HAPPY HALLOWEEN

There is a pattern our life seems to be following on Halloween: King Ralph and I home alone. We are staying home to hand out our Vess soda pops to all the visiting ghouls and goblins with their adorable senseless jokes they will share for the trade. Last year we turned all the lights out and went to dinner. However this year my seal bark of a cough is not to desirable outside the perimeter of my walls so we're ordering a pizza in.

First we made sure a pumpkin was carved. D and King Ralph did a fine job turning our pumpkin into Jack Skellington. Don't you think?

The girls looked all adorable in their homemade Halloween cuteness as a Grecian Goddess and a Country Bumpkin.

If you don't mind I need to part way I hear the doorbell chiming. Trick-r-Treat!

Hallows Eve

It's not like getting the day off work meant sleeping in or lounging around for me. No it meant scrubbing bathrooms, renewing license plates, cooking dinner for the Color Guard girls and a football game.

Football game. Well I cheated. Being that the night air is moist and cool, that I just got my voice back (a voice that tends to still fade at time) I decided skipping the game was in my health's best interest. I curled up on the couch under a blanket with my laptop resting on my knees while I listened to the game on Prep Cast. We won. Again. An undefeated team...which is a first in the school's history. District Champions.

I tell you hearing the football team win was just as exciting as being in the stands and watching, seeing them win. I just wasn't frozen. The only minus to listening to the game from home is you can't hear the band. I guess there is always next week.

Marching Band continues.

Fun@Work

This morning I woke to fashion myself in my Halloween costume as today was party day at school, work. I also woke to find I had been silenced. My voice gone. "It's a trick" I whispered. King Ralph said "it's a treat". I then debated whether to use the only sign language I knew suitable for such a comment (my middle finger) or to stick out my tongue at him. I went with the head shake and a grimace.

When my tights don't seem to agree with me I come up with new ways to use last winters tights--a wig cap. There I was in the bathroom stretching the crotch of a pair of black tights over my head and affixing my wig. Perfect! Steamed my dress and wrapped my sash on...Princess Leia was ready to strut her stuff. Except the line M had me practice all night was but a mere whisper help me Obi Wan Kenobi you are my only hope. And, I sure could have used Obi-Wan Kenobi's help, he was certainly, possibly, the only hope I had.

Next it was off to the car dealer to get my car inspected and oil changed. You should have seen the guys in the service department as Princess Leia exited from her Tantive IV ship disguised as a Toyota Matrix. The service guys started to whip out there cell phones cameras to snap photos; like they had never seen a broad in costume before. They giggled at how difficult it was for me to convey my purpose for being there. I left them with my ship and promised I would send my young padawan learner to pick it up later. Being that he delivered said ship to school to me makes him up for a promotion to a Jedi Master.

Next--to work.

When I entered the office it looked as cute in the morning as it did when I left it last night at 730pm. So I present to you "The Office~2009". Truman Cine' and it's staff.

Come on in Have a snack
See what's playing
Buy a ticket
The big screen
Starring in the movies
Front Row: Carla in Grease, Terri your Wehrenberg employee Middle Row: Patti in The Bee Movie, Kari in Ratatouille, Sherri in Miss Congeniality, Cyndi in The Addams Family, Vicki in The Cat in the Hat Back Row: Keith in Happy Feet, Jodi in Star Wars Episode IV, Lori in The Cat in the Hat

Cyndi and I found our mini Me's Two Princess Leia's

&

Two Wednesday's complete with their favorite toy--a doll with no head.

The day was wet but fun! So much fun they are giving us the day off tomorrow. May October 31, be as much fun as October 29 proved to be!

Tuesday

Tuesday.

This constant rain has got to stop or I will be forced to open a cocktail bar that serves Prozac cocktails...and I won't charge cause we'll need a synthetic lifter. Really it is enough grey and gloom!

