Juicing

Over the last seven years, y'all've seen me do some crazy crap. (I had never actually typed the world y'all've before. I use it all the time... but it really looks weird spelled out...)

I've run a marathon. I've been a vegetable blogger. I've taken on various volunteer organizations that were just... not even a little cup of crazy, but a big dang mug of chaos. I stopped Karate just as I started blogging. (I was a brown belt in Shotokan.) I'm trying to think if I was blogging when I was running/swimming/lifting all the time.

Anyway, yeah... I don't have issues taking it that next step and experimenting with my health to see if it improves and if I can live with it.

Which is why I've decided... to start juicing.

When on the trip to San Antonio, I hung out with a Mom who is a nutritionist and had done the vegan thing. We talked about why that doesn't work. But I was really interested in her juicing theories.

I've talked for awhile about going once a week or once a month on a pure liquid diet. I have enough digestive issues that I thought that a once a month liquid type fast for 24 hours wouldn't be a bad thing.

But this whole thing with fruits and vegetables and juice... I'm thinking.

I'm in the process of looking for a good juicer. She's been giving me tips. Don't be surprised if I become a Juicer blogger for awhile. The ups and downs of what not to drink when juicing... I have a feeling there will be some big mistakes.

She said every now and then she does a five day vegetable/fruit juice detox.

I said, "FIVE days?" to which she said, "I haven't known you that long, but I have a pretty good glimpse into your personality. I suspect if you decide to go five days on vegetable and fruit juice, you WILL go five days on just vegetable and fruit juice..."

To which I in turn replied, "But... after like... a couple days... don't your teeth feel the need to BITE something?"

She gave me an odd look.

I'm probably going to try it, but I think it is a good thing I don't live near a farm or after day three, I might be caught biting a cow.

We shall see...

When Beyonce Creates Bonds

I was walking down the street of San Antonio with one of the four Moms I enjoyed hanging with, and there stood a miniature version of the giant chicken.

A smaller version of... Beyonce.

I stood there staring and immediately one of the Moms pulled out a camera and started to take a picture saying, "OMG. I have to send this to a friend... Beyonce"

To which I said, "Knock, Knock..."

And in unison we finished, "Mother F*cker..." and we both broke out laughing.

She reads the Bloggess. Funniest post ever if you'd not read it.

Holy crap.

You've officially bonded with someone when you both see a giant metal chicken and immediately say, "Knock, Knock..."

Amused

Conversation tonight. I was hungry for something sweet. I was looking for a bowl of cut up canteloupe from my fridge.

Me: Where's my canteloupe?

T: We ate it. It sucked.

Bones: It did. It really sucked.

T: It was hard.

Bones: like an apple

T: without taste

Bones: It was awful

Me: *pause* but I notice it is still gone...

Bones: We were doing you a favor.

T: Big favor. It sucked. Really.

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I was in San Antonio with the Boys Choral group and the entire trip was planned by a Festival company. They did a really crappy job.

At one point, the plan was to drop us off downtown at some Mexican Market thing... for FOUR HOURS. Four hours of Mexican stuff... with 180 middle school kids.

There were four of us women that just kind of hung out together. Similar senses of humor and values... we found ourselves laughing a lot.

Five minutes into it, the four of us looked at each other and said, "NO WAY. No way we can do this for four hours..." (Fortunately, the choral directors saw it our way and we left after two.)

We knew it to be true when we found the Last Supper carved out of wood and made completely of Mexican men wearing sombreros.

Christ was wearing a sombrero. You can't make this stuff up. I just wish I'd had the wherewithal to take a picture.

Instead I took a picture of a life sized porcelain pig. As I leaned over it, one of the Moms said to me, 'Bou. What are you doing?" To which I replied, "This is a large piggy bank, right? I mean, what do you do with a life sized porcelain pig?"

Of course I sent it to my sister, the picture, not the pig, and told her it was extraordinarily fortuitous that I was traveling by air, for if I'd been by car, I would have purchased one of said pigs and given it to her as a gift so she could pretend she was riding it.

Did I ever post the story about the time she separated her shoulder while in the gym with me, and the next week some guy asked her what happened (her arm was in a sling) and tired of telling the story, she made up one about riding/racing pigs for a children's charity and falling off, separating her shoulder, while she tried to save the life of a child falling off their own pig?

Yes.

So now I have. And the urge was most overwhelming to buy one of those pigs and have it shipped to her...

I did not.

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I found a good home for latch hook rug Jesus and if I'd thought about it, I would have bought Apostle/Jesus Sombrero Last Supper for him too.

I'm not sure why I wasn't thinking clearly that day.

So much potential for gift giving...

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Bones is auditioning for a new group next month.

It is a serious group, but a fun group... get to 1:30 when it gets funny.

This is the mens's group he aspires to sing with...

Reflections

I think that people don't value National Security enough anymore. I find that... disturbing.

I find it rather ironic, that back without the internet, without TV or instantaneous gratification in communication, that everyone was worried about the Russians, our enemies, or even the Chinese. Now with the internet, what appears to be visibility into everything, because people don't see them there lurking... the assumption is that they must not be... lurking.

