Having a very lazy Sunday.  Nicholas is still in bed and it is 2:00pm.  I didn't get up until noon.  Such a luxury to be able to laze around without any commitments.  Of course I suppose we are wasting time and time is precious, but today we are just enjoying the time to do nothing.

I thought I would post a photo of Nicholas playing tennis.  it is not a regular game of tennis.  Connor, who was his teammate spent a great deal of time running around trying to get every ball, but Nicholas was there ready if one should come to him and he did get to serve the ball which was fun for him and for me to watch.

Well I must get back to my lazy day. . . . .

Got up early this morning to cook breakfast for Vince and Phil.  They are setting off on a journey that they have been thinking about for years, planning for months and working toward since January.  It is extraordinary how much effort and money has gone into the plan and now they have gone.  It is very quiet here.  We headed to the dock at 7:30am for an 8:00am start.  I had a very large bottle of champagne and some orange juice to make a toast to their journey.  They will be on the boat for a month, taking her all the way to Georgia and then leaving her there until January.  Then it is off to the Bahamas for four months.  Retirement for Vince and a chance to finally fulfill his dream - a dream he set in motion when he was just a little boy.

                               

Here he is with his own boat that he made in his back garden in Bristol England.  He is at the helm and taking a make believe voyage.  I look at this little boy with wonder.  How did all that time pass and how did I become the woman in his life?  We have been together for 29 years - married for 27.   We are about to embark on a thing called retirement together - not really sure how that is going to change things, but life is becoming more precious and time is more important somehow.  I wish that we could explain this to those who are young so that life is not frittered away, but held a little more tenderly and enjoyed just a little more.  

Well, today he is off on a very real voyage - at the helm as skipper of his 37' yacht named Kinky Turtle.  I have a few tears looking at this little lad and thinking about all the hopes behind that jumper.  I hope that one of those hopes is coming true as he sits on his yacht this evening.  He deserves that - he has worked all his life for this moment and I am choked up just thinking about it. 

They set off this morning at 8:10am and we cheered and toasted them as they left.  May the wind be always with you my love.  We are still cheering for you here at home.

Waiting for the handicapped toilet - here are a few things that have happened to us over the years that I think are remarkable. 

The stall door swings open and a young, very beautiful black woman steps out of the stall, moves past the wheelchair and pushes her body into me with her finger pressing into my chest, as she says threateningly, “Who in the fuck do you think you are knocking on this door when I’m in the bathroom?”   Okay, let me preface that Nicholas needed the toilet and we made our way to the public rest rooms near Starbucks.  There are approximately 20 stalls in the ladies toilet and they were all empty except the Handicapped toilet.  After five minutes of waiting, it was so quiet that I thought perhaps the door was shut with no one in there so I gently tapped on the door to see if it was open.  I was a little startled when a voice rang out saying, “What the hell is going on?”  I said, “Excuse me.  I thought it was empty.”  And so we waited.  We waited for such a long time (it felt like 20 minutes but it was probably more like 10) that I was beginning to think that I should ask whoever was in there if they needed assistance.  I could see by her feet (yes I was upside down peeping under) that there was not a wheelchair and she was at the mirror/sink.  I don’t want you to think I had my head under the stall looking up at this person;  I had been in this rest room before and I knew where the sink was located.  At this point I thought she was disabled and I knew she was alone so I was thinking that she may have had an accident, an ostomy pouch or something that was very involved that was taking so much time.  But when the door opened, I realized that she was probably putting on makeup and doing her hair.  This is a mistake that I should point out to the designers of disability stalls - the more attractive and cosy you make the stalls, the longer a person or family spends in there.  Anyway, this young woman  had her finger in my chest and I was in a very awkward position at this point because I was quite sure that Nicholas might punch this woman who was attacking his mother and I really didn’t want to find myself in a bathroom brawl.  I simply said, “Excuse me, my son needs the toilet and we have been waiting a long time.”  She pushed hard past me and headed to the sink with, “Fuck you, you fuckin’ self righteous bitch!”  I couldn’t help myself at this point.  I knew I should keep my head down and not say anything, but she had riled me.  So as I was closing the stall door (I’m not crazy), I said, “To be frank, you had your choice of 19 toilets in this rest room and you chose the only one that a disabled person can use.  I am not a fucking bitch.  I am just a mother whose son needs to go to the toilet and you were preventing him from doing that for at least 15 minutes.  Does that seem right to you?”  I shut and locked the door because I felt at this point, she may very well tear every hair out of my head.  She started screaming, “Who the fuck are you telling me where and when I can take a piss?  I can stay in there as long as I fuckin’ want to and It’s none of your goddamned business.”  Under her breath, she said, “white fuckin’ bitch, comes in here thinkin she owns the place.”  I won’t pretend.  I was a little more than shaken and at this point.   I was worried that she might wait for us outside and beat the crap out of me.   I was trying to decide what my next move should be and wondering how in the world a trip to the toilet could cause such a  ridiculous scene.  Nicholas and I took our time.  No one else had come into the rest room and I was in no hurry to leave.  We washed up and headed to the exit.  I left Nicholas behind me in his chair and I slowly opened the door and peeped out each way.  There was no one around so with as much courage as I could muster, I pushed Nicholas out and headed up the hallway to the mall floor.  As we burst out by Starbucks, I again checked both ways and didn’t see her.  Relieved, I ordered a large mocha frappe and collapsed in one of their chairs.

