http://www.ozawa.org/jen/journal/ Copyright 2007 Fri, 10 Mar 2006 12:36:48 -1000 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.14 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss I have decided to give up three things for lent: chocolate, soda, and internet gossip boards. Forsaking the third may actually prove more difficult than the first two. I spend way, way too much time reading about the love lives of complete strangers, and it occurred to me only this morning that I had yet to do anything special for lent. So the solution is simple: quit visiting gossip sites and read a real book for a change. I felt so bad about the complete absence of literature in my life that last week I went to the Borders near my house with the intention of buying Dickens' "Great Expectations". They had nothing by Dickens. Nothing by Austen. Nothing authored before 1950, in fact, it seemed. Lots of Stephen King. Not a single copy of "The Stand", however. I ended up with a volume of his short stories. I've also been feeling bad about the distinct lack of progress on the weight-loss front, so I've been walking a lot. Well, that is, when it's not coming down in torrents outside, which has been pretty much two solid weeks. Where have I been since November, anyway? I didn't ever buy those gifts for the adults. My sister-in-law broke her ankle two weeks before Christmas, prompting a trip here by my mom, and the ensuing chaos sapped my energy. All the kids got sick. Then we quit the Lost podcast. And Ryan and I actually started spending time together. And we liked it. We got used to both going to bed at a normal human being hour and suddenly, it's mid-March and I have no idea where to start. Typical. Deciding to quit the podcast was way more difficult than I imagined it'd be. Toward the end, I wanted to quit. I was burned out and pissed off and starting to actually hate watching Lost, and so when Ryan casually mentioned one night that he was thinking of quitting, I was ecstatic and couldn't wait to record our "bye, bitches!" message. We recorded the message. We waited for the inevitable emails. And I realized that I felt like I had just broken up with a whole bunch of people. I cried for two days. I asked Ryan if maybe he wanted to reconsider. I wrung my hands. I felt horrible. I have to say, it's fun watching the show again, though. in the ear: "Damn U" by Prince http://www.ozawa.org/jen/journal/archives/20060310.shtml http://www.ozawa.org/jen/journal/archives/20060310.shtml Fri, 10 Mar 2006 12:36:48 -1000 It's November 7 and our Christmas shopping is done. I think it's some kind of miracle. I am a firm believer in waiting until December. This philosophy has caused me no end of grief and I wonder every single year why I choose to embark on such a futile mission as last-minute Christmas shopping. But this year, the fates aligned to allow Ryan his birthday holiday on a weekday when the kids weren't around and we had no other pressing plans. So we drove on down to Toys R Way Way Overpriced and found it practically empty. We were done in just over an hour. Now I just have to hustle to get stuff for assorted adult relatives and lo and behold, I just might be done before Thanksgiving. on the tube: Drew Carey's Green Screen Show So now the exterminators have cancelled on us twice. it's been five days since I started this entry They now want us out the Monday after Thanksgiving. Why are they assuming that none of my fellow townhousers are going anywhere for the holiday? As far as I know, no one is, but what if they were? I still have yet to make hotel reservations (for the third time) because I just don't have any clue if they're going to show up this time. I called them when my neighbor came over to tell me that they were not, in fact, going to show up on Friday morning, just to confirm that someone wasn't yanking my chain and the person on the other end had the nerve to act like I was annoying him. Sean Na'auao's new CD is kick-ass. I'm going to transfer Katie to Zac's school next year. I was really hesitant to do so, but after talking with my neighbors, I think it might be a good move. I was never satisfied with her current school and both the principal and vice principal went and quit on the same day last quarter. My neighbor Cecily has sent both her boys to Zac's school and she is positively in love with it. http://www.ozawa.org/jen/journal/archives/20051108.shtml http://www.ozawa.org/jen/journal/archives/20051108.shtml Tue, 08 Nov 2005 18:46:06 -1000 It's 6:30 a.m. Apart from when Ryan took him out of his crib and put him in bed with me, Alex has not stirred in nine hours. I officially have a sleeping-through-the-night child. When Ryan put him down, I buried my nose in his hair. I swear, if they could somehow bottle the smell of a freshly washed baby and put it in laundry detergent, war would end and the roads would be clear all day long because nobody would be able to get out of bed. The smell of Tide a la Baby on their sheets would just be too intoxicating. The days are just going by so fast lately that I feel an obsessive need to chronicle everything. It's already Halloween. The time of the year that I look forward to the most is already upon us and mentally, I still feel like I'm getting through July. today's entry title courtesy uselessmoviequotes.com We've been preparing for Halloween. Our neighbors hosted an impromptu pumpkin carving thing in their driveway. It was fun, in the way anything can be fun while there are prepubescent boys around. I'm really trying to raise the boys right. I kiss them often and try to teach them empathy, but honestly, I fear in my heart they will be no fun to be around in eight or ten years. One of my acquaintances has a twelve-year-old who swings wildly between kind, sweet, polite (he calls me Miss Jen) boy and sneering sociopath. I have little experience with boys that age and I can't tell if this kid is normal or not. Either way, it's frightening. for lunch: Thai at a hip spot downtown with Ry and Gail. I have a most juicy Lost spoiler, if anyone is interested. Tonight we're going to a trick or treat thing at the Bishop Museum. I figure we have one good Halloween left before Katie grows out of it. Zac has little interest in the custom so far. He doesn't eat candy and he'd rather be naked any day of the week so costumes hold little charm. http://www.ozawa.org/jen/journal/archives/20051031.shtml http://www.ozawa.org/jen/journal/archives/20051031.shtml Mon, 31 Oct 2005 08:13:17 -1000 Don't laugh, okay? I want to go to pastry school. I always said I wanted to make my living in food. I said I wanted to be a chef, and I probably told a hundred people that, but I realize that I like baking even better than cooking. And so far, I don't have a strategic plan for achieving this. Other than checking every baking book out of the public library, that is. in the i-tunes cart: "Secret Garden" by Bruce Springsteen and "Promenade" by U2 One of my neighbors is out of the country. He apparently didn't tell anyone and nobody can get a hold of him, so they're not going to fumigate in here, after all. Not just yet, anyway. All I know is, they better give us more than two weeks notice next time. Prepping for this kind of thing is a serious pain in the ass, especially this time of year. I think I'm going to have my sister-in-law and the kids over for Thanksgiving. My brother's going to be gone and I would feel weird knowing they were by themselves. Diane likes turkey, though, so I'll have to dig up some good recipes. Maybe I'll borrow my neighbors' turkey fryer. Hmmm. What else? Oh. Alex says "cow". And he plays "so big". I think I love "Alias". Like I need to get addicted to another show. I'm having fun doing The Transmission, but holy jeez, is it tiring. I can't even believe the amount of mail we've gotten. It's staggering. http://www.ozawa.org/jen/journal/archives/20051024.shtml http://www.ozawa.org/jen/journal/archives/20051024.shtml Mon, 24 Oct 2005 09:59:56 -1000 I've actually written three entries, but I don't like any of them. They're boring. But I haven't written in about a month. I really feel I need to write something or it'll be another six months before you hear from me again. I'm going to give you three anecdotes. You have to decide which one is true: 1. I was once mistaken for Sophia Loren in Food Lion supermarket and asked for an autograph. 