Scribblings

We went to the Aquarium...

...and it was great, so much fun! It was just really really expensive! The original plan on Saturday was to take T to a local farm and do some strawberry picking but it got too hot quickly. My Plan B was a children's museum in Cherry Hill but since Kristin was with us, it ocurred to me we might all enjoy a trip to the aquarium. I think Tomas was a little nervous in the darker hallways but I must say he loved the shark tunnel!

He reached out several times as if he was going to try and touch the fish and sharks that swam by.

I think Kristin loved watching the sharks most of all as well.

TB's camera did a great job taking pictures! Here are some more:

Cool looking crab!

I don't know if this is clear enough to see, but this is a dragon fish--it looks like it could breathe fire and yet is so tiny!

I wasn't able to get up close and look at the octopus because there were a lot of pushy people there who didn't take much notice of a small child in a stroller, drat the inconsiderates. Well, TB's picture is pretty cool.

Here's one of the sharks that went right over our heads in the tunnel. Tomas' eyes were huge! I thought the tunnel might frighten him but I am so glad that he enjoyed it most of all.

Little T did not like the hippos, though. Or...maybe it was all the people trying to get in to snap a picture of it. I was pretty amazed at how gracefully it was swimming.

We stopped halfway through to get some lunch. TB took several cute pictures of Tomas' changing facial expressions. In this one, he seems to be saying, hey, what are you taking my picture for? I'm not a sea creature!

We sure had a great time!

If Earth Were A Small Village...

If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of 100 people, with everything else remaining the same, it would look like this:

There would be:

* 57 Asians
* 21 Europeans
* 14 from the Western Hemisphere,
* 8 Africans,

* 52 would be female
* 48 would be male

* 70 would be non-white
* 30 would be white

* 70 would be non-Christian
* 30 would be Christian

* 95 would be heterosexual
* 5 would be homosexual

* 6 people would own 59% of the world's wealth, and all 6 would be from the United States

* 80 would live in substandard housing

* 70 would be unable to read

* 50 would suffer from malnutrition

* 1 would be near death
* 1 would be near birth

* 1 would have a college education

* 1 would own a computer

* 0 would play oboe

Catch-Up Pictures

May has been a busy and eventful month and isn't over yet! I thought I'd share pictures we've been taking.

Here is Kristin enjoying her new guitar. I have a similar picture of me taken years and years ago, almost the same pose!

I'm not sure who took this picture of Heidi but I like it!

Here's Billy on his way to his interview at Radio Shack--he got the job and seems to like it very much. He looks very spiffy all dressed up!

Tomas and Linda came for a visit a couple of weeks ago. It was a beautiful day and we decided to go to a park at our lake. There's a little beach there and a toddler sized playground. Tomas wasn't too sure about it all at first but ended up loving the slide!

That's progress for you

Jersey Doo Wop Motels Deemed Endangered By JOHN CURRAN, Associated Press Writer
Mon May 22, 11:32 AM ET

The Lollipop and The Starlux. The Shalimar and The Caribbean. The Imperial 500 and The Tangiers.

With garish neon signs, multicolored exteriors and sweeping deck overhangs, the "Doo Wop" motels of the Wildwoods are the architectural equivalents of a Vitalis-slicked pompadour.

But they, too, are fading into the past.

One by one, the Mom-and-Pop motels are being razed, rendered economically obsolete by a real estate boom that has made the land underneath too valuable to support a couple of dozen $100-a-night motel rooms.

"It's hard," said Daytona Motor Inn owner John Donio, who has been offered five times what he paid for his 20-unit motel, two blocks from the beach. "I want to stay, I really do."

More than 50 of the motels have been demolished in the last three years, giving way to pricey condominiums with none of their charm — or history.

"Without a concerted attempt to halt demolition, these colorful vestiges of American life will go the way of the ducktail haircut, the '57 Chevy and the drive-in double feature," said Richard Moe, executive director of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. "Instead of being demolished to make way for nondescript new development, the Doo Wop motels should be preserved as the focus of an all-season resort and a vibrant, livable community for year-round residents."

The Trust, based in Washington, D.C., included the motels on its list of the 11 most endangered historic places in America.

More symbolic than anything, the distinction is aimed at raising public awareness about the plight of the sites.

Built in the 1950s and 1960s and dubbed "Doo Wop" after a vocal style of the period, the motels sprung up next to the ocean in Wildwood, North Wildwood and Wildwood Crest, catering to a booming post-war America that wanted vacation places with outdoor pools, parking spaces and easy ocean access.

The other sites on the "endangered places" list are:

• The Smithsonian Arts & Industries Building in Washington.

• Blair Mountain Battlefield in Logan County, W.Va.

• Fort Snelling Upper Post in Hennepin County, Minn.

