The Stateside Chronicles: Part 1, Maryland.

Blog posts have been thin upon the ground hereabouts. It's not because there's nothing going on--indeed, there's plenty--it's just that I don't get access to my laptop as much as I would like. Hubby has commandeered it and is hooked on a new game (Lin City) which has him building some sort of virtual reality city which he's entitled Nixtopia 3.0 (Nixtopia 1.0, sad to say, crumbled under its own weight and fell into societal collapse when the apartment complexes he erected weren't enough for all the homeless people to occupy...I think he just nuked the whole place or something and tried again, which really does raise some disturbing moral quandries about being a demi-god). Nixtopia 2.0 had, in his words, "Food distribution and starvation problems".

I don't want to do any blog entries on the Outlaws' computers for fear they could trace me here, and The War of the Steel Magnolias really would be on...

But this morning I'm lucky, so I can do a quick wrap-up of All that Has Been Happening.

Because my life is just so very gripping and truly is One Wild Ride.

The time in MD with my parents was...meh. They've gotten a new plasma HUMUNGO TV which they leave on all time.

Why, you ask?

Well, that's a good f*cking question. Because for some reason "it doesn't come back on sometimes when we turn it off, so we just leave it on all the time."

A PLASMA telly. And they're leaving it on all the time.

Yeah, I think it's stupid too, but hey, I'm not here to judge.

Actually, I am, but I don't really care because they kept the house nice and cool whilst we were there, Mom didn't have a go at me, and Dad was so desperate for lucid, adult conversation that he was falling over himself to please us which, after years of him being so mean to me, was a welcome change.

I cooked for him as much as I could--I had him grill out one night, got some local corn and other produce, and he really liked it. The next night, he asked for meat loaf. I obliged, and Max and I made some choco chip cookies to go with.

I drove Maxman and me out to Easton, MD to meet up with my best bud Kelly, and remember how we couldn't go to the Really Cool Toy Store on our last visit in March? It was open this time, and I must say, it didn't disappoint. We spent at least an hour in there, and after careful consideration (my kid really thinks these things through too deeply) Max asked for a game which consists of a launching mechanism you wear on your wrist that fires foam disks at the other guy who is, of course, firing disks at you. Not what I had in mind, but I indulged him because hey, the kid just lost his house, his school, all his friends, and his toys, and he's now spending most of his time in the company of adults. So I can spend $20.00 here and there to make him happy because there may come a time when I can't.

Kelly, who has a really nice digital camera and is making a rather tidy profit taking pics when she's not teaching, turned the visit into a photo shoot. She commanded Max to pose in various places, look this way, smile, all sorts of things. We didn't chat much, but if someone's going to take pics of my kid, who am I to argue? Max is amazingly photogenic, unlike his mom whose right eye always looks squinty and who generally looks intoxicated instead of sultry when she smiles. And his dad, cutie that he is, always manages to look like he's just been caught in the Adult Section of the video store with his hand in a Naughty Place.

So where Max comes by this love of the camera is beyond me. Anyway, here are some shots.


First, you have me. I hate pics of me. I think I've mentioned that before. It was a fuckingly hot day, and it shows in my face and hair.

At the Really Cool Toy Store, we found a bin of rhinestone letters meant to design your own necklace, but us being who we are took a bit of liberty with the letter arrangements...









Okay, enough of that. Here's a nice shot of Maxman.


Max and Mummy at the ice cream shop.

We also bought Maxman his very first football at the Sports Authority. I took Dad along because he always bought us our first footballs. Max got a 3 which, as I tried to explain to him, was what little guys always start out with. "You learn to control this ball, and when you get older, you'll get a 4..." I promised him.

"But I play with 5s!" he protested.

"Look here, my man...you play with INFLATABLE RUBBER 5s. When they hit you, they bounce off. A real 5 is what grown ups play with in the leagues. You get hit with one of those, and we'll be picking up your teeth and trying to screw your eyeballs back into their sockets. TRUST your mummy on this."

My dad seemed puzzled as to what to do with Max. We spent the first 4 nights in a hotel (hubby's work paid for it) in Columbia and drove to see them when we could (it's about 40 minutes away). Dad always seemed pleased to see us, but then would start watching telly and ignoring us. I finally said, "Dad? We came here so you could spend time with MAX."

"OOOH! Okay, I didn't know that. Right, right. What should I do with him?"

"Erm...take him out back and kick the football? Blow bubbles? Catch bugs? Read to him?"

"Oh! I can do that. For how long??"