2. I may or may not have seen Alton Brown riding a bicycle on the corner of Wilder and Keeaumoku. It was either Alton or his twin. He shot an episode of Good Eats here and it's entirely possible he rode a bicycle all the way from Waikiki to Manoa. Isn't it? 3. A friend of a friend of a friend went out with Edward Norton once. What is up with i-tunes? I can't get my podcasts and even browsing is a pain in the ass. They're fumigating all the units on our street. We have to stay somewhere in town for one night. It wouldn't be so bad if they weren't doing it on a Monday. Somehow, I have to get the kids to school, find something to do on this side of the island for five hours, pick up the kids, drive into town, check in, and do it again in the morning. And I don't mind. If they have to do it, they have to. It's a bit of an inconvenience having to schlep to a hotel on a weeknight, but whatever. For the last two months, though, my neighbors have been renovating. Day after day after day of noise and stink and strange people milling around my driveway and much too much salsa music. The whole thing makes me really wish we had our own place. But the weekend after that, we go to Hilo! Woohoo! http://www.ozawa.org/jen/journal/archives/20051014.shtml http://www.ozawa.org/jen/journal/archives/20051014.shtml Fri, 14 Oct 2005 10:36:27 -1000 You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to march all three of the kids into wherever they do name changes in this town. I'm going to pick up three forms and fill them out on the spot. All three forms will bear the same name: Kazalex. You know why? Because I can't keep their names straight. I call Katie "Zac", I call Zac "Alex", and sometimes I call Ryan one of the kids' names. So I'm giving everyone the same name. Kazalex. "Ka" for Katie, "za" for Zac and "lex" for Alex. They will all be addressed as Kazalex and referred to as such, even to strangers. Yeah, it'll be confusing, but it'll be worth it! Just watch! "You know, Kazalex lost a molar the other day. And Kazalex is walking! Hey, Kazalex, come over here! No, your brother. The other one." I am the last person in America to read Harry Potter. I am on page ten. I'm here alone. Ryan just did our weekly shopping at Costco. He bought a package of chicken. I opened it to separate it into freezable portions, and boy, did it STINK! I am so disappointed. I've never had a problem with Costco, maybe aside from the godawful crowds, and to get a bad product this week of all weeks was upsetting. My mother-in-law drove back and returned it while Ryan and Zac went to City Mill in a vain attempt to find flashlights. People are panic shopping. I'm as concerned about storms now as anyone is, but why do I get the feeling that entire cases of water will be collecting dust in people's garages in the winter? Ryan actually had to buy a gallon jug from the hardware store because Wal-Mart was out. I hate panic shopping because nobody really gives a damn if other people are looking for water. They have to get just one more case for Auntie, who probably has a roomful already. in the ear: "Home" by Marc Broussard I stumbled across a couple of gift cards from an unnamed evil video chain that I got (I think) from Ryan's stepmom a few years ago. And by "stumbled across", I mean "pulled out of the deepest, nastiest recesses of the diaper bag and had to pry apart because they were stuck together with fossilized diaper rash cream". I am usually loath to even set foot in one of those places, but a gift is a gift and free stuff is free stuff. So while Ryan was editing his podcast yeasterday, I loaded up the kids and went down the street. Lo and behold, there was The Lost Boys for twenty-two bucks. Total out-of-pocket cost? A buck fifty. Priceless. My guilty pleasure video library is nearly complete. http://www.ozawa.org/jen/journal/archives/20050918.shtml http://www.ozawa.org/jen/journal/archives/20050918.shtml Sun, 18 Sep 2005 16:35:28 -1000 It has occurred to me that maybe I'm not as quite as nice as I think I am. Over the last few days, I have had very little patience with people. With people I don't know. I find the most horrible, hateful things coming out of my mouth (well, not really. My fingers, actually) and it's disturbing. And I kept wondering what it was that lets me be so evil toward strangers and I realized that I'm not saying things to my victims' faces; I'm saying them online to people I wouldn't even recognize if they knocked on my door. in the i-tunes cart: lots of newly-added Madonna And I guess that's what anonymity buys you: the chance to act like an asshole without facing any consequences. If people talked to each other the way they do online, frozen peas would fly off store shelves. So if I've said something particularly harsh to you lately, please accept my apologies. The other problem is the return of the hormones. Alex is slowly weaning himself, I think, and so my body is cranking itself back into gear. I feel like crap. I've had cramps for four days now. Yesterday, I had such an awful migraine that Katie had to fix her own breakfast and I drove her