Quick Come-Backs

Richelle joined a Mock Trial team last fall that is made up of both home and public schoolers.  Jon and Kelsi (not siblings) are home schooled and also took Latin with Richelle the last two years.  

The "case" this year is someone suing a coffee drive-through company because he was moderately to severely burned when the lid came off his cup and hot coffee spilled down his chest and into his lap.  Jon was very severely burned three years ago (a story in itself but doesn't involve hot liquids) and has undergone twelve surgeries to his face, neck, and chest so he relates to the "plaintiff" quite well.

Richelle was delighted to share this quick interchange from the last meeting:

Richelle:  "What is 'burn' in Latin?"

Jon:  ".........owie?"

Richelle

I took Richelle to our fantastic chiropractor yesterday.  He's far more than a just a "bone-cracker" but also uses supplements, homeopathic remedies, and applied kinesiology.  He strongly urged me to have Richelle tested through IgeneX or Spirostate for a complete workup of all the bacteria, viruses, spirochetes, etc. (also known as co-infections) that might be in her system.  The run-of-the-mill tests done in your average Lyme illiterate labs don't test for those (and you have a better percentage of accuracy by flipping a coin if the lab uses the ELISA test).  But at about $650 for the battery of tests, I'm going to have to see if insurance will pay for it.

In the meanwhile, she is taking several supplements known to be beneficial with Lyme disease and will soon start another herbal preparation that my sister recommends.  If you really want to know what they are, drop me a line...I don't want to bore the rest of you!

We think the second bout of paralysis was a herxheimer ("die-off") reaction to the doxycyline she's taking.  With Lyme, it's typical to get a herx reaction two days and as well as four weeks after starting antibiotics and her second episode was at the two day mark.

Other than hating to give up sweets because of long-ish term antibiotics, annoyed at watching her gluten intake because of what Lyme typically does to the gut, and detesting the amount of water she has to drink to wash everything down, she's doing well.  She had a short bout of "why me" but when I pointed out that at least it's invisible to the public unlike her brother's Bell's palsy six years ago, she pulled herself out of it.

Lyme also causes increased fatigue and we came to an agreement:  As long as her bedroom light is off and she's going to sleep by 9:30pm, I'll let her sleep herself out instead of bouncing her out of bed at the usual 6:00am.  It means a change in our school schedule but we'll figure it out.

That pesky tick

Richelle's test results for Lyme's disease came back negative.

I wasn't satisfied because I know of two people who tested negative and by the time they finally did test positive after 20-30 years, their health had been permanently broken.  Both are ladies (is that a common factor?); one in the mid-west and confined to a wheelchair due to paralysis (yikes!) and the other here on the west coast with permanent damage to internal organs (don't know which ones).  One of my aunts (another woman...) has had ill health for about 25 years and I understand she was diagnosed with Lyme's but I'm not certain if she's actually tested positive or if they've just come to that conclusion.

So.

I asked the nurse who gave me the results if the doctor would be willing to write a full prescription even with a negative result and she promised to memo the request to him.  Then I talked with two of my sisters who are in the medical field and they both strongly encouraged me to go with my instincts.

I was all geared up for a (polite) fight for the antibiotics armed with information from my sisters...and the nurse called the next day to tell me the prescription had been called in to the pharmacy and I could pick it up at my convenience.

I'd been gearing myself up from the beginning;  Would he order a blood test or will I have to fight for it?  If it came back negative would he write the prescription or would I have to fight for it?  For whatever reason, the most I had to do was politely ask if the doctor would be amenable to treating Richelle as if the tests had come back positive.

Now she's taking 100mg of doxycycline twice a day for twenty-one days. One of my sisters (a nurse practitioner) is also getting me an herbal preparation that, in her estimation, gets what the antibiotic doesn't.

She feels normal but had some paralysis in her ankle Wednesday morning and her knee went numb during Bible study that evening.  SO glad she's on meds!  Damage done by that bacteria is irreversible.

Quite a saga.

Summer Loving Fun...

