Baby Yolie was born two months before I turned 42, an Abuelita already, me not knowing I had three infants coming my way to later raise, CW, Lily and Jack. Maybe I best go blond? Baby Yolie's mom, Carolina from El Salvador, had been my 12th child, legally not adopted until after age 21, because she'd been an emergency foster care situation.
I'd been to Honduras twice in the 1980's, adopting Saray, Deysi and Marcela. Marcela, the baby, and Sarah, the primary original dethroned baby, clashed a little bit at times.
I really like this guy putting it all out there, explaining to us the importance of proper grammar. In the South, it's a huge struggle for us all as we routinely butcher tenses and predicates, use quaint archaic words to best express ourselves, and then there's the drawl that's impossible to erase totally without breaking a sweat.
If you confirm an interview with Kyle Wiens with a note that says, "See you their," you'll never be hired at iFixit. Wiens, CEO of the San Luis Obispo, Calif.-based online repair community, won't hire anyone who uses poor grammar or misspells words. In fact, he thinks people who haven't mastered basic grammar deserve to be passed over, even if they're otherwise perfect for the position.
"We need a serious commitment to attention to detail. Our grammar test shows us the early warning signs that a person doesn't have the same values we have."
"You don't text worth a crap, " CW told me, when we were talking about all this a while ago.
"Well, Honey, I don't have time to text correctly, what with all y'all texting me when I'm trying to do the work of ten men put together."
I'd been texting Miriam all afternoon while trying to plant white Mums, and thinking how on Grandma's side of the house, she went with more autumnal colors. Then my mind went to the time Daniel worked for a plant nursery and dumpster dived, rescuing 60 mangled mums that weren't selling, bringing them home for us to plant in our awesome soil where the bedraggled half-dead plants thrived.
Nor did we know we'd soon lose my sister within the next decade, plus their birth sister, birth brother, birth mother, and birth grandmother. Grandpa and Sarah were also with us then in Honduras. Grandpa's gone now.
But on a positive note, we've gained Hazel, Ray, Alexander, Ellie, Heidi, Gianni, Isaac, and Marissa from my original 1980s family of just four daughters.
Deysi, Saray, and Marcela and I were in a group text yesterday, they've become hilarious in their vegetarian strivings, keeping each other accountable, but even better news involved Saray's oldest daughter, Heidi, attaining National Junior Beta Club status. Yeah boy! That's my granddaughter.
My oldest granddaughter, still referred to as Baby Yolie, pictured above, is going to graduate from high school this year. How can that be? I blinked and it was all over.
All that I didn't know was coming when that picture was taken...God protects us from that knowledge, because there's no way I would've ever thought I would've survived all that has ensued here at home.
My 12 kids still living at home are all on Fall Break. I slept in until past 7 a.m., stunned to wake up and find the sun shining. All those years of massive stress and unmitigated violence resulted in a five year time frame when I rarely slept past five a.m. I rarely slept at all back then, eating was out of the question for me as well.
I am luxuriating in our reduced stress load.
Again at church last night a man I barely knew told me, "I'm just amazed at you and all those kids. I don't know how you do it."
If he only knew what we'd been through...
One of Chuy's teachers called yesterday paying me a compliment for Chuy, "He's matured into such a leader, last year he was a bit disruptive."
Well, yeah, last year he was just coming out of his angry funk, deeply shaken by the unrelenting, destructive aggression displayed by his collective birth siblings, nowadays he feels emotionally free, able to just be a teenager and enjoy life without the constant worry over them committing egregious acts that had such negative consequences. He loves them dearly and needed them to be where they could receive help.
He beamed when I complimented him, repeating what his teacher had told me.
She, this teacher, had called to give her side regarding another son who will immediately blame everyone else. I'd already received a call from the front office, I knew what had happened, but, yet again, I reiterated that I always will take the teacher's side, as my children need to learn to respect authority - and what a battle it's been to get to that point with so many of them.
I drug home a half ton of groceries for our four day Fall Break, knowing that my kids constantly pig out, we're still eating from the garden, I'm still vegan, and really enjoying it. Sarah went off the wagon with some friends for one meal, feeling sluggish afterwards, but she'd given herself permission to do so. Me, too. If I wanna just be vegetarian, not a vegan, at Thanksgiving, then that's what I'm gonna do. Or if I can't resist the lure of a Larry's Giant Greek Veggie Sub with feta cheese...
But I've surprised myself with how easy it's been for the last two months to be vegan, and by how well I feel as a result. Seriously, who drinks cow secretions AKA milk? A nearly lifelong commitment to vegetarianism has made becoming vegan a piece of cake (cooked without eggs).
The elementary school had called me to come get Nando, who'd complained of a headache and had the sniffles, he never complains so I immediately complied. He's fine this morning, but it again reminded me how close to home I always need to be at all times.
When I'd gotten the call I was in The PeachMac Store. "No, I don't want the Apple headphones, gimme the el cheapo version," I told the man, Shane, a childhood friend of Daniel. "I just need one with a mic so I can talk and work at the same time."
He came up with what I needed and I scampered thankfully away, only to have to return to get him to cut open the dang blister over-packaging crap carefully designed to thwart Grandmas like me. I'd been wrestling with it in the parking lot, knowing I was liable to cut three fingers off in my haste.
Shane rescued me from that fate, yet I promptly went home, wearing the new headphones and got a dang fishing hook hung in the back of my hand as I was rearranging the fishing poles. I hollered for Nando, thought I'd faint, and pulled it out my own self, swooning at the sight of spurting blood, medical sissy that I am, but grammatically correct enough to not end this post with a preposition.
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