to school in my pajamas. on the tube: Lost season 1 on DVD. If you are lucky enough to own it, watch disc 7 first, if you haven't already. On Sunday, we killed some time at Ala Moana. They put a Lush store in some time ago. I had heard a lot about Lush and how great their stuff is but had never gone in there until Sunday. And boy, am I glad I did. I think I'm in love. I want to buy it all. They just came out with a new baby shampoo and I'm looking for an excuse to buy it. Last Sunday, I got too much sun. And too much sand in by swimsuit. We went to Ryan's dad's annual picnic thing and the kids and I spent an hour or so on the beach. It was just what I needed. It's amazing what the beach does for my mood. I really need to go to the beach, like, now. That'll help. http://www.ozawa.org/jen/journal/archives/20050913.shtml http://www.ozawa.org/jen/journal/archives/20050913.shtml Tue, 13 Sep 2005 11:43:43 -1000 Bebe is so dumb. She's the embodiment of the dumb blonde stereotype. There's a cute guy at her house and all she can think about is the frozen pizza in her fridge. You can't get her to talk to the guy even if you make her. She's got a little problem with social skills in general. But the worst part? She keeps burning her house down. She makes a pop-tart in her toaster oven but forgets to turn the thing off, and the next thing you know, the firemen are there. One time, she didn't have a phone, so she was really screwed then. Luckily, I just restarted the game. I love my Sims. Today, Bebe met Trevor. Trevor is a washed-up rock star. He lives with his brother, Nigel. So far, Trevor doesn't seem to like Bebe very much. He's hanging out at her place, and true to Bebe form, she's obsessed with food. She's nuking a TV dinner. in the netflix queue: Ridicule Alex's party was beautiful. I was terrified that it was going to rain. Not only was it clear and bright, but the trade wind gods smiled on us, too. It was breezy and warm and just perfect. And everybody showed up. Perfect. The day before that we went to the bi-annual beach picnic thrown by Ryan's work. It was on the windward side, just outside of Waimanalo, and I love going to the beach out there. No beach in town holds a candle to anything out on that side, and the bank picnic is always held at a place called Shriner's Beach. It's one of my favorite places in the whole state. I am so looking forward to Walk the Line, the Johnny Cash movie. The kids started their four-day weekend today. It's surprising, how much I miss them and how much I look forward to their days off. It's great to spend all day with Alex, just cuddling and admiring him, but I miss Katie and Zac so much that I think I have to find fabulously fun things to do every free second they have. So I actually drove into town and took them to the Children's Discovery Center. I promised Katie I'd buy her shoes today, too, but I was way too wiped after our adventure. Maybe tomorrow. http://www.ozawa.org/jen/journal/archives/20050901.shtml http://www.ozawa.org/jen/journal/archives/20050901.shtml Thu, 01 Sep 2005 11:22:37 -1000 Dear Alex, Somehow, a year has come and gone since you were born. What a blessing you are and what a blessing the last year has been. You are growing so fast. You're a little boy now. You have a great sense of humor. Remember when we played peek-a-boo with the plastic sheep from Zac's farm toy yesterday? I had you in stitches for half an hour. After a while, you didn't find it funny anymore but still humored me with a fake laugh. You know what else we did yesterday? We sat you at the table with us at dinner and set you up with your very own plate. That's the first time we did that. You were content to eat little bits of rice and small pieces of meat from the lap of whoever was holding you, but you're a big boy now, so it's only fitting that you eat like one. And you did wonderfully. Zac has a maddening monopoly on the sippy cups, so you made do with a small lidless cup and didn't spill a drop. You're not walking yet, but you're thinking about it. You hang out on the edges of furniture. I can see the wheels in your head turning when something you want is not quite within your reach. You want to walk over and pick it up, but you're still building up the nerve. That's okay. Take your time. I kind of like you the way you are now. Mama in the ear: "Invisible Girl" by Minnie Driver I said I was going to home school Katie at the end of last year. Well, I didn't. She's back at the school down the street. And I