The Queen's Rambles

I am participating in Calliopie’s Summer Camp so I guess I better actually participate. I totally forgot about it yesterday. Doh!

Today’s prompt is about high school Specifically, what were you like in high school, did you do extracurriculars and did you consider yourself a writer.

I was an odd duck. I was very shy, but also very confident. I knew I wasn’t popular and would never be popular, but I also knew I was smart. I took solace in my grades and probably annoyed the teachers by weeping if I ever got a wrong answer or less than 100% on a test. I knew I was smart, but I assumed everyone else was probably smarter than me and it always surprised me if I set the curve in a class. When my biology teacher announced that he expected the freshmen in the class to get the highest grades in class I had no clue how that could possibly be accomplished. There were seniors in the class! How could we be smarter than them????

But yes. The freshmen did much better. We were advanced students. The seniors? Not so much.

I didn’t do many extra-curriculars because all my friends were band nerds and I did not want to be a band nerd. I knew I was already a nerd and adding the extra bandiness to the equation would have killed my 14 year old self. I probably missed out on a lot of fun. Silly teenagers.

My sophmore year I joined the Students for Students club, a club meant to help prevent suicide. We learned to look for the signs of suicide and what to do if we thought someone was going to commit suicide. I didn’t ever have to use any of that knowledge. Kind of hard to be on the lookout for suicidal people when you are really shy and only have a few friends.

My junior year we sort of changed the focus of the club because we weren’t finding any suicidal people to help and it was getting boring. Instead, we tried to do things for students. The cheerleaders always gave the big sports stars care packages, so we would do the same for other students like the cross country team, the kids in the school play and other less popular teams. We also did a lot of fundraisers. I have no idea what we did with the money, but we were always working the concession stand or running other fundraisers.

I would sign up for just about anything that our class was supposed to do, like float building or fundraising. I just kept my head down and did the work and tried to avoid getting drunk, high or pregnant.

I was very VERY religious and convinced that my fellow students were all drug addled sex maniacs. I must have been charming. But that’s what we learned at church, so it must have been true, right? I went to church every single Sunday, taught Sunday school, went to every youth meeting, went to every camp and retreat available and was just generally a churchy-girl. It was my source of stability.

Also, Kelly and Zach* went to a party and there were drugs, so clearly there would be drugs at all parties I might attend. I was never even invited to a party.

I got a job washing dishes at a little mom-and-pop Mexican restaurant my junior year and spent most of my time there. Later I picked up another job at a bookstore, so my senior year was spent working my butt off. Sometimes I would house sit for the bookstore boss, which I loved. I was basically on my own at those times and loved it. My home life was not desirable at all with a drunk father and an out of control sister. I never felt safe in my own home. Literally. My sister was a violent drug addict and we never knew what she would do.

I spent as much time as possible away from home and focused on going away to my church’s college in Oklahoma.

I was always very responsible and the teachers all loved me. I worked as an aide for my English teacher my senior year and did a ton of stuff that most students wouldn’t normally be allowed to do. I even subbed for our English class when her daughter had to have surgery. The hired sub was not pleased.

I considered myself a writer and even got to go to a writing festival in Portland two years in a row. I still can’t believe I had the nerve to submit stories because I was so shy and so convinced that everyone was better than me. I was a little defeated because my 8th grade English teacher hated me and refused to put me in Honors English my freshman year (didn’t know I could fight that), but my sophomore teacher took me aside and asked why on earth I wasn’t in Honor’s English so I got back on track.

I was way too terrified to try to join the newspaper or yearbook because you had to submit a writing sample. In retrospect that was pretty idiotic of me. I could have easily been editor of the paper or yearbook and done a fabulous job.

I did join yearbook my last semester of HS because my best friend said the teacher didn’t care if we were late back from lunch. I submitted a writing sample even though I was scared and was immediately accepted. Looking back at the yearbook, I think I did more than my fair share of writing.

I’m really glad my friend was so excited about being late for lunch because that semester of yearbook led to 3 years of yearbook in college, two as yearbook editor.

So that was me! I would never want to live through high school again. I needed to loosen up and have a little fun.

*Please tell me you are old enough to know Zack and Kelly.