Arundel Mills is a huge outlet shopping mall with a fabulous Cinemark movie theater and over two miles of stores and restaurants.  This isn’t a reflection of Arundel Mills because these sorts of weird encounters into the world of toileting happen to us everywhere.  But for the moment I will tell you another bizarre moment inside the Cinemark rest room. I promise you that I have a great imagination, but I could not possibly make these moments up.   We go to the cinema at least once a month because Nicholas and I both love films.  There is only one handicapped stall in the very large rest room at the cinema here and so it is rare to be able to go in and use the toilet without waiting.  We encounter every sort of woman in the handicapped stall there.  One Saturday morning, there was a little girl about the age of six that was having a whale of a time in the stall with the toilet paper and soapy bubbles.  I’m not sure where her mother was, but this little girl was singing away and painting the walls of the the handicapped toilet.  I knocked on the door and she looked under the stall and saw a stranger looking down at her.  She crawled under the door and ran out of the rest room.  That presented a problem as the door was locked from the inside.  I am 55 and 220 lbs so I was not about to roll under the door.  I looked at Nicholas and asked if he could hold it and thankfully he said yes.  Another Saturday morning, we entered the rest room at the cinema and this time Nicholas was desperate for a pee after having  sucked down a large soda during the new Pooh movie.  I crossed my fingers that the stall would be open and as usual most of the other toilets were empty but the handicapped toilet was occupied.  I usually don’t do this, but this was an emergency so I knocked on the door and said a little frantically, “Please can you hurry.  My son is in a wheelchair and he is desperate for the toilet.”  I’m not sure whether it was Chinese or Japanese that answered me, but it was clear she didn’t understand what I had said.  As she washed her hands (which she  could have done at the sinks outside the handicapped stall (see what I mean designers), I watched the pee dripping from Nicholas’ chair.  I wanted to weep at the injustice of it all, but instead I made my way to a shop and purchased new clothes and took him to another rest room and found a place to change him.  

Maybe I need to explain what a challenge going to the toilet can be.  When Nicholas was little, taking him into the women’s rest room didn’t raise an eyebrow.  But now, Nicholas is 15 and things have changed. I have been confronted twice regarding his appearance, i.e. “this is the Ladies rest room” or “why are you bringing him in here?”. It isn’t that I take offense at what they are saying, but I don’t have a choice so there is nothing else I can do.  If he needs to go, he needs to go with me.  If my husband is with us, he goes into the men’s.  I know a wife who has a husband of 60 who is disabled by a stroke and she has the same problem.  If there is not a family rest room, he must go with her into the women’s rest room.  I’m not sure why people are offended or upset by this because we pee behind closed doors and there is nothing to be seen in a women’s rest room, unless the washing of hands can somehow be construed as sexual.  I often wonder what a dad with a young girl or handicapped young lady does in this instance because taking a girl into the men’s toilet where they openly urinate is a much more difficult issue.