"Would you like me to set the fucking timer so I can tell you when you're off duty?"

No, I didn't say that, but I did think to myself, This man acts like he never raised three kids.

Meanwhile, every 5 minutes Max is saying in a rather pathetic tone, "Does anyone want to play with me??" It was heartbreaking.

On our third day there, this computer decided to die. I got up round 7.30 one morning and turned it on, was in the middle of reading the Knitty boards, and it locked up.

Okay, it's a Window$ machine, it happens. Reboot.

Blue screen of death.

Okay, that happens too. Sometimes I just pick the thing up and shake it like an Etch a Sketch, and it's fine.

Boot again. Black screen of death. Message saying, "No hard drive detected."

Okay, that's a new one. Reboot.

Same message. Reboot reboot reboot. No change.

This is bad. Even I know that.

Crawled back into bed as hubby was rolling over, knowing that this could ruin the whole day and somehow be blamed on me. "Hubby??"

"Mmmph?"

"How much longer are you going to sleep?"

One eye cracks open. "What time is it?"

"Little before 8."

Both eyes open. "What. Happened?"

"The computer's acting...funny. I think it's really bad."

He thinks about it for a while, then gets up and investigates. The DX? Dead and in Computer Heaven. Our recovery disk is on its way to Germany, and we won't see it for at least three weeks. We are, in technical terms, up Poop Creek without hip waders.

*I'm* the one flipping out. I'm on the bed, whiter than the sheet, heart palpitating, whimpering like a cold wet dog. Hubby's whistling cheerfully, playing with Max, etc. Apparently this is an Easily Solvable Problem for him. What he didn't tell me was that a few weeks before he backed up all the files on the lap top multiple times. So all I lost were my bookmarks and a few photos. No biggie.

He went to look for a new lap top and couldn't find one he liked and came back in a snit. What we eventually did (and I'm proud to say that this was largely my idea) was to download Linux at my brother's, burn a CD, get an Ubuntu hard drive, and install Linux on this lap top. We have to have a way the folks at our new site can contact us, so we needed a working computer.

I do have days when, if properly caffeinated, my brain makes great connections.

I'm here!

I made it to the US safely despite a 4.5 hour delay at Manchester and a three hour lay over in Philly.

I'm severely jet lagged and gagging on the heat and humidity of the MD summer, but I'm here, we're in one piece, no one's sick, our luggage arrived safely, and things are steady.

Man, there are a lot of big cars and fat people here.

Sorry, it's the jet lag talking, but it seems like motor vehicles and homo sapiens have both increased greatly in mass since I've lived here.

So has crap television, apparently. I watched a program today called "Crosswords" with the rent on their new HD 60" telly (what an exercise in futility because Comcast compresses their signal, thus rendering any HD effects impotent), and the host was a guy who looked like a walking/talking Ken doll dipped in Perky Sauce.

At least he could speak properly.

In the past I've gotten through these visits knowing they would end, and I'd be back in my lovely Yorkshire village resuming my regularly scheduled life. But not anymore. We are essentially homeless, and a life that took 9 years to establish has suddenly stopped--no gentle gliding to a halt and gradual tapering, just an abrupt stop, like a plant jerked from the soil and left quivering with the roots exposed.

I keep thinking of all the things I won't ever get to do again, very mundane things, like going to the butcher's, the grocery, the tip...anything. I feel like I was jerked from a place I loved very much without anyone asking if it was okay.

It's not okay.

The jet lag keeps me in a fog so I don't feel things too strongly, but sooner or later the emotional impact will hit, and I'm pretty certain it will hit hard.

Until then, I carry on because it's what you do.

Will post when I can. There are Interesting Pictures and some Points to Ponder over the last week or so, but they can wait until my body realises it's back on EST and not Greenwich.

TTFN.

Charisma -2, Strength -8, Anxiety +110...

Or...

Another Reason I'd Make a Lousy D&D Character.

So we have been busting our arses trying to get ready for The Move. I went to bed early last night (like 9.30) because I knew today would take all my strength to get through.

I woke up about 6 times in the night.

I woke up for real about 6 with my stomach so twisted in knots I could barely breathe. And then my stomach and Locations South attacked, as they do when I'm really spun up about something. I have to do a mild form of self-hypnosis to get myself to calm the hell down.

I got Max dressed and off to school, and I fully expected to see a moving van when I got back.

Nope.

About 10 minutes ago, the company called and said they were having "crew" problems and wouldn't get to us today.

WHAT?! "Crew" problems??