If you see this:

See the black dot on her shoulder? We didn’t know if that was a tick or mole.

Then you see this:

Things aren’t good.

Sorry for the poor quality pic, but she refused to stand still and let me take a picture. Looking at the pictures and knowing what I know now, duh. Why did I hesitate to take her in? Thoough I didn’t hesitate long. I took her in the same day I suspected Lyme’s, but I felt dumb since it was not a traditional bulls eye rash. I found a google pic of a lady with the exact rash in the exact spot, and she also had Lyme’s. Maybe the way the shoulder is shaped makes it go oval instead of round? I don’t know.

Getting the medicine down her has not been easy, but it has not been impossible either. She screams, fights, and blows raspberries the whole time, but if we just squirt it in .5 ml at a time, she will swallow if we blow in her face. I’m so glad someone on FB gave me that tip a few months ago. She is not puking it back up, thank dog.

The rash is almost completely gone and she seems to be feeling a lot better. I must admit I sort of had a major internal freakout when I found out she has Lyme’s. I’ve always heard such terrible things about the disease, but I think most of the problems come when you are not diagnosed early and you just kind of linger in poor health for months before someone figures out what it is.

In other news, I got the DVD that the funeral home made for my dad and they didn’t include a single picture I had sent them. First, I sent them links to a flickr album and they couldn’t work that (I didn’t realize I just needed to go through and change the permissions) so I e-mailed a shit load of pics. The girl told me to just e-mail them all in one e-mail and didn’t have a f—- clue why that might crash her e-mail. I split them up and got some bounce messages, so split them up further until I wasn’t getting any bounce messages. I guess they never received any of the e-mails, including the e-mail which didn’t include a single attachment but rather informed them that I was sending the e-mails. The only e-mail I got back said “this is the right e-mail” so I figured they were getting things. I knew they were idiots (they put the wrong date on the death certificate, which has caused my mom no end of hassle) but I assumed they must have the pictures because they KNEW the pictures were coming and they had my e-mail address. My sister repeatedly told them I was sending pictures. I know she’s a big flake (she just had her IUD removed. I can’t even. . . ), but this was really important to her and I am know she was trying to make sure everything was right.

I sent a very hotly worded e-mail to the funeral home and didn’t get back an apology. Apparently it is my mom’s fault because she approved the slide show (she had no way to know what pictures I had sent). Then it was my fault for not sending them correctly. Then it was my fault for not making sure they got my e-mail. They are adding the pictures to the end of the slide show and will fed-x me a new copy, but the funeral director is an asshole. And it’s not his fault, because he was out of town. Don’t you think the least they could do is say “sorry for the misunderstanding?” I mean, my God. We are the grieving family. We’re allowed to be crazy.

It is too late to really “fix” since the funeral is over and I don’t anticipate watching this thing very many times. It is too sad. I was already feeling guilty about missing the funeral, but then there were no pictures of me or my family in the slideshow. So what do people think? That we were estranged? That I wasn’t a part of his life? That I was a giant bitch? I don’t know. It pisses me off more than I would have imagined. You should see this string of e-mails between the funeral director and myself. Usually I am fairly passive (honestly! I am! I talk a mean game in my journal, but I’m meek and mild sometimes), but I am putting this guy through the wringer and refusing to accept his blame. I am forcing him to come up with solutions.

Anyway, I need to think of something else.

We’ve been cat sitting this week for my friend. I am allergic to cats, but I can be in a house with them for awhile. Some cats make my eyes swell up, some cats make me sneeze and some cats have no effect. I’ve never had a cat make my hands burn.

Holy heck. This cat wants to be petted because he misses his family and he makes my hands burn like fire. I’ve never had that reaction before. I hope I never have it again. We only had to go over there three times, so I’m glad it is over. I just felt bad that I couldn’t pet him as much as he wanted to be petted.

Three day weekend! We have nothing planned, but I want to go to Home Depot and get some dirt and plants. Our yard looks awful and our deck planters are full of weeds. I don’t want to plant tomatoes because the squirrels eat them all (oh how I love fresh tomatoes), but weeds are annoying me. Flowers will be a lot nicer to look at, if we can motivate ourselves.