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Since the website has been down, UltraMom has had a good excuse not to post. Now I must get more creative with my non-posting excuses, but after this weekend, I can’t use lack of material. It was a weekend full of excitement, adventure and most of all DRIVING…..
or RIDING , to be more precise. A friend and I (we’ll call her Peggy, since that is her name) went up to the far reaches of the North , past civilization as we know it, to the University of Idaho in Moscow to visit our sons for Mom’s Weekend. No, not in Russia (got ya!), though I think the drive couldn’t have been much longer. But I digress. Here is, as Paul Harvey would say, the REST of the story.
We had been planning this weekend forever; Peggy was a U of I Mom veteran, having had collegiate sons up there for several years, and she agreed to take the rookie (me) along for the ride. I helpfully left all of the arrangements up to her, such as transportation and motel reservations. She could not have been more gracious. When I suggested we leave Thursday afternoon and spend the night at UltraAuntDebi’s house near Boise, she was all for it. When Jim wanted us to bring his tires, so he could get his snow tires changed, it was “no problem”. Could we bring my dog along and drop him off at Johnny’s appt in Boise? “Sure.”
We loaded up her Tahoe about 3:30 Thurs afternoon and I went to get Murphy from his dogsitter’s house. Good thing we had lots of room since I don’t seem to know how to pack light. We were going along great until about 19 miles from Boise. We know it was 19 miles from Boise, cause that’s what the sign said right next to where we pulled off the road after the tire blew. I have to hand it to Peggy; she calmly steered off the road and whipped out her AAA card. In about half an hour, a crew of two arrived from Mountain Home to change the tire. I’m definitely going to have to look into getting AAA for myself. We made a quick stop at Johnny’s to drop off my precious poodle along with his accoutrements, and then a little shopping in the Mall and a good meal were in order. We made a few purchases at Eddie Bauer and had fajitas at Cafe Ole. We were halfway to Debi’s in Emmett when I realized I hadn’t given Johnny the shirts he asked me to bring him.
Debi wasn’t home, but very kindly lent us her house for the night. Her two dogs Jasmine and Anya Louise were glad to see us and we soon settled in for the night. About 6 AM I heard what sounded like ocean waves and very loud music, but it was kind of muffled because I was sleeping at the other end of the house from Michael’s room. Yup, his alarm was going off. Poor Peggy had the room right next to his, and she finally got up and turned the clock radio down after about 10 minutes, and boy was I glad! Though it wasn’t too loud in my distant retreat, it was still intruding on my dreams. We grabbed a few more hours of much needed slumber before facing the new day.
We had to find the Les Schwab tire place to replace the shredded one and gas up, and we were on the road by about…...........uh…...........11 AM or so I think. We loaded up with snacks from Albertsons, and headed north. I had brought along about 5 books on CD and numerous other CD’s, but we didn’t listen to any of them that day. We talked, snacked and enjoyed the scenery. One really annoying thing was that my cell phone quit working. Just entirely shut down and refused to power up again. I used Peggy’s phone a lot, but she assured me that she never used all of her minutes. I sincerely hope so.
It was great to see Jim. Peggy dropped me off at his place and went to spend the evening with her son, Paul, a handsome and friendly finance major. Jim and I went on a little campus tour and went to see Phantom of the Opera in the student theater in the SUB. Great movie. Then he allowed me to buy him dinner at Applebees. He had a hard time deciding what to order, as he wanted to take full advantage of being treated, but finally decided that if he got an appetizer along with his entree that the tab would be high enough. After dinner, he took me to the motel room in Pullman, Washington (about 7 miles from Moscow) where I found Peggy already sacked out.
The room was okay, but we had a little problem with the alarm clock. Sporadically throughout the night, it would emit bursts of static. It was just loud enough and frequent enough to ensure that I never actually got into that REM sleep which is so important to a well-rested night. Finally, about 6 AM (that seems to be our witching hour) I unplugged the cursed thing, and got a few good hours of sleep.
The next day, Saturday, Peggy and I met our sons at The Breakfast Club, a locally well-known and extremely popular restaurant. We enjoyed omelets, pancakes and biscuits & gravy before again going our separate ways.