Hey, I've been in this game long enough to know what that means. For all our advances in technology, moving still involves strong guys hauling heavy shit around for low pay and probably no insurance. So, yeah. Crew problems are common.

The thing is, this whole move is a carefully crafted time table. Thing HAVE to happen when they happen. If not, the shit will most definitely roll down the hill and end up somewhere in the English channel.

The guy on the phone assured us tomorrow they'd have two trucks here which hubby assumed meant two crews...I told him, "Don't be so sure about that. They can have all the trucks they want, but if they haven't got the manpower, things won't go any faster."

I also know there's a HUGE gap between the guy who comes out to estimate and the actuality of how much stuff there is. Granted, we have been chucking/donating/selling stuff left and right, but still, we are three people with stuff. To think they're going to get it all packed up in two days is unreasonable, no matter how good they think they are.

This is not going well. Warning bells are going off everywhere. I'm not panicking yet, but I'm glad I've got two Valium left, that's all I can say.

I'm trying to see something positive about this, I really am. Another day to get prep work done, like taking all the pics off the walls and putting them in one place. Doing more laundry. Packing our suitcases.

But frankly, all I want to do is assault eat and sleep.

On the up side, I finally got a pic of Sexy Butcher Man. I guess it's more his presence because the shot doesn't really do him justice. I couldn't very well go in and ask him to flex his muscles or strike a Yul Brenner pose, although thinking back, I'm wondering why I didn't.

Anyway, I think the woman next to him is his wife. What I wanted to say was, "Little more to the right...liiiiiittle more...YOU'RE STILL IN THE FRAME, YOU HAG..."

Actually, she's a lovely woman, and I feel like a slug for thinking ill of her.




Now you might think I've gone round the bend in showing a picture of a bathroom floor. But here's the thing: this floor belongs to our old neighbours, Lee and Les, who are absolutely delightful people, folks who've worked hard their whole lives, travelled the world, suffered losses, the whole thing, and who more than deserve the happiness and nice life they have.

They're also kinda quirky and very warm-hearted, two qualities I always look for in friends. Lee is one of the few people on the planet who really "gets" me, and lemme tellya, there aren't many who know what's really brewing under my skin.

They live in one of 5 original art deco houses in the town, and they take great pains to keep the house up in its original style. It's a lovely big place with original features and--this is the best part--in a land of sober brick and stone square houses, theirs is rounded, whitewashed a bright white, and painted with bright turquoise on the trim.

Ya gotta love a house like that. It says, "HERE I AM! LOOKIT ME! I WILL NOT BE PASSED BY!"

Anyway, this floor is the original art deco floor, and I've always loved it. I hope one day when we have our own house I can do a floor like this.


Lee and Max in her spotlessly clean kitchen. Her philosophy is, "Well, why not?". Her other one is, "I will NOT be forced into anything." She's made of awesome.


Lee challenging Max to jump up to her hand..."Ready?? Here we go!"



BOING!



Max and Mummy share a morning snuggle. I swear this kid is too sweet for words. Just this morning he woke me up by kissing my arm two times and my face three. I am NOT a morning person by any stretch (I resent being conscious at all, really), but when he comes in and does that, I can't help but grin.

"Kisses aaaalll over," he said to me, then snuggled next to me in bed to wait for hubby to get out of the shower. Sweet laddie.

Done and Delivered!

Yesterday was a pretty big day, emotionally-speaking. I delivered a lot of things that I've been meaning to for ages. And I said a sort of farewell to Christopher.

We went to the grave. It may be the last time we see it for a very long time, if ever. That part has been really bugging me...it feels like we're leaving him behind, and I've been dealing with incredible feelings of guilt about it.

But as I put the roses on his grave (I always put roses), I kept getting a distinct sense of "he is not here...", like if you told someone to meet you at the corner, and you show up three blocks away and can't figure out why you can't see them. He just wasn't there. It's hard to describe how strongly I felt that emotion.

And, and it always happens, the sun came out whilst we were standing there, and I could feel him come behind me, put his hands on my shoulders, and say the same things he always does: "I'm okay, Mom. I'm so strong now. I understand what happened. But I don't understand why you keep coming back here if it makes you so sad."

I cried a little bit, told him I'd come so far from that day and was proud of my healing, but that I would never forget him or stop missing him. But to him, there's no sadness, and he just doesn't get why I'm so sad about it.

Two different people joining from two different dimensions.