I was appalled that my last post was three months ago.  So much has happened this summer!  A new daughter-in-law, our first grand-baby, a family reunion, conventions, activities with Girl Scouts....

I posted a cryptic message on Facebook about Richelle, a tick bite, and Lyme disease that I thought I'd explain in more detail here.

Speaking of Girl Scout activities....

June 11-13th we went camping at a Boy Scout camp that our girls have re-named Camp Lotsa Ticks - in 48 hours, we pulled six ticks off our girls.  That Saturday afternoon, Richelle came to where us adults were sitting and plopped herself down on my knees.  The girls were so jumpy about ticks by that time (and one adult in particular) that I couldn't resist having a little fun.
I slowly pulled her shirt up her back, waiting for her to ask what I was doing, upon which I was going to answer,  "Searching for ticks, of course," and wait for her leap off my lap shrieking.  She didn't ask, so I kept lifting her shirt (modestly, of course!) until I came to her bra strap.  Still no response, so I lifted that (I was really wanting a reaction) and froze stock still.
There, embedded up to its shoulders in a circle of angry red flesh, was a tick already half engorged.  Visions of a trip to Urgent Care or the emergency room danced before my eyes.
My absolute stillness alerted two of the adults and they were beside me almost instantly.  Out came the well-used tweezers and the tick was "unscrewed".  All three of us checked that the head was attached to the body and it was carefully placed in the campfire.  I scrubbed the site with an alcohol prep pad and hoped for the best.
The strange thing was that Richelle hadn't felt the tick boring in.  Perhaps because it was on her back.

Over the next few weeks, I kept an eye on the site.  Other than it taking a while to go from angry red to pale pink, there wasn't anything unusual and I eventually forgot about it.

About six weeks ago, Richelle came out from her (hot) shower with a towel wrapped around her, walking away from me.  I saw the tick site was an angry red again.  I felt something like a little pustule at the site and it itched Richelle for me to touch it.  I decided to talk with a few nursing friends of mine before I spent time and money at the doctor.

Last Tuesday evening Richelle complained of a sore throat, post-nasal drip, and a general not-feel-good feeling.  I gave her half an anti-histamine and sent her to bed.  Next morning (I let her sleep in) she said that along with her sore throat and post-nasal drip, she had a headache, an upset stomach, felt feverish and generally unwell.  I encouraged her to take a shower and she said she didn't think her legs would hold her up long enough for that.  I thought she meant she felt weak, left her in bed, and did our normal Wednesday afternoon/evening activities in town.
Imagine my horror when I got home later that evening and realized she'd meant that her thigh muscles were partially paralyzed!  I had her wiggle her toes and move her feet but she was slow to move her knees in any direction I asked; up, back, out, or in while she was lying down (she said they didn't respond at all when she was in the sitting position).    So I knew it wasn't something spinal but for some reason, she'd lost at least 50% use of those muscles for about thirty hours.

(I'm giving all these details for those readers in the medical profession, not to scare the non-medical ones to death!)

When questioned intensely, she admitted to having paralysis in one leg or the other for the preceding two weeks but since it would occur in one leg or the other and last just a minute or two, she didn't say anything to me.
I had a chance the next evening for a nurse friend to look at it (thank you, Dawn) and she noticed discoloration and the beginnings of a welt around the site.  She also confirmed that 14 weeks wasn't abnormal for signs of Lyme's disease to show up.

So I took her in yesterday and they removed a plug of tissue at the bite site to get whatever we'd unknowingly left behind and they drew blood to send off for Lyme's disease testing.  Results should be in by the beginning of next week.

Language/Culture studies

Richelle wearing a Roman girl's tunic and belt.

We started a course of Latin language study back in September with other homeschooling families.  In name, Richelle was the student and I was there to audit the class.  In fact, we both learned Latin grammar, pronunciation, word derivatives, culture, and history.  Richelle didn't want to take the class at first but when I told her I wouldn't require English grammar if she studied Latin, she was all for it.  For those who may be wondering, we used Latina Christiana I.  