Jim had a fun and exciting day planned for us. First we had to find the tire place to get his snow tires off and regular tires on. While that was being done, we walked back to campus to look in on the rock climbing competition at the climbing wall in the campus Fitness Center. That ended up being a litte too crowded and boring, but we hung around a bit and I tried out a few of the exercise machines. Then we walked back and got the car. At that point Jim seemed a little nonplussed, like he wasn’t quite sure what he was going to do with me for so many hours. We drove around town and went to a park for a while. We watched the squirrels and talked; quite enjoyable for me. We went to the Mall, which isn’t a great mall, but still fun to look around. We bought a soundtrack of Phantom for Johnny to thank him for the dogsitting. I really didn’t care what we did; I just wanted to spend some time with Jim, which is what I got!
We had tickets to a Mom’s Weekend dinner show at the SUB, so we headed there about 6. The dinner was good; salad, lasagna & pasta and death-by-chocolate cake for dessert. The first part of the show was a college group called something like “Dancers, Dreamers and Drummers”. I know there were 3 words in the title, all starting with “D”, but the “Dreamers” is the only one I know for sure. Anyway, they had a very unusual performance. In the first dance, they all held big plastic drinking glasses, and did this incredible rhythm thing, all in unison, where the glasses changed hands and thumped on the floor as they danced around the stage. In another dance they each held a big wooden pole, and in still another, all the rhythm was done with clapping. The finale used drums and a few other insturments with lots of dancing. They were fantastic. The main performer was “Christoper”. I think you can see him at Christophermagic.com. Anyway, he was entertaining, but the magic was pretty mediocre, and on the whole, I liked the “Dreamers” act better. We got out of there about 9, and Jim and I decided we wanted to see Phantom again, so we went to the 9:30 showing and it was nearly 1 AM when I got back to the motel that night.
Peggy and I didn’t see the boys Sunday morning, but just got up, breakfasted and took off. We were making the whole drive back in one day this time; about 11 hours. Again, we talked most of the way, though we did listen to a bit of “R is for Ricochet”, or rather she did as I napped. Peggy did all of the driving, which was fine with me. We stopped at Johnny’s to pick Murphy up, and he was excited to see me, though Johnny maintains that he had forgotten me and was just excited to meet someone new. He had, a la Johnny, a new retractable leash, squeaky fish toy and giant pig’s ear.
The only thing I regret about the weekend was that I didn’t get to meet a couple of Jim’s friends who were away for the weekend. On the whole, an exhausting and terrific weekend.
News Flash: Just chatted with Jim on IM and got the scoop on his Intramural Football game. His team finally won a game, by 1 point, and our boy caught a few passes and made some TD’s. All of the TD’s to be exact. He was on a high, excited about the game.
Well, I am utterly exhausted and had planned on getting to bed early tonight, but got sucked into writing this post instead. Hope this makes you happy, UB!
I am glad that the website is back up and look forward to reading something from UltraBob soon!
As Ever,
UltraMom
The server was down to a few days for reasons hardware. I don’t think most of the readership here is much interested in the reasons, but they shouldn’t happen again for such an extended period of time. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.
Back to your irregularly scheduled programming.
Yah! You’re back!
I have been thinking about you, ultrabob, on and off for many years now and I finally decided to look for you on the web. It took 15 min.. Please email me, thanks.
Hi Bob
I’m in Nevada on Aunt Pat’s computer; my oomputer is temporarily (I hope) crashed. I don’t have your e-mail address. Just haven’t been able to communicate with you and hope you are well. I may have to think about moving here soon if we can find a place to live; Dad really wants me to, and I think he needs help managing his diet and health! I tried to reload Windows 2000 cause my computer told me that I need to; that some files were corrupted. It came to a part where it wanted the windows disk (it was in) to find some catalog file, and I was to click on a default path or type in one of my own. It wouldn’t let me browse and it didn’t like any of the default paths. If I clicked cancel, it told me there was am error, and when I restarted my computer, it did the same thing all over again. So, I’m stuck in an endless loop! I know a guy in Arco I can bring my tower to next week when I get home, so hopefully he can fix it. You can delete this comment after you read it; I didn’t know any other way to talk to you! Dad and i (and Murphy) spent the night in Twin Falls on Saturday. It has been raining pretty steadily. By the way, who is Booker?
