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The disapearance of Lori Hacking which is a local event here and has made national news has been much on my mind lately.  Hard to not have it on my mind since everywhere I go people are discussing it.  The thing that bothers me most is the way that people are discussing it.  They are almost always the fearful discussions of people who find this kind of event beyond comprehension.  I read a fantastic book about a year ago which makes this kind of thing not only comprehensible, but predictable.  The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker.

I highly recommend this book to everyone.  After reading it I have been much less fearful of violence.  I feel like I know better how to predict it and what to do if it threatens.  Gavin de Becker knows his subject and explains it thoroughly.  I wish Lori Hacking had read it.  Maybe then she could have protected herself from abduction or from her own husband whichever happened to her.

I’ve just mentally scanned my schedule for the next month and all I can say is “Eeep!” Where is the routine? There is no succession of days where I can establish regular times for getting up or meals or putting kids to bed and such. Mothers of Four thrive on routine. Autopilot is my friend.

Oh well, School starts on August 23 and it will provide plenty of routine. I just need to manage the intervening 4 weeks to get there.

The good news is that some of the stuff in the next four weeks I’m really looking forward to. In two weeks I load kids and head for Boise to a family reunion. 11 adults, 11 kids, 1 house, Whee! The kids love it and I love the time after the kids are in bed when I get to sit and visit with parents and siblings. Or play games, we do that too.

Colliding with the end of the reunion is Fandemonium. That’s when I get to escape the over-stuffed house, leaving some of the children behind to play with cousins, and head to a nice Hotel.

At the hotel will be many online friends whom I’ll get the chance to meet in person for the first time. It’ll also be my first ever Con. I also get to be on a panel at the con. And since Howard is Guest of Honor he’ll frequently be in the spotlight. I tend to stand next to him, that puts me in the spotlight too. The potential for public embarassment in front of people I want to impress is pretty high here. I hope I’m up to it.

This morning Gleek came downstairs and sat next to me on the floor with sad eyes and a very sad pout and said “Mommy, stop looking at your computer.” Even sadder is the fact that she said it three times before the words registered in my brain and I turned to look at her.

It’s just possible that I’ve spent too much time online lately.

Sometimes I wish I could be Vulcan. Then I’d have control over emotions that have no logical basis. I still seem to be able to weigh the pros and cons of a particular situation and make what seems to be the wisest choice even if it isn’t the choice I emotionally want. So far so good. But I can’t stop FEELING. If the logical conclusion is one that makes me sad or scared I can’t make the sad and scared go away. Not even if logically there is no reason for feeling that way.

I had a great day, but I think it was a little hard on poor Patches. 

I hauled everyone out of bed at 7:30am so I could drop them off at a neighbors to be watched while I went places with Howard.  (Temple and  Doctor’s appointment – all is normal, no tumorous re-growth.  Yay!)  I picked up an excited-to-see-mama Patches and the can’t-we-stay-longer? rest of the kids and took them home just in time to put Patches down for his nap.

Howard had taken the day off from Novell for the morning stuff and he wanted me to have a chance to go see I Robot before all my friends told me too much.  So he rounded up babysitting for an afternoon matinee.  Poor Patches woke up from his nap just in time for Mama to abandon him again.

Between my arrival back home and Patches’ bedtime there were about 2 hours.  I spent a good portion of them playing word games with him.  I’d been away from him pretty much all day and by that time I wanted to hold my baby. Yeah, I know.  I’m addicted to my child.  Truth is, he was fine all day.  I’m the one who felt guilty.

Just this past week he’s started asking to know the names of things.  So he points and I tell him words and we both grin and giggle a lot.  He just wants to see everything, touch everything, know everything.  He wants input, lots and lots of it so that he can figure out this great, big, complicated world that he lives in.  I love the way his face lights up when two bits of knowlege click together in his head and he suddenly understands something.  I like seeing that happen for the other kids as well, but Patches does this little Happy Dance when he’s pleased with himself that makes me laugh every time.  And then he does it again just to make mommy laugh.

Laughter is healthy, so this is a good addiction, right?

First off, thanks very much to everyone who gave me such great input on Women in Gaming. I’ve gone from wondering whether the panel will have enough to say to wondering if the panel will be long enough.

There is another aspect of gaming I want to explore. I’m wondering how non-gaming Significant Others view gaming. Has your gaming habit ever driven away a SO? Do they tolerate it? Have you turned a non-gaming SO into a gaming one? Mostly what I’m fishing for here is stories. And if you ARE the non-gaming SO, then I’d definitely love your input. So drag out all your old stories about that weird girlfriend/boyfriend that you once dragged to a gaming session and air them here for all to see.

Thanks!

WooHoo! My next door neighbor’s son just made the Olympic Men’s Gymnastics team! That’s right, Guard Young’s parents live next door to us. Guard’s dad, Wayne Young, was Olympic team captain in 1976. So now I know two Olympic Gymnasts personally. Way cool.

None of them, not Guard, or his parents expected him to make the team. They expected politics to keep him off of it, but he was just too darned good. So, I’m telling you, other gymnasts may get all the press, but Guard Young is a gymnast to watch. (It’s possible that I’m a wee bit prejudiced here.)

The only down side to this is that now I have to keep track of Olympic Gymnastics and be all tense and stuff.

That Valium the MRI people gave me really packed a punch. I do not remember large portions of today. Fortunately it has all worn off now and I’m back to my usual coherence. Or at least any incoherence I may posess is my own and not chemical. I’ll have MRI results next Tuesday.

In other news Howard and I had the joyful opportunity to chase a mouse around our family room last night. I heard little scrabbling noises in the toy cupboard and so I called Howard for reinforcements. We cleared the floor and located some containers with an idea of trying to herd the beasty. What we planned to do after we caught it I’ll never know because he snuck past while we weren’t looking and dove under our couch.

Howard then went around shoving blankets in all the door cracks to trap it in the room and I went to move the couch. Speedy Gonzales went running across the room to the laundry door. He discovered the blanket, jumped and scrabbled trying to find his exit hole and then took refuge underneath a large chair. We’d discovered the route to his home.

Howard attempted to set up a killing feild across the escape route with mousetraps (remnants of a mouse infestation last winter) Then we went to move the chair. No mouse. Speedy had fled somewhere. We had no idea where he’d gone, but we suspect he snuck under the blanket and into his laundry room home. Score one for the mouse.

His was a short victory. I set the trap in the laundry room and this morning Speedy was dead. A wise friend once told me “If you have a mouse you probably have more than one. If you have two mice, you definitely have more than two.” So I’m leaving baited traps around. We’ll see if Speedy has relatives. In the mean time I’m going to clean the toy chest thoroughly to see what snackish treasures the children left which lured Speedy and his relatives into our house in the first place.