I have one more Cinemark story because that is where we go to the movies most frequently.  At the movie theater, a whole family took up residence in the only disabled stall - there were six of them, one adult and five children.  We waited as each child went to the toilet, then Mom, then they all took turns washing their hands and drying them.  One little girl stepped out and saw us waiting.  She went back in and I was silly enough to think that she was going to tell her Mom that there is a wheelchair outside, but five minutes later as I saw clothes taken off and changed and shoes being switched between children, I realized that if I was going to get Nicholas to the toilet before he had an accident that I needed to find another one.  It was unbelievable.  To this day, I have no idea what that family was doing or why they felt it was okay to do it in a disabled stall which leads me to the most unusual moment waiting for the toilet.  This happened at Hollywood Studios in Disney World.  There are a few places that understand that a family handicapped rest room is essential to those mothers looking after special needs sons or fathers looking after special needs daughters.  Disney have installed several of these around their parks and it makes it so much easier now as Nicholas is getting older.  Last summer, we were coming out of the Beauty and the Beast show and Nicholas indicated that he needed the toilet.  I found on the map that there was one of these family rooms just around the corner so I headed for it.  When I got there, it was in use and we waited.  There was a lot of grunting and gutteral noises coming from the toilet - the door got hit a couple of times and I have to admit that I was expecting a frazzled parent with an autistic adult out of control to emerge.  I have had moments like this with Nicholas - where he is angry and lashing out at everything.  So I moved back a bit so that they could exit without problems.  I was lucky that Nicholas was not in serious need because I was searching my phone for another toilet after ten minutes of waiting.  Just as I was about to leave, the door lock clicked and I moved back to allow them out.  You cannot believe my astonishment when I saw a young man with his arm around this lovely young lady step out, tucking in their shirts and looking very smug and satisfied, kissing each other and giggling.  My mouth dropped open and I was lost for words.  I thought I had seen handicapped rest rooms used for everything, but this was to top the list.  Maybe it was a new badge in where you have had sex - like the “mile high club”.  I was flabbergasted.  

Most people who are not handicapped and recognize they should not be using this space, rush out and try not to look me in the eye as they exit because they know it’s wrong.  Others excuse themselves and apologize.  I just look around the myriad of stalls available and wonder, why do you choose this one?  We were waiting outside Pizza Planet’s rest room and it was empty except of course the disabled stall and we didn’t wait long, but when the door came open a mom stepped out and when she saw Nicholas, she said, “My son’s outside, he is disabled too.”  This completely confounded me because of all people in the world, she should understand how important it is to leave these stalls open for those who need them.   I totally get using the disabled stall when all the other ones are taken, but this has not been the course of my experience.  In fact, it is just the opposite.  If I am in a busy theater during intermission or at the circus, everyone makes way for the wheelchair and allows us to cut through the line in order to use the handicapped stall.  I have had ushers part the sea of people to get us through to the rest room.  People have been more than courteous in these circumstances.  That leads me to believe it is the anonymity that allows women to think it is okay to use the larger more comfortable stall when no one else is around.   In 12 years, I have only waited for a handicapped stall once and had a disabled person emerge when the door opened.  This is the truth.  We have travelled all over and it has happened only once.  I have encountered mostly young women with/without small children, kids who have come into the rest room unaccompanied, men between 20 - 40 years old and a lot of people who don’t speak English.   I know there are some people who are feeling stung right now because they have bad knees (which isn’t immediately recognizable to the onlooker).  Please know that I am not talking to you.  Of course the stall is there for everyone who has a need.  I get it.  The handicapped stall is larger and more like the bathroom at home.  But, can you imagine a disabled child dirtying their pants while waiting for a toilet.  I have been there more than once.  There are toilet stalls designated in every public bathroom for the disabled, just as there are spaces in every car park with the same symbol - a universal symbol - the wheelchair.  Not all disabled people who have access to these privileges are in a wheelchair, but these areas are clearly marked and I truly believe we all know the meaning of this symbol and its designated purpose.

I will step off my soapbox about handicapped stalls and continue to collect bizarre stories about those who use them.

I only have one thing to say today.  When technology works, it is amazing.  When it fails, it is catastrophic.  It has failed.

Last night I attended the most beautiful exchange of love that I have witnessed in my life.  I have known these two men for 30 years and they have been a couple for 34 years.  I met Nick at Virginia Shakespeare Festival in 1983.  He was playing Sir Andrew Aguecheek and I was playing Maria in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.  It is the only production that has ever been staged where Maria and Sir Andrew were having an affair of the heart.  Unfortunate for Sir Toby Belch, but no one liked him very much.  I fell in love immediately with this big, wonderful man from Montana.  My heart broke a bit when I found out about Tim and I was a little bit jealous.  The summer was magical on so many levels.  We played on Virginia beach, we went dancing, we hemmed costumes, we worked on lines, we skinny dipped in a hotel pool (I think I am not making this up), we learned to juggle scarves, we went to a water park (leaving with scrapes and bruises), we played on boats, and we explored everything that could possibly be fun. We discovered that we liked to go onstage to warm up before a show.  It was just Nick and I and there were nights when we would sing and dance together - our favorite was "I'm gonna wash that man right out of my hair".  Nick could spin me around and make me feel as light as air.  When I was with him my feet didn't seem to touch the ground.   He became my confidante and when it was clear that he was hooked on Tim, he became my dearest friend and brother.

