My week in review

What an interesting week I just had. First we have had someone (read neighborhood kid) coming into our backyard when no one is home. How do we know this? The person broke the gate that I just made 2 months ago. Then the other day when the kids were swimming in the pool with a friend, youngest son was getting out and was standing on the top step of the ladder. 4 feet off the ground. I just happened to be looking out the window to check on them at the right moment to see his friend push him from behind and he fell to the ground. Landing on the side of his ankle. I ended up taking him to the Minor Injury Clinic at Kaiser after dinner that night. He has no broken bones but he did have a sprain in his ankle. So he was on crutches for a few days. The day after this happened he had an appointment with his county social worker. During the meeting he tried to hit her with his crutches.

That same day we also found out that the non public school that he is attending will be shutting down for good on Aug. 24. So we have to find him a new school to attend. What makes it worse is that we had an IEP meeting the first of Aug and the school never said a thing about closing down. Even though they knew about it at the time of the meeting they were still talking to us about the plans they had for our son when regular school started. So now we have to find him a new school.

Before I continue with the next portion I need to add this little disclaimer: I in no way, shape, or form, am writing this portion to be derogatory or offensive to my Catholic readers. This is just from my own little heathen point of view. Now that the disclaimer is out of the way I can go ahead and continue.

On Fri. I had to attend a funeral for my great Uncle. He passed away from Alzheimer’s last week. Well he was a very devout Catholic. So that means that it was a Catholic funeral. A full on Catholic service with communion and everything. It was like attending a mass on Sun. morning. In fact it was THE LONGEST funeral services that I have ever attended. We entered the church just before 1:00 in the afternoon. By the time that the services were done it was close to 3:00! WOW! Let me tell you something-My ass hurt from sitting in those pews for so long. Then with all the ‘Please stand’ and the ‘ You may be seated’, well let’s just say that I got one heck of a workout. I think I can go ahead and skip the gym wok out this week. (Yeah right. Like THAT’S ever going to happen.)

I did learn some interesting things about my Great Uncle though throughout the services. I always knew that his goal in life was to make people laugh. He loved playing jokes on people. Well his older brother told a story of when they were kids. His two brothers were asleep in their bedroom. GU (great uncle) wanted to scare them for a joke so he threw a firecracker between the two beds. Well he missed and caught the drapes on fire instead. His dad ran into the room and stomped the fire out in his bare feet.

Back in the 60's he was going from job to job not really finding anything stable back in Pa. When he was in the Navy during WWII he fell in love with Ca. So he packed his bags and left his wife and 4 kids in Pa. while he was looking for a job and a home. 3 months later he wrote to his wife and said that he was ready for them to move out here with him. Apparently he was so happy to see his wife and kids that 10 months later they had their fifth child. He always said that he wasn't a horny Protestant. Instead he was a very faithful Catholic.

After the services we all went to my cousins house for a few hours to spend time with family and have a little bite to eat. That's when the bad thing happened. My grandma who is 83 years old was walking outside to find a place to sit. She was carrying a plate of food and a cup of coffee. When she went to step from the house to the patio she forgot about the 3 inch difference in height. Down she went. She hit the ground hard. When she landed the entire fall was on her upper arm. Now from her elbow to her shoulder she is different shades of blue, black and purple. Luckily she had no broken bones. We took her to the Dr. on the way home that evening. I was sitting with my back to her when she fell. Then I heard someone hit the ground and saw people rushing to someone. My mom said it was grandma and all I could think was that she broke her hip. Leave it to me to think the worst right off the bat.