She had so much fun that she's quite ready for a second year.  This course is rather easy compared to a high school curriculum but by completing Latina Christiana II, she will have one credit of foreign language.  Not to mention a leg up in vocabulary and grammar.

Speaking of grammar, Latin is quite interesting.  Have you ever declined a noun?  Everyone knows how to conjugate a verb (I hope!) but English nouns only have two forms:  possessive and everything else; each either singular or plural.  Latin has five; subject, possessive, indirect object, direct object, and object of the preposition; each either singular or plural and each having their own ending although some endings are the same.  So wherever the noun occurres in the sentence, you know by the ending what it's function is.  For example, we could write "Billy put the dishes on the table." or "Billy put the table on the dishes." and by the noun ending (-a in this the object of the preposition case), there is no confusion.  Handy, isn't it?  

Also, just to make things more interesting, Latin has five declensions: feminine, masculine and neuter, and third, fourth, and fifth declensions (they don't seem to have a label other than that) each with their own endings.  We just touched the third declension the last few lessons this year.

The class had an end-of-year party last week.  They all dressed up in as close of dress as they had available, brought food that would have been eaten in Roman times, and watched a movie that had some Latin spoken in it.  A tunic is basically a pillowcase with holes for the head and arms and a belt around the waist.  Boys' were just below the knee and girls' were ankle length.  Men wore the togas we associate with Romans and women wore something very similar to an Indian sari.  Richelle decided she wasn't a woman yet and I made her a tunic from an old sheet.

The class was lots of fun and, although it required a weekly trip to town, it well worth the time, money and effort.  We're looking forward to next year's classes.

The Worst Mom

I am probably the absolute worst mom in the world.  


Richelle had a choir concert this afternoon after more than two months of practice and rehearsals.  This is the first performance in arts that she's done so you'd think I'd make sure things were special for her.  Especially since she's had a bad cold the past few days, looks a bit pale, and has a lingering cough.


Instead, I~

1. Managed to bring the camera with me from home (maybe not the absolute worst mom, then) but completely forgot I had it in the car until after the concert started and I noticed a much better mom in front of me recording on her video.
2. Neglected to make the suggestion that Richelle use a touch of make-up to give some color to her wan face.
3. Spaced out about giving her a couple of cough drops - or even a roll of Life-Savers for cryin' out loud! - in case she got a fit of coughing while singing. (She did, poor thing, but on the last half of the last song.  She lip-synced most of it and suddenly had a lot of color from stifling the coughs.)
4. Didn't remember to get her a bouquet of congratulatory flowers.

Here's where I'd insert the photo of a healthy-looking, smiling Richelle holding a bouquet of flowers.


****sigh****

Spring Break, continued

I had to have Richelle post the last entry and she took liberty with a post script.....

The girls got a little out of hand that first night so we stayed together as a troop the first day until lunch.  The girls groused a little but they had fun and we turned them loose at lunch time.  We took the precaution of making sure they understood the consequences of getting separated from their buddies and checked that each buddy pair had a cell phone.

I went on Splash Mountain and rode in the front.  It's always like a different ride when you sit in front.  This is a water ride and the two of us in front got thoroughly soaked from head to knee in my case and head to foot in hers.  We met up with some of our girls after the ride and they pointed and laughed.

I didn't get to go on Space Mountain the first time I went because they were re-doing it for the 50 year celebration.  I sure missed a great ride!

I suppose my favorite rides are Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Soaring Over California, and California Screamin' - the last two on the California Adventure side.  If I could only ride one, it'd have to be Screamin'.  I just love the first five seconds!

A few great memories:

The girls do something called a "force push" where they pretend to lick their hands (sometimes it's not pretend!) and then shove it in someone's face, causing the victim to flinch back.  The six girls I was with one afternoon were doing that to each other while we were waiting to meet up with a group going to the motel.  One girl did it to me only I purposely didn't flinch and her wet (!) hand made full contact on the side of my face.  I hollered her name and took off after her.  On about the third step, my brain clicked in and I realized she'd used water, not spit, on her hand.  She was pleased as Punch to have gotten me so good.