don't know why. Yes, actually, I do know why. I'm lazy. I don't want to call people. I don't want to go and buy the materials. I don't know how I'm going to do chores and teach Katie at the same time and I don't want to figure it out. I think I'm going to have to. And that scares me. I don't hate her school. It's perfectly adequate. It's just not doing anything for her. It's failing to meet her needs. I don't know if it's because of anything I did as a parent, or if it's something to do with Katie, or if they're all just stretched out to the max over there, but something is preventing Katie from learning and it's not going to go away. God help me. http://www.ozawa.org/jen/journal/archives/20050823.shtml http://www.ozawa.org/jen/journal/archives/20050823.shtml Tue, 23 Aug 2005 16:53:58 -1000 I finally feel better. I'd felt horrible for a month. I had this annoying, persistent cough which occasionally degenerated into body aches and general all-over fatigue. I'd talked to four different doctors and picked up three different sets of prescriptions and nothing was working. I tried albuterol, codeine cough syrup, and over-the-counter allergy meds. Last week, I developed this evil, horrible tickle in the back of my throat that would flare up every few hours and render me a big coughing blob for ten or fifteen minutes at a time. I managed to book myself a weeked appointment yesterday. They gave me another inhaler and some nasal spray, and, lo, it worked. Now I feel almost pretty decent. Not perfect, but at least I'm not rattling anymore. I must be allergic to something, but I can't imagine what. The very worst of it reared its head on Sunday as we were visiting the new Best Buy store. Boy, am I underwhelmed at Best Buy. All I wanted was a copy of Four Weddings and a Funeral. I'd been looking for it for a couple of weeks in a couple of places with no luck. If anybody would have it, I reasoned, the brand-new mainland big-box retailer would. They had five copies of Four Rooms. Five. I didn't know there were five people who liked that movie. Five copies of that utter waste of celluloid and not one of Four Weddings. The Hawaiian music section is not all that, either. They say it's the biggest in the state. It's maybe the largest inventory, but that's even open for debate. They sure as hell don't have the largest number of titles. I looked for five different CD's; they had three. When I worked at the Unnamed Corporate Record Chain, we had it all. We had titles released in the 50's. If they had anything at Best Buy made before 1990, they sold 'em pretty quick. I know it was crowded, but I don't think there were marauding bands of Alfred Apaka fans out on one Saturday night. in the ear: the Literate Loser And the ironic part? I found Four Weddings the very next day. At Wal-Mart. For nine bucks. I've had very little time or inclination to watch any movies or TV lately. I'm constantly surprised at how time-consuming kids are. Now that I have to get two of them ready for school every day, it's even more shocking. Two backpacks, two sets of folders, two pairs of shoes. But they sure love Zac at his school. I got a peek at his classroom at his school's open house. I am relieved. Truly. It's great. He's adjusting better than I could have ever hoped. http://www.ozawa.org/jen/journal/archives/20050807.shtml http://www.ozawa.org/jen/journal/archives/20050807.shtml Sun, 07 Aug 2005 22:52:48 -1000 I was so looking forward to Ryan's vacation. Life had gotten a little crazy and I thought that having Ryan around all the time would bring some measure of peace and calm to the household. And it did. It was great having him around. I discovered my new favorite restaurant (Little Village Noodle House) on an errand-running downtown. And truly, it's always nice to hang out with one's husband. Even when things get crazy, as they did, it's comforting to be around him. I miss having him around. There's nobody else on earth I'd rather face the chaos with. On the first day of Ryan's vacation, we woke up to the news of the bombings in London. It wasn't until later that we both realized that Ryan's brother, Todd, was in London. Ryan and his mom were panicking. They couldn't reach him on his cell and we weren't sure if he had internet access. We spent quite some time wondering if he was okay. Finally, he called. We breathed a great big sigh of relief. Later that same morning, Katie returned from her first overnight camp-out. I was agonizing over this thing for weeks. She was