Thursday I worked 1/2 day. Then I had to go to the pulmonologist to get the result of my sleep study. I stopped by the house first. The phone rang almost as soon as I got home. It was my 8 year old son's school. It was a 1/2 day at school, so they got out at 11:30...but he had refused to get on the school bus. He had inisted to the staff that his dad had told him that his mom would pick him up after school. I have no idea what was behind that. But I had to take a side trip to his school, pick him up, bring him home, where his middle school sister had already arrived, and THEN went to the doctor's in Robbinsdale.

Later that night I checked my voice mail and heard a series of frantic phone calls from an old friend who I had listed as my son's emergency contact. The school had been trying to call her too. It was that bad! I'm glad I stopped by the house before going to the doctor. I would have missed the call entirely!

My sleep study showed moderate snoring, but no sleep apena, based on the oxygen content in my blood. Is that too much information? He referred me to a dentist who makes custom mouth guards that prop the backs of people's throats open to make more room for breathing. Beats surgery.

But he asked me a bunch of other questions, and freaked right out when I told him I go to bed at 11:00 pm and get up at 5 . I think compared to a lot of other working moms, that's acutally doing pretty good. He wrote "sleep deprived" on the form he was filling out. He pulled out his prescription pad where you would normally write the name of a drug, and wrote "get at least 7 1/2 hours of sleep per night," and he told me to hang it on my bathroom mirror, so my husband could see it, as if it might be his fault I like staying up to watch John Stewart and Steven Colbert, and chose to work the early shift, at work.

So last night and the night before I actually went to bed at 9:30. It went pretty good. I don't know that I'll be able to keep that up for long, but it worked for me the last two nights.

Yesterday, Friday, we had our annual last day of school party. Every year the last day of school is a 1/2 day. The first few years my daughter was in school, she'd just invite over her closest two or 3 neighbor girls and we'd have pizza and they'd play beanie babies. Now that my son is in school, we've included a few of the next door neighbor boys. But this year my daughter just graduated the 7th grade and my son graduated the 2nd grade. My son had over the 4 next door neighbor boys who spend all their time over here anyway, plus one more. And I just told one of my daughter's friend's moms, I think she walked down the hall at school and invited everyone she passed. She 6 friends over, 4 girls and 2 boys.

I bought $60 worth of pizza, pop, water, juice boxes, chips , paper plates, a watermelon, cookies. We had a proper kid-feast. I sugared up all the neighbor kids. There for a while various combinations of them were at the park 2 blocks from here, and there's only one of me. So I did spend quite a bit of time walking back and forth, going to the park, doing a head count, coming home, doing another one. At one point the pre-teens were at the park, I stopped by to check on them, and 3 were missing! They had gone into the grocery store "to buy an eggplant." It was something they had threatened to do on their way there and I had told them not to.

At another point the pre-teens were walking back from the park, and I was walking towards the park with a pack of my son's friends, minus my actual son, who could not be dragged away from the Nintendo. We arrived at the park and found the 6 year old just coming out of the porta potty by himself. The pre teens were going to forget about him and leave him! So, yeah, I let it get out of my hands a couple of times.

I was grateful when all the parents either came to pick up their kids or called to ask them to ride their bikes home, because it doesn't always work that way. Everyone was gone by 6:30 pm. Then just the 4 of us ate dinner at a local restaurant and read our son's report card . As usual all his academic categories were "3's" (excellent) and all his behavior categories such as "respect for school property" and "does not disrupt class" were all "1's" (needs improvement). We let him read aloud to us the very kind note written by his teacher about his good sense of humor and his hard work and progress during the year. I hope he gets more like her in the future.

Tomorrow my husband and I spend all day selling hambergers and brats at the Lions club tent at a local carnival. So we only have today. I probably shouldn't be taking time out to write this.

We still have our ill friend's cat. He still calls from the phone in the hall of the locked psych ward of the county hospital. Moments later his weepy voiced mother often calls us, because he calls her and then she calls us. He still thinks thieves stole art off his hard drive. He still forgets which items we told him we were able to pick up from his old apartment with our Saturn sedans, and what we had to leave behind, even though we told him. He believes people have stolen items out of his hospital room, but 'finds' them later. And his mom, out of state, is so vulnerable she believes what ever he said last, and we can't always talk her down.