After we left, we drove to hospital to drop off the things for Christopher's Donations. I'd called ahead of time to let them know I was coming. Once there, I told the incredible story of how dozens of people that I've never even met came together to help me heal over one of the greatest losses of my life. A midwife pulled out a tiny pair of knitted socks and nearly went to tears.

I explained how the clothes were for all the children, not just the ones born asleep. I said how they're done in bright colours, come from all over the world, and were made completely infused with care and love. I asked that they be used wherever the need was greatest anywhere in the hospital because the more they get used, the greater the healing.

But...

(and here's where I might have to stop a bit to get it out...and you might want to grab a tissue)...

When I pointed to the room where I'd gone through the procedure, the midwife nodded and said, "Yes, I know. We have someone in there now."

Those six words told volumes. That room is only used for one purpose: for mothers who know their children will not be born alive. In the last 6 months I've wondered what would happen if they got a psychic cleanser in there and have had a small chuckle at the thought of the psychic's crystals turning black and shattering and all the "centering" candles melting into instant puddles and pooling onto the floor!

I can't find a way of putting this properly, but somehow I wished I could go in to that suffering woman and comfort her somehow. There is no way I can think of that would help, that wouldn't been seen as an intrusion, but I wanted to do something to ease the hurt I know too well. It was heartbreaking to think that just on the other side of that door, another woman was slowly being wounded and unable to stop it.

The midwife gave me an assessing look and asked how I was doing. I told her I "went under" for about 2 months but have gone through a LOT to heal up...therapy, talking, blogging, crying oceans. "I'm still only at 85%," I explained, "nowhere near 100%".

She smiled faintly and said, "You probably never will be. The best you can hope for is 99.9..."

Which may sound cruel, but it eased the pressure off me trying to get back to a point I probably will never reach again because so much has happened. I don't know how one can go through such a trauma and expect to be the same on the other side. It was unrealistic of me to think of such a thing.

Anyway, here's a pick of me dropping off the items...


And here's the midwife who took them. The doctor next to her is an OB/GYN who happened to be there when this was going on. When I took the shot, he looked at it and said "That is a very good picture. Very good" and I knew he meant the feeling behind it, not the angle or the lighting or the subject. It was sobering.

Afterward we drove to Iris' house (she of the Log Cabin Blankie) for one last visit. Her health has steadily been declining, but she is still able to drive, move about, go for short walks, and visit friends all over England. Sadly, one of her best friends of nearly 22 years recently moved (he got married) from across the street, and there's a new family in there now. How hard it must be for her, to look out her kitchen window after so many years and not see Paul sitting in his front office, working on the computer or on the phone. They've been so close for so long.

I presented Iris with the Official Finished Log Cabin Blankie, and she immediately snuggled into it, saying she could feel the warmth just having it on her lap.


It would probably be a lap blanket on anyone else, but on her, being probably around 8 stone, it went a long way.


I'm just glad it's done. It was not fun to knit. I think I'll try another log cabin but in different colours. This one was just like slogging through mud.

We popped in to see Lee, another one of our old neighbours, who was most happy to see Max. When we lived on the street and Max had started walking far enough to get to their end, he spent many happy hours roaming their beautiful garden and peering into their little pool, trying to spy the frogs.

Diagonally across the way is a woman named Daphne who's also been Iris' close friend for about 12 years. Daphne and her husband Neville first welcomed Iris and her husband (also named Neville) to the cul de sac when they moved there, and they'd been very tight ever since.

Neville died two years or so ago, and Daphne's health has deteriorated very rapidly. It's hard to describe how she is now, and it's only by knowing how she was that I can bear seeing her like this.

Daphne was dx'd with motor neuron disease, an insidious disease that very, very slowly kills you whilst ever so stealthily taking away all your forms of independence. First she lost her ability to talk, then to eat, and eventually, it will invade all of her motor functions, and she will be completely paralysed, more and more dependent on machines but her mind will be intact completely. I can't think of a crueler way to go.

Daphne and Iris come from the same post-war generation, where you just "get on with it", chin up, don't whinge, make the most of what you have, be sensible, etc. They've done without basic luxuries before, and inside them both is a core of steel that just won't allow them to sink into misery.

After leaving Iris', I saw Daphne working in her garden, and I said, "We need to say goodbye to her...we will probably never see her again."

Daphne can walk, but her neck muscles are so collapsed that her head lolls to one side, and she has to look at you from the side with one eye. She "talks" using a keypad and types in the words. Her hands are still pretty steady, and there's a lot she can still do. She beckoned for me to follow her into her kitchen so she could get her voice box, and she typed out, "This is how I talk now."

