Yesterday I woke up, in a great mood and feeling like I had made a full recovery from the sickness that gripped me over the weekend. I drove 40 minutes down to the Mobile Infirmary for my doctors appointment, forced my mini-van into one of those parking spots that said it was for small cars only, and raced in so not to be late. I sat in the waiting room, looking at mostly pregnant women and thanking Jesus that the days of being pregnant and having babies was over, and read the latest Time Magazine. Twenty minutes later the girl at the front desk sheepishly calls me up and barely whispers that my appointment was last Friday and that the good doc is away skiing. She must get used to getting her head bit off for other people’s mistakes. I’m not sure if it was my fault or the nurses fault that did the scheduling, but I clearly have in my little black book of dates that the appointment was Monday the 16th. O well. So no official weight up date from me and I guess I will have to wait to get my blood drawn to see why gobs of my hair keep falling out in spite of my ingestion of large quantities of protein.

This morning, I actually woke up with an ear ache and a cough that I can’t seem to shake. Can I just say again how much I hate being sick. (I am so glad I am not Kim or my Complaint Bracelet would be worn out) For breakfast I had a cold chicken cutlet, two homemade pancakes, fruit and coffee sweetened with cancer causing agents. Now that is what I call a breakfast for champions! Lunch is just as appetizing – salad and soy burger! I know you are envious.

My thoughts of late have been a bit heavy. Mr. Knowles and I have been talking about the Great Secret and I’m beginning to have serious doubts. Going back to school and running with the gazelles scares the crap out of me. I am being assured by all my 30-something friends that have returned to higher education that while I may not be able to out run the gazelles, I will be able to out smart and out last them. Juggling college and five children was not exactly in my life plan at 35 so we shall see if I fall flat on my face on this one.

In other news, are you looking for an inexpensive, entertaining night out around town? This weekend the University of South Alabama’s Department of Dramatic Arts presents The Water Engine. Tickets can be purchased at the box office located in the lobby of the Laidlaw Performing Arts Center. I’m not sure if Mr. Knowles and I will be able to go to either one of the performances this weekend but we do hope to get over there and support our local dramatic arts program while it is showing. If you are interested in something more on the big screen try the local Crescent Theater, Mobile’s only independent arthouse movie theater down on Dauphin Street. I’ve yet to visit the theater but I’ve heard nothing but great things from those that have. This week The Rocky Horror Picture Show is showing.

Things I Should Get Done This Week

• Clean up the mounds of papers, bills, and documents piled next to the computer desk
• Make the computer desk look unlike a trashcan
• Find a home for the mound of crap on my dining room table

• Move dead people furniture into family room
• Pay life insurance premium
• Clean off the top of my washer and dryer, it looks like something exploded on top of there

Bribe my friends over to a Ragsland Party on Sunday at 2pm with yummy food

• Straighten up the china cabinet full of dead people china and crystal before it gets bumped and something else breaks
• Ask best friend if she wants my changing table so I will have more room in the little girl’s closet.

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Buy air filters for the house

• Hit the gym at least five times

Still sick, other exercise from home
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Prepare for my board meetings next week

• Finish baby gift for neighbor
• Monogram towels for the kids’ bathroom

• Visit with my oldest and dearest friend Stacy while she is in town

Stood up!
• Renew my car tag, which expired in October
• Put the Master Bedroom back in order
• Call Direct TV about my bill and hope someone who speaks and understand English answers the phone

The latest poll on CNN.com is “Should peanuts be banned on commercial airlines?” So far 69% of those that voted believe they should not be. Three years ago I might have voted the same way. They are just peanuts right? And so what if someone is allergic to them, if they aren’t eating them its no big deal. No one has to fly so peanut allergy suffers can find other means of transportation. Right? Why should someone’s allergy to peanuts keep me from chowing down on a free bag of Planters, its a free country after all.

Today my gut reaction to seeing the poll is one of complete momma bear defensiveness. In fact I would love to go a few rounds with the person who gives the proverbial finger to the peanut allergy sufferer for some free salty nuts. You have to wonder if 1)they are ignorant to the seriousness of the allergy or 2)they are completely selfish with no concern for someone’s well being. It can’t really be about the peanuts, could it?

It has been over two years since Katie Rose had an anaphylactic reaction to peanuts that nearly gave her a permanent resting place at the local Memorial Gardens. Upon arrival to the hospital, Mr. Knowles did not even recognize his own child because her face was so swollen and distorted, much like Will Smith‘s character in the movie Hitch. I’m sure if some of those 69% had witnessed someone close to them turning shades of blue and gasping for breath over peanuts they would see things much differently or at least I hope they would.

I think what some people do not understand is that being allergic to peanuts encompasses much more than ingesting them. Most people who are allergic to peanuts are also allergic to the dust that is found on peanuts and the skins. So when someone opens a bag of peanuts, the dust flies into the air and the person next to them could breathe the dust particles from the peanuts in. If my daughter even touches peanuts her hands swell and whelps appear, so you can just imagine what its like to breathe the dust in. Simply put, death may be a result from a peanut allergy which is why my daughter has an EpiPen everywhere she goes.