We stayed connected after that summer and found ourselves once again acting together at Champlain Shakespeare Festival in Burlington, Vermont (1986).   I was planning my wedding at the end of that summer.  Of course Nick and Martin (the costumer) planned a surprise bachelorette party.  They brought me in on some pretense and I was totally surprised as the whole company started giving me presents (obscene underwear and toys).   Nick literally picked me up and held me upside down.  It was amazing.

That evening I laughed until I couldn't laugh any more and I wasn't sure that was possible, but I was aching from laughing.  It was the best party I have ever had in my honor - it was truly amazing on every level.  The Supremes turned up and I thought I was going to pass out from laughing.  I'm not exactly sure which part Nick played in the wedding (Vince thinks he was the Best Man), but what I remember is the brown paper towel he handed me when I started crying during his beautiful reading from Henry V.  I was actually sobbing and needed to blow my nose and I did on that hard brown paper towel from the school toilet and I was so thankful for it.  He made my heart swell that day as I looked into his eyes and realized what a friend I had made in Nick Olcott and how very blessed I was to have him in my life.  I told Nick that I married Vince because he was the closest to Nick that I was ever likely to meet, and if you look closely (not at the height) you will see the resemblance.

Nick and I went to the Edinburgh fringe and performed "Talley's Folly" which was so stressful and there was a moment that I was terrified that I had lost my friend over this folly - doesn't that sound ridiculous.  It does to me now, but I had made a poor choice to bring a friend over to direct and he was useless - that was the beginning of the problem.  The second issue was that my husband was the producer of the event and I felt responsible for its success.  Nick was fabulous and it was wonderful to play opposite him but all of these things were putting a damper on the fun aspect of doing the show in Scotland at this amazing event.  Finally after several days of trying to get people to see the show,  Nick made it clear that he was in Edinburgh and was going to enjoy Edinburgh despite how many people came to see our show.  I knew he was right, but the guilt was overwhelming.    It was a little turbulent but our relationship recovered.

My second son was named after Nick - there are so many things that he has influenced in my life and so many times that I have wanted his advice and hug.  I am hoping that in our retirement, we may find our way back onto the stage again to play.  I dream of that.

Back to last night.  Nick and Tim closed their union in the eyes of Maryland and last night was their celebration of that event.  They exchanged rings in front of 100 guests and I was privileged and truly honored to be in that room which was filled with so much love.  They have travelled the planet between the two of them and there were guests from all over the globe - all remarkable people who have been touched by these two men.  There was not a dry eye in the place when Tim told us how for over 30 years he has asked Nick to marry him on a daily basis and for over 30 years his heart raced when Nick said here and now.  It was an evening that I will cherish - thank goodness the state of Maryland (along with my voting son Kelston) did the right thing.

I started my day texting Ericka and through those texts discovering a path forward.  I found my joy in life at 17 when I stepped on the stage and played a disabled woman confined to her bed and her only connection to the outside world was the telephone.  I performed this in the cafeteria of our grade school for parents who came along to the talent show to see their own children perform.  My performance ended with a blood curdling scream.  What I remember from this - during the acts before me there was lots of talking and general noise going on in the audience.  This worried me because those acts were funny, light hearted, silly and I was about to bring them something powerful that they had to listen and concentrate on.  I started my monologue in my brothers twin bed that I made my parents bring to the cafeteria (they were not happy to do it).  The audience got very quiet and it was an out of body experience for me because I became this woman and the room was so quiet that you could hear a pin drop and Cathy knew that the audience was with her and the journey I took them on was painful, emotional and very dramatic.  When I screamed at the end, there was gasps and then silence and then thunderous applause.  I knew in that moment that this is what I was destined to be - an actress.

