At the Ball Game with Rich

Tuesday, April 30, 2013 @ 4:10 pm
Hi hi ... this is me.  It's an unusual time for me to be writing, but we have been hanging with Rich today.  We left the house at about 11 am, theb ge drove us to Dr. Marvin's and then we drove about an hour and a half northeast by Dekalb and now we are parked in the lot FACING Rich's ball game.  It's a softmore game and I think it is girls.  He's already met up with a couple other umps and they've walked over the long field toward where they are going to be playing.  He said it was about 86 degrees out which is a change from about 60 a day or two ago and there is a nice breeze.  I have my hair in a ponytail and all the windows in the car are open cooling it off, but Rich was pretty sure that I didn't need the car/gas/air conditioner combo.  I sorta see his point and am not uncomfortable, but I have to get used to the whispy hair going across my face between it and the screen.  We're also still getting used to the black and green screen of the app writing program we are using for the new chromebook.  I like it, but like everything else its a change.  Rich says the game should last about 1 1/2 hours and it's starting at 4:30 pm and I think it's going to be about 45 minutes home.  So we're out here for the long run.  We did get a subway and a couple cookies after Dr. Marvin's and we just stopped at McDonalds for bathroom and a strawberry lemonade slurpee like thing, but it's not real icy and we expect it to melt soon in the warmth.  BUT, for the most part we're all good and ready for the next period of time!
So what is next?  I guess if we were getting back into regular time with writing in the blog, we'd be catching up where we last left off.  I think we wrote a few paragraphs while the girls were still sleeping Sunday morning, and it is now late Tuesday afternoon.  As to the girls being at our house we had just the best time with them.  Jade was perfect onto herself, and she was especially helpful with Isa.  There are just a lot of things she knows about her from the last few years sharing space that we just are not aware of ... Like what has to happen to give Isa a shower, or to help her really take one herself.  She's so much more advanced than can possibly be imagined.  I'm relly proud of both young women/girls.  I know i know they are only 14 and 7, but they are so gosh darn cool.
I think you heard in the note to Linda some of the things that were happening that night.  When they finally did wake up around 10:30 am on Sunday morning, we talked to Isa first and then Jade got up though she was saying she had been laying in bed.  After Isa got up, Rich started making waffles, and then we ate and there were donuts too.  After that Rich asked if we minded him going fishing, which we didn't and then Jade got ready and helped Isa with her shower.  Jade had taken one the night before and needed no prompting.
After the showers we had one more activity in mind which was one we really wanted to try ... I wasn't sure how Jade would take it because it was another activity with fabric, but she seemed all good.  We had all gravitated to the recliners after the shower (we' already taken ours), and I showed them some quilting magazines and had them skim the magazines and I just presented that we would like to have them focus on patterns and how things repeat in quilts, and then I gave them the project that I wanted them to try taking from the fabrics we had sorted the night before and then make pictures.  They both seemed to understand.  Jade was ready to give it a try and Isa had found a quilt picture using sandles and a oval type design for the spoke-center.  Sure enough the magazine had a pattern to cut-out for the shoe and so then we talked about it and Isa seemed to know what she called using a "tracer."  That was pretty cool.  She and I traded back and forth the tracing/cutting project, but she did probably a little more work than we did.  In the meantime Jade cut out the name Cody as one of her favorite rock artists, and then she didn't like the way that looked and continued over again to cut-out the word love, and then she added the infinity symbal which was sorta like a sideways number 8.  Then after than she cut small triangles and cirled the other, and then she circled that with squares.  Everything got glued down to the packing paper.  I thought it was a nice calming exercise ... not real wild, but nice in a peaceful manner.
