Walnuts on My Windshield #39
5/5/06

Sometimes, one simply has to laugh at all the things that can go wrong. Today I am choosing to laugh.

Scott got home from China, and although there were challenges (there always are), it was a good trip. God showed up in a big way and ministered mightily to numerous people, so we were pleased about that.

While he was gone, I took Katie to Columbia for the Missouri History Day finals, and out of the six papers selected to compete at the state level, she ranked #4. First and second place winners go to the nationals; third place is an alternate for nationals. The only comment the judges made about her paper was that perhaps her documentation was too extensive. An interesting thought. We were both severely disappointed, and I told her I was tired of crying while driving away from Columbia. She plans to enter again next year.

Andrew, who has sucked his left thumb and forefinger vigorously since sometime before 19 days of age (when we brought him home), is beginning to have dental issues because he sucks all day and all night. We have tried everything - you can spare me all the great ideas that worked with your kids - and we finally decided to take him to the ortho and see what they recommended.

We have two kids in braces and a third that supposedly needs them. Orthodontic care is not cheap. I am sure we could buy a more-than-adequate used car or two with what we have spent at Powell, Becker, and Scott. I like them. As orthos go, they are nice, professional, easy to work with, they have great receptionists, and they take time with us to explain what's what and why. I have recommended them to numerous other folks.

Dr. Scott's recommendation was to have Andrew wear "an appliance" on his left hand 24/7 for about six weeks that would prevent him from sucking. Supposedly this will do the trick. This would cost us the rip-roaring sum of . . . are you sitting down? . . . $400. Hmmmm…. Well, $400 is diddly-sqaut compared to what we have already spent in kids' mouths, so Scott said that if it sounded OK to me (he was in China) I should go for it.

We went to be fitted for "the appliance," and I was appalled. It is a piece of plastic with two little plastic tubes sticking out of it for his fingers to fit into. It is secured to his wrist by one of those little wristbands they make you wear at the hospital. You know the type; it's the one that you forget about until you go into Wendy's to eat real food after you check out from the hospital, and suddenly realize how stupid you look. No matter where you are when you remember the little beast, there is never a pair of scissors available, and without scissors, you cannot remove said item.

So for $400 on my VISA card, I get a box of 60 little colored wrist bands, a piece of soft plastic that looks like it is worth $5.95, (but which would probably sell for $19.95 so that some retailer could make a killing), and a mini-DVD explaining how to apply it to my son. Have I been ripped off or what?!?!?

We go home and the first few days are consecutive nightmares. He screams off and on for hours that he can't sleep without sucking. Despite my repeated instructions to him to get over it, he does NOT get over it. He figures out ways to get his fingers out of the plastic tubes without removing the wristband (supposedly impossible, but leave it to Andrew) and sucks anyway. He sabotages the new wristbands by snapping them closed. They can't be re-opened, you know. On and on it goes, and all I can think about is the fact that we have spent FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS on this situation.

That comes on the heels of my taking the van to get the driver's (power) window fixed. If your main family vehicle's driver's window will not go up and down, you are at least slightly inconvenienced. So, I took it in, and it was supposed to only be a switch, but instead it was the motor, and by the way, had I noticed that my airbag light was always on? Well, yes, but I didn't care about that. The reason was that the "clockspring" (looks like one, but is in no way related to the clock) that controls the airbag, the horn (it wasn't working either and I seem to remember that driving without a working hirn is slightly illegal) and the cruise control had worn out and needed to be replaced. Grand total: six handsome Ben Franklins. Lovely. Here Scott's in China for a month, not earning any money from his paying job, and I am spending it hand over fist!

So Scott gets home. We are all glad to see each other and be together again. But two days later, the police interrogate our missionary, Sarah, in China, which is very bad news. They tell her that they had planned to arrest her and Scott a week or so earlier, but decided not to, because of "international influence," whatever that is. A day or so later, a lot of you-know-what hits the fan in the church over there, and Scott is denounced as a false prophet and most of the people we have worked with over the past three years turn away from Mission China and urge everyone they know to do the same. No, we are not having fun yet.