When I told my parents I wanted to go to college, they told me I was crazy.  My two older brothers were so smart and college hadn't worked that well for them - one graduating and one not finishing.  I had played around in high school, getting C's and not really caring - I was playing the hippie with my wild unkempt long hair, my jeans that ravelled at the bottom, my tie-dyed shirts.  I worked hard to look bad.  I was in the wrong crowd - searching for escape from the mundane.  What I found on that stage was my method of escape and I changed overnight.  I got rid of the hippie look, cut my hair and applied to college.  Well, I didn't get any support for this decision from my family.  However, with the help of our school advisor and I don't even remember her name now and I feel bad about that because she changed the course of my life with that help, I got into Columbia College in Columbia, Missouri with a scholarship.   With that acceptance letter in my hand, I asked my parents again but they were not happy about me "wasting good money".   They were farmers.  They worked hard for every penny.   Girls were supposed to get married and have children - not galavant off to college - only rich girls did that to find rich husbands.  I was fiercely independent and went to my local bank and took out a student loan.  With that move, my mom got onboard with the idea (she figured I would be back after the first semester) and they drove me to Columbia and left me in Hughes Hall and as they drove away I sobbed like a baby.  I had worked so hard for this and now I was alone, really alone.  My home was 12 hours away.  My next onstage moment that mattered was at the end of that first year in "The Man Who Came To Dinner".  I played the Maggie to Sheridan Whiteside.  Elias Eliadis played Sheridan and he was fabulous.  Also on that stage was the wonderful actor - Arliss Howard who played Banjo (look him up - he has starred in so many movies - he is just wonderful).  Anyway, I had some major talent on that stage and I rose to the challenge and received a glowing review.  Hooked for a second time.
Things snowballed from there as I made the Dean's List and graduated from this small college with an A.A. degree and transferred to Murray State University in Kentucky and my parents started financially helping me.  In Columbia, I was poor.  My roommate Lynn came from a wealthy family and she let me wear her clothes and find a place to fit in.  I got a job at Super-X Drugs and I sold my plasma to have enough money to enjoy things a little more there.  I have lifetime friends from that adventure and there is much that I am not proud of, but it was an amazing time.

I was given my first Directing experience at Murray State.  The Professor there loved my enthusiasm and thought I was very talented.  They had never had a student direct the mainstage Lovett auditorium children's theatre production.  I was the first.  I directed "The Red Shoes" and 2000 children filled the auditorium and loved it.  It was a huge success.

I fell in love for the first time at Murray.  His name was Michael Crisp and he was the most beautiful man I had ever met.  I loved everything about him.  I felt whole when I was with him.  We did everything together and when I left school I followed him to Austin, Texas.  Noone was very happy about this but off I went in my Gremlin with orange stripes and levi interior (that is another story that I must write down).  Now, here I should tell you that many good women warned me away from Michael.  They told me I was naive and didn't really understand him.  I thought they wanted him for themselves.  I should have listened a little more closely but they were right - I was naive and didn't know him well enough.  Anyway, I arrived in Austin to find that Michael had a boyfriend - he was gay.   I drove my Gremlin to the edge of one of the more beautiful places in Austin and cried for hours.  How could he love me and hurt me so badly.   That fierceness inside me thought I could change him.  I spent a year in Austin with that idea in mind.  I performed at night for lots of little theatres (Creek, Melodrama, Zilker Hillside Theatre) and worked as a receptionist during the day for an engineering firm.  After a year of this madness, I resigned myself to the fact that it was never going to work.  Funnily, I thought it was because I wasn't worthy enough - oh my goodness when I think of that now, it slays me.  I moved home and got a typing job with Coopers and Lybrand in Cincinnati.  I fell in love for the second time.  He was an tax accountant - a wonderful Irish Catholic named Patrick O'Brien.  Oh my goodness we had so much fun and if he had asked me to marry him, I probably would have.  My parents loved him - he was a good ole boy - he came out and went hunting on my Dad's farm, cleaned all my Dad's guns.  He fit right in.   But, he didn't ask me quick enough and I woke up one morning and realized that what I really wanted was to be an actress - not a wife.  At this point, I felt I needed more training.  I applied to graduate schools.  I travelled around in my Gremlin auditioning and I knew I had to get a teaching assistantship so that it would not cost me anything.  Ohio State accepted me into their MFA Acting program.  This was the third moment that determined my path.

to be continued. . . .

Today is the first tennis match!!! It is 7:00am and Nicholas has on his tennis whites.  He looks fabulous.  I will take some photos today and hopefully get some action shots.

I had a bad day with food yesterday.  It wasn't that I ate anything considered unhealthy, but I was hungry all day and so I kept having the small meals every two hours to try and stabilize that feeling.  At the end of the day, I had had 7 small meals instead of 5.  I am not going to beat myself up about it because it was a better healthier day as I did the couch to 5K for 20 minutes, walked an extra 40 minutes, spent the evening on the risers singing and all in all, had a very healthy day.  So GAME ON is a tricky assessment of points and I get 85 points for good behavior and have to subtract 40 points for bad behavior.  This is out of 100 points.  I suppose most people would think this is ridiculous but what is happening is that I am being accountable for what is going in and that is a good thing.  So far today I walked for an hour and a half on the most beautiful path owned by the Navy that walks along the Bay - really gorgeous and there aren't that many people who use it.  I met Mary Anne there and we walked and talked about health and fitness and life in general.  It was a positive way to start the day.

I am so blessed to have so many fabulous people in my life.  People who care about and love me.  What more could I ask.  It is a GOOD day.