I didn't realize it but one of the girls was/is absolutely terrified of heights.  In spite of that, she went on most of the rides everyone else did at least once.  Sometimes her hat was pulled over her face and sometimes her eyes never opened the entire ride, sometimes there were tears of terror and always there was screaming but she was determined to do what rides she could.  She flatly refused to ride Maliboomer and I had to do some fast talking to convince her to go on Tower of Terror but California Screamin' became one of her favorite rides.

This was Richelle's favorite pastime - eating Mickey Mouse ice cream.  She must have consumed at least half a dozen in those three days.

The contrast in this picture:  Richelle in the front row with a big grin and arms straight up vs. the girl second row, second from right.  That's the one and only time she rode Tower of Terror.  What a trooper!

The fireworks show was spectacular.  We weren't in a good spot for photos but I did my best.

It took two hours longer to get home than it took to get there.  The girls weren't pushing to get home like they were to get there and they had a little spending money left that had to be spent before they got home.  Plus, they had to figure sales tax before they could decide if they had enough to make the purchase.  We also stopped for lunch and supper going home but the girls had brought a sack breakfast and lunch for the trip down.  Seventeen hours after we left the motel, we pulled into the same library parking lot and ended our adventure....at 2:30 am.

I still had two girls to connect with a parent in a nearby town on my way home so I didn't walk into the door of my house until 3:30 am.  It's taken me until today to feel completely recovered.  Whew!

Birthday

Today was my birthday and it started out in a unique way by Richelle sitting me into a chair and giving me a hand-lettered breakfast menu complete with appetizer (applesauce), entrées (scrambled eggs with my choice of bacon or sausage and whole wheat or oat bread toast; hot oatmeal; and cold cereal of my choice from Cap'n Crunch, Lucky Charms, or Honey Crisp Medley), beverages (water, coffee, teas of several varieties, hot chocolate, or milk), and dessert of apple with or without caramel. The menu came complete with prices and a baggie of play money.

She left me to make up my mind and then returned a few minutes later wearing an apron and carrying a small pad of paper in one hand and a pencil in the other. She took my order rather professionally, I thought, and went back to the kitchen. A few minutes later she brought me my applesauce and left again. In due course of time, back she came with a plate of Scrambled Egg Supreme with bacon and a slice of oat bread toast and a cup of vanilla chai, all done to perfection. I don't even recall teaching her how to properly scramble eggs or how to fashion and cook a sausage patty (husband of the birthday girl was also waited on) from bulk sausage! There are times I'm convinced that child learns by osmosis.

She came once to ask how everything tasted and if it was to our liking and then returned once more to present the bill...which I paid for with the play money provided.

I made lunch since Mike is on swing shift but at supper time, Richelle led me to the table which had a candle burning in the center and was set with one placing of silverware wrapped up in a napkin and a supper menu. The appetizer was peanut butter and honey on wheat bread toast; entrée was my choice of a Sandwich Slam (whatever I wanted between two pieces of bread), cheese toast, mac 'n' cheese, cheese quesadilla, turkey wrap (turkey slices rolled with sliced cheese), and Bacon a la Cheese (crumbled bacon and grated cheese); drink choices were Mountain Dew, Kool-aid tropical punch, Kool-aid lemon-lime, milk, and Kool-aid orange; dessert was fresh, homemade oatmeal cookies. We don't really consume that much cheese and certainly not that vast amount of Kool-aid but she went with what she could make.

What a hoot! I loved it and am saving those precious menus with the date lightly penciled on the backs. Those meals was her gift to me and a wonderful, thoughtful gift it was. I will always remember it. Such a darling daughter!

The little grand piano at the top of this post was Mike's gift to me. It's a trinket music box that plays "I Just Wanna Be Loved By You." I know each year that I'll get a grand piano figurine of some sort. It's not the piano that's the gift but the reason for it.