If last week's crazy sock day didn't leave me constantly repositioning my toe sock so my little toe didn't look like it was flapping in the air; today's brown tights left me--ANNOYED. The darn tights had a waist band that spend more time hanging on my hips and less time around my waist. I had a crotch that was closer to my knees than positioned in the area it was named for. So after nearly three hours of tugging and pulling up my tights I walked into the Kindergarten restroom ripped off my tights and eighty-sixed those bitches. Then I smiled. My co-workers laughed at me.

My little brother sketched my poster art that I need as part of our office Halloween decorations. Tonight I am perfecting my coloring skills. I read not long ago coloring makes you happy. So rain keep coming I have plenty of black crayon to work.

D got her H1N1 vaccine today. It was an insane sight when I picked M up from work at 430pm on the high school campus. Somehow someone up above loves King Ralph because when he finally managed to get on the campus parking lot to pick D up from school it was so close to the clinics start time (all the nutty parents who wanted their kids vaccinated and picked them up early from elementary school to form that crazy car line which blocked the entrances to the high school so the buses couldn't get on campus to get the kids) that he tossed her the form and sent her in for an inoculation for her to return five minutes later vaccinated. If those 1499 other vaccine seekers only knew D's ease they would have probably egged my car when I picked up M.

While D is vaccinated I am not, so I continue to ward off the beast that is trying to get me with my bottle of mucus relief , a tall glass of OJ and a bottle of Listerine.

I got an email from SubDiva that I won the Michael Buble CD constest. I am soon saying tootles to the "Jizz In My Pants" song in exchange for some joyful jazz. Thanks Diva!

Tuesday. Turned out to be a pretty good day after all.

The Curtain Comes Down

On Saturday I scooped the lung I was (and still am) hacking up and dragged myself to the high school to dress and bun hair of the color guard girls in preparation for the band's final competition of the season--Greater St. Louis Marching Band Festival.

While the kids have been "Running Out of Time" all season...I am glad the clock flags have struck midnight, I need a break from the constant go-go-go of weekend obligation. Don't get me wrong I love all the fun band season brings to our lives; it's just waking at 530am and driving to school at 610am is something the end of band season gladly vanishes from my schedule. I welcome its absence with open arms!

So I say good bye skip-its
and tick tocks with your difficult black spray paint. Tootle-a-loo grey suit and white flag with your red check mark Screeeeech!

There is no good-bye to band just yet we have a football game Friday night...THE football GAME of the season. The game that decides if the undefeated Lindbergh Flyers will be the District Champions. The game that determines if the clock flags keep spinning and the tick tocks keep on tocking during half time. Which means me and the wash machine will need to start churning those grey suit pants clean and pressed.

Maybe a great football game will help the kids forget they got fourth place at GSL. It was no doubt one of the band's best performances of what proved to be a rather difficult marching season.

Better make sure the blankets are still in the car and the gloves are in the pocket of my Nanook.

See you in the stands!

Birthday Wishes

Fifteen years ago today I went to the doctor, took Princess A and M to Taco Bell for lunch, dropped Princess A off at pre-school, picked her up, went to Target to purchase classroom Halloween party needs and went into labor in the check out lane a little early. Prior the days we owned cell phones I paged King Ralph who was at work. He called his mother who rushed over to be greeted by a panting pregnant woman in great pain. Forty-five minutes from the time I made the call to King Ralph D reared her tiny blackened strained little being into this world.

Her start was tough. Her toddler years tougher. She has however grown into a beautiful, smart, talented, amazing young lady. To that I say...

Happy 15th Birthday my baby girl! Now, get better. Postponing birthday fun is never what a mother and father want to have to do. Celebrating you is as much fun for us as it is for you.

Blogging Bedside

In the last several days I have had plans to tell you about the perils of crazy sock day and how King Ralph threw away my dish soap bottle (because he didn't like it) which pissed me off like no other--instead I am totally to tired to say much more than...D is pretty sick.