Love, Mom
Hi Mom,
Jim told me, and I have left two messages on your machine. Since I don’t work on Windows machines anymore if I can help it, because of exactly the kinds of things you are dealing with now, I recommend an alternate course of action. I have transferred $300 into our joint account with another $200 on the way.(Keep it on the down low but $400 is to help you with your computer problem). I recommend that you go to the Apple store online.
You’ll be buying two things from the Apple store. The First is a mac mini. This tiny machine will use your existing mouse and display, and contains a cd drive that reads dvds. Click Here then click the buy now button on the top right just under the menu, after reading all about it choose which basic model you would like (either is fine, one is slightly faster and has 40Gb more hard drive space) click to purchase it and look at the options for the product (the two things that you may consider from the purchase menu for the mac mini are: upgrading the combo drive to a superdrive, do this if you want to be able to burn your own dvds and the AppleCare Protection Plan, I have put it on every mac I’ve ever had, and have not used it yet). The second thing you probably will want is Virtual PC, this will allow you to play bookworm deluxe and any other programs you have for the PC that aren’t available or have better alternatives for the mac (this is probably a fairly small amount of stuff). Click buy now next to the Virtual PC 7 option unless you would like it to come with an operating system preinstalled for you (if so go with Windows XP Home Edition) otherwise we’ll have to install windows 2000 inside virtual PC before you can use it. Once you have these two things you’ll be good to go with most of the stuff you do with your computer. I’ll still try to help you resurrect your old pc at some point, and then there is a utility available for $50 that will copy all your music, photos, etc over from your old puter to the appropriate places on the new one. The most beautiful thing about the new puter is that it won’t break down nearly as much as the windows machines you have experienced, and often I will be able to log into your machine from afar to check it out when it is having problems. Also you’ll be using a system that I am familiar with, and I can send you software that I have that you need.
The final thing that you do on your computer that we’ll need to figure out is bookkeeping. I can’t remember which program you use to do that so I haven’t been able to make any recommendations. You will, of course, be able to continue doing your bookkeeping in the virtual pc on your mac, but if you use quicken (and others, it just depends on what you have) there is a mac version available, and we can import your files into the mac.
Quicken is available for $70 for the mac. Quickbooks Pro is $299. Now that Dad is working for someone rather than rtunning his own business, I’d quesss that pretty much and bookkeeping program would do the job.
Well, I use microsoft money (and have used for a long time) for our personal finances, and I use quicken for the church. Can they be imported into the mac program?
I’m sure you will all be glad to know that UltraMom is feeling a lot better. Still a little sqeamish in the tummy and a little weaker than her usual robust self, but definitely on an upward trend. I was kind of looking forward to having to take a sick day from work. I know, I know, I said I don’t like to use my paid leave up that way, and I really don’t, but I just really didn’t want to go to work today. However, after taking inventory of my ability to eat breakfast (no problem; I could have wished the apathy towards food to have lasted a little longer), my capactiy to walk about without feeling woozy and the fact that I only pushed the snooze control on my alarm clock a few more times than usual, I decided that I wasn’t sick enough to indulge myself. Sigh.
On a happier note, I have been watching more television than I used to, and happened upon an interesting little reality show ( I hope Johnny doesn’t read this one. He already gives me enough grief about watching American Idol, Survivor and The Apprentice) called THE NANNY. Nanny Deb was something else! She came into that home with 5 unmanageable children, 4 of whom were quadruplets. The kids hit their parents, and wouldn’t stay in their own rooms at night unless their TVs were turned on. Well, Nanny Deb got rid of the room TVs and set some rules. Before she could make any progress, however, she had to win over the parents to her way of thinking, as they felt she was attacking them on a personal level. But by the time she Mary Poppined her way out of the house at the end of the week, the whole family wept to see her go, and presented her with an engraved key to their home so she could come any time she pleased. Like she’s ever going back there! Actually, I’m not so sure I’d want her around too many days longer; I don’t want to sound critical, but Nanny Deb wore the same lime green shirt & scarf and dark jumper EVERY SINGLE DAY. And she was…um, how shall I say it?.........rather robust. All of that bustling and sweating and never changing her clothes must have produced an interesting ambience.
