Newsweek recently ran a story interviewing several of the people I work with at the pain foundation. One of them sent me an e-mail with a link to a response to that story which worries that comments made in the Newsweek piece about new, addiction-resistant pain meds somehow sets us back in the struggle to differentiate between ‘addiction’ and ‘dependence’.

Excluding a brief, sadly unrequited correspondence with Edward Albert when I was a teen and hopelessly in love with him, I don’t send fan mail. I don’t write letters to my favorite stars and despite having a lot to say, I don’t write letters to the editor. I almost never respond to magazine articles. However, the Stats piece seemed to me to be missing the point.

So.

“Dear Sirs and/or Madams,

Re: your recent story “Newsweek’s Painful War on Pain”, I agree that there is a difference between ‘addicted’ and ‘dependent’ and that we need to work hard to disabuse doctors and lay people of the notion that one equals the other or we will never remove the stigma of drug-seeking, self-indulgent whininess so many pain patients face when trying to get some relief. As the mother of a child with a pervasive pain disorder, I’ve watched doctors who should know better apply those stigmas and labels to my child, suggesting she was an addict when all she wanted was to stop hurting. The way pain patients are treated today, if my daughter had become ill as a small child and I asked for Dilaudid or Vicodin, I would likely have been branded with Munchausen’s Syndrome and investigated. Lucky us – my daughter was a teen so it was naturally assumed she was just a junkie and often left to suffer with nearly unbearable pain. So trust me. I KNOW how important it is to educate about the difference between addiction and dependency.

However, it is important to note that being dependent on a drug rather than addicted to it does not necessarily protect a patient from the physical or emotional effects of addiction. It doesn’t always. My teen age daughter first became sick in December of 2004. She was a good student, in honors in some subjects, tutoring kids in others and active in school clubs and activities. Despite nearly daily calls from me asking if there was an opening, a cancellation, anything, we would take anything at all, it wasn’t until October of the following year that we were able to get her in with a pediatric pain clinic. During that time, as she was shuffled from one doctor to the next, one hospital stay to the next, as we tried one less benign med after another with no effect, she became dependent on the only medications which stopped the pain, all narcotics.

In the months it took us to get her to the right specialist and in the months of trial and error that followed as we tried to find out why she hurt, my daughter took a lot of narcotics. It was a miracle to watch my daughter stop hurting when she took one of the pills, but it was a miracle that came with a high price tag. First, as her disease progressed, it took more and more pills to see the look in her eyes that signaled pain relief, because the longer you take the med, the more you need of it to get any effect. What started as one pill soon became two and four. Then there was the toll it took on her digestive system. On top of her initial disease, she developed problems with her stomach and colon, problems which caused terrible pain of their own and which came with solutions that could best be described as humiliating. You get more narcotics for that, too.

Then there was the emotional effect of being told, in words and oh, the endless gestures, that she’s a junkie, that nothing is really wrong with her but self indulgence and addiction. Being told that if she really cared about her family, she would stop ‘acting out’ or that if she really wanted to stop hurting, she could make herself stop hurting. You can’t imagine what it’s like to watch your child try to force herself out of hurting, only to be unable to and, as she reaches for the pills, tell you she’s sorry she’s a junkie. She’s sorry she’s ruining your life. She’ll try harder not to hurt. Never mind that she had a real disease and she wasn’t drug seeking or a junkie and certainly not ruining anyone’s life. The doctors told her so, see. “You’re my Mom,” she tells me – “you have to tell me I’m not a junkie.” She trusted the doctors to give her the truth unvarnished by love for her and what she got was a bunch of prejudiced malarkey that did as much harm as the disease itself was doing.

Eventually, at the pain clinic, we found a terrific doctor with experience and sense and compassion and humor. She had us try every alternative, non-medication therapy you can think of: acupuncture, bio-feedback, cranio-sacral therapy, hypno-therapy and Chinese herbalists and when those didn’t work, it took months more to find a new med that relieved my daughter’s pain and wasn’t a narcotic. When we succeeded in that, we had to wean her off the ‘junkie’ drugs and she went through the same withdrawal symptoms any real addict in rehab does as they detox. We got her through that but she is still, two and a half years after she first got sick, battling the stomach and emotional problems the narcotics caused her. Worse, she tends to think in terms of a pill for every twitch her body makes. I worry about possible addiction issues for her down the line.

