He’s had an interesting time of it this year because he’s fighting to catch up in the general sense, and also in the more specific sense because he got a bad case of gastroentritis in late September that kept him out of school for a 9-day stretch, and a couple additional relapses since have his total number of days missed up to around 15. When you’re carrying a full, 7-hour load of college prep classes, missing that much school in the space of six weeks really sets you back.

He’s sixteen now, and one of the other goals he’s working toward is getting a driver’s license. Being the mean mom that I am, I have set conditions on when he can even go take the test and try: when he has a 2.5 GPA. Not unreasonable, in my estimation. And he was really looking forward to progress report time to show me that he had achieved that, and then some – and then the gastroentritis hit.

Throughout this catch-up process, I have made myself available to assist him with homework, and we’ve covered everything from neural transmitters in Physics and Anatomy to allegory in English III to ecosystems in his Environmental Science AP class. He’s made comments about how smart I am, always with an element of surprise in his voice, but also a bit of resistance to the idea that he might, too, have those kind of smarts because that would be entirely too geeky for the jock persona he’s cultivating for himself. (And, let’s not mention the accountability issues…)

But the other night took the cake and, in the process, he made my day.

He was working on Geometry, and like him, that’s one of my least favorite subjects. I can’t to this day tell you the names of the concepts taught, or show you a congruent angle to save my life. But I can work the shit out of some geometry problems by applying simple logic.

Here’s the problem he was trying to solve:

He had to determine the number of degrees in angle A.

So, I asked him what he knew about the angles in the diagram. He just kind of looked at me, like he was thinking, “Look at the diagram, Mom – that’s what I know.”

So I said, “Angle A is 32 degrees.” (Admittedly, I wanted to impress him.)

Incredulous, he looked at me and asked, “How the hell do you know that?!?”

And here is the Geometry-according-to-a-middle-aged-mom-living-in-the-real-world answer I gave:

“Ok, son – here’s what I know when I look at this:

The corners of the outside rectangle are right angles which mean they are 90 degrees.

The lines creating the 4 triangles in the middle of the rectangle meet in exactly the middle, and if this were a perfect square, that would make angle A 45 degrees, because it’d be exactly half of 90. But this isn’t a square, so it’s not 45 degrees, it’s probably less, because just from looking at the diagram, angle A looks more squished than the one that, when added to it, makes up that right angle in that corner of the rectangle.

I also know that because the lines cross in the middle of the rectangle, whatever angle A is, the angle that makes up the opposite corner of that particular triangle is the same number of degrees, whatever that is.

Finally, I know that the total number of degrees represented by all 3 inside angles of a triangle is 180, because if you rolled its three sides out flat they’d be a straight line, and the number of degrees in a straight line is 180.

So…180 minus 116 (the angle I know) is 64. And since the other two angles have to be equal, I just divide 64 in half….so…angle A is 32.”

Contemplatively, he took his paper back, turned to walk away, stopped, looked back at me and said, “You’re the smartest person I know.”

And with that, he made my day.

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Geometry According to Mom Logic

It occurred to me that my handwriting these days generally sucks. No surprise, I suppose, because I so rarely hand write anything any more. So, I picked up a pen and started writing the alphabet on my notepad. Each time through, I stumbled at ‘r’. I wrote ‘u’, instead. So, I guess 40 years of Qs – which are almost always following by Us – and now I’m incapable of writing my alphabet properly unless I slow down to a crawl. Weird.

So, too, I have these quirks on the keyboard. When I go to send an email to my business coach, whose name is Tom and whose email address is tom@something.com (*note: I did this just now trying to type his email address here), I almost always type tome@…before I recognize my mistake. The e just comes flying out my fingers – automatically following the m. Weird.

Another one of these, for me, is not being able to type the word female properly without typo correction. (* and yes, I did this just now, too) I always type femail. Yeah…me…Miss Spelling Snob. I suppose I know where that one comes from, but still… Weird.

What about you? What weird things do your fingers do?

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My Fingers Do Weird Things

I’ve spent the better part of the last 45 years avoiding sleep. Ask my mother…I hardly ever slept as a child. I’m pretty sure I took naps as an infant, but she’s right about the rest of the years since. I remember when I was three and being sent to my room for a nap. Ha! She could send me to my room, but she couldn’t make me sleep!

Over the years, I’ve been heard saying things like, “I can’t sleep during the day,” and “Nap? Yeah, right,” and “I’ll have plenty of time to sleep when I’m dead.”

Well, guess what I did today?

Yup – took a nap.

Aside from the fact that I’ve been sick all week, maybe – just maybe – I’m coming to grips with the idea that I’m likely not going to miss anything if I take better care of myself and rest when I feel the need.

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Return of the Nap

Was it worth the phone call before I’d been properly caffeinated?

Oh yeah…

You know…she’s got a point. And the dang Vatican isn’t the only example, for sure. So, by posting this, I’m not picking on my Catholic friends…promise.

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Sell the Vatican, Feed the World

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Cheerios Taste Great Off the Floor

Since we won the SuperBowl last year (at least I suspect that’s the reason) I get to see more of their games. Usually, I have to put up with the Cowboys, Chiefs and Broncos….BLECH….but this year, so far all of their games have been televised here.

