lessons from bedford

punkin and i are back from our jet-setting weekend in bedford to attend her friend's 7th birthday party. [what does jet-setting mean? we did a lot of jet-sitting, but no setting] this has become a yearly event. punkin has known this particular friend since before she was 2 years old. they used to live right around the corner, but friend's mom got re-married and they moved to bedford when punkin and friend were about 5. their birthdays are exactly 30 days apart, though by looking at them, most people guess that friend is older than punkin.

when friend's mom got re-married, eventually they decided to let step-dad adopt friend. so now friend has a whole new family - daddy, brother and sister. it was nice to see her as part of a happy family. let's just say that friend and mom have had their share of hard knocks. fortunately, punkin gets along swimmingly with brother and sister, so there were no jealous rivalries going on. [and where did the word swimmingly get its start? it makes no sense!]

friend's mom has always been overprotective of friend because mom was not supposed to be able to have kids. friend was a miracle child. now i see that mom is teaching friend how to be a people-pleaser as well, which is how mom is, though she has every reason to have high esteem. don't get me wrong - i like polite kids. but there's a point where it's just over the top. when one 7 year old is asking another 7 year old if there's anything she can do for her, like she's a friggin' maid, then it gets weird. mom has eased up on me with the pleasing because she knows that if i want something, i'll go get it myself or ask her where something is and then get it myself. i have gotten to the point where i don't really feel like a "guest" anymore.

something new this year in the room that i use (brother's room - he and sister were with their mom) was the pet ball python (still a baby) and the numerous hermit crabs with their pretty painted shells. did i ever mention that i don't like snakes? fortunately, this one was very small and hid most of the time. the hermit crabs were of various sizes and made the weirdest sounds at night. they chirp. and when they walk around in the sand it sounds like scritch-scratching. then sometimes one of their shells would knock up against the glass. all i can say is "thank you" to the person who invented foam earplugs!

the actual party was fun. it was a skating party. punkin is not that fond of skating, but she was happy playing skee-ball and air hockey. i skated until my knees screamed at me - and i am paying for it now. so i've learned that skating and yoga are not good for knees with tendonitis. how am i ever going to get rid of this? we also got to go see a play since our hosts have season tickets for a children's theatre in fort worth called casa manana. we saw peter cottontail iii. it was very cute and punkin got to get autographs afterward.

on the plane home, i sat by a lesbian tri-athlete who worked in sports medicine for the doctors who acted as team physicians for the astros and the texans. in fact, they were the surgeons who had just operated on jeff bagwell's shoulder! we had a really nice conversation and it made the flight seem to go by faster.

on a side note, if you don't have kids or cable (or both) and are just dying to know whatever happened to billy ray cyrus of "achy, breaky heart" fame, i almost fell out of my chair when he and his daughter were featured on a disney channel original series called "hannah montana." the show is ridiculous, but at least mr. one-hit-wonder still sort of has a career in and out of the recording studio. his daughter is lovely and has a great voice.

one more lesson: a sure-fire hangover cure is supposedly a couple of shots of pure oxygen. i haven't reasearched this, but our gracious host used to work as a mechanic for an airline, and he and the pilots would come in all hungover on monday and would go use the oxygen masks for a couple of minutes and would feel like nothing ever happened afterward. anyone ever hear of this?

update on psycho therapist from hell: i fired her via email this morning. thanks for all of the pep talk comments and emails. i needed that extra nudge. i guess that since i am in the business myself, i tend to want to give other therapists the benefit of the doubt. but y'all are right - my intuition was screaming GET OUT NOW! and it's hardly ever wrong.