Visits

This is the amazing pear tree that I was telling you about. Too bad you can't see all of the butterflies fluttering around it. They really like the pears.

I went and visited at the nursing home in a neighboring county today. It was especially poignant because I was visiting my uncle. My mom's brother. He served twenty years in the Marine Corp, two tours of Vietnam and it really was painful seeing him laying in that bed. My soul is hurting right now. He is a remarkably luck man. He served in the war and never got hurt. Came home and was hit by a drunk driver in Hawaii. They were going to amputate his leg but they were having an orthopedic surgeon convention and they came together and saved it. He's a fighter. He hopes to go home on the 21st. I pray that comes true for him.

I called the band director today because my child came home crying last night. This girl plays four instruments, three extremely well (violin, oboe, piano). He has her playing the bass drum during marching season. He moved her ahead of her class last year and yesterday said it was a mistake since she didn't know the clap rhythms. I called him about her oboe lesson but asked him about what happened. He apologized for getting "caught up in the moment and not talking to her privately." He said it appeared, "that she listened to the others and then memorized the rhythm." Doesn't surprise me, she learned to play the violin before she could even read very well. I said, "Well, if you need to replace her with someone else for the good of the band, I understand." And, it wouldn't really matter to me because she is so busy anyway that she does need to cut back. But this was a little tongue in cheek because I know how desperate he is for musically talented kids in the band. I'm not a mom that interferes in her school life very much. I'm involved but if she gets in trouble with a teacher, I almost always back the teacher up but she was crying. And this wasn't the instrument that she signed up for, he wanted her there. Plus, I know that embarrassing her in front of her peers will not get the results that he wants.

Her new dresser was delivered today. Almost without mishaps but they ran it into the only picture that we have ever taken together at a professional photography studio. I tried to catch it and got my finger sliced open from the glass. It damaged the portrait but I scanned it into the computer so it is salvageable. The frame was very, very inexpensive so that doesn't matter. In fact, I have another one in the kitchen cabinet just waiting for the next school picture. Finger bled forever and went through two paper towels that were wrapped around it.

Finished shampooing the carpet. Getting up all the stains from the old leaky a/c unit. Have a bad headache though (stress I think). I sure don't want to go to the band booster meeting tonight and then help them at the tail-gate party fundraiser tomorrow night. I'm being bitchy but it is raising money for the HS students to go to Disneyland. Bitchy, bitchy, bitchy. Well, I have to run to the school and take Ryss' oboe. This was a last minute visit by the woodwinds instructor.