God, it was gut-wrenching. I did my best to look her in the eye and not cut her off when she was typing...I've learnt over the years that you just accept how people communicate the way they do, look at them directly, and treat them like you would anyone else.

Daphne said she wasn't fond of the male voice coming from the box, but that female one was worse. I told her, "I know...our sat nav is a female, and I can't stand her."

Max, sitting in the back of the van, did the typical yet very embarrassing kid thing and said, "Why does she hold her head to the side??"

What can you say that won't result in follow-up questions or make it worse for her? Nothing.

A while later, he said, "I think it's funny."

Max is not a cruel person, and if he knew how that sounded, he would be devastated, but in the end, he's a 5 yo kid who hasn't had a whole lot of experience with life and people with disabilities. Daphne, fortunately, didn't take offense. I hugged her and told her that we'd send our addy when we knew it ourselves. Then we left.

Yeah. Completely draining day. We took Max to the park afterward and let him run around whilst we decompressed. I probably pushed myself too hard, but we got a lot done that needed doing, and I have a vague sense of accomplishment.

I think God's made it up to me

If you read my entry from yesterday, you'll know what a mess I was.

I had my appointment (my final one!) with my therapist this morning, hashed it out just as I said I would, and things feel a bit more settled.

She also said some interesting things. One in particular stands out. She said that early on, when we first started in January or Feb (can't remember...it was very close to what happened, and I know I was a mess, but isn't that what therapy is for??) I was so broken and shattered...and very very prickly. She said it was difficult to separate the trauma from the personality, and she nearly gave up a time or two.

Then when I seemed to start recovering myself a bit, she said that my personality came out a lot more, and she got to the point where she wanted to ditch the therapy sessions and just go for a GnT with me because "here is a REALLY interesting person with a vibrant personality that I really, really wanted to be friends with...". That was pretty flattering.

She also noted how I've become a lot more assertive in the past months (I've been working on that), saying what's bugging me and not just nodding and going along with things because it's easier. Believe or not, I did that for most of my life. I'm certain it comes from dealing with a verbally abusive dad...I tried to keep as low a profile as I could so he wouldn't find cause to yell at me anymore, but he seemed to find plenty of faults anyway.

In short, she said I'd come a long way, and whilst I was still prickly she'd decided it was maybe my personality in general, but that underneath is an extreme loyalty to anyone who shows the same. Very interesting.

I also told that ages ago, I was playing a game with some colleagues, and the question was, "If everyone in this group was a plant, who would be the cactus?" And they all voted for me.

Fine. I'm a cactus. But I'll be the kind that has pretty blooms a few times a year!

So I left feeling very enlivened as I always do, pleasantly emptied out of troubling thoughts and emotions, and quite relaxed.

Until I got to my car and found that some dickless twonk had parked his MASSIVE SUV so fucking close that I couldn't get into my car.

Seriously. His car was SO WIDE that I had to go round the back of mine to open the door. And I couldn't even walk full on...I had to scuttle to the side like a crab. I could open the door, but there was about 12", probably less, of space.

Now I know I'm a big girl, but even my pencil-thin hubby wouldn't have fit in there.

I. Was. PISSED.

I hate glamour SUVs anyway, and this was clearly a case of some dickhead buying the biggest one he could find. I knew it was a guy because he had a freshly ironed shirt hanging up in the back seat. The car was SPOTLESS--the interior a light beige leather, the exterior buffed and shined to a high degree--so I knew this was NOT some farmer or tradesperson using his vehicle in an agricultural capacity.

This was just some assfuck wanting to show how rich he was.

Well, I don't tolerate assfucks very well, as you can imagine. I've never been fond of bullshit, office politics, vapid conversation, or just skimming the surface of life each day. And I hate glamour SUVs. Did I mention that?

To add to the cheek, the window was left OPEN. Here's this dumbass saying, "My car is so impressive and so wonderful that I don't think you'd have the NERVE to do anything to it, so I am confidently leaving this window open. So there, and by the way, BEHOLD MY MAJESTY."

Clearly he wasn't counting on me in his game plan. My Zafira may be grubby and dented, but it's done more hard driving in its life than that SUV ever will, I promise you.

Think I'm over reacting to how close he was? Look for yourself:

This is how much room he had on HIS side (note the differences in height of the wing mirrors...this lets you know how massive his TesticleMobile was):

And this is how much room he left ME:

So I picked up a pen, rootled round in the glove box for some paper, found none, and instead decided to leave the note on a napkin. Classy, but I'm a writer, and I don't care the medium, as long as I get my message across.

