Pullin' on those boot straps

If I had boot straps, I'd definitely be pulling on them.  

Who knows if it will work ..... I used to think it would, but grief is a twisted thing.  No matter how much I'd love to control it .... I can't.  

But I can pretend to!

So I found out the other day that Gabby's mom is going to have a C-section on December 20th.  Dr. Melanie K will be performing it and she asked me if I'd like to come!  I, of course, said yes.  And Son #3 gets to come and be an extra pair of hands, too.  (I guess we'll know soon enough if he has the "stuff" to be a cardiac surgeon .... or if he just yaks all over his shoes).  So I will get to watch my mom's puppy being born and possibly mine.  That should be cool.

Oh, and here's a picture of the poor mama-to-be:

Sheesh ..... and to think that I thought being 9 months pregnant with twins was miserable!

   

   

      I am now "political".  Well, kind of.  As I mentioned before I was invited to join a committee for our school district.  It's a committee that's trying to convince our uncaring, clueless, ignorant, seemingly-uniformed legislators that our state is in crisis mode because of the asinine way it funds school districts.  An asinine way that has not changed for several years Not even for the transportation departments, which I'm guessing they don't realize, means fuel.

      So it is the committee's charge to make our community more aware, to get its people involved (no small feat), and to change the minds of our closed-minded government servants.  

We had our first meeting this past week and it was very strange to be in that room.  It's the room where the school board meetings are held.  The room where Jim spent a lot of time.  The room that, about 20 minutes into the meeting I noticed, has his picture hanging.  

This picture:

I think I stopped listening for about 10 minutes as I stared at that picture. Fortunately this was after the school superintendent introduced and welcomed me and said it was good to have an ______ (insert last name here) in the room again.  I could feel Jim smiling.  But also worrying about what the hell I might blurt out.  You see, the last time I was in that room was when he was sworn in to be on the board, several years back.  Yep, that's it.  For some odd (?) reason, the man never .... and I DO mean never .... encouraged me to attend the meetings.  Well, maybe not all of the meetings .... maybe just the ones where things were going to get heated and lots and lots of people would be there to vent their feelings on the issue of the night.

I can NOT imagine why he wouldn't want me there!  

For those of you who didn't know him .... he was the calm one in the family.  Heck, he was the calm one anywhere.  He never spoke unless he had something to say and when he did speak, people listened.  I am trying to be more like that and think I'm doing pretty well, though I may never reach his level of wise silence.

Anywhoooo, I used to threaten him by telling him I was going to come to one of those heated meetings.  Only I was going to stop on the way and have a couple of margaritas.  

Yep, that's the kind of wife I was ..... supportive and yet threatening.

I wonder how many nightmares he had about that happening?

Well, I never did go and stand at the mike and embarrass him by venting my opinion.  

But it was fun to think about.