I would like to say this is "adult-themed", but in the end, it so clearly isn't...

The other day, I finally got around to the much-needed washing of our curtains. They've needed it for months, but on my list of things to do, taking down and washing and putting them all back up was never at the top, so I just kept forgetting. But the other day, I finally did it.

We don't have proper "curtains". We have lace sheers hanging in the living room and just valances in the dining room and kitchen. That's because everywhere but the kitchen, we have mini-blinds. They came with the house. We should probably get new ones... because I really don't want to clean those.

Since the whole "TV cabinet blocking the window" incident, I saw no reason- no easy way either- to rehang the lace thing on that window. So, I put it on the window on the stairway landing. We had lace curtains with an attached valance with matching drawback... uh, thingies. Those were originally the outside curtains on the shower we had in our house in Georgia.

So, I put the single panel lace curtain on the window on the landing. Then I took one of those fabric drawback thingies and pulled it to one side, because the cats like sitting on the windowsill. While I was doing that, I was adjusting it and pulling on it to make it hang in a drape-y, swoop-y way.

DG asked what I was doing. So I told him that I was "making it sexy".

DG: "Why do you want to do that?"

Me: "I don't want to, but c'mon, its lace, don't you think its sexy pulled to one side like that?"

DG: "You're going to make all the other windows jealous!"

Me: "Why? They're wearing the same outfit!"

DG: "Oh, now they're embarrassed!"

Later, and I mean much later. Like hours later, Jase was walking back up the stairs and in a flat and completely serious voice, DG asked, "Hey, do you think that window is sexy?"

Jase hadn't heard our earlier conversation and yet, he replied, "It is, Dad. Quite. But I don't want to make the other windows jealous by dating just this one."

More time passes. Not a lot of time, but enough for all of us to stop talking about the window. I said, "I need to get a photo for the blog."

DG gasped: "Don't do that! It'll embarrass the window!"

Me: "How will it embarrass the window?"

DG, making a scoffing noise: "Because it doesn't want to find the photo on the internet! How embarrassed would you be if you found a photo of yourself all sexy wearing lace on the internet!?"

Me: "How is the window going to get on the internet?"

DG: "It can see the internet through the windows next door!"

Me: "You don't even know if our neighbor has internet access."

DG: "Our window is showing all her stuff to the world!"

Me: "Our window is a girl?"

DG: "You didn't know? Psssh, man..." and he shook his head.

Last night, I got busy and forgot that I had to write this blog post. I said that, after I shut down my computer and he laughed at me with a loud, mocking laugh. "Now you can't post it!" followed with some "nyeah" sounds.

Me: "I'll just post it tomorrow."

DG: "You can't! It won't be the same!"

You'll notice that there isn't a photo of the sexy window. That's because I didn't want to embarrass her by showing everyone how she wears her lace. You can thank the Disabled Guy for protecting our window's virtue.

ARE YOU VACCINATED!?

Against cooties, duh.

First, before I dive right into the conversation about cooties and "the shot", I want to apologize for going over a month without any kind of update. You see, DG has been just as verbose as usual, but he's been sharing it in short snippets. And if the conversation is only a few lines, I don't feel that it warrants an entire blog post. But, I share the short ones on the Facebook group wall. You see, back when I started that page, it was a "like" or "join now" thing. But FB has changed the way they do groups and you can't just simply "join", you have to request to join then be approved. But, the Official Conversations with the Disabled Guy Group is open and anyone can add anyone else. Even non-admins.

Now, onto the cooties conversation.

As you may know- or not know, I'm not sure how much I've shared- Shawn is visiting again. You might remember Shawn from such blog posts as AUS-SOME! (Yeah, I just said that) and Patty is a Double-NASCAR Widow Today. He's been taking it easy, watching A LOT of movies and TV that he doesn't watch at home because he has a job and let's face it, he's also a gamer. Shockingly enough, he hasn't joined the boy (that'd be the almost-20 year old who lives here and pretends to be my son, but I don't see how that's possible since I'm far too young to have a 20-year-old son or even a 22-year-old daughter who lives in another town with a live-in boyfriend or even that 18-year-old college freshman. What? I am. I swear).

