Sharpshooters, Unresolved Issues, and Bifocals

Well, I had this post all planned out. It was going to be really cute. I was going to start with a picture of Jasper sleeping in our bed, cuddled up next to Jeff. Then I was going to boo hoo about how sad I was that Jasper was no longer sleeping in our bed. A really cute picture of him sleeping with Camille was going to come next. However, Jasper was back in our bed this morning. So we'll save that story for another day. Here is a picture of what the 3 boys (and weiner dog) are doing right now on the "family bed"; watching Word Girl on PBS.

Although I do not particularly enjoy having Jasper repeatedly dig his toes into the waistband of my underwear all night long, I find I am in no particular hurry for him to vacate the family bed. He is, after all, the last one. There was a time when I allowed other people to make me fearful of never ever getting the children out of our bed - I truly thought that they might just settle in forever, which would ruin their lives (how could they go to college, get married, have kids of their own...etc) and not really provide much of a rosy future for my husband and me, either. Ahhhh, but they do not stay little forever - they truly want to head out on their own, sooner or later. Jasper is going to be later.

This reminds me of a story (of course).

A couple of years ago somebody shot through our living room window. Yes, I said SHOT. As in with a gun. A real bullet. It was not an election year so that ruled out gun-toting Republicans who were sick of my bumper stickers. And there are no moose or lawyers here, anyway. That left the more likely scenario that somebody was shooting at a coyote. Possibly even a Democrat, although not an extremely liberal one, seeing as how he/she had a gun. Possibly it was a Libertarian. Anyway - politics aside - somebody shot through our window, hopefully unintentionally. And do you want to hear something scary? I was sleeping on the couch at the time! No fight with the hubby - just an attempt to curtail the nighttime nursing by one of the kids still in our bed. So I actually heard something and it woke me up. I got up and looked around, saw nothing out of place, and so went back to the couch.

In the morning I saw a hole in my bamboo shade and upon further investigation, saw the perfect bullet-sized hole in the window. Holy cow! What to do? I called the sheriff. I don't know why - I just did. A deputy came out and looked at the hole. First he wanted to know if one of my boys had done it. What? With a nerf gun? We gave Joel a BB gun for his 10th birthday and his exact words upon opening it were, "Do you want me to kill myself?" Anyway, it was determined that neither of my boys had done it. With the family no longer serving as suspects, he was free to move onto other considerations. Now, I'm no detective. I don't even watch CSI. But when I examined the bullet hole it appeared to be "angled". It looked like it came from a certain direction, which would be the house across the highway - the one with a zillion and a half fighting cock cages. I shared my opinion with the deputy, who grinned at me and said he couldn't draw the same conclusion and if he had to guess, it had come from the road and had been a straight shot. That sounded stupid to me. Who would stop his pickup and shoot at a coyote in MY front field? That would leave the uncomfortable scenario that a pickup had stopped on the road in front of my house to shoot at ME. Like I said, it wasn't an election year. I remained suspicious of the house across the highway, whose inhabitant was possibly shooting at a coyote in HIS front pasture and missed...The deputy said the bullet could technically have travelled up to a mile. "You can't really tell where the shooter was by looking at this here hole," he said. Then he looked at me like I shouldn't be bothering my pretty little (then blond) head with such details. He closed his book, said he'd look into and talk to the neighbors, and get back to me. I am still waiting for him to get back to me. Anyway, I decided to pretend I knew what I was doing and assume the bullet had come from the direction I suspected. I followed the trajectory from the window, walked over to the wall, and BINGO. A little divot in the wall. Just a divot, so obviously it had ricocheted. Again I did my little trajectory thing and guess what? A ping in the ceiling. I trajectoried once more and there was another ping on the door frame of the study. And then, there on the floor of the study, sat the bullet. How smart am I? So apparently the bullet had been fired from quite a distance as it had only penetrated the glass and no walls. Definitely not a hired hit from the road, we were looking at a missed coyote or beer bottle practice from the house across the highway. What a relief! Kind of....

We were all a little spooked. That night I decided I would feel better if all the kids slept in our room, which has no windows facing the county road. After the little ones and the boys were settled, Ellie came in. She was holding her pillow and a blanket. She stopped at the doorway, looked at all of us and said, "Well, I'd really rather be shot." Then she headed back to her own bedroom, where she slept quite peacefully all night. So see? They really don't stay in your bed forever. The day will come that they would rather be shot. Sweet, isn't it?

Feel like another story? Have I mentioned I am having issues? I should not be having issues. They are supposedly all resolved. How do I know this? Because I was told so. The scenario went like this:

I waited for him to finish reading something on his computer screen. He knew I was there. He was making me wait, as his type is prone to do. I was getting nervous, which I'm sure he enjoyed. Finally, he looked up at me as if we both had all the time in the world and said, "What can I do for you?"

"Well," I said. "I have unresolved issues."

"Ahhh...I see," he said.

Obviously he had done this a zillion times before. In his occupation, he was used to people with unresolved issues. He gave me a kind, if totally disinterested, smile.

I smiled back. I attempted to explain but he continued smiling as if he'd heard it all before. Which I'm sure he had. "Let's see what we can do," he said. Then he started typing. I became uncomfortable. It seemed to take forever. How much was this going to cost me, anyway?

"That will be $17.50," he said.

"God, that's a lot," I said.

He handed me back my library card.

"I've seen worse," he said.

As usual, that was nice to know.

So anyway, according to my library account, I have no more unresolved issues. If only the rest of my life could be so easily settled. I am 43-years-old and am physically falling apart. I will spare you the really gory details of this and stick with the more palatable aspects. Today I got bifocals. Well, I pick them up on Thursday. I have no idea what I picked out because a) I can't frickin' see anything and b) my pupils were dilated at the time I was supposed to be looking at myself in the mirror with various styles of frames over my owlish eyes. I told the guy I wanted cute glasses and he showed me a bunch of old lady glasses. I have a small face and I was expecting all kinds of help from an expert like you see on the commercials on television, but he was pretty much like, "Well, here are the frames. Don't get anything too small since you're getting BIFOCALS."

"What is too small?" I asked.

"Well," he said. "See these tiny numbers in the lower right hand corner of this almost invisibly small tag? You're looking for frames without these little numbers."

"I can't see anything other than a tremendous glare," I said, while squinting through pupils the size of Texas. I might as well have told him I had unresolved issues. He was totally disinterested.

"Call me when you're ready," he said.

"Ready for what?" I asked.

"To check out," he answered.

So I have no idea what I got. I think they are kind of brownish/reddish. I think they have something shiny on the side, although that could have been the blinding glare of the fluorescent lighting. It is kind of exciting. At my age, excitement is coming more and more in the form of things like thrilling bifocal options.

I have never done anything gracefully. It is doubtful I'm going to start with aging. I'm all for ungraceful falling apart, instead. Anyone care to join me?

Finally (is this a long post or does it just feel that way because of my tremendous headache due to my dilated pupils?) - here is a link to Ellie's performance on Saturday. She played her first concerto. Her teacher is playing on the second piano. She did so great! Quality isn't so hot but the sound is good enough to be enjoyable. I am so totally obnoxiously proud. (You can also get to the link on my sidebar...it is labeled "our daughter's latest latest performance").

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6435539926324110507&hl=en

Sardine Mama