We will be the end of ourselves.

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So I'm back on homebase and we're trying to get everything wrapped up for the end of the school year. My older boys are starting to study for their final exams. We're trying to keep on top of Bones to get through this school year... a truly torturous task.

Ringo graduates from high school next year. We have 12 months and he'll be a high school graduate. I'm not struggling with it... but I keep mulling it over. Six months from now, and we'll probably know where he is going to college.

He will be leaving home.

I'm Ok with it, but I am realizing more and more how much I... need him here. Our late night conversations as he pours out his hopes and worries. My listening, knowing I can fix nothing nor make anything happen. It is all for him to do.

Parenting is becoming more and more a spectator sport as I prepare to release him.

He runs errands for me, helps Bones in math, mows the yard, pulls the younger boys aside when he realizes they've pushed me to my limits. He is another adult in this home.

My husband had accidentally planned a business trip for the same time I was in San Antonio. It left T and Ringo home alone from Wednesday afternoon until Saturday night. There were band practices, concerts, dinners, school and even a prom. The entire time, they only had to rely on someone besides the two of them... once. Son#4's Mom came and picked up T from a study group on Saturday and brought him back to their home while Ringo went to Prom.

It was just four days, but they completely took care of themselves.

It wasn't until I was in Tyndall on day 4 that Ringo started to send me txts, wondering how I was, what I was doing and when I'd be home. He sent me pictures of his Prom, unasked. Via txt we joked about various things.

One of my co-workers said to me after I showed him the Prom picture and told him about some of our txts, "You have a good son, Bou. I hope I have a relationship with my son like you do with yours... when he's Ringo's age."

I am very blessed. There are times I want to scream. There are times I want to run. But those times are few and far between.

I walk amongst the blessed.

Every now and then, I just have to be reminded... like going away and seeing from afar, what I have been given. Single handedly, the most difficult, amazing, and wonderful job I have had is...

... being a Mom.

Just About Done with TSA

I posted already on the fact I couldn't get through TSA with a small hard rubber lift in my sandal... that was packed in my suitcase. Obviously someone thought it was a shank and I was going to butcher the passengers of an airplane with it.

What I didn't tell you is what happened the day before on my return flight home with the vocal department, with a bunch of pre-teen and teenage boys in my care.

It started with my mis-packing. I'd accidentally not packed the correct under garment to wear with a black sheer tank top I wear with a open weave top. That forced me to wear my Sunday shirt to the performance on Friday.

But come Sunday I realized... it had been so hot in San Antonio, I couldn't re-wear anything. I had sweated way too much. I was stuck.

So I decided to wear my dark blue tshirt pajama top, figuring if I put a hoody on over it, nobody would know. It could probably pass as a real tshirt.

We got to security and they told us that all sweatshirts/hoodies/coats had to come off. I thought, "Great. Now I have to go through security wearing my pajama shirt... but nobody will notice... hopefully."

I was coaching the boys through, getting them to take off their shoes, their belts, and to separate their electronics. Somehow, I got tagged to go through the big huge Xray machine where you put your hands over your head.

Great. In my pajama top.

I went through, did my thing... and I failed.

I got pulled aside and a female TSA person had me put my hands over my head as she started to pat me down. She said, "Let me know if I hurt you..." and she proceeded... to cup both my breasts.

I'm standing there, big as day, knowing I'm in my pajama top, with the middle school boys all around while the TSA agent feels me up.

I looked at her and said, "Excuse me, but did I FAIL the Xray machine?" to which she replied, 'Yes... but I think it was this...' and she proceeded to grab the middle clasp of my bra, fingering it, nearly unsnapping it. Her hand was between my breasts grabbing the center clasp of my bra.

Boys all around.

I've had three kids and honestly, there isn't a lot of modesty left in me. They had so many people in the room when I gave birth to Bones, due to some complications, that I suggested they pull in bleachers so everyone had a place to sit for the show. But can you imagine if this had happened to some teenage kid?

I walked down to the chaperones and told the Moms what happened. They said, "Call your husband and tell him you don't need anything from him tonight. TSA just about took care of it for you..."

Crazy.

I have a friend who is an airline pilot. I was telling him and his wife the story the other day, knowing he deals with TSA. He told me he's so sick of them he has attitude. This is a guy who flies into the SAME airport, back and forth... all the time. All.the.time.

He said he doesn't even fight with them anymore. He said he has such bad attitude that when they tell him he can't fly with something, like his razor, something he's flown 500 times before with, without ever being stopped, he just says, "Fine. I'm going home. I'll call my supervisor and tell him I'm not going to work because TSA won't let me..." and he walks away. The airline steps in then, I gather.

He said there is no rhyme or reason why he gets stopped. He can go for months and months and months, just gliding through, and then one day, carrying the same exact stuff he's carried for months and months before, someone will get a bug and decide he can't go through.

It's a power trip, mostly.

Except in my case? I seriously think my TSA agent was a lesbian and she just wanted to feel me up.

I'm not kidding.