Well, I don't know why, but Shawn decided to leave the TV on the channel showing a marathon of "NCIS". I had it on when I was alone in the room because if I turn off the TV (or radio, whatever electronic noise-maker happens to be on), the dogs can hear and then react loudly to every single outside noise. And by "react loudly", I mean they bark their fool heads off. And they'd have woken up Shawn, who was taking a nap. Hey, vacations are tough, man.

So, in this episode of "NCIS", some dude is talking to Mark Harmon's character while they're in the basement of his house. Harmon tells the guy that there's a bottle of bourbon on his workbench and proceeds to take the only available cup. "Hey, I drink out of my coffee cup, you go upstairs and get a glass... or drink out of the bottle."

DG said, quietly and calmly: "Oh, he's got the cooties now."

Me: "The cooties? Really?"

DG (again, quietly): "Yeah."

Me: "You don't think the bourbon in the bottle will kill any remaining cooties?"

DG: "No."

Me: "What do you think he needs to stave off the cooties?"

DG: "A shot."

This whole time, his voice is quiet and calm, as if he's giving a testimony in a boring court case.

Me: "A cootie shot. When's the last time you had a cootie shot? Were you what? Twelve?"

DG: "No. I was... six. Maybe I was seven. But I had one."

Me: "Well, you're long overdue for another. I don't think they last forever."

DG: "They might."

Me: "You have three kids, I think your cootie shot failed."

DG: "Accidents. All of them."

Me: "You had accidents with your cootie shot?"

DG: "Because of the cootie shot."

Me: "Really? So, what you're saying is that a cootie shot is essentially useless because you're still going to get cootied-up by a girl?"

DG: "Yeah."

A couple of episodes later, someone got touched by one of the female characters. Out of the blue, DG said- calmly and quietly- "Oh, he's got the cooties now."

So, ARE YOU VACCINATED? HAVE YOU HAD A COOTIE SHOT LATELY?

You'll have to forgive me while I get serious a little.

One of my friends on Facebook- and I count this person as a real friend because we've met in real life then "friended" on Facebook- posted this video of Jill Bolte Taylor. The summary of the video is this: "Jill Bolte Taylor got a research opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: She had a massive stroke, and watched as her brain functions -- motion, speech, self-awareness -- shut down one by one. An astonishing story."

Its about 19ish minutes long, but it is well worth watching. I ended up crying more than once- because I was pissed off at her for making it sound so wonderful and because some of what she said is so true, even for Jerry now. Yes, yes, I know I usually call him the Disabled Guy, but up till that day in 1995, he was Jerry and that's what I'm going to call him right now.

Jerry didn't have any kind of enlightenment or any kind of amazing recovery. He doesn't remember our kids' births. He only knows we're married because he's seen the photos but doesn't remember our wedding, and has very little memory from the few months leading up to the stroke itself and doesn't even remember the two weeks he spent in the ICU in the hospital in Maryland (we lived in Georgia, after the Army, he became an over-the-road trucker).

The only reason I know what happened to him when he had the stroke was because I had to go to the company where he was when he had it to unload his personal belongings from his semi-truck. The guy who was with him told me that they were unloading the trailer together, talking about normal, every day stuff when Jerry staggered, dropped the box he was holding and started to fall. And this guy- who had just met him an hour or two before- caught him and kept him from hitting the metal floor of the trailer. They thought he was maybe diabetic or even a drug addict, they didn't know. And I got a call from the trucking company that no wife ever wants to get. (believe me, when I met that man and spoke with him, I thanked him. By catching him, he saved Jerry from further and serious injury).

I made the trip from Savannah, Georgia to a suburb of DC called Laurel, Maryland in two hours less time than the trucking company told me it would take. When we got there, he was in and out of consciousness, unable to talk, unable to express himself, and he looked absolutely shocked every time I walked into the room.

He has no memory of any of this. He doesn’t remember unloading that truck, he doesn’t remember collapsing or even having that big guy with the weight belt catch him. He doesn’t remember the doctors asking him questions that he obviously could not answer. All he knew was that they needed to call me and I needed to be there. Except he didn’t know he was nine hours away from where we lived at the time and he didn’t know that they HAD called me or that I’d stopped twice along the way to call them and get an update (this was in the day before everyone had a cell phone).