nervous and told me a few times she didn't want to go. I wasn't going to force her, yet I think overnight trips are important to kids at Katie's age, so I tried to make it clear that I really wanted her to go. So I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I went to pick her up. She was either going to be thrilled and happy or absolutely miserable. Imagine my relief when she nearly came skipping out of the Y. We took a very short trip to Costco, came home, gave her a snack, and she was a happy, quiet kid for the rest of the day. And another milestone quietly passed. in the ear: reel reviews radio A few days after that, we got word that Ryan's grandmother (dad's mom) had passed away. Now, Ryan's not the kind of person to share his pain. His stress manifests itself physically. It has to; he won't share it with others and it needs somewhere to go. Usually, his blood pressure rises a bit; sometimes he gets cold sores. This time, he got shingles. He broke out in big, itchy gonks the day before grandma's funeral. He was chosen to read her eulogy and no doubt was deeply concerned about doing grandma justice. I would rather die than speak in public, so I can only imagine how scared he was. The funeral was beautiful. I am very, very sad for Ryan. I will miss his grandma greatly. She had an amazing life. She raised six kids, endured internment, and was the most incredible artist. I felt Ryan's sadness and got a sense of how much she was really loved. But as sad as it was, I got a huge kick out of seeing all of dad's brothers again. Half of them live on the mainland so we don't get to see them all that often. There were cousins there that I hadn't even met. So it was a real treat. I was so glad that everyone was in one place. playing: Sims 2 The main thing that's been on my mind is Zac's entry into the educational system. Katie had no acclimation period when she started kindergarten so I suspected Zac might not have one either. And this troubled me. In the days before the start of school, I left message after message with Zac's teacher, hoping for some kind of guidance; some reassurance that they could accomodate all of Zac's quirks. I needed...something. But no return calls were forthcoming. I was probably only one of two dozen hysterical moms calling with inane questions. So come Monday morning, I just had to bite the bullet and stick him on the bus. And I felt awful. He knew he was getting on the bus. We had discussed it at length and he told quite matter-of-factly pretty much everyone that he was getting on a bus. But I think he was under the impression that I was going with him. When he realized that he was getting on the bus but I was going back in the house, the look on his face was heartbreaking. I felt guilty, like I was abandoning him. I get daily progress reports from his teacher and she says that he's doing fine. He's a little sad at first, but when he gets a load of all the cool stuff his mood brightens. Today is his third day and it went a little better today than he did yesterday. Pretty soon, I'll find him with his shoes on, waiting by the door when I get up. http://www.ozawa.org/jen/journal/archives/20050727.shtml http://www.ozawa.org/jen/journal/archives/20050727.shtml Wed, 27 Jul 2005 09:59:36 -1000 Occasionally, the depth of my idiocy surprises even me. It's hot today. Our house is air-conditioned in exactly two rooms: the kids' bedroom and the room we call the "family room": in its previous incarnation, it was a crudely screened-in lanai (patio). When we moved in, Ryan laid down some carpet and stuck a futon and a TV in it and all the kids' toys wound up in it and now it's kind of a multi-purpose hang-out room. The last vestige of the room's patio-ness is a lockable sliding glass door. So it's hot and I have the air con running in the family room. I am crawling under the futon to remove the toys stuck herein in a vain attempt to organize and make sense of things. So I get the bright idea to close the sliding door. My reasoning was twofold: it would keep the boys trapped inside and it would make things cooler and easier to work in. Zac, the quintessential three-year-old, doesn't like this arrangement. He decides to open the door and check out the options in the non-fun family gathering room. I admonish him and ask him to come inside. He comes back in and slams the door behind him. A few minutes later, I realize that I need to pee. I start to swing the door open and D'OH! It's locked. Zac jiggled the lock thingy