You see, years ago when the kids would whine about not having something they wanted, I'd point out that I'd always wanted a baby grand piano but they don't see one in the front room. That was always my standard retort....until Melissa gave me a little grand piano figurine at Christmas in 2000. She was so tickled that the house almost couldn't contain her and when I opened her gift, she squealed, "Now you can't say you don't have a grand piano anymore!"

I received two more from her and Mike has carried on in her memory.

Creative Children

Richelle made a few cookies like this in honor of Memorial Day. This one was her favorite because not only was it the best-looking one, the missing corner gives it an authentic "been in battle" look.

This was her project from start to finish. I gave help only by suggesting she use decorating tips and, when she ran out of white frosting for the stars, to use white sprinkles instead.

My children's artistic talents continually amaze me. I'm somewhat beyond the stick-figure and color-by-number point and several decades of experience has helped me but I certainly didn't have their ability to dream up some of the stuff they do at their age.

Still too small

Every child hates the words "you're to short/young/light to do this" whatever "this" is and they can scarcely wait for the day when they're tall/old/heavy enough to do whatever it is they want to do.

Mike and I decided Richelle was old enough to take the responsibility of keeping the lower field mowed this summer and Richelle was eager to take on the job.

Yesterday, Mike walked along while Richelle took her first turn going solo on the riding lawn mower. She had difficulty keeping the engine running because every time she hit a bump, she bounced in the seat and triggered the kill switch located under it.

It finally died halfway around the field and Mike told her, "Honey, you just don't have a big enough bum for this, yet."

There are worse things in life than not having a big bum.

Art

A couple of weeks ago, two very fine ladies stayed with us for a couple of days. One of them brought out some araucana eggs that had been blown and cleaned, a bottle of decoupage glue, some pretty napkins, and invited Richelle to decorate an egg with her.

Richelle loves doing anything artsy and got right into the project. They cut out butterflies, flowers, blades of grass, and whatever caught their fancy that would fit into the space and idea of their eggs. Next, they peeled away the two layers of white napkin, leaving only the thin tissue with the picture. Then they brushed a layer of glue on the egg and carefully placed their pictures. Finally, they applied a couple more layers of glue on top and let it dry.

They learned that if they weren't careful, the glue stuck to their fingers and then peeled the tissue away from the egg. Careful application of glue fixed nearly everything and strategically placed pieces even covered the holes in the ends of the eggs.

I think it'd be fun to make some more with eggs stained with tea, beet juice, or yellow onion skins.

FLL State Championships

Richelle's First Lego League team won this Young Team trophy at the Qualifying Tournament and earned a place at the State Competitions.

Her team attended the State Championships Saturday. It was a long and busy day with check-in at 7:30am and the Awards Ceremony concluding at 5:00pm. It was one of those days of intense activity interspersed with short intervals of hurry-up-and-wait. We had the added wrench tossed in of one team member not feeling well. At one point, she went to a quiet room with her mother and rested for awhile.


This is the centerpiece Richelle made out of Legos for their pit table. The black letter fade into the background but it spells "Thunderstorms" - their team name.



The format for State Championships is the same as the Qualifying Tournament. They are judged in the areas of Teamwork, Technical (robot design and programming), and Research Project. They also have three turns at the competition tables to complete as many pre-defined missions as possible within 2.5 minutes (Performance). The top score is saved and the others are discarded.

When all is said and done, there are several categories of awards. Teamwork, Technical, Project, Performance, Young Team, Rookie Team (one trophy), Champion Runners Up, and Champion. FLL believes that what the kids learn is far more important that what they win, so a team earns only one plaque/trophy. They also award a high percentage of teams. There were 60 teams participating and 26 trophies or plaques awarded at each of the two championships for a total of 120 teams and 52 trophies/plaques. The first and second place winners in the Teamwork, Technical, Project, and Performance divisions received a trophy; the third and fourth place teams received a plaque. Trophies were also given for first through third place in Young Team, Champion's Runners Up, and Champions.