I’ve already shared with you the very first conversation we had. And I always try to keep this blog light and funny, because some of the stuff he does say is quite funny. But there was nothing he could do about what happened to him. And there’s nothing he can tell me about what happened to him. All we know is that he had a plain, old-fashioned stroke that should have killed him. But it didn’t. He didn’t have any sense of euphoria. All he can remember from that time is fear. And during his recovery, all he can remember is frustration. In that video, Jill Bolte Taylor talks about all the noise and not being able to pick one voice out of all of it. That’s how it still is for him. Too much noise, too many people, and he cannot discern one from another. So, mostly he doesn’t listen. And that's why he'll never go to a ren faire with me and meet my friends. That's why he never went to a parent/teacher conference for the entire time our kids were in school. Too much activity and noise frustrates him and he doesn't enjoy it. He doesn't outwardly show his dislike, he saves it up and then acts out at home like a spoiled child.

He isn’t ever going to recover. This is it. He’s paralyzed on his right side and he’s got speech and communication problems that will never go away. The blood clot wasn’t just pressing on his brain; it destroyed that part of it. He had to re-learn how to walk and talk and feed and dress himself.

Interestingly, Jill Bolte Taylor says it took her about eight years to recover fully. I think it took eight years for him to figure out he could still work with wood. I don’t remember exactly when he started building things again, but I do remember that I was both relieved and tense. Relieved that he found something to do that would occupy him, but tense in that he was working with power tools and is on blood thinners.

And as you all know, he can do amazing things with wood. Linky-link to photos. And another, and there's the deck he built.

Just now, while I was getting the links for his woodworking photos, he just got all goofy about the theatrical trailer for "Star Trek IV, the Voyage Home" (you know, the one with the whales). "Oh, that's AWESOME! I can't wait till it comes out in theaters! Whew!" and then he laughed so hard he had to sit down. Now he's walking around in the kitchen, "I can't believe it. That movie is gonna be so awesome! Just awesome, man!" and then giggling. He walked by me just now with a bag of fun-size candy bars. "I'm gonna go watch 'Star Trek' and go through some Milky Ways!"

I told him he's not allowed to talk to me anymore today. Then he giggled again.

So yeah, I don't think I'll have him watch the video today. He's in a good mood right now and I don't need to dredge up those feelings of frustrations he gets when he's reminded of what he's lost. Instead, I'll let him sit in the living room, covered in Chis (say it out loud), and watch his nerd movies while eating candy.

I'm a piece of dust, Dale, and the truck battery

"Ohhh, you're not a piece of dust! Why would you say that!?"

Don't worry, my self-esteem is fine. No, I'm a piece of dust because that's what DG told me. This morning (that'd be Friday morning to everyone not reading this the very moment I post it), the boy had to go into work and I had to wait till he was done in the bathroom so I could grab my shower. I was laying on my bed, watching the repeat of "The Daily Show" and DG came in to get dressed (he showers at night). He decided, even with me in it, to start making the bed.

"Aw, damn, girl! He's a keeper!" I can hear you saying.

He makes his side of the bed. I was laying at an odd angle, because I just sort of flopped down on the bed and put my feet up on the folded feather bed that I elevate my feet on at night. I was on my phone, trying to reply to someone on Facebook (shut up, don't judge me) and DG starts straightening his side of the bed. While I was laying across it.

He started by moving all the top bedding. Each tug on the blankets I was situated on was followed by: "Wow, these blankets are really heavy!" *tug* "I don't know why I can't move these things!" *tug* "It feels like something is sort of on top of them..."

Then he started to brush the cat hair off his side of the bed. And he reached me. "Wow, this is a huge piece of dust! Whoooo! Look at that!" and he kept brushing me off with his hand. "I can't get it to move!"

Then he shoved my shoulder to the side in an effort to move me off his side of the bed. I wasn't actually on his side, I was just angled in that way. He kept shoving my shoulder and saying- in between shoves: "Big-shove-piece-shove-of--dust!-shove"

Me: "Really? That's how you're going to do this? Shoving me to the side?"

DG: "Did you hear that? I think the piece of dust is talking to me."

Me: "Piece of dust, really?"

DG: "I think this house is haunted. I hear a voice but its just me and a piece of dust."

He then straightened the top blankets over me (covering my face and my hands with the phone in them). "My bed is so lumpy! Who knew a piece of dust could be so lumpy!"

There you go... A piece of dust.