Scott's Honda overheats on the way to work one day, despite the fact that the radiator is full. Hmm…. He takes it in and learns that he has developed a head gasket leak. Sounds like your brains are leaking, doesn't it? It will be $1000 to fix that. The car is old (1995) and its A/C died a few years ago, so Scott decides it is simply not worth putting that kind of money into it right now. He drives it back home, and this time it does not overheat, PTL! He makes plans to drive the old faithful Aerostar, which has about 200,000 miles on it, but includes working A/C, a loud differential whine, and a trailer hitch - useful for camping - to work this summer.

The dishwasher has been acting funky again. For about a year, we have had to clean out the swishing bars weekly. They get full of all kinds of stuff, the descriptions of which I will spare you, and then the water doesn't get sprayed around. That means that the soap doesn't wash out of the cup, the dishes don't get clean, and then when it goes through the dry cycle, whatever remains on the dishes is concretized, making the subsequent required hand-washing of the whole load VERY difficult.

This has been a problem with this dishwasher for a long time. In fact, this Maytag, which we bought six years ago, because of that bored guy on the commercials with the funny hat - you do remember the Maytag man, don't you? - (even though we thought we really wanted a Whirpool, but that's another story) has been a piece of trash from the get-go. It worked well for a year, and then it has been repair call after repair call after repair call. A year ago, the guy told us that hard water (think granite) and dishwashers just don't mix. I wish I'd known that five years earlier.

So now, they dishwasher is not getting things clean AGAIN (yet, still, whatever), and on this go-round, half the time there is an inch and a half of water left standing in it at the end of the cycle. The other half the time, no water ever goes into it at all. This whole situation reminds me of childbirth. After I had the great privilege of laboring for a long time and then having a C-section (twice!), I told the doc the third time that if we were going to do a C-section anyway, let's just skip that laboring stuff. The combo is simply too exhausting and too hard to recover from. He agreed, and we scheduled a C-section nine days before the due date. We were determined to outsmart Josiah. I went into labor with him 21 days before his due date, did that for quite a while, and was introduced to his charming little face after a - you guessed it! - C-section.

If you are going to have to wash the dishes by hand anyway, why not just do that and skip running them through the stupid Maytag, wasting more time, and getting more frustrated? So, the dishwasher doctor came by again today (thankfully he makes house calls) and after some minor lab work, informed us that the Maytag has done 2000 loads, and that is about all that you can really expect anyway. Its motor is overheating, its pump doesn't work right, and its timer-control switch is fried. In short, it's time to get a new dishwasher. Thankfully, that is easy. We have two in stock and they are called Josiah and Andrew.

Our email was messed up for most of the time Scott was in China. It took me about two hours a day to deal with getting the China updates out. The bozos at our ISP told me they couldn't do anything and that maybe the problems would fix themselves. Yes, and I have this really nice bridge…

I switched to using Yahoo and found that I had to send out the 125+ emails in two large batches. That's not too hard, but when I then tried to send out 105 emails to our family newsletter list, I could only have 9 addresses in each bundle - sometimes. And I could only send one bundle per hour - sometimes. With a limit of 3 bundles per day - sometimes. If I had realized that I would someday actually have to deal with limits that are undefined and change constantly, I would have taken better notes in Dr. McDermott's Calculus I class - but I didn't.

Scott came home and griped to our ISP bozos and it seems to be working - now, today, at this moment. So I am off Yahoo and back to interlinc, for the moment… I think.

While Scott was in China, I was downloading our VISA charges into Quicken, so I could get our account updated. That is one of my regular tasks. However, there were several charges on there that I could not verify. I emailed Scott in China and he couldn't verify them, either. It seems that someone had obtained our credit card number (not the actual card) and was merrily running up charges. Lovely. So after Scott came home, he called and got that card cancelled and they sent us new ones. Thankfully, we don't have to pay those charges. Whew!

Andrew is now cheerfully wearing his finger guard. It has been five weeks, and we are going to go three more, then try taking the item off. If he reverts to sucking, it will be another month. However, that would be a problem, because the plastic of the guard is starting to split. Do I really want to spend ANOTHER $400? No way! But, I did find the exact some thing - same brand, same pictures, same everything - online for about $75. Now, do I feel totally ripped off by the ortho or what?!?! I don't think Scott knows about that price situation yet, and what he doesn't know won't return to haunt me - I hope.