Richelle's team came home with.....*drum roll, please*......Second Place in Teamwork! The trophy is made of yellow Lego pieces glued together in the shape of a Loving cup mounted on a base of flat Lego pieces. The only non-Lego pieces of the entire trophy are the stickers on the sides and the engraving on the base. It's traveling to all the girls' homes and my camera was dead at the competition but I have pictures coming. Meanwhile, here's Richelle wearing her participation medal for State Competition.



So that is over with but I'm committed to coaching another team in the fall. This year's experience will be very helpful.

Teamwork pays off

Back in September, Richelle joined a FIRST Lego League team and I was catapulted into becoming a coach through no desire of my own.

Well, our team of five girls worked hard on learning enough about computers to run the programing software, researching a climate-related problem in our area and the solutions used to combat it, finding another area in the world with the same problem and what their solution is and coming up with a way to present their information to others. The final part of the project was to come up with an innovative solution but they didn't get that part done. They also problem-solved how to earn the most points off the board by completing pre-set missions with the Lego robot they had programmed.

They also learned about teamwork, stress management, working on their own with only guidance from adults, time management, and understanding gracious professionalism and friendly competition.

Saturday was our qualifying tournament. There were supposed to be thirteen teams competing from Klammath Falls area, Coos Bay area, Roseburg area, and the Eugene area and one from as far away as Bly but because of the inclement weather there were only eight.

The teams are scored in four areas: teamwork, technical, the project, and the missions. The scores are tallied and trophies awarded at the end of the competition but no one except the judges and Tournament Director know what the scores are. This is to foster the idea of Friendly Competition and Gracious Professionalism.

There are several categories for trophies. Champion's Award, a Champion's Runner-Up Award, Young Team Award, Rookie Team Award, and Honorable Mention Award. The first three awards advance to the State Championships in January. A team wins only one trophy regardless of the score. For example, if a rookie team scores the highest overall, they only get the Champion's Award; the Rookie Award goes to the next-highest scoring rookie team.

Our team won the Young Team Award. The girls were so shocked and excited! Their smiles stretched from one side of their faces to the other and it was great to see them enjoy the fruits of all their hard work.

On to the State Championships January 17 and 18!

Pass or Fail

Schools used to bring in a trailer once a year and test the sight and hearing of grade school kids. They may still do it, I don't know; I homeschool my kids.

Each year, I'd enter the trailer with fear and trepidation. I was frightened that I'd fail the eye test. I was more confident with the hearing test but I was so afraid of some unknown thing because I couldn't read the eye chart. There was such a relief in passing the test and being allowed to return to the classroom with the others!

In fourth grade, things got a little worse when Mom took me to an eye doctor. It was bad enough worrying about failing the eye test in school, now I was faced with failing it at the doctor's office. The only comforting thing about failing it at the office was that the doctor fixed the machine in a way that I could pass the test in the end. It meant getting glasses but at least I could see!

Mom took me to the eye doctor every year after that and every year I tried to pass the test and every year I failed and had to get new glasses with a new prescription.

Now let's jump ahead about three decades to last Monday when I took Cameron and Richelle in to get their eyes checked.

I suddenly realized that as an adult I've always referred to these appointments as getting our eyes "checked" and not "tested". For a split moment I wondered why, tasted the phrase "get your eyes tested," and a faint memory of anxiety returned. Knowing the kids would love the story, I told them about my pass or fail anxiety and how each year I would be disappointed at failing yet again. They thought it was the funniest thing ever.

Richelle had her eyes checked first (see? I still do it!) and her prescription (reading) hadn't changed. She was so disappointed because she wanted new frames. We were in the waiting room while Cameron was getting his eyes checked, Richelle trying valiantly to control her disappointment, when a thought struck me.

"Richelle!" I exclaimed sitting straight up, eyes wide.

"What?" she replied warily. The waiting room of a doctor's office is hardly the place for excitement and, besides, she was familiar with that particular tone of voice.

"You passed the eye test!" I shrieked in a hoarse whisper.



The post script to my childhood story is ironic. About twenty years ago, I asked Mom why she decided to get my eyes checked in fourth grade. Was it her personal policy to have us kids' eyes checked at that point?