It’s a simple accommodation to be made for peanut allergy sufferers and really requires very little from the consumer. I don’t think anyone will die from not having free peanuts on flights. We have laws against smoking in public, seat belt and child restraint laws, and many of us are vaccinated against diseases not only to protect ourselves but others in the community for the betterment of the whole. This is really not much different.

Today would have been my brother’s thirty-second birthday. He has been gone nearly thirteen years but it just seems like yesterday I was having a good laugh with him in my mom’s living room about God knows what. His laugh was infectious.

You would think after all this time has passed that I would miss him far less. This is just not the case. I believe I miss him more each year, especially when I think of all the things he has missed out on like watching Emily grow up, getting married, realizing his dreams, and hanging out with his friends that now all have families of their own.

When he first died I think it was easier to cope with his loss. It was like he had left on an extended vacation without saying good-bye or letting us know when he was coming back. Life around me just took off. I was remodeling our first house, having a baby, and taking care of a terminally ill parent. In the moments I could sit and absorb the enormity of it all something else would take place, someone else would die, or another baby would make an entrance into our lives.

It just seems that these days, in the quiet moments, I am more keenly aware of the loss of him. In having children, I realize how much he missed out on as a father and how much Emily has missed out on by not having him as a father. I miss his smirk, the sarcasm, and his blunt honesty often concealed in humor. I miss looking up at him, because he was so much taller than even me. I miss watching him play baseball and basketball and changing the lyrics to songs on the radio. I miss looking out for him and saving his ass because even when he screwed up and deserved what he got, I tried to save him from it.

Dear Neighbors,

I hope you are having a great time on your weekend get away. I hope you are having a good of time as your seventeen year old daughter is having while you are away. Rest assured she has kept herself occupied and has not been lonely. Her boyfriend has not left her side since about an hour after you pulled out of the driveway. If you had taken the time a year ago to get to know your neighbors, instead of greeting them with your proselytizing one of us may have gently butted our nose into your business and mentioned the long visits and over night stays between your daughter and her young suitor whenever you take these get aways just to make you aware.

Now, before you get all in a huff, I’m not judging your daughter. I was a sixteen-seventeen year old girl myself at one time. This is why I know exactly what is going on in your house. I know when we met you mentioned that your daughter and her boyfriend had taken abstinence pledges and wear rings to signify that and you made sure you told us all about your work at the crisis pregnancy center here in town. That is all well and good, but what I am telling you is that no promise ring to virginity is going to keep your teenage daughter from getting pregnant, just ask Sarah Palin.

I’m sure the young man staying with your daughter is a great guy. He appears to have good manners, I’ve never seen him act ugly to her, and it looks like he has a great relationship with the two of you – however I don’t think this will keep him from banging your daughter. Maybe they haven’t gone “all the way”. I haven’t exactly seen them doing the deed, but unlike Bill Clinton I don’t categorize lack of penetration as not having sex. And lack of penetration will not keep your daughter from getting pregnant either. I do know that these two young people in love are very familiar with each other. I’ve seen her walk to her car or mail box in her daisy duke pajama bottoms and cami top plenty of times and he standing in your front doorway, no shirt on, pants unzipped and boxers showing while my little kids rode their bikes and scooters up and down the sidewalk. The way they look at each other, the way they touch one other, there is a definite indication of intimacy not much different than I have with my husband.

I probably really shouldn’t give a rats ass about what goes on across the street from me, but I think the fact you remind me so much of my mother and your daughter reminds me of myself, that it just makes me want to run across the street every time I see her getting out of his car with her clothes tussled all over her body and give her a real lesson on sex education because abstinence education just doesn’t work. In the meantime, I will just keep your child in my prayers that she doesn’t get knocked up and if she does that the cute boy in the camaro will stand up and be a man. I just hope that before something really life changing happens you will stop turning a blind eye to what is going on and see what is obvious to all those heathen neighbors you judged when you first moved in.

Sincerely,

The woman with all the kids and the agnostic husband you refuse to talk to

I’m still sick. I’m actually worse than I was yesterday so I decided to take some drugs and drink large quantities of coffee in hopes that I will perk up and take care of the neglected loads of laundry and stacks of dirty dishes.

O, I forgot to mention that my brand new GE ADORA Dishwasher, less than two months old, is not working. We run our dishwasher 2-3 times a day, so you can imagine the amount of dishes that we are having to wash. I was not to happy, when on Thursday the nice lady working customer service said they would be unable to fix my dishwasher until Monday. I’m not a patient lady when it comes to these things because I despise washing dishes.

Here is another article about the students suspended for gum chewing this past week at Burns Middle School. You will be interested to know that my husband and I disagree about the fate of the fourteen students. I still stand by my belief that suspension for gum chewing is stupid, that more logical consequences should be applied and common sense is void in our current school system. Jeff’s argument is that to implement more logical consequences for students that break these simple rules takes up too many resources that our current school system is to poor to support and that parents fail in making their kids accountable when other disciplinary actions have taken place. He will tell you from experience that common sense has disappeared from the system and control of the classroom has been taken from the teachers and therefor these extreme measures must take place.