So let the drug companies make new, better, more effective addiction-resistant drugs. New addiction resistant meds are important not primarily because of the addict but to protect the dependent patient who may later need to be weaned from them. I laud any company who can find a way to give pain patients relief that won’t cause as much harm as the conditions they are trying to treat."

On the lawn outside my balcony. I thought maybe she had hurt herself but when I reached to pick her up, she zipped off, right as rain. I guess she was just getting some sun.

I'm still trying to find funny ways to talk about pain. Does it count if, when my middle girl was in the hospital, we would joke about going up to the eating disorders floor and call the anorexics fat? Or pretending to have code blues? Or that I made earrings for all the nurses because I knew they would be better for my kid if they liked me?

I don't know. I do a lot of funny things to distract her when she hurts but mostly it's just watching her hurt. I'm not seeing the humorous side of that. It may be a failing of mine, maybe I am singularly morose and lack vision, but I see no funny side to my kid laying in bed, hooked up to tubes and wires and begging for something to make the pain stop.

I don't know what I'm supposed to tell them.

Can you see the bee in this flower? While I stood there, trying to get a good bee pic, they noticed me in a way that made me very nervous. They didn't sting me, but they did kind of hang around my hair and smell me. I read somewhere that because of global warming, the pollen the bees are getting is substandard, and the way the flowers get pollinated is off because flowers are opening too early or late in the season. Is it bad of me to hope that bottle brush trees go, if any have to? I see no point to bottle brush trees and they leave those nasty, pointy things on the ground when they shed.

The pain people want me to be witty on the subject of pain for their newsletter. I don't know how to be witty about pain, though. When I write about my child's pain it feels more like I'm aiming a flamethrower at the screen and burning the words into the program than that I am writing anything and I don't know how it comes off funny.

But they think I am funny in general (thanks, guys). Maybe I can find something funny about my own pain, but I never really think about my own. I am so focused on everyone else that, except to note it and swallow a couple of pills, I don't pay attention to my own pain anymore.

This greeted me when I opened the balcony blinds the other morning. He (she?) sat there the whole time I cleaned and only got nervous when I opened the balcony door. He (she?) was eating the wild bird seed I left out for them. Since I started putting seed out there, we have doves and blue jays with our sparrows and hummingbirds.



I don't know where this guy got the peanut - I don't put them out there. I really enjoy the birds. I especially enjoy wild birds I am not personally responsible for.

I haven't updated you on the new bunny. Turns out it's a girl bun (good thing we just got Icky neutered). With her mommie, my middle girl:



At first, Icky was kind of aggressive. My daughter swears he growled at the new bunny. I didn't know rabbits could growl, but I have seen him jump at her and take bits of fur. He's mostly calmed down at this point, though, and they are learning to be bunny friends:



As long as Cinnabun remembers that Ichabod is the Head Bun, I think we'll be fine.

Today I did my first conference call with the pain people and was reminded why I stepped out of the world in the first place. It brings back every nasty memory of every time I had to speak publicly in high school and flubbed it. I know I can be great for them if I can just do it via this format, but if I am going to need to open my mouth, they 're going to think I'm an ignorant hick. Especially if I don't answer every need they have right out of the gate.

Argh.

Further, my child still hurts. I realized, half way through this call, that every move I make is designed to make my kid stop hurting. Under everything else, my sincere desire to help other people not withstanding, my immediate and insistent need is to make my child stop hurting. If I help the world and she still hurts, what good am I doing? What right do I have to help someone else if I haven't first helped her? Do I have a right to do anything to ease the pain of someone else if my child continues to hurt?

Do I have the right to breathe if my child still hurts?

WHY DOES MY KID STILL HURT????

Nothing terribly exciting is happening here. I finally heard from the Pain Foundation people, and they asked me to serve on their advisory council. I agreed, thinking it would be about pediatric pain but so far there is no focus on peds pain. That means it's up to me to make the focus myself, so I am to work with them on that section to their informational bulletin board for patients and doctors.