I have been taking a nostalgic look back at my own child rearing days. I think there were times when I could have definitely used Nanny Deb. Lots of things I did were NOT by the book. I’m not proud of this, but sometimes I got so tired of hearing “Mom, Mom, look at me, listen to this.” that I changed my name and wouldn’t respond until someone guessed it. But I didn’t make it too difficult. Usually some well-known character like Rumpelstilskin. Those of you who know me as the wise and contemplative UltraMom may be surprised to hear that I sometimes yelled at my kids. Went completely over the bend.
About a year ago, UltraDad and I were talking about someone else’s substandard child-rearing, and UDad started congratulating us on our job well done. I reminded him that we we were far from perfect, and that there were may things we could have done far better. He looked at me in surprise and asked ,”Which of our kids don’t you like?”
I, of course, replied that I had never been particualry fond of Jim, and we dissolved into laughter.
Actually, I wouldn’t trade those years for anything. As I get older, I have more trouble remembering the bad parts and tend to dwell on the good parts: Those little arms around my neck and the kissable cheeks. Reading the stories (over and over again) and making up funny voices for the characters. The picnics in the yard and the funny make-believe games. The simple childlike belief in God and prayer, which Jesus says is the model of how we each must come before him. The wonder of seeing a human being, that I had a part in creating, grow into something in some ways like me, but in most ways into something else totally unique and wonderful.
Some to think of it, maybe we did alright without Nanny Deb after all.
UltraMom
UltraMom is sick. Bona fide achy-to-the-tips-of-my-eyelashes, throwing up all night sick. It has been so long since I’ve been sick that it took me a while to accept the pre-symptoms. Yesterday afternoon, after Murphy and I took our long walk in the mountains, I sat down and watched a movie, then “watched” (& dozed) it again with director’s commentary, then watched all of the special features. By the way, if you get a chance to see “Finding Neverland”, go for it. Based on a true story, a lot of poetic lisence is taken, but it is still excellent, and Johnny Depp is my new favorite actor. “I don’t think I feel that great,” I said to myself when there was finally no more to watch. “Perhaps this is a good excuse to further put off all of those things I was planning to get done this weekend.” Just then, the power went off. As usual in this situation, I thought of things I could do. “I’ll just write a post…...oh no power…......I’ll just watch some more TV…....oh yeah, no power….I’ll just microwave some dinner….........oh, that’s right, no power,” etc.etc.etc.
Finally I decided that Murphy and I should take another walk outdoors while I listened to some of my current book-on-tape (Gulliver’s Travels) since it wasn’t quite yet dark. We walked around the pivot tracks in the field. The weather had deteriorated since morning, and I thought I detected a bit of a sore throat.
As I rounded the corner towards the house, I could tell that the power was back on. Time for a few more loads of laundry, time for Murphy’s tricks and treats, time for a shower and hair-washing, time for a tuna sandwich and writing a new Murphy-post.
Sister-in-law Patty and I had just been talking a couple of weeks ago about how long it had been since we had been sick. We decided that the mountains of supplements we had been taking (Calcium, Glucosamine, Vitamin C, Omega 3, Flaxseed Oil and a multi to cover whatever I had missed) were providing some good, preventative medicine. Hmmm.
I went to sleep, my trusty dog and cat by my side, and dreamed about the movie, Finding Neverland. James Barrie and the 4 Davies boys. Captain Hook, Tinker Bell and Nanna, the dog. But something was wrong. That second boy was going to have to change his name, or something bad was going to happen. I realized in my dream that I was having a dream, but I didn’t want to wake up until I had puzzled through what was wrong. Gradually it dawned on me that I needed to throw up. I had forgotten just how distasteful that was; how could anyone ever become bulemic? The next couple of times weren’t as bad, since I no longer had actual food in my stomach. Murphy was very symathetic and followed me around with a worried expression on his cute little poodle face.