About the time we were about 15-20 minutes from finishing, Nikki came with the other two girls Jasmine and Ame.  I felt bad because almost immediately Jasmine and Jade got into a little scuffle about who was riding back in the front seat.  There was a little of the crazy argumentative stuff which I didn't like and handn't heard the whole weekend.  The other thing that was hard was while the girls assessed what was happening at our place without them, Jasmine asked if I sewed clothes.  I said no.  Then she asked if I wanted to.  I said no.  I told her I didn't know how nor did I want to know how.  She said she knew and would teach me, but again we said no.  We had absolutely no interest in a project of that magnitude and we'd worked with her a couple of times before and know she has problems in being patient with projects.  Plus it didn't include us giving Ame as much time as Jasmine.  I took it to be a power play on Jasmine's part or as an aggressive move to control our setting.  None of which I liked, so we are precautioned as to what might be coming up next.  It seems though because of some changes in schedule, it might be like a month before getting the next two girls.  We had forgotten about Mother's Day, and then there were some vacation complications.  We'll get them in, but were kind of wondering if we shouldn't take Jasmine on her own.  She's a lot to handle and demands a lot of attention and I'm not sure of the fairness then to Ame.
While they were there Jasmine brought up comng out for mother's day and she brought up that it was also her birthday.  In the meantime we had to acknowledge out loud that we'd done nothing for Isa and Ame's birthdays in January and February.  That will have to be addressed in a special way between me and the two girls.  I think I would really love the time to spend too with Jasmine and just see what we can do with defining boundaries on a very conscientious level.  I think I can really do it, but it is going to take effort and our undivided attention.  I would like her to get in the final run of the overight that there are two - three considering Rich schedules and that she's a part, but not the center.  Just two people in the same time.  The more I think of it the more excited I am.  I would like to have a good relationship, but we need to take the pressure off of the competitive feelings for attention.
Ok, moving on ... one more thing though too?  I would really like to spend more ttime with Ame where she isn't competing with dominant people for attention.  II've known her the longest, but am disappointed in all that I don't know.  I wwould really like to get some time with her.  It really be like a vacation for hher.  Ya know?
After Nikki got out to the house on Sunday, we all laughed our way through things.  After they allowed me to take a few pictures with the projects, they slipped out the door and on their way.  I looked at the pictures for about a half an hour without moving just getting over the shock of them not being there aanymore.  I really missed them, though we were very tired.  I decided to sit/lay in the recliners for a bit and we slept for about an hour.  I think the nnext part was that we talked to Linda for a bit online.  I don't remember much eelse.  I'm pretty sure Rich got home ... maybe closer to 5 than 3 pm, but that was ok.  I think we were watching CNN.  I think we went through a crabby space tthat night ... as I can remember now, he wanted to take down the girls pictures where we had taped them to the wall and that while making sense was not something we could psychologically handle at the time.  And then, he wasn't hhelpful when it came to sharing tasks of closing up the house.  We were very tired and not really able to process things properly.  Not sure what happened with medicine, but we're pretty sure we were off that too.
I think in the end that we finally allowed him to touch/message us, but it was iffy.  He did resume effort the next night - last night when he got home and I'm pretty sure it's going to be our time next time.  He had had time at a game Monday night and then he went out with Doug for a couple of hours.  He was pretty humble when he called asking if it be ok to be out with Doug and have a Margarita.  We worried more about him having a drink and driving, but as to him being out ... we were ok with that.
Yesterday I think we got up late like we did this morning, and we had problem getting started with the day.  We get to the point of grabbing coffee and sitting in the recliner, but getting to the opening things up, picking up, shower, getting dressed, etc. - we've been pretty sluggish.  It dawned on me that Linda had adjusted to our new time schedule of being ready for a conversation at 8:30 am because we WERE doing that, but all of a sudden it was getting to be 8:30 am and I hadn't even started.  Maybe part of that too is in taking medication.  I've been sluggish on doing it by 7 am, and from there it just gets worse.  We have to be conscious of all this enough to change.  Hmm?
