Hitting Publish Correctly

My brother, Gary,  once idly remarked, "What're the chances that a Honduran and a Laotian would statistically find themselves married to each other in Podunk, Georgia? "

His very beautiful, oldest daughter, Kelly, was born today, 25 years ago, now planning a March wedding.

I, too, then wondered about those statistics, illustrating why I love baseball so much, it's the numbers that are fascinating, the odds, and the probabilities.  Last night, not so much though.

It's my daughter, Saray, 34, pictured here with the in-law side of her family, she's the lovely Hondurena here amongst handsome Laotians, a world she's now lived within for over a decade, producing her own three remarkable children,

Her birth sister, Deysi, now 36, had  texted me last night, asking why I hadn't blogged.  I had done so early that morning, but I'd again hit preview rather than publish, and walked away oblivious to my lapse.  Deysi's fixing to marry again, a Mexican man Jaime.  Their youngest sister, Marcela, now 31, is married to a Black man, Curtis, a man I've known most of his life.

They were my first sibling group, me so naive and well-meaning, so excited and on fire for adoption, now barely able to get my spoon to my mouth without dumping half of my morning granola on my shirt.  They were, and are, really good kids.

My caseworker then telling me in her extremely understated manner, "These aren't the typical kids you'll find in the foster care system."  She taught the MAPP class that certainly opened my eyes, but didn't dissuade me from entering into the arena. She's now Yolie's boss and Yolie's now teaching those classes, irony after irony.

Dang if thunder didn't drive me off the walking trail at the soccer park last night and send Nando's practice event off the field too.  The older boys however practiced in a driving rain later, clambering soaking wet into my van at nine p.m., I'm sure their sopping clothes are balled up in their respective rooms.

Compared to the other crapola we've endured, wet and mildewed clothes are a picnic.

My 14 year old in residential called me sobbing, sniffling chunks of snot, his 'girlfriend' is moving out of there, folks are lying, the sky is falling, he hung up on me, I called him back, he sobbed, "I'll call you in a minute."

I fetched Chuy to help me through the call, eventually the skies cleared, we cracked jokes, and I got a glimpse of a human I've not seen for so long through all of his many issues.  My heart broke for him, young love is tough, not that I have any memories left - it was sooooo long ago when I was a hapless teenager.

"Call me tomorrow," I asked him, "Tell me how you feel then."

I allowed Chuy to drive us to soccer so I could return a phone call to my other brother, Jimbo, who oh so generously offered to help me pay for the rehearsal dinner before Daniel's wedding, but I've been saving up, I have it covered I believe, thank you ING Direct, poo-poo on you Perk Street for robbing an old lady - even if it was my own fault.

Later physically unable to drive us home, Chuy'd been cleated in his instep, his turn to fight tears, this morning he bucked up, "What could a doctor do, but tell me I'm injured?" he asked in response to my offer to seek medical attention.

I drove him to school, the walk down to the school bus might've done him in, I'll check again this afternoon to see if he wants it checked.  It is not swollen, just painful.

I picked up my now nutless dogs, Amelia bristling at my gender confusion, but hey, I have the brass ones around here. Both of my mutts, Amelia the three footed terrier mix and Riley, the Chihuahua hellcat dog were allowed to claim pit bull vague status and get spayed and/or neutered for just $20 each.  What a dadgum good deal.

I call it Doing Money.  I do it nearly every day, tracking our expenses, plotting numbers for next month, making nerdy pie charts and colorful graphs of my goals and plans.  Thank you Larry Burkett for the six week seminar that radically changed my life in the early 1980s.

I used to listen to Clark Howard on the radio a lot too but he's more concerned with being a consumer advocate, and he's great at it, but I'm trying to be an anti-consumer, flying under the barcode radar, not leaving an imprint of my spending habits, buying second and third hand items, clearance as a last resort, growing my own, or realizing I don't need all that crap anyway.

I need a spading fork and a hand rake, and that's about it.  And a cheap spaying clinic.

I can remove the line item 'Sabrina's cheer leading expenses' from my 2013 Budget and replace it with 'Sabrina's College Costs'.  That just makes more sense to me on every level.  FAFSA here we come again.