Today has pretty much consisted of laying in bed or sitting in the big recliner in the living room and sleeping. I briefly thought about church, but there was no way. Murphy, once in a while, goes to his toybox and grabs his squeaky chicken and looks at me longingly before giving up and keeping me company in my chair.
Its late afternoon, and I’m actually feeling a bit better. Murphy got his tricks and treats. I had a plum and half a can of chicken noodle-o’s. AND I’m writing this post about being sick. Hopefully, I will be over it by tomorrow. I hate to use up my leave time from work being sick (no separate sick leave). Maybe its just one of those 24 hour things.
Anyway, send get-well vibrations my way, won’t you?
UltraMom
Well, my UltraSon has informed me that my last post’s experimental form of “stream of conciousness, air-headed rambling” was less than effective, so I guess I must go back to my usual witty repartee and subtle humor. But what to write about? Ah, I have it. My dog…..........
I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this or not, but I have a “new” puppy…well, new since last October, but he hasn’t yet lost his luster in my owner-proud eyes. I am referring, of course, to Murphy, the Wonderdog. He shares the twin attributes of being absolutely adorable and incredibly smart. Every day (he prefers twice a day) we have to run through his tricks, treats in hand. Johnny claims that I always do the tricks in the same order and that he will perform them equally well with hand signals. He WILL perform with hand signals, but that is because he is bilingual. “Sit, shake, shake the other hand, lay down, rollover, stand, sit up(this one is still a bit rough), come, stay”. Impressed, aren’t you? I must admit, however, that his performance is a little less sterling without treats in hand, or when there is any other distraction, such as being outside.
The other day, we were walking outdoors over by the horse corral. Murphy used to be terrified of the horses, but has worked hard to overcome his fear because of the delights that can be found in their proximity; namely horse manure. It is irrestible to him, though I have a hard time identifying with its appeal. I asked Murphy to stay with me while we walked, but he begged a moment to go view the horses, and the next thing I knew, he was racing about INSIDE the horse pen, weaving in and out among their hooves, stopping once in a while to pick up a particularly fragrant morsel. “Murphy, come!” I screamed frantically, although my newest read “How to be your Dog’s Best Friend” by the Monks of New Skeet tell you to NEVER call your dog to you to discipline him. If you must discipline him, go and get him. Right. That’s a little hard to do when he is racing about inside a horse corral. The horses, recently fed, were placidly chewing their hay, gazing curiously at the small idiotic dog zigzagging erratically about their home, but I knew that one stray hoof could spell his demise. He finally responded to a loudly screamed “Bad Dog”, seeming to finally realize that he might be in a bit of trouble.
I picked up his front feet and shook him firmly, the New Skeet Monk’s preferred form of punishment, and gave him the cold shoulder the rest of the evening.
The next day, he was frantic to worm himself back into my good graces, and an experimental walk past the horse corral produced the desired results. He cast longing glances, he tentatively ran a few steps towards it, but in the end, he passed up the forbidden pleasures to please me.
Today, Murphy and I took a nice long walk. After driving to the gravel pit, we walked into Box Canyon, as far as some canyon walls decorated with Indian Art (just red circles, but its still kind of cool). Murph was walking with me so well that I removed the leash for the walk back, and he stayed with me pretty well . I didn’t have my pedometer, but we were gone for an hour and a half, so we must have walked about 5 miles. We both took a bit of a nap this afternoon.
. For Easter, I bought him a small sqeaky duck toy, but he seemed to prefer the little pink stuffed lamb that I got for his sister, Heather. Don’t tell him, but I got him a lamb of his own the next day when all the Easter stuff was 75% off. I’m saving it for when he has been especially good, or for when I find a larger toybox for him. His is getting a bit full.
He still sleeps with me at night, but when Johnny was home, his first act upon arising in the morning would be to scratch on Johnny’s door. Sometimes he would go in and snuggle back to sleep, but usually he was ready to play. He and Johnny played a fun game where Murphy would bite (very gently; more or a nibble, really) and Johnny would shriek. For some reason, Murphy seemed to be having more fun than Johnny, especially when the game was his means of awakening.
Well, its about time for me and the Murph Dog to go to bed. Sweet dreams.
UltraMom
Very entertaining post UM! No one wants to hear from me on this blog.