Since I live the erratic life I live, I record the games so I can be sure to get to see them. Except, my dumb butt needs to adjust the recording settings to record extra time at the end, because on all three of the recordings, so far, it quit just minutes before the games were over. Today, there was 1:01 left on the clock and we were up 20-15. I about came undone! Turns out, the final score was 23-20. We lost. UGH.

So, now we’re 1:2. The stupid Ravens are undefeated and, by extension, first in our division. We’re not off to a good start.

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Diggety-Dang DVR Leaves Me Hangin’ Again!

Yeah, that’s my street…and my oldest and youngest children almost knee-deep in rushing water. Two hours later, we just had puddles.

This is what happens when, as Second Son said when he slopped in from the bus, “Mom! It’s rainin’ out there like Jesus himself is cryin’!”

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So We Got a Little Rain Last Night…

September 6 – September 29 is a Mercury Retrograde, which means we’re smack, dab in the middle of it. If you haven’t a clue what a Mercury Retrograde is, read about it here, explained beautifully by my friend, Lisa.

If you’d like to know when these periods will occur over the next couple of years – you know…so you can PLAN (gasp!) for them – my friend, Donna, published this Mercury Retrograde Table 2009-2012 earlier this year.

And to round things out, pay attention to another good friend’s daily posts over at AstroChatter as she’ll guide you through on a day-to-day basis – thanks, Pam!

It was my friend, Nancy, who first introduced me to Mercury Retrograde back in early 2008. (I was grossly uninformed where astrology was concerned before I met these fine women. But then, all I did prior was read my horoscope fairly frequently, laugh and make fun of how vague it always was.)

Nancy warned me to back up my computer, not purchase any electronics and get the oil changed and the tires checked on my car. She told me a few Mercury Retrograde snafu stories and I quickly got the point. Mercury Retrograde can feel like 3 weeks of everything you touch turning to shit. But…and it’s a BIG BUT…there is a blessing amidst the madness (as usual) and that is as Lisa describes,

During Mercury Retrograde the guidance is to do all the “re” activities – review, revise, redo, revisit, reorganize and work on projects already in process.

This is the time to complete anything you’ve left undone and a good time to look for lost or misplaced information or objects, as things often turn up during Mercury retrograde.

This is a wonderful energy for reviewing your goals, acknowledging your accomplishments and for meditation, reflection and introspection. What are your dreams and your visions for your life?

So, having temporarily gone hillbilly with solving the washer drain problem (a Mercury Retrograde problem, for sure) I have spent the week since eyeball deep in the “re” activities, as Lisa suggests. I am restructuring my business – revising, reorganizing, reviewing, all that good “re” stuff – and I’m getting some great clarity about the direction I need to take going forward.

While I’m at it, I’m going to chill out and not stress about the washer drain situation…it’ll get fixed, I’m sure.

I’ve got roughly 10 days left of this great “re” energy, and I feel so blessed to have the awareness today to take advantage of it. Thanks, Nancy, for first hipping me to it, and Lisa, Donna and Pam for increasing my understanding of how to not only “go with the flow”, but actually “be in the flow”. You all ROCK!

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Eyeball Deep in the “Re-” Activities

Granted, there are a few irritants associated with this stop-gap solution. No, we can’t go in and out the back door at will while doing laundry, and yes, there’s a gap for flies, moths and mosquitoes to come flying through (though that could be solved by stuffing towel in the gap, I suppose), but when you’ve got to wash your daughter’s uniforms for school in the morning, this gets the job done in the semi-autonomous fashion intended for a washer and dryer.

After a lengthy troubleshooting session with my brother-in-law this evening, we remain unconvinced that I have a collapsed pipe. He wants to eliminate the possibility of a clog in the line either at the Y where the washer drain meets the main sewer line, or just a little further in the main line, itself. Since the first plumber didn’t try snaking the actual washer drain line, itself, we’re gonna do that tomorrow. I’m going to compare the cost of having someone come do both the washer line and the main line with the cost of renting an auger and doing it ourselves. Whichever way we go, if I still am stopped up after that, then I’m going to shell out the $250 for the plumber dude to come back and run his camera down the line so we can see what’s what and where – exactly.

I still may have to spend big money and dig…but then again…the hose is workin’ pretty good…

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Had to Go Hillbilly With It, After All

Not so for me, I’m afraid. Either there’s nothing stuck in the trap in that pipe, or I can’t get a tight enough seal when I try to put the Shop Vac hose in the hole to suck whatever it is out of there.

Part of the problem is there’s about 8 inches of rigid plastic at the attachment end of the Shop Vac hose and I’m trying to stick it in a drain hole with about 5 inches of clearance above it. Thus, I can’t get the right angle on it and the rigid plastic doesn’t bend. I did get about 2-3 cups of clear water, but no ball of lint, sock or other obstruction.

I did, however, find a hole in the drywall through which a clean-out cap is visible. Hmmmm….I don’t think I’m gonna have any better time with the Shop Vac hose there than I did up where the washer drain hose goes, but I’m gonna give it a whirl.

Then, before I call my brother-in-law back, I’m going to see if I can get a wire coat hanger through the trap. I so wish I had x-ray vision so I could see what my problem is and where. But I don’t, and I can’t, and I’m trying hard to resist the urge to cut away the sheet rock, even though I know how to put it back.

Looks like there’s a good chance some real labor will be occurring around here on Labor Day.

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I Could Give My Washer Drain Line a Hickey If I Could Get the Right Angle On It