She looked at me rather oddly and said, "No, I took you in because I got a note from the school saying you needed to see the eye doctor."

Skating

Again, I haven't posted in a while but that doesn't mean nothing's happening around here!

Yesterday, Richelle and I attended our monthly homeschool roller skating event. This is nothing outstanding, just a day out of the month when the homeschoolers converge on the local skating rink for a couple of hours. Some parents are out on the rink with their kids, some (most) sit at the tables and kibbitz while obeying the command of "Mom! Dad! Watch this!!"

Richelle was given a really nice pair of rental skates that she described as "so smooth you don't even feel the floor!" Evidently, they were so smooth that she couldn't feel to stop, either, because I heard a "Hey, Mom!" and looked up just in time to see her come flying off the rink, bounce against the padded opening, narrowly miss a little boy, dodge around a young girl, brush past an adult, and come to a crashing stop against a table and two chairs....all in about one second and ten feet.

New Experiences

Richelle and I spent last weekend with a niece and her family in central Oregon. We got there Friday afternoon and came home Sunday afternoon. I spent the bulk of Saturday in a training seminar but Richelle had great fun with her cousins.

I did remember to bring my camera but as I was four hours from home when I remembered, it did little good. I was so bummed! I even had opportunity to get a stunning shot of a full moon rising and framed by juniper trees. Then there was the cute opportunity of the three girls waking up on their couch-cushion beds in the front room. And there's when they put on their swimsuits, filled the horse trough, and went "swimming". Let's not forget the "fashion show" two of them put on. Of course, even a camera can't capture the giggles and quips they passed back and forth or the uncouth sounds of the "squashoons".

Richelle learned how to change irrigation pipe, water the garden, make and play the "squashoon" and tend to the chickens. She helped her cousins with a labor-intensive fund-raiser, picked strawberries, and we had a particularly toothsome fresh strawberry milkshake.

I love going east of the Cascades. I love the high desert, the smell of junipers, the straight roads, being able to see the horizon, the mesas, the lack of blackberry or poison oak underbrush..or much of any underbrush for that matter.....

The good times and laughter with family made it extra special.

Sokki the Hamster

Now that the danger of Sokki's imminent death seems to be in the past, I'll post an update.

It really started when Richelle got him. We got back into the car and she wanted Sokki to go into the run-about ball she'd brought with her instead of traveling home in a little cardboard box. That way she could hold him in her lap and watch him. I didn't really want her to make the transfer because I knew he'd probably bite and when he did, I figured she'd let go of him. The car has far to many small places where a baby hamster can hide so I made the transfer. He clawed, bit, squealed, and wet all over my hand but I got him in the ball. I also managed to injure one little finger which is probably why he clawed, bit, squealed, and wet all over my hand.

Sokki's habitat. The look-out tower is his favorite place and is where he eats, sleeps, and ...um... smells up the place.

Okay, so now he's leary of me. I try to tame him by holding him for a few seconds at a time when he's still in the cage but he clearly doesn't like it. About a week ago, I picked him up again and he squealed and kept squealing. Then he went stiff - still squealing. I opened my hand to let him scamper off and he didn't move. I tilted my hand to encourage him and he rolled off my hand stiff as a board onto his back still squealing. I thought he was having a heart attack and seizure simultaneously. The thought screaming through my head was that I'd killed my daughter's hamster right in front of her. Suddenly, he stopped squealing, flipped himself over and scurried up a tube to safety. WHEW!


Stashing his food. He crams most of his food into his cheek pouches and hides it. At first, it was right here but now it's up in his look-out tower.


At about this point in time, I purchased a natural product that neutralizes the hamster smell in his body and makes him and his output production much less odorous. It works quite well but the little rodent had to get used to the altered taste of his water. He basically didn't drink for almost two days and I was getting very worried. He wasn't running around all that much and was sleeping quite a bit. I kept thinking sentences with no endings. "If that hamster dies...." "If he doesn't start drinking water...." "If I've killed Sokki....." "I wonder if I could...."