• Historic communities and landmarks of the Mississippi Coast.

• Historic neighborhoods of New Orleans.

• Kootenai Lodge in Bigfork, Mont.

• Kenilworth, Ill.

• Mission San Miguel Arcangel in San Miguel, Calif.

• Over-the-Rhine Neighborhood in Cincinnati.

• A concrete staircase at the World Trade Center that survivors used to escape Tower 1 after the Sept. 11 attacks. Most people don't know the staircase remains; it is closed to the public. The staircase is not included in plans for a new tower.

Goodbye Dear Terri

This evening I got a call from my first mother-in-law, Alberta, who gave us the very sad news that Rich's Aunt Terri passed away after a long battle with cancer this afternoon. She'd been fighting cancer in one form or another since 1987.

Terri was an angel on earth. She was one of the most kind and loving people it's been my privilege to know. In spite of the pain she was in and in spite of the misery of the side effects she suffered, I never heard her complain--ever. She was always smiling and always positive.

There was just one period of time when I remember she felt otherwise. After Rich died--and it will be 5 years next week--she'd wonder why she continued to live when he was so young and still had so much to live for. Those first few months, we cried together often. Sometimes she would say to me, here I am trying to comfort you and you end up comforting me.

I admired her for her spirit and loved her for her sweetness and loving acts toward everyone. I will miss her so much but I know that she and Rich and her parents and their other loved ones are together in heaven and will be there for us when we get there.

This is the last picture I have of Terri, taken at Billy's high school graduation party last year.

10 Things That Remind Me Of Mom

Ten on Tuesday

1. My laugh -- it sounds like hers to me. When I laugh sometimes I think she's in the room!
2. Some of my facial expressions -- sometimes I look at a picture of me and I see my mother
3. "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" -- my father sang that to her a lot when I was a kid. Yeah, he's deaf and yeah, he was way off tune
4. Flowers and gardens -- she's got a green thumb and always has stuff growing
5. Maryland style oven roasted chicken -- one of her specialties
6. Baltimore Orioles -- my mom's a rabid fan, especially of the 1966 team
7. Cats -- Mom's always having cats adopt her too
8. Wheel Of Fortune -- another strong fan of that game show
9. Dancing -- she & my dad are like the Deaf Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers
10. Sign Language

Beets

Flashback: I'm in the grocery store with my parents. I'm of preschool age, maybe 4. I remember we were going down the baby food aisle and my parents got some jars for my brother, who would have been between 1 and 2. They weren't buying any beets! I remember sneaking some jars into the cart. My parents were totally shocked to see them as we were checking out. How did they get there? And why? I loved baby food beets and missed having them. I guess I didn't realize they'd notice.

Why did I have this memory? Probably because I have to limit the amount of beets I eat because they are sweet and now I am diabetic. I guess it triggered the memory because I realized that was probably why I'd loved them so much when I was little...they were sweet! Beets just doesn't seem the kind of food a kid would like otherwise, right?

Diabetes

In the years since Rich died, I've put on an enormous amount of weight. In the back of my mind I knew I was at risk for diabetes, high blood pressure, heart attack and all kinds of other unpleasantries. The thought would come to the front of my mind and I'd worry so much, I'd end up gaining more weight instead of losing it. So I kept putting it to the back of my head hoping I'd get the weight off before it was too late.

I look back at the weight I gained after I stopped smoking and had kids and I remember the midwife saying to me if I didn't get all of it off again before 40 I would have a lot of trouble from it.

Yup.

I think I was in pretty good shape 5 years ago. Now I have high blood pressure, a collapsed arch, fibromyalgia, painful joints...and diabetes.

I haven't been feeling well or myself lately and went to the doctors, my OBGYN first. She is the one who discovered that my blood sugar was very high and so I went to my family doctor. I hadn't had any blood work in about a year and so I went and had blood drawn a few days ago. I got the results in the mail today and boy, that sugar is really high! I also noticed my cholesterol is above normal.

Funny...I was just talking to the therapist about how to prod myself into getting my act together. What can I say to myself to make me get serious about all this?

And she said, "How about...'I don't want to die'?"

Yeah, that's a good one!

This is not going to be easy. I found a quote that I'm going to repeat to myself by Winston Churchill: "Never never never give up."

First Place!

Heidi's sculpture won first place in a competition called "Clay In Mind"! That girl is gifted! Her piece will be displayed somewhere in Philly (we'll find out where from the teacher) and she and her teacher won places in a 2 day art workshop. Woooohooo!

I'd say more but I'm sick with something, was running a fever off and on yesterday. I feel a little bit better today but I thinkthe fever's coming back. Anyway, I had a doctor's appt scheduled for this morning anyway so maybe she can tell me what's wrong with me.