while slamming the door shut. And I am stuck. Did I mention that Katie's at camp? And Ryan has night school? And Mom has a band booster meeting? I am stuck, with only the two boys near me. The only exit is the door that leads to the backyard, and it features a handy-dandy double deadbolt, which, coincidentally, is locked, too. There's a key to open it, but is it in this room? There, it seems, is the question. in the i-tunes cart: three songs by the Carpenters Yeah, I got out. I found the key, opened the back gate and went in the front door, but not before I made Ryan call all our neighbors to get them to rescue me. How embarrassing. I locked myself inside a room of a house. Who does that? http://www.ozawa.org/jen/journal/archives/20050706.shtml http://www.ozawa.org/jen/journal/archives/20050706.shtml Wed, 06 Jul 2005 18:24:37 -1000 There are still sick people in my house. Sick people in my family make me crazy. Especially thirty-year-old boys. Thirty-year-old boys are the worst because they won't go to the doctor when you tell them to, so by the time you decide to take matters into your own hands and make them go, their problems are worse. Ryan and Zac are both ill. Zac has a very bad stomach bug. Ryan apparently has pneumonia. Ryan's diagnosis is somewhat troublesome, considering that at some point in the last two years, everyone except Alex has had it. Do four people just all get pneumonia within two years of each other? Am I looking at something really sinister and bad? Honestly, I'm imagining all sorts of horrible things. I'm becoming quite the germaphobe, so I doubt lax cleaning practices are the issue. I really feel I need to know. in the ear: "Take Me With U" by Marshall Crenshaw. One of the most brilliant covers ever Katie's never spent the night away from home before. She's hung out with grandma overnight once or twice, but she's never been in the care of someone not related to her. Part of her summer fun program at the Y is an overnighter at a camp. As the weeks went by and the date drew near, Katie expressed a bit of trepidation. By the time today arrived, she was terrified. But I kept on talking it up; encouraging her to go, but stressing that it was up to her. I want her to go. I want her to enjoy being a kid while it lasts. I never camped out when I was her age and I think it's an important step for a kid to be free of the 'rents now and then. Still, I wasn't relishing the idea. I "forgot" to gather her stuff until the absolute last minute this morning. I was so sure she'd decide not to go. And honestly, I was secretly hoping in a tiny little corner of my heart that she would. But when she finally said, "okay, Mom, I'll go" I jumped up and packed her bags in record time. I'm going to miss her. It's going to be awfully quiet in here. And as I was dropping her off, I wondered if I should stay for a minute or two and sneak away quietly or just kiss her and run. Then I spotted a flyer on the wall: the trip was moved to tomorrow. Aaaargh! http://www.ozawa.org/jen/journal/archives/20050705.shtml http://www.ozawa.org/jen/journal/archives/20050705.shtml Tue, 05 Jul 2005 10:36:24 -1000 Helpful parenting tip #2: Schedule your kid's annual physicals as early as possible. Six months in advance is good. Better yet, call a year in advance. Or before he's born. That's even better. rude clinic phone jockey: can I help you? you: I need to schedule a well child check. r.c.p.j.: Okay. Name? you: Don't know yet. I'll get back to you on that. Nothing quite compares to the special joy of driving into town twice in one day in a vain attempt to meet up with a phantom doctor at one of those walk-in no-insurance last-resort nightmare clinics from hell. You know the ones I mean. We have a chain here in town whose name rhymes with "medical corner". Zac's impending entrance into the educational system requires him to obtain a form asserting things like immunizations and height and weight and possession of all his limbs. Since I am a dumbass, I completely forgot to schedule a physical after his birthday and now find myself in dire need of one of these forms so I can register him for school on Monday. Here's what boggles my mind: how do nine separate pediatric offices in an HMO get booked solid through August? Are tee times that hard to come by? I don't even need to see a doctor. I need someone who can give shots and write her name. I can't even get in to see a nurse practitioner until Tuesday. If I want to see the doctor for a well-kid checkup, I