Saturday

Watching College Gameday and (still) enjoying the use of my mom's laptop as the old girl has completely fallen down on the job (my laptop, not my mom). Even with the new power cord, I can't get the thing to charge. I suspect it's the place where the power supply plugs in, there seems to not be a solid connection. I could take it to be repaired but... honestly... at this point... she's old, she's slow, she's missing some vital keys of the keyboard and I've just about worn a hole through the mouse pad thingy. My plan is to buy a new one with the next paycheck (next Friday), hopefully the budget will allow.

Austin is still with us. He's been uber cooperative and has had a great attitude. He has been a lot of help to mawmaw and pop and we have all enjoyed having him here.

Ryan stopped by Thursday night on his way  from a job in Pompano Beach, Florida to his home in Pennsylvania. I walked out the front door on my way to work and saw this big Penske truck parked out in front of Cody's house and thought that either a) Cody and Marquee were moving out, b) some jerk in the hood decided to hijack the parking in front of Cody's house or c) Ryan had made a pitstop. I called Cody (because he's always up early calling his dad to get him to wake up so they can go to work - that's a whole other story) and he confirmed that it was Ryan. I told him to sneak and open the front door so I could go in and sing the Wake Up Song.

See... there was this song I learned at Camp Pinnacle when I was 9... you sing in this really soft pleasant Disney kind of voice "way up in the sky... the little birds fly... way down in the nest... the little birds rest... wwwwiiiiiiiitttttthhhhh a wing on the left and a wing on the right... the little birds sleep all thru the night..." and then you whisper, "sssshhhhh!" and then you yell at the TOP OF  YOUR LUNGS, "YOU MIGHT WAKE UP THE BIRDIES"... and the rest is also sung very, very loud, "THE BRIGHT SUN COMES UP THE DEW FALLS AWAY, GOOD MORNING, GOOD MORNING THE LITTLE BIRDS SAY". And this song was the punishment my children suffered whenever they wouldn't cooperate with getting up in the morning and/or whenever I just wanted to annoy them. My nieces love it but they live on the top floor of their house and when I stay there I sleep on the bottom floor so after climbing two flights of stairs, I'm not exactly able to find the lung capacity to belt it  out.

Whenever Ryan comes down and is peacefully sleeping on Cody's couch, I like to wake him up with that song. Unfortunately... yesterday... the storm door slammed and it woke Ryan up before I could. He was just passing through so by the time I was off work yesterday, he was already well on his way to PA. However, the great thing is that Ryan took the time to take Austin to breakfast yesterday before he got on the road and that little bit of attention was awesome for Austin. Austin has spent most of his time with me and my mom and we are both pretty much at the point of not having energy to do more than work our part-time jobs.. Pop spends time when he's home but he has a pretty busy schedule between work, church, golf and Grandma. Cody and Marquee kinda do their own thing. And Austin's dad... well... he's stopped and said hello to Austin once in the month Austin's been here, despite driving by twice a day to pick Cody up for work and drop Cody off from work. That's an "F" for effort in my book.

At any rate... Ryan has decided he's going to fly Austin up to Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving and Austin is over the MOON excited about it. Ryan and Cody have always had a super tight bond and Austin's always been sort of the odd man out... to be able to hang with his big brother ... to be able to actually take a trip somewhere and more than that, to be able to fly (it's only his second airplane trip) is a huge hairy deal for Austin. I'll avoid discussing my anxiety that Austin will end up on the no-fly list or make an inappropriate joke to an air marshall... or not be able to find his gate... so many variables... (any friends out there who work at the Atlanta Airport who have security clearance and can walk him to his gate?) and I'll just be excited that Austin is going to get some great bonding time with his brother and hope that this will be a catalyst for Austin to sort of figure out his path in life.

The bummer is that it will mean that I won't have any of my babes at Thanksgiving. Cody and Marquee are probably doing Thanksgiving with her family as our events occur at the same time. It's not looking like any of my brothers will be around. We're going to be a small enough crowd to fit in a booth at Denneys. Ok. Maybe not a booth. But still. Last year Austin and I had rotisserie chicken from Ingles, just the two of us. My picture perfect Norman Rockwell, "way it used to be" Thanksgivings are a thing of the past. Just let me see the Macy's parade... have a good meal and get a few hugs... and I'll be ok.

BUT... at least I'm going to have a lot, a lot of down time over the next two weeks... I'm working Monday, in a class on Tuesday and Wednesday, off for five days, working Tuesday and Wednesday before Thanksgiving, off for four days, working Monday, off Tuesday. Lots and lots of rebound time built in for me which makes me happy. Lots of time in the mountains.

Even when I'm not in the mountains... life here is good. The fall colors are beautiful, even in the suburbs. Work is busy but great. I look forward to being there. I'm usually fairly uncomfortable by the time I leave, which is discouraging because I would actually not mind being there more and making more money and being able to take on more responsibility but every day, almost without fail, I hit a wall and get to the point where the pain drowns out any cognitive thought, where I'm not as articulate and accurate as I want to be and I know it's time to clock out. It's frustrating but every single day it reminds me that I am exactly where I'm supposed to be... in a place where they focus more on my ability than my disability.

I've been working on a particularly difficult but really interesting twig on my family tree that involves intermarriage between White settlers and the Cherokee and Creek Indian tribes in the Southeast. It's difficult because the Indians (Native Americans, whatever) usually have an Indian name that is spelled out in syllables (like Wa-si-ya) , an Anglicized version of their Native American name (like Running Deer), and an American name (like Tom Carpenter). The trick is to review all the different sources and match families up based on one or all three of these versions, dates of birth and death and matching anecdotal information. Very time consuming... requires a lot of reading through old documents and so forth... but it's still fascinating.

Anywho... So that's my Saturday. Have a good weekend, y'all!