Just got back from a cookie-infested PTO meeting, and, like you, I'm surprised I'm even going to these things. It's so anti-me. But I was to understand there would be cookies, and well, you know...

 

I accidentally signed up for Relay for Life in May. But then again, it's a good thing to do, you know, for the world. And it's fun...and they had cookies, so what was I supposed to say? "No?", while I was stuffing my face? Besides, May is a long, long way away. They might even find a cure for cancer before then and I won't even have to worry about it.

 

I finished reading The Grapes of Wrath. I understand now why the book was banned in certain places back then: people just didn't want to know what was really going on--because they didn't want to feel ashamed of themselves for not helping. Just my opinion. Of course, some would say the whole breastfeeding a grown man thing was somewhat controversial, thus the need for the ban...and on kind of a side note: isn't it interesting how people can look back at the 30s and the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl and the Okies in California and say "What a horrible situation, what a horrible time, how terrible it must've been for those people"--when, if you think about it, the same thing is happening still today with immigrants--legal and yes, illegal, too, but still people, still human--and not immigrants, too--selling everything they own and risking their lives for just the chance that their children will have it a little better, starving, working for peanuts, no access to healthcare, living in unsanitary conditions, being exploited, being treated worse than dogs, yada yada--you get it...I'm just sayin'.

 

There's a little girl in Mia's class whose mother just died last week, suddenly. This little girl is also on Mia's soccer team, and tonight I met and talked with the girl's father for quite a while. I didn't say much except to say how sorry I was about his wife, but I did listen when he started talking. And he talked. And to hear him describe how he gave his wife CPR, while his 9-year-old son tried to dial 911 but was too overwhelmed and scared to do it, how she said she couldn't breathe, how she wouldn't take in any air, how he couldn't grasp what was happening even as the paramedics wheeled her out. She died at home, in front of him, in front of their kids, and it was the saddest thing I've ever heard, sadder than any movie I've ever watched or book I've ever read. Now there are 3 children without a mother, and a man without his wife, his best friend. I held back tears as I listened, but after practice I just wanted to come home, curl up in my bed in a ball and cry and cry and cry. I don't know this man, I don't know his kids, and I didn't know his wife. And I can't even imagine the pain they've all gone through and will continue to go through. And I wish there was something I could've said to him or something I could do for them to help. But there's nothing in the world I can think of.

 

Nothing.

 

 

 

 

Noah is the biggest shithead dog that ever lived, and I'll just leave it at that.

 

Mia is getting run ragged. Kindergarten alone is wearing her out. She's also in soccer again this season--on a team with girls and boys, and they're called "The Sharks" and they practice on a grassy field here in town twice a week. If I thought she was tired at the end of the day normally, then she's half-dead by bedtime on soccer days. The Sharks' first game is Saturday.

 

Cheyenne has a band-marching contest thingy Saturday. She also has a football game tomorrow night, from which she won't get back until midnight. I'm surprised she's holding up as well as she is so far this year.

 

Merrick is just. A. Nut. He's happy and crazy and rambunctious and coy and sweet and so cute that I can't even stand it sometimes.

 

Caleb is a working maniac.

 

And I'm going to bed.