

Despite the lack of booze, we can get down-right nasty. Wound up on gallons of coffee, we had a mean game of Apple-to-Apples going most of the night... a table of mostly lesbians and our minister, who is a fun guy and a good sport. There was a lot of harsh humor going on. The minister got an earful.

I came to realize that I say "fuck" WAY too much.

It was all very silly. Who doesn't need a little of that these days?

The cafe scored it's first official pick-up, when newly-single Zack rubbed arms with a new guy. I know they left together because I was on bouncer greeter duty at that time.

We didn't have our usual cafe clean up crew, so that left all of the clean-up to us, and made us very late getting home. Worse, we had to be back early the next morning to unload the dishwasher before Sunday coffee hour.

After church, I made the mad dash to load up Judy and hit the road for Savannah, where I am as I write this. Amanda and I left East Jesus at about 2:00pm yesterday and reached our downtown hotel at about 10:10pm last night.

About fifteen minutes after we checked in, Court sent a text asking if I'd seen her car keys. I have them. Oops.

We're here in Savannah for the day. Tomorrow we drive to Naples, FL.

Help me out

I'm driving with Amanda to Naples, FL next week.

Once a year the two of us vacation together. We've been to San Diego, Vail, and Washington, DC.

We're going to Naples this year because friends of ours at the college have a beach house there, and they offered it to us for free. I love my friends. Amanda and I can have a great vacation for WAY more than I can afford, and now I can afford it. People are so nice.

Other than having my Judy checked out by a mechanic for trip-worthiness, I am sorely under-prepared for this trip.

Help me out. What am I going to forget?

Can you believe it?

My baby is sixteen today.

Happy birthday "Punky"

I have to write a letter

~Sigh.

I have to write a letter.

But I keep putting it off.

I have to write a letter to Raj. Amanda's birthday is coming up and it's time to give him an update.


I can't even get out the first word.

~Ugh.

1st prize for insensitive gift of the season goes to

my parents, for sending this book to my daughter for Christmas.

Ouch.

How to jinx your kid

Just as she's about to take a bite of a loaded Sonic chili dog, remind her that she's wearing a brand new white sweater.

Welcome to my world

It's Monday morning, and I'm watching The Basketball Diaries. Those boys are bad asses. I love DiCaprio and Wahlberg together (The Departed is so good).

I guess it's fittin', given that earlier today I attended a truancy hearing at Amanda's school.

I threw her under the bus.

I didn't do it to cover my ass. I did it to put the blame squarely where it belongs: on her.

Here's the thing. Last year we gave her options. She could take classes at the college (a lot of high school kids do this), she could be home schooled (many more do this), or she could continue at her high school. I left a job with benefits to make college or home schooling viable options.

Choosing to stay in high school meant that she actually had to:
1) GO TO SCHOOL.
2) ON TIME.
3) EVERY DAY.

She knew the terms. She accepted them. She chose to stay in high school. She said she'd prove that she could do it.

She's not doing it.



And that's about as much as I can say on the whole thing.

A poem from my daughter

I wish I were a lightning bug,
I wish I were a bee
but which one would you rather be?
"A bee" say some
"A lightning bug" says me!
for how could I be glum
if I had a light in my bum?

I had my yearbook picture taken yesterday

Now that I'm a stay-at-home-mom, I have no excuse for NOT volunteering at Amanda's school. So when I had to sign releases, and privacy statements, an dress code policies and everything else in the big stack of papers kids bring home at the start of the year, I also offered to volunteer.

The school wasted no time contacting me; the yearbook adviser recruited me for picture day. I spent my day yesterday ushering high school kids into and out of the media center for their pictures. High school has changed a lot in the 30 years since I attended. But picture day remains as it always was, with a roll-up background and a battered stool for a seat.

For my trouble, I got a $45 credit on Amanda's pictures. Plus, I talked the photographer into taking a picture of the two of us together.

These signs made me giggle like a 12-year old

I saw these signs while driving around Washington DC. They made me giggle.

We had a very good time. Ann and Brook are great hosts. They took us to lunch at Amanda's favorite Lebanese restaurant up past DuPont Circle in the swanky part of town.

Ann and Brook live downtown, near L' Enfant Plaza, so we walked the few blocks to the Smithsonian and spent the afternoon there. Saturday night I drove us across town to the U Street area for our first taste of Ethiopian cooking. Yum!

I love Ann & Brook's cats.

We had a really great time. The music Friday night was fantastic. Coming back Sunday we made a pit stop in Culpeper. It's a beautiful, quaint town and we will definitely take in a wine or farm tour there in the fall.

This morning I was up bright and early to see my girls off to their respective schools. I made French toast for Amanda and packed her lunch. I drove Courtney to work so she wouldn't have to deal with first-day-of-class traffic at the college.

As for my day, I uploaded a report and began work on another one. And I was given another report to do, due Friday.

I danced all through the house today, just because I could.

Life is good. Really good.

Summer vacation's last drop

It is the end of Amanda's summer vacation. It's been a good summer, I am happy to say. School starts on Monday and Amanda is ready.

I'm going to miss her through the day. We've enjoyed each other's company.

We're on the road again this weekend. First it's north toward Fredericksburg for a music festival. Saturday morning we'll drive to DC for an overnight stay with Court's cousin Ann. We'll head back to East Jesus early Sunday.

I have reports due today, Friday, Monday, and Tuesday. I am so behind on bloglines!

Overheard @ Trop's

"Ahhh... I got the biggest paragraph."

That was Amanda's response when she read the acknowledgments section of my dissertation. My only hard copy I made into a scrapbook, with cards and messages attached to the blank sides of pages. Amanda is looking at the page with "her" paragraph, and pasted next to it is her artwork and signature. She was four at the time.

Step stool recollection

I can't remember the last time I had a step stool in my bathroom.

I love the young woman Amanda is becoming; but sometimes I really miss her wee days.

Overheard @ Trop's

Amanda: Goldilocks would say "momma bear, momma bear and baby bear..."