Oh I forgot to add - the war on scooping worked and I was told I was great last night - whew!!!!  That hurdle is now over.  I realized that I was only doing it on the Y words and with just a little attention, I fixed it.  Yay!!  Last night, I was given a special part to do in our package and that is going to be fun - I get to join the front row's kick line - YAY!!!  Of course, there is a major disappointment for me in the chorus and I guess I should just get it out there so that I can let it go.  I am an actress.  I have worked professionally onstage, television, film and radio.  I have been paid to perform - doing commercials, voiceovers and I had a wonderful time in England working for the BBC reading short stories and doing various parts in the afternoon plays for Radio.  I am trained (an MFA in Acting).  I have so much knowledge and expertise that many don't know about because I am very good at playing the buffoon and I am useless at blowing my own trumpet.   I'm a little shocked in what I have just written, but I know that if I don't get this off my chest, it will hurt more than it already does.  Soooooooo...... we are going to the International competition in Honolulu, Hawaii and there is going to be some spoken monologues between the songs in our Broadway package should we be wonderful enough to make the top 10.  (If you make top 10, you perform again and this time you get to do 20 minutes of singing).  Well to cut a long story shorter because I can't give away what we are doing, I have gotten the word that only half of the chorus can audition for the speaking parts and I am in the half that cannot audition.  I am so sad about this.  This is what I do really well.  It is such a bummer.  I was bold enough to ask if I could switch with someone, but I can't.  Sooooooo. . . . it is what it is.  I suppose I will not have the added pressure in Honolulu, but I sure would have enjoyed that moment.

C'est le vie.

Oh dear - today I have had a very kind email telling me that I scoop and that I need to meet privately with one of the bass leaders to learn how to stop scooping.  My whole body fell at this news.  There are so many things that I am working on  and now I must add scooping to that list.  I suppose if I worked at an ice cream store, this would be a good thing.  But, it is death in the sweet adeline world - nothing worse than a scooper and here I am.  Madam Scooperkiki.

So I have just showered and put on my clothes and I feel unattractive, fat and scooperish (a new adjective for the feeling I have that is weighing me down).  I wish someone would have told me this at the Bass sectional a month ago.   Well there is nothing to it but to put on my big girl boots and wage a war on scooping.  I worked on it today after receiving the email.  I think I know how to stop it, but I am sad that I am the scooper.  For weeks now they have been talking about bass scoopers (apparently there are a few of us) and I had no idea it was me.  Well, I must stop scooping and sing beautifully and move in character and the list goes on.  Hawaii HERE WE COME!

GAME ON

Just when I say I will never follow another diet, I am off and running (literally) again.  Why?  Well, I am fat - yes - it is true and I must look at it with open eyes.  My body is being stressed and I hate how I feel in my clothes - it is a bit like pouring concrete each day into my pants and tugging on zippers and having to bend over several times to stretch them into wearable position.  It would not surprise me if they just give way at the back.  I am not buying anything larger - I refuse to do that. I made a promise to myself that I would not venture into the 20's when it came to sizing.  The only way I have been able to stop that leap into the 20's is to buy 18W.   So here I am on the 3rd day of GAME ON.  Thank goodness my wonderful Ericka is joining me on this journey.  We have been on again off again dieters, but for the last few months I have been sliding backwards  - having a few lucid moments of sanity when it comes to food, but overall reaching a terrible place with weight and body image.  I could rail about our culture and how we are seduced by ads and tasty concoctions because I can't really call them food - there isn't much food in them but they are loaded with taste (sugar - but not even real sugar - it's concentrated to give a bigger bang for the buck - high fructose corn syrup).

Anyway, I know a great deal about diets and eliminating huge food groups and then craving them like a junkie.  I am a greedy pig at times because I don't even take the time to taste the food.  I remember the first smorgasbord that came to Florence when I was growing up - the concept to farmers who had lived through the depression of a place where you can eat all you want was just extraordinary.  We were seduced by the concept and that was the idea of a great family day out - we would all laugh and socialize and enjoy this wonderful thing called a smorgasbord - a Scandinavian delight.  Of course, it didn't take long for restaurants to jump onboard and suddenly there was a great deal of choice involved.  "Old Country Buffet","Ponderosa", "Ryans" - we were spoiled for choice in where we would find the next gorge - it sounds disgusting even to me but my family loved a good buffet.  It is even worse now as you can get pizza buffets, Chinese buffets, crab feasts, italian buffets - you name it and it exists  - let's face it -  you probably don't have to drive more than 5 miles to find a great all you can eat buffet for about $7.00 - hmmmmm - a McDonald's meal costs that you think and of course that is justification for heading to the buffet and stuffing yourself.  