Here is both an original post and a follow up reply I posted to a music message board earlier today..

He's back "in" again . We got his cat again. His mom is calling our house crying again. We might have to go clean out his apartment for him while he's away, and stick it all in our shed or garage, because he's getting evicted. That's what happens when you beat up your landlord for allegedly remote-control tasering you, and you only have a month to month lease.

I took the cat diretly to the vet this time, before bringing her in to my house. She weighs about 25 pounds (!) had horrible dandruff and matting, and her whole back half had to be SHAVED to alleviate the fur matting. So her whole back half looks like a giant, shaved rat. My eyes stung from being in the exam room with her and the vet. I was grateful they gave her the "medicated bath" I hoped they'd give her, just like on Animal Rescue shows.

His out of state mother also asked us to bring him a long distance phone calling card, so he can call her from the pay phone in the hospital hallway, which means one of us has to drive over to the county hospital and deliver it to him somehow.

And by "have to" I guess we could say no, but we're not.

And when it's not him, it's just someone else, isn't it.

This is my husband's best friend from college. He actually called on the phone yesterday morning. After pretty much spending the last 9 months accusing us of being in on or perhaps masterminding the conspiracy, he told me thank you for everything, including the cat care, and that for the last "month or month and a half" he knows he said some mean things to us. I told him we knew he was ill and that we didn't take it personally. I didn't tell him what an understatement 6 weeks was. Then he immediatly started blaming all his neighbors in the building for all his personal problems so outrageously it proved that although he was somewhat better he's still not better enough. Plus I've had this from-the-hospital phone conversation with him before. As soon as he's disdcharged, assuming they just kick him out the back door the way they have in the past, he won't remember any of it.

The cat can't groom its own hindquarters because it is over fed and not excersized at all, and weighs over 20 pounds. She's doing great now, and our kids run straight to the basement to play with her and pet her, as soon as we come home, any time we leave the house. She seems to enjoy the attention, and even rolls on to her back and lets us pet her belly. I've heard female cats don't normally do that.

Why would he put tin foil patches the size of my hand over just certain stragegic locations on his walls and ceiling, as if plugging leaks ?

We have found counless letters written to him by various law firms around town, stating that although they sympathize with his situation regarding the fbi and other government agencies conspiring against him, until those agencies take some kind of action, he has no legal case. And regarding the fact that no one else believes him, perhaps a written letter from a medical professional after a full medical and mental health exam would give him more credibility. It's tempting to mail one of these to "Found" magazine.

He had jars and jars of cloudy water, at first we were afraid they were urine. But now we think he may have been saving water samples to test for poison or something.

He had some home-made signs that read "Stop hurting people," and "You're running out of time." I told my husband I'll bet he hung them outside his apartment door, for his neighbors to read. My husband thinks he hung them on his refrigerator, for spies to read with their x ray telescopes.

Well about half his crap is in our garage, we're going back for the other half today. It's hard to know what to keep and what to toss, especially since we have no idea when he's discharged or where he will go. My husband and I only drive sedans and have no idea how we will carry a dresser or a desk, unless we rent a truck, or the building owner allows us to store it in the basement for a while.

I'm crabby and lacking in sympathy. The phone rang at about 11 last night, and , guessing who it probably was, I wouldn't even answer it. I'm the last person on the planet who does not have caller ID. I moved away from my hometown at age 18 never to return because other people's mental illness was driving me crazy, but it just seems to be everywhere no matter where I go.

Oh well, back out there.


Since I wrote all of the above we completed moving all we could and returned our friend's apartment key to his landlord. And during it all, another old college friend came to town for his class reunion. Lucky for us he insisted on staying at a hotel, even though we offered months ago for him to stay with us. So we met him for dinner at Green Mill, with our kids, brought him to our house for ice cream and tea afterwards, and again this morning for the Grand Old Day parade, you know, in between loads. It was a busy week end. I'll be glad to go back to work tomorrow.