Here's the note:

Let me translate if you can't read it:

"Hey, asshole! Thanks for parking SO CLOSELY to my Zafira that I couldn't physically get in. Why don't you park your L45,000 petrol-guzzling kitted out SUV somewhere that DOESN'T require you to box in normal sized cars around you?

"When petrol hits L8.00/litre, I will laugh my arse off at dickless twonks like you who can't afford to fill up their stupidly large tanks.

"Piss off back to your own reality, shitwad. Have a nice day.

"The Zafira you boxed in"

Riding home, I felt so light and wonderful that I could barely contain myself. I said to God, "You know what? That actually makes up quite a bit for the crappy day yesterday. Thanks for that. Thanks a lot. It worked."

I'm still grinning.

Awful Day

Today was a very, very bad day. I won't go into it here because I'm seeing my therapist tomorrow and will hash it out with her. If I'm still not feeling put back together, I'll post some of it here, and maybe you people can slap some sense back into me.

The problems are all solvable and don't go much beneath the surface, and if I didn't have a problem with anxiety and wasn't so easily set off by stress, I probably would've coped a lot better.

I did a lot of nonsensical screaming at my hubby and a lot of sobbing.

I wished I was dead a few times.

I wished I could just go home and hold Max all night long.

I feel like there were a few holes in the net I fell into.

I hate Leeds with a passion beyond words, hate it with a dark energy that's more heat than substance.

Robert Bowett Saab of Hunslet, Leeds can go suck it as can Carcraft of Morley, Leeds. They're both a colony of crooks who treated us in a craptastic way and basically robbed us blind of a very, very nice car.

And WWs points be damned...I'm off to find some comfort food. For maude's sake, I ate a veggie burger on a Ryvita crispbread with a side of cous cous and veg. I deserve some of the fresh raspberry pie I made earlier in the week.

Fuck this situation...I'm eating my pie, watching a movie, taking a Benedryl, and going comatose for about 12 hours with happy dreams of Hugh Laurie, Dr Who, and Harrison Ford all attending to my earthly desires. I will be grasping Dr House's cane with unhinged glee, fluffing David Tennant's hair with my boobs, and chucking Calista Flockhart's bony arse in the basement whilst I ask Mr Ford to do some magic with that whip of his.

She's Wearing That Sandwich Board Again...

So you know how SMIL was dx'd with celiac, right? And how I said it would only be a matter o' time until we started getting "FYI" emails clogging our boxes?

Got another one this morning about "a really good site at Columbia University" and an interview on CNN.

And here's how she signed off the email:

"I see the gastroenterologist next Friday and will ask his advice on the best way to test family members. It is definitely not something to ignore."

I hope to high heaven she's not directing that last comment at me and is instead, as it should be, flinging her elf darts at SDBIL whose kids could quite possibly have the disease, given M's myriad of food allergies, Ju's really bad teeth, and Jo's crummy eating and stomach problems.

Here's the best way to test family members, lady...STFU about it and let THEM parent their kids. If we feel the need to subject our children to needless tests just to placate your anal retentive need to be in charge of everything under the guise of "It just makes medical sense..." you'll be one of the first to know.

And yes, for the first time, I will say that to her scowling face. All this time I wished I had the balls to do so, but I'm pretty sure that the 10 days we spend with them this summer will be a Celiac Awareness Bonanza with every meal being a lengthy diatribe in Why Max Shouldn't Eat That Just in Case, and I'll probably find print outs of symptoms with bits highlighted and notes saying, "I've noticed this with Max" next to the bed.

When she was dx'd officially a few weeks back and talked hubby's ear off for 45 without drawing breath, she said quite pointedly, "I've noticed Max has always had trouble with gaining weight...that's a sign of celiac..."

I guess she hasn't picked him up lately because it's like dealing with a sack of cement. A very wiggly sack of cement. Max, like his father (HER SON) is solid muscle mass, sinewy and lithe, like a fencer (in fact, hubby used to fence in Uni...he's got the perfect build for it but sadly, not much patience for it!). SMIL is so interested in genetic connections about negative things that she's missing the obvious one, that Max is built JUST LIKE HIS DAD. And if she were around him more she'd see this kid would eat all the time if I let him.

All of this I will repeatedly pour into her ear even though most of it will dribble right out again. Y'know, I actually feel a little sorry for her because it's probably the first time anyone's stood up to her in years. My five year old can handle "NO" a lot better than she can.

It's ON.

And thank Gourd for that.