That's a lot of responsibility, though. Do I want to be responsible for dealing with frightened parents worried about their children? What could I possibly have to say to a doctor that he doesn't already know they would hear? Did I handle my own experience with sick kids and doctors so well that I can advise anyone else? I'd have to search the net for answers for parents. What if I can't find them? There were so many I couldn't find for us.

That would mean I would just console them - do I have any energy or emotion left over for that?

Lord.

At the clinic where my daughter sees her pain doc, kids are given a variety of crafty kinds of things to do while they wait for their turn to be called. Consequently, you have dozens of colorful, sparkly pictures of families and houses and Disney characters and sick kids holding happy doc hands covering every inch of wall space.

This one gets us every time we go there. You know some of those kids aren't around anymore. Some of them never felt good enough to make a picture.

Convo between my middle girl and I while we waited in the doc's office this afternoon . . .

Me: You want some of my Zinger?

Middle Girl: Ok, Mommy. Thanks!

Me: Zingers are the best. The raspberry ones. The chocolate ones are just chocolate cake wannabees. You only eat them when you can't get to chocolate cake.

MG: Mm hmm.

Me: You think that chocolate Zingers are happy with their fate? You think they wake up every day, happy to be chocolate Zingers or do you think they aspire to be chocolate cake?

MG: What?

Me: Chocolate Zingers. Do you think they are satisfied with their lot in life?

MG: I don't like chocolate Zingers.

Me: That's the point. No one likes chocolate Zingers. They only eat them when they can't get to chocolate cake.

MG: I don't know . . .

Me: Would you rather have a chocolate Zinger or a piece of moist chocolate cake with fluffy frosting?

MG: Cake.

Me: There you go. Everyone would rather have cake and the only reason chocolate Zingers are still on the market is their portability. You have a chocolate Zinger when you can't carry around a piece of chocolate cake. My question is, do you think this is ok with chocolate Zingers? Do you think they are pleased just to be chocolate Zingers, with all that implies, or do you think they long to be chocolate cake, their little noses forever pressed to the window of True Bakery Goodness, looking in and wishing they too could be cake?

MG: I think you have issues.

Me: I was just wondering.

My daughter notices something across the wall from her.

MG: Oh My God.

Me: What??

MG: I was just looking at the box that says 'used needles'. I hate needles.

Me: Are you planning to run face first into the box? Are you planning to jump up and down in the box in your bare feet?

MG: They did that in 'Saw'!

Me: They ran head first into a box of used needles?

MG: No, they were poisoned and the antidote was at the bottom of a bunch of used needles they had to dig through to get out.

Me: 'Saw' is a kind of glorified 'Fear Factor', isn't it?

MG: Yeah, but you get to live at the end if you win.

ME: You get to live at the end of 'Fear Factor' too, and if you win you get fifty thousand dollars. Then again, if you live long enough, you're sure to earn fifty thousand dollars at some point in your life, so I guess as prizes go, 'Saw' wins.

Then we went on to say something about babies and needles I don't quite remember and probably shouldn't repeat if I did.

I began to wonder whether or not it would be worth the trouble to tear off the informational posters they have in the doctor's office, take them home, scan and then subtly alter them. I envisioned posters about allergies informing kids that asthma is always fatal. Maybe I could replace the little Dymo-labels on the paper trays that said "Girls - birth to 11" and "Boys - 12 to 18" , the ones that hold blank growth charts, and re-label them "Naked Pics Girls: birth to 11" or maybe just redo the charts so that a sixteen year old girl who weighs 130 would fall squarely into the normal growth chart ranges.

That's when my daughter told me I wasn't allowed to leave the house anymore.

Then her doc showed up and, in the course of their convo, I was again reminded that my baby is eighteen and can, if she wants, see the doctor on her own without me in the room. I always offer her that option anyway, but that's the real 'Fear Factor' for me, the time when I have to trust that my kid can advocate for herself and won't need me there to bully the docs into treating her well. I won't have all the info anymore, won't know all the details and won't be able to keep my eye out as easily for the symptoms that, if missed, will surely be the end of her and which were only missed because I wasn't in the room to hear everything.

I don't suppose I get fifty thousand for that, though.