Okay enough about emerging swine behavior patterns.  I have also joined my friend Ericka in a couch to 5K exercise plan.  This is my second day of that and at this point I hope I am not found on some path, killed by a coronary.  I am so out of shape.  But, I am committed to changing all of this.  I want to move around without pain.  I want to be able to buy clothes that are fun and sexy.  I still feel sexy and then I capture myself in the mirror as I am walking by - those moments could make me weep if I wasn't laughing at myself.   I do a great deal of laughing - that is my one saving grace - I don't take anything too seriously.  

Well - I have done my 5K workout at Kinder Farm - didn't realize it would take me another 40 minutes to get back around to the car so I worked out unintentionally for an hour - well that is a good thing, isn't it?  Tonight I am back on the risers and singing - life is GOOD!

I am a sports mom.  It tickles me to say it.  At 17, my Nicholas is a varsity athlete at his high school.  I am amazed at this odd turn of events.  It made perfect sense to me when my older son Kelston became a star in the school shows during his Junior year.  I was waiting for him to find an outlet for his voice and talent.  Don't get me wrong, I knew that Nicholas was an athlete on the inside - he has a competitive spirit and loves to kick the soccer ball around, score goals on the basketball hoop and swim in the meets at our local beach.   I just didn't think he would ever be allowed to join a sport at his school,  actually play it and win a medal doing it (if he plays the sport for 4 years, he will also letter in it).  

Nicholas spent 15 years just barely tolerating school.  There were days I felt I was dragging him out of the house, but high school changed everything.  Nicholas started at SPHS last year and I was considering pulling him out at 16 if he was going to fight with me in the morning about getting up and going to school.  With a school start of 7:16am, I was sure that it was going to be a battle.  Thankfully, his teacher allowed him to come in after the first bell because there is too many people and activity to get Nicholas safely to his room.  I arrive at 7:35am, flip the lid open, pull out the wheelchair (he rides in this when the distance is too far) and deliver him to an aide at the front door.  Nicholas gets excited in the morning and happily goes out the door - it is a miracle.

Why?  It is called Unified Sports. A program in the county schools that is affiliated with Special Olympics.  There are three Unified Sports and they are treated with all the respect and seriousness as all the rest of the sports offered in the high school - Tennis in the Fall, Bowling in the Winter and Bocce in the Spring.  There is a schedule of practices and games and you are to attend all of those unless you have a doctors note.    It is tennis season right now and Nicholas was so excited to wear his white shorts ( I am hoping they are not covered in ketchup or mustard or pizza sauce after lunch).  He also pointed to his white adidas tennis shoes this morning, telling me that he wanted to wear them. I bought these in the summer and after a couple of weeks, I noticed that they were rubbing his little toe.  I couldn't take them back because he had already worn them too much - so I put them aside to give to charity.  It is crazy hard to find a pair of trendy shoes that his braces will fit into.  So today I took a sharp pair of scissors and cut up the front of the shoe to open it up a bit and hopefully take the stress off his toe.  I hope Nicholas is never outside when it rains, because both of his shoes have open gaps in the front to give his braces and feet a little more room.

So unified sports is this incredible program - linking athletes and special athletes together to achieve success.  It is providing an incredible education for those high school students who join the team.  It is a partnership that works so beautifully that it leaves you wondering why it took so long to put into place.  I am so grateful that it is there for Nicholas.  He loves it and it is a social outlet that he would otherwise not have.  He is part of a team and he gets excited if they win.  He was third place in the All County Bowling Championship for Unified Sports.  He went to the State Bocce Championships.  All I can think is "What a Wonderful World" it can be with the right leadership.

I pulled into McDonalds for dinner.  They know us at the drive through.  I pull in every morning for breakfast at 7:40 am and everyday after school at 4:10pm.  The elderly lady on the till in the morning likes to have a chat and I found out by accident that she doesn’t like to count change.  I made the mistake one morning of giving her $4.00 in quarters and she was totally thrown into a tailspin.  She sputtered at me and ticked her tongue and told me very sharply that I wasn’t meant to do that in the drive through.  As she got more worked up about it, I thought for a moment that she had started to speak in tongues because I didn’t have a clue what she was saying.  Then it dawned on me that she was trying to count the change and she was not succeeding.  It was upsetting her.  I felt terrible because she was such a friendly spirit each morning and she must have been 70+.  I would say 80+ but that doesn’t seem realistic, but it is what I have thought many times.  I have often wondered why she was working at McDonalds.  Was her pension lost in the crash when so many companies went under? Does she have to work or is she just happier spending time with people? She told me once that she likes to keep busy and sitting at home was driving her crazy.  That seemed a good enough reason to me.