Yesterday things finally got done, and we determined after waiting a while for Linda, that we just had to bite the bullet and get some sewing in.  We wanted to finish the 2nd church quilt, so we could move on today to cleaning off the table and getting space ready for cutting the old/new stuff for the next 5 quilts.  I'm not sure if we spelled all that out yet, but primarily we had ordered $40 - 40 - $1 Fat Quarter pieces all in tones of yellow.  We felt this would complement as an off color from the fat quarters CS had given me quite a while ago.  It hopefully will be in by the time we get home today.  I'm hoping that it is just sitting on the front stoop.  That's the kinda thing that has been happening so far.  :)
Again, I feel like we've probably said this before, but each of the fat quarters should be cut in six pieces and multiple that by 80 FQ, we should have enough for 5 quilts 60" x 80" or 96 pieces at 11" x 6".  That's the sum and substance of the project.  We have gotten up to figuring out that if we cut it over the next few days, then we could bring the sewing machine and project up to WI on Saturday and now the plan is that Linda is opening her place up for quilters (from our small group) on Sunday when Tony is out of town doing his coin shows.  We feel particularily blessed to be getting to spend the extra time with Linda.  So far Emily has said no because she needs to take care of Ainsley, but CS has said yes, and we're waiting to here from the twins.  I know that Linda doesn't have a lot of room, but the group has always made do with what we have.  I figure I should be able to get a quilt to a quilt and a half done in a day WITH talking.  Hehehe
It's not a race, but we are looking forward to nice and steady quilting.  Lately we have been just cutting and I've missed the other.  This should be a great weekend to really get some work done.  CS voluteered through FB to help, and she suggested that everyone take a quilt, but we didn't think that was the right thing to do.  We really felt it was our project, I hadn't been asking for help, and it was something that I was personally doing for the church group we are just meeting.  I didn't want to blow them away and set up expectencies, I just wanted to sew what I could and think toward the project as a whole and my experiencing with it.  Our thoughts were that if CS wanted to donate fabric, we would take that, but felt that she might want to rejoin her church if that was her interest because they also do quilts.  I also didn't think it the right decision to voluteer our best friends to do what was in all actuality MY work.  I'm really positive they have other things to do.  The group has talked about extra sewing for charity, but this wasn't the way to do it.  There was a little more frustration in that although CS and our best interests lie together with the sewing, I have never liked that she should expect to do whatever we were doing.  It's just a little extra frustration left over from being kids together.
CS also too extra interest in "setting me straight" about her morphine medication, but we hadn't asked for all that ... She seemed to disregard the rest of the ten pages for the one sentence she obviously took defensively.  We talked to Dr. Marvin about it today and why she might do that.  In one way it might be unfair to mention her or anyone in our personal blog, but the feeling is that we should have control over our thoughts through our personal medium and if anyone else had thoughts ... they could write in their own space.  I don't mean to be dissing anyone, but there are things in life that give me space to be worrying or trying to figure out out loud.  I don't want to be censored in my own space.
Ok, need to back away from that a bit.  We've just taken stock of our space here at the edge of the high school park where we see in the distance Rich over the home plate.  He's about the size of an ant, but we can see his blue shirt against the green grass.  It gives us comfort to be this close to him while still in our own space.  If nothing else we love to write!
Ok, though we took a break ... we tried to sign online with no luck.  we did it at UIC, but couldn't here ... it wasn't picking up Rich's signal.  Not sure what's happening there.  Then we got into the popcorn and then had some water and found Rich had a couple small plastic basketball cups with bubble gum and stickers in them.  It must be from one of his jobs.  So of course we promptly put stickers all across the front of the glove compartment ... I mean it just makes sense doesn't it?  We're pretty sure Rich is going to make us take them down, but for the time being ... they are really pretty!  They have a metalic background which is probably a cheap tin foil type thing, but you gotta go with whatever the day puts in front of you!  Wallah!
The other team playing - the older girls have just left the field.  I think Rich has sophomores.  He is doing this game with a partner and between the four umps they seem to know each other and had a good time talking and comparing stories before they did their work.  It's 6 pm now so we don't expect the game to go on much more.  Rich said about 1 1/2 hours.