The pharmacy window in the medical building we were in yesterday. At first, I thought "wow - that's beautiful", then I assumed that some guy's meds hadn't been ready on time. Upon further reflection, my new, better guesses are that A: someone got very bad news from their doctor or (and more likely) B: someone's doc messed up somehow.

You will be happy to know my oldest girl's heart is just fine, though speedy. And my middle girl got through the whole day yesterday. Got an A on her Geometry quiz. That's after missing a year and a half of high school and not being there for several of the classes this year. They better throw a parade for her.
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I am TOO working on all the post labeling and archives! Why do you keep bugging me about that?? Get off my back, already! Why don't YOU label them, if it's such a big deal??

Wait, no. I know you people. Posts on politics will end up labelled "Kiddie Porn' and cat pics will be labelled "Al Qaeda Affiliations". Just never mind. I'll do it after I clean the bedroom.

If you're hoping to hear some really good dirt on the behind-the-scenes- shenanigans at Scrubs, you've come to the wrong place. There are no behind-the-scenes- shenanigans. What there is is an amazing group of people who extended themselves to my daughter today and were nothing but sweet, funny and gracious.

She got to go to the set where they film. She got to watch them shooting, she got to tour the sets, she got to meet the stars and creators of the show. She was asked back to be an extra. Zach Braff was utterly adorable with her. He hugged her, talked to her, took her to his office and gave her cool, one of a kind stuff. He let her play with his dog. He was so open and genuine and giving - they all were. If you could put how sweet they were in a bottle and give it to sick kids, they'd get better.

I was kind of amazed by how much time and preparation goes into the shooting of a scene. It takes an hour or so to set up a scene that takes five minutes to shoot, tops. No wonder those guys are there till two or three in the morning. I was impressed too by the lack of pretension - I expected it to be the way you see it on TV, egos and back-stabbing abounding, but nope. They all seemed to get along really well, actors and set decorators and craft services people hanging around talking between scenes.

So I'm sorry, world. There is no pit of toothy sharks behind Scrubs - just a bunch of really adorable, goofy, sweet people who were nice to my kid and thus good guys (and girls) forever.

At the same time, there was a bittersweet undercurrent to this day. This is the kind of thing they do for the Make-A-Wish kids. Some terminally ill child's last wish is to go to the set of their favorite TV show and meet the cast. Maybe do a walk-on. All the people involved, all the cast members know the child is dying and they are really sweet to them and the parents spend the day trying really hard not to cry because they know that, however wonderful this moment is, it is one of the last moments. Maybe the last one, the one the kid hung on for.

My daughter isn't dying, thank heaven. I am so grateful. Still, as grateful as I am, moments like this frighten me because they are too close to the Make-A-Wish thing. I don't want this to be her big moment, her light flaring just before it goes out.

I wonder also about her own hopes. Working behind the scenes in film or TV is what she had planned to do. Her older sister wants to be an actress but my middle girl wants to write the scripts and direct the shoots. She was on track for that when she got sick. How far from that dream has being sick pushed her? If she has an opportunity to work as an intern on this set (not out of the realm of possibility), should I let her do that instead of push her to finish high school? If she has a chance to start the life she was on track for when she got sick (and how I hate that phrase "when she got sick"), isn't it better for her to go for it than to force herself to finish high school right now, something she can always do in pieces later on?

There are so many unknowns, so many possibilities and all I want in the world is to see them happy, healthy and safe. You think if I were dying, I could go to the Make-A-Wish people and ask them to insure that my children would always be happy, healthy and safe? I'd die for that. I would.
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I'm making themes, but I have NO good images for Thanksgiving. If you have something you want me to try to work with, send it along. Otherwise, what you all are going to end up with is lots of themes with sunflowers and amber leaves for fall. Actually, sunflowers and red and gold leaves sound really good . . .

My kids have wanted a dog for a long time. A long time. A long time ago, I promised them that when we got a house, we could get a dog. There just isn't room in this apartment for five people, three cats, assorted birds, a rabbit AND a dog, even the little rat kind of dog they wanted.