I pulled out the big gun last night after she coughed for two straight hours not allowing anyone in the house to slumber--codeine cough syrup. She slumbered, yeah. I was awake till 2am, boo.

Here's hoping she can snap out of it fast because tomorrow is her day.

(I'm feeling like the bug got a nibble of me. Just a nibble.)

The Beast Is Trying to Get Us

When I got home from work yesterday D felt so bad she asked me to cancel her piano lesson. Which I did.

This morning D requested to stay home. So I think I should take the advice of my co-worker's email. I am taking all and any suggested measures needed to stop the bug in its tracks.

What My Tummy Rumbled For

I had for dinner what I love.

Sushi.

What I am packing in my lunch box tomorrow is what I love.

Sushi.

With a sprinkle of soy sauce.

Coming Soon: Trick or Treat

I have a container of Candy Corn on my desk,yum-yum, quite symbolic of the season and holiday that is upon us. Wait, is Halloween a holiday?

Whatever Halloween is considered I love it! I love big bags of mini and bite size candies. I love the kids testing there Halloween jokes out on me during lunch--what kind of pie does a ghost like to eat? Boo-berry pie. I love eating foods synonymous with October--chili, sloppy joes, carmel apples. Scary spooky movies, haunted houses...no not that, not at all. I love searching for the perfect costume.

Did I just say costume? That I did. Which I purchased tonight (the most expensive costume I ever tossed the green down for). Halloween costumes no longer surprise me...Snow White bit that poison apple, got kissed by her prince and woke up a hooker. Cinderella too. The corpse bride looks like she turned enough tricks that she died of complication from gonorrhea. Even Dorothy seems to have skipped off the yellow brick road and onto the red light district. Hookerween at its best, every year, without fail. Even my costume came in the alternate slut-o-ween version. Which if I had chosen it would have sent me to the principal's office; maybe not so much for the lack of costume but more so for how I looked in it. I thankfully chose the full coverage-child-friendly version.

Every year we theme the office at work and all dress accordingly. I am rather excited about my costume choice this year and that our theme is my suggestion. I think the school kids are going to love it when they pass through on the annual tour .

I'm leaving my costume a total surprise. Only my girls, King Ralph and my co-workers know (so that we don't duplicate costumes) what I plan to be. The unveiling will be next Thursday...no school on Friday October 30, means Halloween fun comes to school a day earlier.

Try If You Must to Take the Esprit de Corps but You Can't Take The Moxie

There is always plenty of blame to go around anytime things don't go exactly as one had hoped, as one dreams to expect. There is also one thing no one should ever stand for and that is damaging the esteem of children in an effort to make one's self feel better for one's short comings, inabilities to produce and reach that one's level of personal expectation.

Friday was suppose to be a great day. In many ways it was. Princess A is home for Fall break. It was a half-day of school/work. I lunched out with my Princess A while M clocked a few hours in at work cranking out copies and D hung with her besties. Until...we headed to the high school for the football game--to see our Flyers remain undefeated--and that is when everything went emotionally wrong, that the days happenings were revealed with a big spill. A spill that needed a lot of mops to clean up with.

It seems a certain someone decided to reem on the girls for changes that were made just hours before. Changes that only fourteen of a group of hundred and eighty-four have to endure in an effort to boost scores. Comments made in the morning only in the face of two absent coaches. So, not only were there fourteen tender hearted hard working girls (who practice more than the other band members) riddled with hurt, you had two irritated coaches thinking "how dare someone" and a slue of pissed off parents who learned to bite tongue and rally the girls to rise up and prove wrong.

When the night was called early for band, in prep for the next day competition, at half time M was in tears and she had company. There is nothing that aches me as a parent more than when my girls hurt --physically or emotionally, when the hard work and dedication is squashed at the expense of elevating the ego of what I consider cowardly bully behavior. M cried till 11pm. No matter what Princess A or I said to make M see, understand or accept our words of reasoning the tears flowed. Know what I did? I punched in the code on the safe and yanked out that dam cell phone while King Ralph went for the phone charger and an emergency emotion booster. It took a wee bit of the edge off, a very wee bit. Then he sat on the edge of M's bed and rubbed her back till she slumbered.

