I keep meaning to catch up, and since I have 4 and a half days off from work, this is as good a time as any.

AUGUST:
I spent three days in Joplin with my dad. He was very short of breath, on oxygen, and very irritable. As usual, he went on and on about my weight, criticizing my diet and just about everything I did or said. He kept the tv on, tuned only to sports, the whole time I was there. I did enjoy our visit to "his" bowling alley. His girlfriend is a great bowler! It's lovely to see all these folks in their 70's, 80's and 90's bowling and schmoozing with their buddies. Dad was too weak to bowl, but oh boy, he could schooze up a storm! No matter how bad he felt, he knew how behave in public. He really had a connection with bowlers and sports fans, and they all loved him. I was so glad he wore the bowling shirt I gave him. He looked great. It has a Route 66 logo on the back and his name embroidered on the front. Top the outfit off with a jaunty hat and a walking cane--just fabulous! I left Joplin the day before his 82nd birthday, telling him that THAT was his b'day present. I found out later that he really enjoyed that, telling all his friends. Nice.

I got back home just in time to attend a workshop for teachers, followed by a workshop for school technology assistants, followed by jury duty. I sat on a jury for a woman in my age group who was arrested in the middle of the night less than a mile from my house with a huge bag of cocaine and over $2000 cash in her car. Her story was so convoluted, and the police considered it a "slam-dunk" and didn't fingerprint anything, so the case came down to analyzing the contents of her car. Gee, if anyone ever had to do that to me, they'd be analyzing for years... We wavered back and forth whether she was a patsy or a loser or a creep. We very reluctantly found her guilty. Afterwards, we asked to speak with the judge. He understood how we felt and said that we did the right thing. HOWEVER, thanks to very stupid sentencing laws, he was forced to send her away for a minimum of 15 years. None of us, including him, were happy about that. MINIMUM SENTENCING LAWS ARE ASININE!!! Let the judges do their job!!!

SEPTEMBER:
I missed the first two days of school because of jury duty, so I had to scramble to get going. I had changed offices 2 times in 2 years, each move to a smaller space. I now share a room designed for one with a Title I teacher. We both have an enormous amount of stuff, and our room had no storage, no bookshelves, no table (no, not ONE!). To make matters worse, our computers (one each, no computers for students) are on their last legs and don't work half the time. Two years ago the other slp in the building quit in February, and I had to pick up the slack for the rest of the year. We had a lovely person last year who was self-starting and hard working. She found a new position over the summer, so guess who was stuck AGAIN?! When we finally got a new slp in October, I was shocked at her inability to use the computer and to determine her caseload and schedule. She was coming to me several times a day with the exact same problems over and over. Why do I stay? I'm retiring in June 2008, and don't want to give up my huge retirement $$.

OCTOBER:
Increasing phone calls and emails from sibs updating me on Dad's health. He was in and out of the hospital through September, then in for the duration by October. His heart and lungs were failing, and he was in a great deal of pain. When he went to DNR, then palliative care only, I booked my flight to Joplin. He passed while I was in transit, so the trip turned out to be for his funeral. The time I spent with my brothers and sister was some of the best we've ever spent together. We had a common purpose, and I was surprised at how we all had the same feelings to deal with. Very heartening. I hope that we can continue to feel this close. So far, so good. We learned so many interesting facts about Dad's life. I shared his story about seeing Eleanor Roosevelt horseback riding in Foggy Bottom (DC). My brothers had many sports stories, including spring training in Florida, Little League with Daddy as their coach/manager, and his no-nonsense inclusion of the black kids on his Little League team during the sixties. Dad was a bat boy on a Navy baseball team in Hawaii at the end of WWII--Ted Williams was on the team! The visitation at the funeral home was interesting. His Joplin friends (he had lived there only a few years--he chose to move to Joplin because of it's cost of living, proximity to Texas, as opposed to Virginia, medical facilities and senior bowling leagues--really!) were crying and sad, while all the family members were relatively chipper. The funeral was graveside and brief. Beautiful weather. The recitation of his life story was very enjoyable, and it wasn't until later that we realized that we had forgotten to share the fact that he built a baseball field in our backyard in Moody. Yep, he really loved sports. We spent our remaining time in Joplin dividing up pictures, hats and other mementoes of Dad's life. When Daddy was a boy in Virginia, his two older brothers built a cabin and some furniture for the three of them. We decided to give the table and chairs from that cabin to my daughter, who has a big ol' house in New Hampshire, because she has the room for them, and because she share's her grandpa's love of gardening. That was fun wrapping them for FedEx.

NOVEMBER:
Life back to normal--12 hour stress-filled work days, irregular meals, sleep deprivation, general chaos... Then came MassCUE! Two days in Sturbridge at the Massachusetts Computer-Using Educators Annual Conference. I stayed and ate at the historic Publick House Inn (check out their website). Two days of rejuvenation and pleasure for all the senses. Then, back to work. Tired, waaaay behind on housework.... Full of pumpkin pie and barbq chicken.... Gotta go get back to work on laundry...