When my middle girl got sick, she kept asking for a puppy, but we just couldn't do it. Part of me wanted to give it to her, the way I wanted to give her anything that might help. Part of me was angry at being manipulated. Mostly, there just wasn't the money, room or attention left over every month for a dog.

So I would take them to pet stores and let them play with the puppies there, always with the caveat that we were NOT going to bring this dog home and, if pushed, we wouldn't come back to look at puppies anymore, either. It may sound cruel to let them play with dogs they couldn't keep, but it was the best I could do. Playing with the puppies made them happy and always, always distracted her from hurting.

You probably think you know where this is going, and in a way you would be right. For her eighteenth birthday, I got my middle girl a Siberian Husky puppy. Not just any puppy, but a Nintendog. Nintendogs are virtual puppies you play with and feed and walk and etc. You wouldn't think this would be as much fun, but this kid squeals and oohs and ahs every bit as loudly as she ever has over any real puppy and, in fairness, they are kind of cute. It responds to her voice and the touch screen, so she can scratch its belly and it shakes its little puppy legs and wags its little puppy tail. It chases the Frisbee she throws and is appropriately puppy-fierce as it rips things up.

She just loves it and of the last twenty four hours, I think she has been playing with her puppy half the time. It's been a heck of a distraction from the pain that seems to have made a reappearance in her life.

I was in a mood. Actually, I was in a X-masy kind of mood, spurred by a letter from an old friend who recently moved to Utah and is about to have her first real winter. Then I realized I hadn't done much for Halloween, so here we are. You can get them here. My middle girl had a lot of input on colors and they turned out better for it. I know you can barely see the hats in the cauldron one, but I liked it better without them, anyway.
. . .
We're still waiting for the results of my husband's tests. A friend (waves!) said something to the effect that they always seem to do these tests on a Friday, so you end up obsessing over it all weekend, and she's right. In this case, my husband could only see her on a Friday. She's the best doctor I could have asked for and really, the only concern I have about this is how fast she wanted the tests done. You can't help but imagine the worst. It seems unlikely anything else really bad could happen in this family, but who knows? Having chemo can cause trouble down the line and, like it or not honey, this is down the line.

Is it possible my husband has absorbed some portion of my lousy gene pool through extended proximity? I hope not. He did stay home sick today, though.
. . .
My oldest girl was sitting at the computer when she started squealing. It seems that Anthony Michael Hall has his face on a throw pillow and she wants one. Heaven help us. I've always thought he was the worst possible choice for that role.

That reminds me - just a few more days till the new Stephen King comes out. Yea!
. . .
You think this is real?



Pissed kitty. I love this cat and want to adopt him.

My husband went to see our doctor today, because he had been a little short of breath. Our doctor wanted an x-ray of his chest right away - probably because he once had Hodgkin's - and she had to admit him to the hospital for a few hours to get, because all the diagnostic places were closed. What a circus. It's scary how fast she wanted it and we're waiting to hear that he will be fine.

Ah, the lake.   So peaceful, so serene.



So many hungry ducks.
. . .
More than six dozen of those goddamn letters, now.  I'm on the net several hours a day researching places to send letters to, or fine tuning letters to send out, or putting them in envelopes and stamping them, etc.  My middle girl is helping me now, doing the stamps and looking up some stuff for me.  I think it's good for her to be involved.  I should probably involve them all.

You know what keeps going through my mind?  My dad warning me that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  I think, can any of this backfire and end up hurting us somehow?  If something happens, if every i isn't dotted and every t crossed, could some Uber-Bitch with an inferiority complex blame me?  I've saved every e-mail between us, the ones with her telling me how to go about things, etc., but I worry.  There was a time when that wouldn't have stopped me, but I'm older, scarred and wiser now.  I've learned the hard way that people will do almost anything to save their own ass and the best I can do is make sure mine is covered well.

I just want to help the families.  That's my focus, my agenda.
. . .
I just found out that our insurance is going to pay for my daughter's pain meds AND reimburse us for what we've already paid for them ourselves. Yea.
. . .
I'm still feeling lousy.  Kids are ok right now, though.

. . .
My middle girl came to me this morning and was ready to ask me to stay home because she didn't feel well enough to go, and I made her go anyway.   I wouldn't even listen - I said take what you need to take, but you have to go to school.   I feel like the worst piece of shit on the planet and at the same time I know I was being a good parent.