Band was suppose to be the good ending to a hard week.

Then we woke at 5am, I bunned M's hair while she glossed up with blue eye shadow and apricot lip stick. To the Dome for BOA competition we went.

(There seriously needs to be rules implemented about how many early band calls you should have in one season. Two. Is one too many!)

To boost moral and spirit one of the Guard coaches wrote a nice story about geese as encouragement which inspires the essence of team spirit while the other spoke directly from the heart his words of can-do-go-get'm-spirit...then they did the best they could--considering.

No the kids didn't make BOA finals again this year. That's okay. Every year you can't be like Broken Arrow. Or even Oakville (as they recently have proved). Some years you just get to be the Flyers...that really truly is okay.

We look to the future, which is this coming Saturday..."we" includes the kids who perform and the parents who support. The support is for the ones who can, the ones who can't but do and the ones who try there damdest.

While M and a posy of band kids' goal this week is to rise above and to the occasion of GSL, I have a different agenda: to sleep, stop blowing my ever dripping nose, and to see sunshine in blue skies and feel warm air this weekend. Sitting on a fleece blanket placed upon an ice cold metal bleacher wrapped in my Nanook, clapping with gloved hands while sipping hot chocolate is never a goal for me this early in the Fall!

Tears are never to be a part of the occasion unless as a show of happiness and pride. Smiles ahead M, smiles ahead.

No One Said It Would Be A Picnic

Parenting has its peeks and valleys. This week I think the girls have taken us to the canyon.

Parenting is good cop, bad cop. Bad cop likes to confiscate all distraction devices. Real cop agreed it was all the option we had-- considering.

So friends text if you may, no one will respond. Facebook if you desire, no one will see what your "face" has to offer. Email too. No reply to receive. The world could blow and they will never know-- TV has gone black. Music? Naaaaaa, silence is all we hear. And the turning of text book pages.

Like I said the girls took us to the canyon. Since most canyons are formed by a process of long-time erosion...they have been eroding for a while and the river known as mom and dad had no choice but to flood.

Can't say I like this, it's just part of the job. The hardest non-paying job ever!

The Thing That Wakes Me

This past weekend I had the time off from my usual Fall routine of football and band to indulge in some cooking and cleaning. There is nothing I love more than:

1. the one free weekend of the marching band season

2. getting down on my hands and knees to scrub all my hard wood floors

3. welcoming in the cool, no cold, weather by whipping up some comfort foods

Now I am not sure if I was whipping up those comfort foods to fill our bellies or to comfort the pain of our beloved Cardinals sucking at baseball by giving away our chance at another try at"on the road to the World Series". I believe the answer is--both. Somehow my white chili and Shepard's Pie did the trick to fill bellies and ease our Cardinal pain.

Sunday evening after heaping helpings of Shepard's Pie and buttermilk biscuits, King Ralph and I headed to the grocery store to fill the cart with liquid goodness. There was bottles of blue Gatorade. White grape juice. Chicken broth. Milk of Magnesia. Miralax. With all this delicious liquid there is only one thing a man can do...ask his family not to eat around him on Monday as he prepares to starve himself in preparation for his first colonoscopy.

So here I am at 330am slumbering away only to be awakening by the sounds of a beast trying to escape the inners of my husband. A man who can do nothing more than crap blue Gatorade. I am by no means a light sleeper, but being woke by the movement of your partner's intestines is simply crazy! How long can one crap blue Gatorade? More than 12 hours it seems.

While I will drag myself to work, slap on a fake smile under my two dark sleep deprived bags; good ole' King Ralph will have a photo shoot via the hind end with a celebration nap in our warm comfy bed.

I'm feeling a little jealous. Of the nap part. And nothing else!