Finally, one night I just couldn't sleep very well. I kept dreaming of the little guy and the dreams ran the gamut of nothing wrong with him at all to dying in convulsions on the cage floor. I kept getting up and checking on him. At about 2am, I finally started reading Richelle's hamster book in the "Diseases" section. I knew that hamsters prefer a temp range from 65 - 80 but the book gave me the impression that the little buggers like it more constant with a variance of about three degrees either way. The bedroom was hovering around 66 at night and getting up to about 75 during the day so I hauled in the space heater and flipped it on low.

It worked!! When I checked on him around 6am, he was drinking water as if he.....well.....hadn't had any for a couple of days. Later, I heard him running in the wheel. He improved rapidly and in just a couple of days was pretty much back to normal and growing.

You can bet your last dollar that I haven't tried to pick him up since! He is taming down, though, getting used to our voices and we talk to him a lot. He sniffs at my hand instead of pinning back his ears and getting defensive.

The Hamster

Richelle brought home her little hamster today. It was a little traumatic getting it. We went in Saturday to get one only to find that they were sold out. How disheartening! Poor Richelle had to wait until the last errand was run before we went to the pet store to pick one out and, believe me, it was a long wait. We'd left the house at about 11:30am and we didn't get to the pet store until around 5:30pm (since it costs nearly two gallons of gas to get to town and back in the Explorer, I consolidate errands whenever I can). The store was completely sold out. There are two basic kinds of hamsters, normal size and pygmy, and this store also carries long-haired breeds of each but they were out of everything. Not one single hamster. We talked to a sales person who told us she was expecting a fairly large shipment early Monday morning and to come in after school.


Late this morning, Mike had an errand to do in town so we talked him into taking us with him. Richelle was antsy and shot to the back of the store where the small animals are kept (ferrets SMELL!) to be greeted by....................empty cages. Evidently, the shipment wasn't due for a while, maybe a couple of days. Richelle's frustration was evenly divided between the store in general and the sales person from Saturday in particular. They suggested, and we did, leave our name and number with the front desk to call us when they arrived. Mike told Richelle that she looked as if she'd just lost her last friend.

The store called at 2:30pm to tell us the shipment had arrived and the hamsters were ready for sale. There was no question in my mind; this called for a special trip into town. She went, she saw, she's happy. The little rodent's name is Sokki pronounced "Soak-ie". She's had the name for weeks now and is ecstatic to have the animal to go with it.

The first picture is of little Sokki climbing the tube from the living area to the exercise ball. It must have been quite a climb for him because after a couple of runs he fell asleep in the flat part of the tube between bends.

The second picture is of Sokki cleaning himself. Or maybe he's nibbling on something. The blue is the corner of the cage, the clear yellow is the tube leading up to the exercise ball, and the food dish is the green in the right corner. The colorful thing to the left is his little house made from his carry-home box with the flaps cut off and a hole cut for a door. There's a yellow chew-toy inside. She decided that a cardboard box was just fine for his house and she didn't need him to have a fancy-dancy igloo. Besides, that's a $7 savings for her. Good thing, too, if he's going to be sleeping in the tunnel. She's paying for everything at her own insistence and our encouragement. The only thing I bought was a $6 book on the care of hamsters.

Her allowance covers food and bedding but she's wanting to earn extra money to pay for habitat extensions and other fun stuff for little Sokki. So now we have clean windows, my plant leaves are dusted......

Soccer

Richelle's save as goalie in her last game of the season. She played one quarter as goalie every game this season and did very well. Only two balls got past her in the four games she played. She loves the goalie position but my heart does jumping jacks watching her.








Here's the one that got past her. Ironically, it was her best friend who scored on her! The two girls met a couple of years ago when they were on the same team and hit it off well. The friend had just started home schooling. They've been playing soccer for so long that it doesn't bother them to be on opposite teams. They hang out until their coaches call them to warm-ups, greet each other when they line up for kick-off and go off at half-time, and they walk back across the field together after the game.