Feel free to skip to the end. 

It's been a bad week for hands.  Mine.  Mostly the right, but I am right-handed, so that makes sense.  The left is recovering from a big honking staple wound and has some dried glue on it.  We were gluing on yarn hair this morning.  The right one though is another story.  The most recent was an enormous cardboard paper cut.  Ouch.  Quite productive in the way paper cuts are and quite ouchy in the way the cardboard does that job. Earlier this week I broke a blood vessel in my finger.  I don't know how but it involved the mountain voyage somehow.  And then I broke a blood vessel in my palm doing something that I ought not to have done.  Those wounds are healed.  And the other one is getting there.  The one I haven't mentioned yet.

So I got home from class last night at 9:30 and Spawn asked if I'd replaced her mouthpiece that she broke Wednesday night.  Well, no I hadn't.  She started to get all annoyed with me because she apparently has band on Friday mornings.  This I didn't know- I can hardly keep track of my own schedule.  I explained the four part harmony of how there is not one thing I can do about this at this time and how it was on my list for this afternoon since I know she needs it for tonight.  Then I mentioned that the right time to bring this up is not so much at 9:30 at night but maybe when she got home from school or when her dad was dropping me off at class.  These were times that something could be done.  And she stopped.  So I suppose knowing that someone's hands are tied keeps an issue from escalating.

Speaking of escalating.  We had that.  Let's just say that the transition to middle school has been rocky.  Phone calls, emails, conferences, apologies, losing recess, apparently not homework detention (although she mentioned that).  And that's just the action between us and the school personnel.  And not the escalation part.  It's been more elevator than escalator action anyhow.  At home.  Maybe now it's ok.  It took some time for LLO to get the memo that homework is intended for all students not just everyone else but her and that it is possible to do this stuff.  She just needed someone to hold her hand while she goes through all these changes.

 
Have you ever noticed that when something is going really badly in your life that everything else is affected?  That your mojo takes a nosedive.  That your belief in yourself is run under studded tires.  That can do becomes can't.  It takes hard work to get a handle on the 'tude.

Here. Have some tunes.

One of my goals for this summer was to climb Mt. Nittany.  If you want more info about it look HERE.  We don't have real mountains in PA.  How hard could it be?  The entrance to hell.

I swear I saw somewhere that this trail was so easy a child could do it.  We took one way up.  I appear not to have taken a picture of up.  But they must have said kid as in goat.  I wasn't entirely sure we were all going to make it.  I'm sure you'll be surprised to know there was drama.  This is near the top.  And not the awful part.  And it was raining.

Anyhow. All four of us made it up to the top of the mountain. Spawn was not speaking to me.

And for all the effort, it appears I didn't get a picture of the view.  Which is to the left of LLO and that cool tree.

I dunno what this is for.  But if someone makes a stack of rocks, the least I can do is take a picture.

Some kind of flower.

We took another way down that wasn't quite as steep as the way up.  This picture does not show just steep and rocky the way down was for a while.  And we laughed the whole way down.  We are that kind of crazy.

We did it.  Came home hot, sweaty and tired.   Spawn and I made up on the top of the mountain.  I told her she was stubborn.  She said that I am too. 

I am writing on the eternal hope that my name may be spelled correctly in the directory.   If you are not the correct contact for this request I hope you will pass it on to the right person.
My name is:  GerneyLee (removed last name just in case someone knows this bozo).  I also spell it Gernilee in the effort to be called Gurrkneelee and not gurney.  In any event I hope it will be spelled GerneyLee in the directory.

-Gernilee

These are the kinds of people I have to play with for this club I currently belong to.  Admittedly, I have zero interaction with this charmer.  This is good.  The first time I ever saw her face, she was correcting the guy who was an antiques dude doing a Antiques Roadshow type presentation for the club.  Incidentally her email address has gernilee.  How she can expect us to spell her name correctly when she keeps changing it is beyond me. 