It's so hard to balance my instinct to protect her from everything with my job as her mother to push her to try everything.   I want them all to be happy all day, every day and I want them to be tough, strong and independent and you can't have both.   You can't have both.   To make strong, tough, independent kids you have to make them miserable some of the time.   That's a shitty truth, but there it is.

I want absolution.   I want a papal dispensation saying it's OK for me to be tough if I have to be.   I want assurances that my children will still feel loved and know that they are not alone in this world even if I make them tough it out when they don't feel good.   I feel like getting on my knees and whispering "mea culpa", because I feel like the meanest, worst mom on the earth right now, and part of what's wrong is that it feels good to know I am doing the right thing.

And I'm not even Catholic!
. . .
I'm asking for donations on a scale that's way beyond anything I have ever done before and it's taking a lot of time.   My BUTT hurts from sitting in this chair.

This is how it goes:   you figure out which store you want to hit up.   Then you call to find out if they do donations per store or if it's a corporate thing.   If it's per store, you get on the Internet and print out a list of each of their stores within thirty miles of you, the distance you can sanely travel to pick up donations if, by some miracle, they buy your spiel.   Once you have that list, you call each store to find out who their store manager is.

Then you take the letter you send out asking for stuff and address it to each manager individually.   You print out the return label with your address on it for both the outer envelope and the enclosed SASE, because your hand hurts from writing it over and over and over again.  

Once you have all that done, you take each letter (and any additional forms they may ask you to enclose), fold it up, add the SASE, stick it all in the outer envelope which you then hand address - again, that personal touch that means so much.

That may not sound like it takes a lot of time, but it does. Three or four hours today for letters to twenty three different stores in only TWO chains, never mind the other three or four waiting to go.   All this, and I am sick as a dog, probably from some weirdo chain-store virus I picked up yesterday while handing my letter directly to the managers of the stores closest to me.

Then, again, we wait for a few weeks to see what happens. Most of these places have monthly budgets and they are considering our charity for their November and December.

Leaf, grass, waterfall.

Today, I went to seven different stores in my area and gave them the donation letter and told them my daughter's story.  It will be weeks before I know if any of those sympathetic responses translates to donations.  Keep your fingers crossed.   Tomorrow, I have to go to another six or so, and then I have to send the letter to corporations, etc.   So tonight, while watching Weeds (my favorite show ever), I'll be labeling SASEs.

Whee.   Just keep telling yourself you're doing good works, Tran.   You're doing good works.

The bad part of this is that I am having communication problems with the woman who is the executive director of the charity I am helping.   She's very preemptive and seems to be going out of her way to establish her dominance over me.   It's a wasted effort - I don't pose a threat to her or her job.   I don't want her job.   I just want to get the donations and go on with my life.   She's an obviously intelligent, accomplished woman.   It's always weird to me when people like that feel so insecure.   If she would just calm down a little, we could probably be friends. She worked with AIDS kids and people like that always get extra points with me.

Oh, well.   Not my problem. Even if she decides she hates me (and I swear I tried to be nice), she isn't going to turn down the donations so my VOLUNTEER - UNPAID - cough cough - position is probably pretty safe.
. . .
Middle girl decided she wanted to go back to regular high school after all and has been warned she can't back out, again.   Keep your fingers crossed extra long that she succeeds, OK?

We went to the lake this afternoon and no one needed to get out more than I did. This thing with the pain clinic has become so much more involved than I ever thought it would. Now I'm writing proposals for donations and sponsorships and calling here, there and everywhere else trying to get donations for their big fundraiser coming up.

I'm not complaining about the work involved. I want so much to be able to help other families who are living through what we have. It's a lot of work though and it was good to get away from my computer screen and look at something other than fine print for a while.

Do you see an angel in this cloud? I did and so did my daughter, and that's why I took the pic and if you don't see it then you're a big boogerface.

Sigh.

I spent the day trying to come up with people who could donate things to the clinic to make the lives of parents and kids easier. Problem is, I am having difficulty trying to address the needs of the not-sick siblings. It's a hard thing to balance the needs of all the kids and it can seem really unfair that all Joey had to do to get a Walkman was get cancer. Heh.