have to wait a month and a half. It is because of this that I found myself in a very small office, hearing someone tell me that even though her place of employment is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., there is no doctor present. There is no doctor present to treat a person in a place that has been open for an hour and will remain open for eleven more. The doors are open, the hours are posted all over the company website and telephone books, but there is no doctor. The doctor is at the clinic at the airport roughly a quarter of a mile away. Okay, fine. I'll run home, feed the boys, and go to the other place later. It's just a form. No problem. I can do this. I leave the house at 2:00. This particular clinic is notoriously hard to find. I ask a security guard for directions. I find the damn thing inside the corporate office of an airline. I trudge down a flight of stairs with the two boys. I find a door. A person holding a mop tells me that (get this) the doctor has left for the day. This doctor, who supposedly works from 8 to 8, has left after a five-hour workday. And I am, as they say, up shit creek. So I am going on Tuesday to get this all-important form from a nurse at my HMO. I still have to wait two days, though, so they can read his TB test. This has been a serious pain in the ass. And worst of all, if I'd just called the freaking doctor two weeks ago, I wouldn't be in this situation. Wonder if I can con my husband out of a nice dinner somewhere? Hopefully, I can still register Zac on Thursday. http://www.ozawa.org/jen/journal/archives/20050617.shtml http://www.ozawa.org/jen/journal/archives/20050617.shtml Fri, 17 Jun 2005 16:31:10 -1000 Zac will be attending preschool starting in July. That is to say, he shows signs of a developmental delay after all and requires help. I said before that school would be good for him, and I still think so, but when they whipped out the form with his scores from his evaluations and told me what he needed, I took it a little harder than I thought I would. I've always wondered if things with Zac could have gone differently‑ maybe if I'd made them perform the C-section two hours earlier; if I'd quit working right after I took the pregnancy test; if I'd done x, y, or z, he wouldn't have any problems. Of course, that's all pretty much irrelevant now. Nothing I can do about any of that. But I know one thing for sure: nothing makes a person feel shittier than hearing perfectly nice, well-meaning people tell him that there's something wrong with his kid. still loving Dancing With the Stars. That female judge is soooo jealous of Kelly. While I was on the phone with my dad sharing the news, he gave me some news of his own. He is diabetic. The worst part is that it's not exactly a surprise. Given his weight and all the stuff that keeps his activity level so low, it was a question of when. Luckily, he doesn't need insulin and it appears to be easily controlled by diet. He's lost five pounds since he was diagnosed two weeks ago. and who the hell tangoes to "Toxic"? Whoever picks the music for that show needs to watch several hundred hours of movies and Carmen. And not the MTV version. I grew up in a hick town. I lived in the middle of the state, but it might as well have been the middle of nowhere. Yankees driving down to Orlando often stop in town to grab a bite and maybe spend the night. As such, we had zillions of sub-par chain restaurants. You knew that your date was a real catch if he took you to the Olive Garden. You got any sprinkles or cake-decorating stuff in your kitchen? Look on the back. Says "Ocala, FL" somewhere on the back, doesn't it? Yep. They make all of the world's cake-and-cookie-frosting-type stuff, I think. There's also a thriving emergency equipment industry, too. That's it. That's my hometown, in a nutshell. When I moved to Hawaii, I knew how lucky I was. Everything is so special. Unique. People save their whole loves to come here, and here I was, twenty-one and in love. So you can understand why this kind of thing makes me so sad. Starbucks and 7-Elevens everywhere, replacing mom-and-pop plate lunch restaurants. It's depressing. And people like it that way. And it's not just the restaurants. It's stuff like this. And this. I feel like I wound up in a bigger version of Ocala sometimes. Man, I need to go to the beach. http://www.ozawa.org/jen/journal/archives/20050616.shtml http://www.ozawa.org/jen/journal/archives/20050616.shtml Thu, 16 Jun 2005 14:13:23 -1000