Later in the afternoon, I had to go to my parents' house. I had to sew some of our ren faire skirts (nothing fancy, just a straight line on one end and straight line on the other). He started texting me. About "Dale".

You're wondering to yourself: "Who the hell is Dale?"

This... this is Dale.



Apparently, Dale here is stealing all our birdseed. You see, we're old now and there's a state law that requires at least two bird feeders to be visible in your yard. We have three.

This is the text conversation.

DG: *blank picture message*

Me: "I didn't get a photo."

DG: "How about now?" *no picture*

Me: "Still no pic. No worries, I'll see it later."

DG: *finally sends the above photo*

Immediately following sends: "Look what I caught."

Me: "lol, okay then."

DG: "What do you think of that? I'm thinking I need to talk to Dale about all the food he ate, what do you think?"

Me: "Yeah, charge him!"

And he resent the photo with this: "How much should I charge? Keep in mind, he's sly, not to say he's so damn cute."

Me: "I dunno."

DG: "Ok. I'll ask him the next time I see him."

There was about a ten minute delay.

DG: "Dale said he's not going to pay nothing because he doesn't have a job. He's also been talking to his bird friends."

Me: "His bird friends? Woody? Big? Donald? Jay? Blue?"

DG: "His bird friend Robin said we got the best food in a two block area."

Me: "I'll take their word for it."

Then he ended up coming over to my parents' house because of the sofa he built that he had to rebuild. He'd put the frame in my dad's garage. My dad wanted it gone.

Well, last Sunday at the faire, my truck decided to not start. I turned the key and got that scarily-too-familiar "click-click-click" sound. Crap... I waited a few minutes, trying to contemplate whether I should go back into the faire and ask for help or text my friend who works at the faire to come out and help... and I turned the key again. Cranked just fine. But on Monday... battery died. I had to jump-start it a few times this week. And over at my parents' house this afternoon, again.

My dad said that the battery was dead, time for a new battery. Great. It was 430 in the afternoon. I said to DG: "I guess I'm going to have to drive your truck to faire this weekend."

DG looked at me and slowly hissed out: "Nooooooooo..."

We ended up at Wal-Mart to get the new battery. When I go places that require a lot of walking, I like to wear proper shoes. I have foot pain (various bone spurs, tendinitis, and so on). But I didn't plan on going anywhere. At all. I was wearing my ugly man-sandals. I was uncomfortable and tired and I just wanted to be here, typing up the two stories above this one. But, I had to go with him because he can't recall details and he doesn't like driving my truck.

At Wal-Mart, he decided to go through the $5 CD bin.

"I'm looking for that one guy."

*sigh*

Me: "Which guy?"

DG: "The guy who sings that song. You know that guy?"

Me: "OH! Yeah, that guy."

DG: "You're mocking me, aren't you?"

Me: "OH! No! Not at all."

He never did find that one guy. But he did get "Afterburner" by ZZTop, which made me feel old. And my mad-movie-identification skills helped some people out. The woman didn't believe me when I said, "I just need the movie plot and maybe one of the actors' names."

This is what she said: "A kid witnesses a murder and there was a black car."

Me: "Was it set in the 40s or 50s? Because that's Road to Perdition with Tom Hanks."

No, it isn't that one, she tells me.

Me: "Then it was The Client with Susan Sarandon"

Boom. I win again.

Oh, his excuse for not letting me drive his truck?

It might get dirty because he just washed and waxed it yesterday.

Don't you DARE say "Time-traveler" because that's not what it is!

I've said it before and I'm gonna say it again- I go to the renaissance faire. I dress up, I talk with a fake accent, I drink from a tankard (water and Gatorade because I don't drink alcohol; I'm the one who has to drive home). So does our 18 year old daughter. Except for the driving part, because she rides with me.

Last weekend was another excellent time at the faire. Saturday was "Day of Wrong" where you're "allowed" to wear anachronistic items with your period garb. I didn't exactly participate, because I'm old and fat and pretty much had no ideas on what I could do. I did wear my shiny red Doc Martens instead of the black Docs that I usually wear (I bought them specifically because they looked like ren faire shoes).

Ceej, on the other hand, looked fabulous, mixing modern clothing with ren faire garb and adding modern accessories (sunglasses and MP3 player). This is her before the gates opened (yes, we get there before opening and stay till closing. Stop laughing, you're a nerd too. Everyone is a nerd for something. DG is a nerd for NASCAR).