(I'm not oblivious to her plight.  I get the concept of the frustration of having your name spelled wrong.  Or said wrong.  My favorite is when the telemarketers call for Karen Crotch.  I have absolutely no problem declining to take those calls.) 

And then there are the ladies who pay their dues in both the spring and the fall.  And the ones who move and don't tell the club.  Or change other information and expect us to get it via the magic 8 ball. 

The worst of all is a selection of ladies serving on the board.  The micromanaging past president who actually went through last year's directory page by page to let us know what changes need to be made for this year.  (Including address changes and dead husbands.)  And this is the woman who put it into the board minutes that we players with the database, names and money need to use the correct membership list for making this year's name tags.  I've deleted her email 3 times now or I'd include that too.  I guarantee you though, I'm not over-reacting (at least not by much).  She as much as called us morons for messing up.  It was me.  Of course.  Sigh.  I can assure you, I wouldn't make that mistake twice.  Before the slap on the wrist and the public humiliation. 

And I wonder if it's all because neither one of us were at the meeting.  I have to wonder if this would have been said had I been there?  (I'm sorry I just couldn't make myself go when the two people who let me roll my eyes weren't there.) I don't wonder what I'd have said back if it were.  I'd ripped somebody a new you-know-what.  'Cause this chick has more than her usual quota of pissed off.  I'm coming out of it, and thank goodness for that. 

And I wonder who the hell these women think they are?  We're scheduling these other meetings and it seems like they think we're unreasonable because we have jobs and children keeping us from 100% availability.  And yet, I find out that about 8 other board members were absent from the meeting because they were traveling.  Really, is your travel schedule more valid than my carpool?  (Actually I don't carpool, but you know what I'm saying.)  Truthfully, I'm never going to accurate with everything I do.  I don't have that kind of focus and my stuff is tedious and repetitive.  And I just can't.  There was a time when I could.  But I have too much stuff going on and it's just not as important anymore.  But let's not pretend these ladies are perfect.  They make mistakes too.  What the heck.  The snotty email was excused by other people because the president-elect is stressed about the event.  She's stressed because she doesn't know what she's doing.  She never knows what she's doing.  She hasn't known any of the 3 other times she's been on this board while I have.  And yet. This is ok.  I fail to see why.  Actually, I guess I do see why.  Because she's part of the clique and I'm not.  She's part of the people who do lunch and take bus trips and I'm not. 

But whatever.  Because I'm doing my shit this year and then I'm done.  And so is my friend.  We're done with the grunt work and going through their hoops and being part of the lip-service they pay to making it seem like this club is something for people under 60 who don't dress for meetings and serve fancy cakes.

First high school home football game was last night.  We won. Wahoo.  First play of the game was the other team catching a little pass and running down the rest of the field.  Chin to bleachers.  Then our team woke up and it was still entertaining.  The visiting team marching band was something else.  Huge.  And really good.  They had a squad of bagpipes for crying out loud.  And majorettes in little plaid skirts and tams.  (I really like little plaid skirts and tams. I'm weird that way.)  They were amazing to watch on the field and great fun in the stands.  Our band did well too- just not the same class.  Sigh.  Spawn looked like she knew what she was doing.  I think she had fun.  She's in a mood lately.

Day number 4 of middle school completed.  LLO has caught the bus twice, missed the bus twice.  She has not completed homework.  She has chewed an eraser, had a disagreement with a teacher, spoken to the principal and the school counselor.  It's going just great.  On the other hand, the principal was very supportive in the phone call to me yesterday afternoon.  Said she's not getting a warning, I call that a good thing.  Apparently she already has the school counselor in her corner.  She's made a good decision to talk to the teacher on Tuesday.  I suppose this has begun well. Ish.  We've discussed homework and fighting with teachers and getting hit in the face with a tetherball.  Another event of this week.

I'll spare you the rest of my drama.  Instead you may see my paper challenge.  Completed and perched atop my dusty computer (I did blow off a great portion of the dust) and in front of my beach picture.  I think it looks good there.