And yeah, I know it teaches valuable life lessons about being glad not to be sick and being generous, etc. But still. Not everything needs to be a life lesson, you know? It's OK to say hey - this affects all of us and let's see what we can do to make it better for everyone, even if just for a little bit.

I have such delusions of grandeur. I want to hand out iPods and DVD players and dinners for parents. I want to do a whole bunch of stuff. I want a carnival for everyone where all the prizes are donated and no one has to knock over the bottles to get stuff. I want to raffle off cures and answers and moments of peace. I want to teach the world to sing. I want to give everyone a coke and a smile.

I want a mini van, dammit.

Eh, I'll tell you about that later.

Last night, my middle girl came to me and asked if we could go for a ride. I agree, thinking we can see how far we can get this time (last time, we got to Santa Barbara and turned around). So I pile all three kids in the car and off we go.

Once again, I head off up the 101 freeway and just as we got to Santa Barbara, we found rain. I remember hearing something on the news earlier about how hard Santa Barbara was 'hit' by rain, today. I see no evidence of that - I see a puddle and the road looks a little slick, but otherwise this is just a pleasant shower. Southern Californians are such pussies when it comes to rain. One sprinkle and the whole Southland goes on Storm Watch. Listening to the fuss made about this on the news, I expect to find windows covered with plywood and sandbags in front of all the homes, but all seems normal enough save for the people on their roofs waving to be saved from the driving sprinkles.

We did encounter tule fog, which is very dense and very hard to see in. I love it, but it makes the kids nervous. I slowed down and watched cars and towns appear and disappear like ghosts and I silently cursed the drivers who didn't learn not to use their brights in a fog (it doesn't illuminate, it just bounces off the water vapor and blinds you and everyone else). I rolled the window down to feel the fog (soft, like running your hand through a toddler's damp hair) and smell the sea air. Some towns we drive through smell like fresh rain or cut grass, and others smell like a houseful of pets so well loved it left their owners no resources for mops.

We get quite a bit farther than SB this time - a little town called Solvang, which is famous for trying to look Dutch. Lots of eaves and windmills and flowers in boxes, etc. It's about 4:30 in the morning when we encounter this:



It's a fountain in the middle of downtown with soapsuds in it. My first thought is it must be a prank, one we will certainly be blamed for if Sheriff VanDerDutch drives by and sees us, but my husband thought it was being cleaned. In any case, how do you ignore a fountain blowing bubbles like that? We had to get out to look.



This is my middle girl playing with the bubbles. This sums up her personality in ways I probably never could.



Then she tried to make a sudman - we here in Southern California don't get snow so we make do with what we have. While she did that, her brother scooped up the suds that flew away in the breeze and returned them to the fountain and my older girl noted that there was a mermaid sculpture lost in the suds at the top of the fountain. Right around that time, someone drove by and yelled something. I didn't hear exactly what it was but it might have been "Hey there thou! What is thou doing there in that fountain at this time of morning? Get thee home and pray!" and rather than ask for clarification, I pile the kids in the car and head home, hoping we don't get stopped a mile down the road by a bunch of angry Amish people.

The kids slept most of the way and round trip I drove roughly three hundred and fifty miles between midnight and six AM. I don't know if that's good or bad, just noting it. They're all asleep now.

Update: I told the kids that Sheriff VanDerDutch contacted me, having gotten our name and number from our license plate, which he noted on the video tape he had of my children frolicking with soapsuds at his fountain. I told them that he wanted us to prove our whereabouts when the fountain was soaped. They bought it until I started giggling.

Oh my gosh, you guys are so sweet. Stop worrying, though. I did go to my doctor today. She did an EKG and my heart is fine. It's just stress and angina and I'm going to see a cardiologist and am supposed to limit stress.

I'm so sure. I'll get right on that.

But it was nice to see people so concerned. Especially in the middle of a self-pity fest, so thanks.

Re: the board thing, I can officially say my site has the support of Ultra Famous Pediatric Pain Center, who intends to absorb the board once their site is finished and ready to go. I have to get back to work on it as soon as I drop some stress, ha ha.