******
King Ralph has a beautiful colon and a pretty appendix. I think we will blow the pictures to 8x10's and frame them for display on the fireplace mantel.

Dear Dominic

Warning: The following post is Rated PG-13 when you play the video

Dear Dominic-
Today on the way home from work I decided to preview the CD you made for M. What a delight it was to know that you want to share and enhance my daughter's musical repertoire--because the great musical artist of the 70's and 80's I have enhanced her musical pallet with just aren't enough.

Oh dear Dominic, dear marching band friend, I wish you could have seen my face as song number one played filling the space inside my little blue Toyota. Was it my dropped jaw? My one squint eye? Was it the grimace that my mouth formed? Maybe it was the horrified laugh that over came me...actually it was every one of those looks that breezed across my face.

And, my grandmother thought Madonna's Like a Virgin was harsh.

I'm not sure who should be thanking you Dominic, me or M? To think I have about twenty more songs to go before I become a card carrying member of your "hip" music loving generation...God help, no save, me.

If ever there was a time for Puff the Magic Dragon, it might be now-- for me!

Musically (Aghast) Enriched,
Momma Avery

Student of the Month

If word gets out that included in the Student of the Month prize bag is a coupon for a free school lunch; I think the entire school body of students would start to strive for this high achievement.

In D's case she was bestowed the honor without having to be tempted. I suggested since her posy of friends are all bringers that they have a bought school lunch tasting with her coupon. The girls can sit around nibbling on mushy peas and a soy burger.

When Student of the Month was announced D's class was too noisy for her to hear. It wasn't until her next hour that she learned of her honor...people congratulating her for a reason she had to ask what she did.

It's nice that her sisters, who never have earned such a LHS honor, were all excited for their freshman sister. Even the one far away at school that calls to yell about her clothes she spots in pictures.

Good job baby!

FYI D: the honor does not exclude you from chores or cleaning your room. So hop on it, now!

Is There Really Such Thing As A Sick Day

I come to you from the couch while I use some of that accumulated sick time that shows on my pay check every other week.

I drug through work yesterday trying to convince myself I just had a marching band trip hang over but that was not the case at all. Last night after dinner I tried to visit my mother-in-law when King Ralph suggested about 30 minutes into our visit I go home, he would walk home when visitors hours ended. I took him up on the offer and within 20 minutes I was in bed and fast asleep, from 730pm till 6am.

While I slept soundly last night King Ralph said M and D had one of those sister bonding moments...moments that seem to happen more often now that they are both in high school together. As they sat on the ground with a lap top, creeping around on Facebook laughing together, he snapped a picture with his camera phone and sent it to Princess A. Next thing you know he said M's phone ringing, no mention of the picture, while one far away sister broke bonding time to chew them for invading her wardrobe options left at home. The left behind fashion of a college sister is under that "do not wear, do not touch" microscope and a picture is worth a thousand words. They really should stop taking photos, this happens all the time. I'm just glad I was asleep for this one.

This morning, dragging still, I had to take D to the doctor for an 830am appointment. She has had a funky rash under her arms for nearly three weeks that started creeping down the trunk of body. I diagnosed the rash myself because I think at times I got my M.D. when I got my m-o-m title. With out running off to spend the bank account funds on doctor office co-pays I bought a cart full of over-the-counter creams and ointments helping to increase Walgreens weekly profits. Sunday night when I was about to pull my witch doctor potion book from the shelf to brew up a magic cure King Ralph suggested I call the pediatrician. Once I managed to maneuver my way through rush hour traffic and question my sanity for making this early morning appointment (which I made so I could also get to work on time, till I took a sick day) I was crowned smart as a doctor...my diagnosis was dead on. D also left with three needle pricks--flu shot, Guardasil number 2 shot and a meningitis shot (because the doctor made a note that she wanted her to get that when they did the second Guardasil shot). Poor kid got more than she bargained for. We left with two prescriptions for antibiotics which I am sure are going to be top tier on the prescription co-pay scale. It's just a feeling as I haven't picked up the meds but, it is how my luck goes.