And Ceej with our lovely friend, Loki (we love him, he's so cool). He's a merchant at the faire, so he's not allowed to dress for the Day of Wrong.



And, Ceej after the last joust of the day-



Also on the Day of Wrong, we found this woman...



Now, I'm not saying Xena, Warrior Princess is "wrong". But you know, she's not exactly what you'd expect to see at a Renaissance Faire. And this is the story that followed when I showed DG this photo:

Jase: "What was Xena doing at a ren faire?"

Me: "I don't know. I guess she was there for the Day of Wrong or something." (there was brief discussion on whether or not Xena was from the renaissance time period or not).

DG: "Maybe she was one- those people- she was a person who traveled back into the future to come from the past."

Me: "You mean Xena's a time traveler?"

DG: "Not that. No. But she goes through time. From her time to another time."

Me: "A time traveler."

DG: "That's not it. She has a machine... and she can move through time..."

Me: "A time machine?"

DG: "Not that. But she goes through time-"

Me: "A time traveler with a time machine."

DG: "That's not what it is!"

Jase: "Dad, is she hoping that with each leap, it will be the leap home?"

DG: "Don't be ridiculous!"

Me: "So, she's a time traveler with a time machine?"

DG: "No! Its wizard-y. A wizard did it. He put a CURSE ON HER!" (and he widened his eyes as far as he could). "SHE'S CURSED!"

Me: "Let me get this straight... Xena is a person who travels from one time period to another, but she's not a time traveler and she does so in a machine that was cursed upon her by a wizard?"

DG: "He's a wizard like Merlin, except he's way worse."

Me: "How is he 'way worse' than Merlin?"

DG: "Merlin was just awful! So anyone worse than him would be more awfuler."

Awfuler?

Me: "Okay, there we have it, Xena is a time traveler in a time machine given to her by a horribly untalented wizard. Anything else?"

DG: *thinking for a moment* "Nope. That's it."

And he walked away.

And, because this is my favorite photo from this weekend, I'm sharing it here even though it has nothing to do with the story.



(the caption from the photo on Flickr):

Oh, that's right. He loves me. Okay, maybe "love" is too strong a word. He enjoys vexing me. I told him, after the Joust to the Death, that I got a great shot of his killing of Sir Gregory. A few moments later, he was signing a pennant for a kid and I called out: "Sir Amadeo!" he replied and I said, "Will you be in my 365-days-self-portrait-project photo with me?" And he said, "Absolutely."

He came over, I said, "Self-portrait, I have to be in the photo and I have to take the photo" (it isn't a hard concept, obviously). So, we stepped up and this is what he did. He actually licked my sweaty cheek.

I said, "I have jouster's spit on me!"

He said, "I can do more than that!" and embraced me long enough to rub his sweaty, dirty cheek all over my cheek.

And he got blood on the boobshelf.

So, today, along with buckets of rain (which was fun and awesome, seriously), I got Sir Amadeo's spit, sweat, tilt yard dirt, AND his death blood (he's recovered nicely).

I have one person left- Sir Gregory, who keeps avoiding the 365-days photo. After this, I showed Gregory his death photo and then he and Amadeo got into an extremely hilarious and childish kicking match- seriously, kicking at each other's armored shins. Amadeo declared: "the next time we joust, it will be FOR REAL!". I had to threaten to separate them.

I love these guys so much.

You just never know what will set off a little story. Oh, speaking of stories- Ceej and I have told the story of the Rats with Little Nike shoes at the faire. In our ren faire voices. Its hilarious.

The Disabled Guy is going to have a conversation with the mouse...

Spoiler alert- he never did catch the damn thing. But, here's the almost-nine-minute long video of the discussion about the mouse. There are special appearances by Ceej, several of the dogs, including Gregg the girl dog with a boy name.

Enjoy the weirdness that is our family.

Doodle Dance, without the Dance, special guest appearance- Bruno

There was talk in the Facebook group about the Disabled Guy and his "Doodle Dance". He said he'd do it, got up, did it, but stopped when I picked up the camera. I posted this in the Facebook group, but I know some of you aren't in that group.

What follows is the discussion. Please ignore the loud TV in the background, I have no clue why it is so loud.