One morning she reached out the window and out of the blue said, “don’t worry, things will get better.”  I presumed I must be looking very grim and so I smiled and said, “I always look on the bright side of life”, with a big chuckle, wondering if she knew Eric Idle or Monty Python, but she ticked her tongue and shooed me on.  In the drive through you don’t really have time to have a full blown conversation - just tidbits of ones that allow you to make up a whole life for the people you encounter through that little square window.  I can’t say much about the young girl that pushes the food out of the next window in the morning because she doesn’t speak English and if I ask for anything, her smile disintegrates.  I have to wonder how after so many mornings she doesn’t recognize me and know exactly what I want, but the charade continues each morning as I tell her I do not want whipped cream on my mocha frappe but I would like the chocolate drizzle and I always add please (that comes from living in England for twelve years), but every morning she gives me pepper, salt, ketchup, various sauces, another straw - everything at her fingertips to hopefully take care of my request.  The more I shake my head and try and repeat what I would like, the more flustered she becomes until a co-worker comes to the window and says, “what’s the holdup?”  I ask for the chocolate drizzle and he shakes his head and moves to the frappe machine where the drizzle is.  The poor girl always looks defeated.  We play this game every Monday through Friday and after three weeks, she is still trying to give me pepper for chocolate drizzle.  

On a side note here, don’t try asking for chocolate sauce, even though that is what the drizzle is.  It took me three months to find the word “drizzle”.  This is significant to a drive through excursion because when I would say chocolate sauce, it wasn’t understood and so I would have to explain which would sound something like this  “the dark brown stuff you put on top of the whipped cream; well, I want you to hold the whipped cream and just put the dark brown stuff on the frappe - you know the sauce.”  The reply would almost always be, “you want the whipped cream but not the drizzle.”   I would shout a little louder, “No I want the sauce and not the whipped cream.”  I would get back, “I’m not sure what  you mean.  Please pull around.”  On one particular morning, there was a very astute lady behind the till when I pulled around.  I was a little put out of joint over the chocolate sauce as I was going through this crazy routine every morning.  I looked at her and said, “I just want the chocolate sauce.  Why is that so hard to understand.  I don’t like that foamy stuff that you are calling whipped cream (you really should go to England where you can buy whipping cream and see what the real stuff tastes like).  But I do like the chocolate sauce.”  I say this very slowly and a little louder with more emphasis, “I JUST WANT THE CHOCOLATE SAUCE.”  She looked back at me as though I had drifted in from the mental ward and said, “all you have to do is ask for the chocolate drizzle - we call it chocolate DRIZZLE.  I bursted into laughing and so did she.  I thanked her profusely because I knew that I would never have another problem  with ordering the mocha frappe the way I wanted it.

The afternoon staff is more dependable, especially the lovely Indian with a hint of a mustache who has curls hanging to his waist.  You would think that would bother me in a food restaurant, but I have no time to worry because the seconds are ticking and I just want to look through the square hole; a gorgeous man smiling, calling me beautiful and asking if there is anything else.  Wow - that makes my mind wonder off the track.  This is the man that always gives me four barbeque sauces if I ask and closes his hand around mine when he passes it out the window with such reassurance in his eyes;  I could almost believe he was somehow telling me to meet him at 2:00pm in the back lot and he will make sense of the world for me.  Framed in the window, I can see sacrifice and I know this is going to sound crazy but I also see unconditional love.  When I was little my grandmother had a large photo of Jesus in her home and whenever I looked at it, I felt at peace.  All I can say here without sounding blasphemous is that there is a remarkable resemblance to that production line print serving at McDonalds in Annapolis.  

Barbeque sauce plays a significant part in our trips to McDonalds.  Nicholas likes to dip his french fries.  Our three year affair with this particular McDonalds is just across from the Annapolis Mall.  It happens to be on the road to school and back.  When Nicholas was little, I had to take alternate routes that didn’t pass a McDonalds because he wanted to stop every time the gold arches rose up.  Well given that they appear on every corner now, it wasn’t easy to find a way from point A to point B without passing one.  I couldn’t reason with him so I found ways to go around or we stopped.  But for three years, Nicholas got his wish.  It made the trip to and from school more palatable for him.  He doesn’t like school - never has and I suppose now that he is 15, he probably never will.  It was too early in the morning to fuss with cooking breakfast and even Andrew Weill says that the Egg Mcmuffin is the perfect zone meal so I never felt guilty about the morning stop (okay, I know that the Mocha Frappe is not the perfect drink but sometimes I just need it to start the day.  I didn’t get it every morning but when I got it I wanted no whipped cream - just chocolate drizzle).