I needed this sick day as I lay on the couch listening to an alien trying to escape from my intestine while I work on my suppressed track skills. The fifty yard dash may be my calling. How long I get to lay here is timed by the calender--piano lessons, guard practice....

In other words there is really no such thing as a sick day--for a mom.

I'll drag the screaming alien along for the car ride.

Union Renegade Weekend Review

I had a great weekend. I know you all are thinking how does one have a great weekend trapped on a coach bus for a seven hour rides and hanging out with one hundred eighty four teens...but it was! Even though I am exhausted beyond description. I offer you the Union Renegade Review Flyers style.

When we left for Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Mecca of marching band, some of us felt as though we were jumping into the deep end of the pool without any floaties. Some left scratching our heads as to why our director entered us this competition. It didn't take much more than a good nights sleep in the Embassy Suites, a hot made to order breakfast, a good dose of caffeine, some snazzy band uniforms and some hair fashioned with bun magic to change attitude. The guard was ready to show off the new clock flags to all of Oklahoma, while as a whole band the kids showed what they had to offer.

I (along with lots of our parents) officially have high school football stadium envy. Union High School's stadium is sick! The whole school actually was sick. I think my kid's school is a fine establishment of education with nice classroom buildings and a grassy football field with suitable metal bleachers. However after sitting at the Union Tuttle Stadium from 11am-1030pm I am officially in awe of a town’s devotion to football and band, the amounts of money and donations that can drop into a high school facility. Score boards with video screens, memberships to the "Turf Club” with its catered pre-game meals, a two story all glass press box and a marching band with a near overflowing budget. Sick I tell you, all sick.

I will return in a few weeks to the Flyers Stadium to cheer on our undefeated football team, gaze over the grassy field as it fights off Fall with massive doses of water via the sprinklers. I will dance in the bleachers-- that come without a printed ticket or a seat number--to pre-game music blasted from our press box built of plywood and warmed by space heaters. I will listen to the pep music of the marching band that...that left Tulsa with a renewed spirit that they can compete and place high when in the company of the kings and queens of marching band world's greatness.

Yes friends we placed third in our division in prelims--which placed us fifth overall. Then we filled the bellies of our band with a hot dinner, warmed up the instruments for finals and took to the field under the moon and those massive stadium lights. Then the kids did it again.

One cool thing about this competition is that they offer a judge's review with your directors. For five minutes they can ask the judges anything and the judges will say things to the directors. One thing they said was our band has such a presence in our opening picture that they know something great is about to happen.When the bands all retreat out for finals awards we figured the kids would place fifth or sixth...accepting that would be fine being in the company they had been given. So, when they named the sixth place winner and then the fifth place winner and neither were our kids we braced for fourth. No fourth for us and I turned to my band mom friends and said "holy shitake mushrooms we made third?" Yep, third place for the Missouri band. The color guard got to perform there award routine when the drum majors were called to accept our pretty etched glass trophy…tis' a good day on Saturday in Tulsa to be a Flyer from Saint Louis--the only band brave enough in the United States not from Oklahoma to enter the competition.I love that when they dismiss the bands after awards (just like at BOA) the bands blend to congratulate and compliment one another. I love Robyn who helps me make bun magic, laughs at all my jokes and loves my text messages from the bus. I love, my, color guard girl.
And, I love ALL the color guard girls (even the ones who are not in this picture...where are you?).

Happiness Is...

Happiness is...

1. only having to work for two hours on a Friday.

2. my hair sporting its new fall/winter color.

3. my new bra!

4. Uli wanting to be playful and looking so cute.

5. Diet Coke in the morning.

6. doing laundry mid-morning on a Friday.

7. heading to Tulsa on a coach bus with 180 teenagers.


Point being, it is the simple things in life that offer happiness.