In some interesting news a local Mobilian from my husband’s hometown of Samson, Alabama has made it through the first episode of Survivor. I’m thinking he may have a shot at winning considering he grew up in a place that is miles from civilization. I’m also wondering if Mr. Knowles is related to J.T. Thomas Jr. With a population of only 2000 people in Samson it seems like everyone is related to everyone in those parts, especially since in the state of Alabama it is legal for cousins to marry.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UljJSye1XZQ]

Back at Christmas time I mentioned that I had worked a wedding with Jenifer Saad Simpson at the Saenger Theater here in Mobile. She has just started a blog and is getting all the kinks worked out but she posted the same day edit video that was played at the reception of Jon’s and Mary’s wedding. Mosey on over there and check it out! You will get a glimpse of the chuppah she and I created that has become quite the talk of the town, especially among the Mobile Jewish Community.

I feel like I should be wearing this mask today as not to spread my germs to the masses. I am sick and feel like my throat was just used in a slasher film. I have too many things to do today, like go and buy groceries for the little people in the house. (this means I must brave Walmart)

For follow up on the story about the 14 students who were suspended for chewing gum, it appears on the NBC15 poll 53% of Mobilians believe that suspension for gum chewing is an appropriate disciplinary action. This just confirms that I am surrounded by people in my community that have no common sense and really fail to see the real problems happening in our local public school system today. tsk tsk

I rarely eat fast food these days but recently I drove thru the drive thru at the Hardees at the corner of University and Old Shell to get my husband and daughter a bite to eat. After repeating my order three different times, and then confirming it at the window, they still screwed up our food. As my husband put it, going through a drive-thru in Mobile is like eating from a box of chocolates you are not quite sure what you are going to get.

This is a nightmare of a story. (child death mentioned) It saddens me and enrages me at the same time. A stepfather was taking his stepson, who was four, and one of the four year olds friends riding in the back of his truck down some trails near the Eglin Air Force Base. The worst happened and his four year old stepson tumbled out of the back of the truck and died from a fatal head injury. No parents should have to suffer the pain of losing a child. What pisses me off is this was a stupid and negligent thing to do. If a child at the age of four is required by law to ride in a carseat, what makes one think allowing two four year olds to ride in the back of a pick up truck unattended is the safe thing to do?

As most know I am not a huge proponent of the death penalty but I’ve always said that monsters that sexually abuse children should die for their heinous crimes. John Hamilton McLain a north Alabama attorney who was recently convicted of sexually abusing and kidnapping two girls, 12 and 13, will get at the most ten years in prison. Prison is too good for this man. What is needed is to turn this sucker loose in the woods and let him be hunted by some good ole boys and then have his body fed to some local gators. Not only will this save Alabamians money from having to house and feed this scum of the earth, but it will give hunters something to do since deer season is over.

In case you were unaware I am a total news junky. This started when I was in middle school when I had to do a series of reports about local news from the newspaper. Up until I had children I read the paper from the first page of the first section to the last page of the last section, even the classifieds. Now I get most of my news online and television. As soon as I open my eyes in the morning I reach for the remote and change the channel to our local NBC affiliate to the Today Show and at night, I often fall asleep watching Anderson Cooper on CNN.

This morning the first thing I heard was that 14 sixth graders from a local middle school had been suspended for chewing gum. Now, I actually have met the principal of this school on a few occasions and they came across level headed and reasonable, but I can’t help but think that this is going a tad overboard. I would like to think that maybe these kids are a bunch of houdlems, sticking gum on desks, sticking it in people’s hair or maybe spitting it out at their teachers but none of that was reported. The only thing we hear from the news story is that these kids were habitual offenders for chewing gum. STOP THE PRESSES, there are gum chewers in school!

There is no wonder we homeschool our children. With this type of iodicy running amuck in our school system you have to wonder what exactly are they teaching. If you suspend kids for chewing gum, what will you do when they do something far worse? When my husband was a school teacher for the Mobile County Public School System he had students get barely a talking to after cheating, petty theft, and vandalism of school property. It just seems to me that there are much more constructive ways to discipline these habitual gum chewers. For one, I am sure there are plenty of desks and sidewalks with stuck gum on them. A few afternoons of cleaning the nastiness that came out of someone eles mouth might leave a better impression on them about obeying school rules than sending them home to watch MTV and play Guitar Hero. It appears the idea of logical consequences for ones actions has completely been lost in our school system.

In other news, even closer to home these morons (probably products of the MCPSS) decided that they would rob the Dollar General less than one mile from my home. Lovely eh? First let me say there is a SIGN that clearly says that the place is being monitor by video survelience. I just love stupid criminals. It just seems to me if you are going to rob a place you would take precautions as to not get caught – like see if they had a video camera and if they do, put a mask on and wear some clothes that are non-identifying. Not these two jokers however. They might as well let the cashier take their picture and have written their name and address on a piece of paper. Sadly with our current justice system, when these fools get caught – and they will, they will probably be let out of the jail due to over crowding and allowed to reek more havoc on the local town folk.