I think after this we're going home to get something to eat.  It's actually been a very nice day, but it really made a nice difference that there was a breeze.  We talked to Rich and then talked about it to Dr. Marvin, but Rich said that tomorrow he's going to need the kitchen table for a job.  We of course had also planned to use the table.  We had wanted to bring our cutting to the front of the house where there was more light and activity.  So in the end we compromised actually Rich emphasized umm, work?  or play?  Of course his work won out, but we got a good booby-prize in that we've asked him to bring out the drafting table from his "office" to the breezeway.  We can keep in touch with Rich there and it will be a pleasant space to spend the day.  We're quite excited by the idea.  I know that it is Rich's office desk, but he did seem to move his work elsewhere AND the two of us can be accomidating.  Good Good
I'm not sure who is taking the field next.  I guess it is the black team.  I didn't pay attention to which was the home and visiting team so I'm hard pressed to guess which inning.  Maybe I could have paid attention to this, but it wasn't something we were focused on.  I think we're going to be stiff when we finally crawl out of the car.  I'm glad to be at the game with Rich ... even though sitting distance.  I would not have easily made it over the course of the field to get to the softball part.
So what else should we talk about before we end.  Not much from Dr. Marvin's part.  We did a lot of summary and went over a few problematic things.  One of the things we're going through is feeling more distance between us and Dr. Marvin - he suggested because of the physical separation of us moving furt.  It's not insurmountable, but it's not really pleasant eitehr.  We haven't gotten our feet under us yet and it hasn't been made easier because of all the breaks and interuptions of our sessions.  I think we repeated earlier, it is going to be a whole month now where the sessions will be on scheudle.  Maybe this will allow us some feeling of continuity.  It's just one of those things that happen.
One of the things we've been thinking about today and had tried to sign online for was to hear how Joe is doing.  He had surgery this morning for a torn miniscus in his knee.  Cari had wrote on FB after he got out of surgery and it had gone well and he was still sleepy, but then Joe wrote himself to say that it was over and he was consciuos again and ready for the long recovery.  We're pretty sure the tear was something that happened with his Karate and I'm really hoping that it doesn't jeapardize what he can do athletically.
We also talked to Dr. Marvin about Joe coming a week from Thursday.  Dr. Marvin was fine with it of course.  Basically, Joe was asking questions about him being a multiple too because of some differences that seemed stark in his personality.  Dr. Marvin reminded us that he couldn't diagnose Joe, because he was our therapist, but he seemed to understand the basics of what we were asking as to have an outloud conversation about it between the three of us.  I'm really looking forward and we checked out our resources so Joe could get to the disability access.  We will have to come around the back way and then drive ourselves to the parking lot and walk in the regular long way.  Won't put Joe through that just a week plus after surgery.  I'm hoping the time goes quickly for him.  He's got time off from his regular school loan job and will be just doing the dojo - with people to do his classes for him.  He's such a good kid, and Dr. Marvin and I talked in general how good the kids have turned out.  Just couldn't be more proud of them.
I think it's an important part of the game, because I hear people doing an extra amount of yelling and encouraging.  A few times I've thought of being a high school athlete and in particular for softball.  It was such a long and capable while ago.  We don't think for long beause it is always sad on this other end to see what happens to us.  We told Dr. Marvin about gaining a pound from last week.  It seemed invevitable because of all the goofy stuff we were eating while the girls were here, but then too today we had a candy bar and two cookies.  This is not something that happens to the REAL dedicated weight loss person.
We're going to hope to get us out doing the lawn mowing once more this week.  Rich said that we could do half of it and he'd do the remaining, but the goal of course is always to finish.  I'm not sure though if we'll focus on that tomorrow or the more preferabe cutting.  Maybe there would be time for both, but the lawn absorbs a lot.  Hmm, I think the game is over, I can see Rich limping back with the other ump.  He's almost here so we'll have to go in just a second.
Anything eelse?  Maybe not ... sure am in love with our love bunny.  He seems to be in sync with the other guys ... I like that he has friends.