Josiah takes some meds for a variety of psychiatric issues. All his refills run out the end of May and I have a consult appointment scheduled with his behavioral meds doc, at which point the doc will mail new scripts with three months of refills. Actually, Josiah's been in a major growth spurt, and we are seeing some problems, so I think we need to up some of the meds. His behavioral med doc is in Little Rock, and we have to either go see him or consult remotely every three months.

Well, that doc called me yesterday to say that his ex-wife and another ex-clinic employee, both of whom had been found to be embezzling thousands of dollars from the clinic (and have therefore been divorced and/or fired) had taken the doc to the Arkansas medical board and accused him of all kinds of horrible and untrue things. He and two high-powered attorneys were then called to a hearing before the board, and they systematically refuted every charge. However, the first two folks had so incensed the board that they refused to listen to what our doc said, laughed in his faced, and pulled his license to practice medicine in Arkansas!

Now this is very, very bad for our doc (a fellow believer and dear friend of the family for over 16 years), but it also makes things a bit tough for Josiah and Josiah's family. On a Boy Scout camping trip, he forgot to take his meds, and it was the better part of a week getting him back on an even keel emotionally. That's after missing only three doses! Since his doc cannot prescribe now, I have to either find another specialist (and fast!) or at least get him in to see our regular family doc and ask her to prescribe for him for a few months, until we can figure out something else.

So, I call our family doc's office yesterday, and - of all the amazing things - their computer system is down. It has been down for three days and they have no idea when it will be back up. Until then, they can't schedule any appointments. Do I have any recourse? No. Can they put Josiah's name on a waiting for an appointment if and when their computers do come back up? No. Do they know when the computers will work again? No. Today is Friday, they've been down since Tuesday, and they may or may not work sometime on Monday. This is a big clinic, affiliated with one of the two largest hospitals in southwest Missouri, and that's the best they can do? Good night!

Hmmm…. Let's see:
No history day nationals this year
Unimaginable problems in China
Van repairs of $600 (already paid)
A hot Honda with $2000 of repairs pending
Andrew's 14 carat gold finger guard
A dead dishwasher
Impossible email
One doc out of practice and another who can't schedule appointments

I think this is where we are supposed to jump and leap for joy! In spite of all this junk, we are really doing well. Everyone is healthy, Scott's nearly over the jet lag, the kids are being fairly kind and responsible, etc. And God is good all the time. It's just that sometimes, I am tempted to think, "what else can possibly go wrong?" However, I refuse to go there, lest the question actually be answered.

It helps me sometimes to "vent" and get this stuff off my chest. Once I write it down, I don't have to think about it any more. Besides that, I have so many things to be thankful for, that if I started to list them, I'd be writing on this article all night! Today I am choosing to laugh.

Until next time,
Patty

From my book pile:

Inside Mrs. B's Classroom by Leslie Baldacci, rank 9. This lady was a high-powered newspaper reporter, who was investigating the conditions in inner-city schools in Chicago. The district was woefully short on teachers and was taking anyone with a bachelor's degree who passed a basic test. She decided to quit her job and go to work as a teacher in a really tough school. This book tells of her first two years doing that. It was enlightening and creatively written, and it made me SO glad my kids don't have to go to school.

My Left Foot by Christy Brown, rank 9. Christy Brown was born in the 1930s in Dublin with cerebral palsy. He was completely helpless and depended on his large (20 kids!) family to feed, dress, and bathe him. He had no control over any part of his body except his left foot. However, he was artistic and had a brilliant mind. This was an amazing book to hear.

Journey to the Bottomless Pit: The Story of Stephen Bishop & Mammoth Cave by Elizabeth Mitchell, rank 8. This is a children's biography that I picked up, hoping one of the kids would read it. They never did, so I did. It interested me, because Stephen Bishop was black, and because I have been to Mammoth Cave several times and it really fascinates me. Stephen Bishop was the first tour guide there in the 1830s and he was the cave's first explorer. This book tells about his various experiences, adventures, and discoveries. He was evidently quite a remarkable man, and his exploits are even more noteworthy because for most of his life he was a slave.

Quote of the Week:

"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." ~ Seneca

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