Steampunking Art

If you've read back through my stuff, you know that I have, for years now, been on the lookout for a vintage mourning locket that was my mother's.  It had been a gift to her from the wife of her father's (my grandfather's) business partner back in Hallstead, Pennsylvania.  It was a large (around two-plus inches long by over an inch wide) gold or pinchbeck (I don't know which) mourning locket with deep scrolling and a large, rectangular black stone--I believe obsidian, but maybe not, maybe onyx.  It was not jet, and it was almost certainly not glass.  I know those things.  The inside was missing the glass, and was an uneven, pale enamel blue.  The chain was incredibly muscular and substantial, a brilliantly heavy box-link chain that was obviously meant to be with the locket.  My mother gave it to me on my wedding day, and, as far as I can tell, the husband of that day stole it when we split up in Provo, Utah a year later.  It's been 28 years since I've seen that locket, and I'm still looking for it.  It means more to me than I can adequately explain.

What does that have to do with Steampunk?

Everything.

You see, I know folks who are completely taken, captivated even, by the whole steampunk thing.  And hey, that's fine, have fun, it's harmless, it's creative, and if it takes your imagination to new heights, that's wonderful.

What isn't so wonderful is how some steampunk folks have taken to snapping up vintage jewelry and tearing it to bits for their own "reimagined" art.  This destroys me, it tears ME to bits.  I can imagine someone taking that amazing, beautiful locket for which I have searched years and tearing the stone off, replacing it with some dippy beetle made out of soldered coathanger and a Heineken bottle cap or some other such thing.  And it makes me almost crazy with preemptive grief.

I've heard the cry, "It's ART!" but I disagree.  It's "art" like me breaking into the Louvre with a can of spray paint and "reimagining"  Da Vinci's Virgin of the Rocks is art.  The locket itself is art.  To deface it would be vandalism.  If you want to pull apart jewelry and watches and recreate other, new, steampunk-y things, then please, please buy cheap, knock-off jewelry from Burlington Coat Factory and Walmart.  But please don't go to antique shops and vintage stores and snap up treasures for the purpose of defacing them!  If it's the "old" look you're after, it's no big deal to distress metals to make them look vintage.

Please!

And enough of that.  Been thinking about the whole "fiscal cliff" deal and how it doesn't really fix much on the sequestration front because all they did was kick the can down the road by a couple of months.  So we don't really even get to relax much.  We're just caught in the idiot waiting and worrying game again.  Or still.  Thanks, guys.

My son's Christmas card from his Aunt finally came yesterday.  Open and no money.  Yes, she actually put CASH in the card.  So now we're torn.  Do we tell her the card came opened with no cash, or do we just let it go and give him the cash out of our own pocket?  I don't know, but I can't help but feel just a tad pissed off here.  Who puts cash in a card these days?  Why would anyone do that?  My mom also sent a card, and it showed up the same day, also opened.  But she had included a check, not cash, and the check was still there.

Grrr.

Going shopping tonight.  Going to work very hard to keep it cheap AND to load up on fruits and veggies instead of crappy snacks.  It's time to rein this in before my blood sugar becomes a real issue again.

Speaking of real issues--going into week three without seeing any lice.  We're pretty sure we know who they're coming off of, and there's not really anything we can do.  It's another boy in Hapkido, really unkempt, seems mentally troubled, perhaps autistic?  Bad body odor, really greasy hair.  No, I don't believe any of those things give you lice--case in point, my kid with the clean hair and the fresh-smelling armpits.  But this boy has problems with being touched, and the only time we find lice on MY boy is after he's been paired for sparring with the boy I'm talking about.  And he is FOREVER scratching at his head.  I'm thinking he has a wowser infestation and won't let anyone in close enough to see or do anything about it.  So we'll just keep doing what we're doing--when my boy comes home, he rinses his hair, and then I thoroughly lice comb him and blow his hair out to fry the bastards.  I don't see another option that doesn't damage the studio owner (and he's a nice man) or cause that disturbed boy harm, and I'm not looking to have him thrown out or whatever.  So we lice comb.  Now that we're aware of the problem and the likely source, we should be able to stay on top of it.

And before anyone says anything about me being mean by saying I think the boy is likely autistic?  My boy stopped talking right after his first birthday.  And he stayed non-verbal for over a year.  At the same time, he began developing odd repetitive tics and took to screaming and hitting himself whenever anyone sang or whistled.  We spent years working with him to get him past the spectacular Asperger's gig he had going on.  And there are still issues, though most are so dramatically improved that the average person dealing with him doesn't notice.  So I'm not being mean, I absolutely sympathize with the boy and his parents.  So much so that I'll put up with my boy being exposed to lice up to three times a week.

And, finally?  Bad paneling!  Bad!

I really do think the lighter ones offend me the most.  Nothing like a little "blond" paneling to make my fingernails itch.

Because No Lice is Twice as Nice

I have no idea why I typed that title. Because I'm tired, I guess.

Haven't seen any lice for over a week.  Nits, either. No, the super-heavy-duty 5% permethrin the doc prescribed (even after I said these seemed to be permethrin-resistant) didn't do a thing.  What DOES seem to be doing the trick?

Religious combing.  Lice combing, nit combing, nit picking.  Plus a heavy dose of heat via my blow dryer.  Every other day we shampoo, load our hair with Pureology (a very pricy conditioner to be using as nit-combing gel, but it's perfect for it), nit comb, then fry the hair with the blow dryer.  Thankfully, the Pureology seems to do a pretty good job of protecting the hair from the high heat. 

What a mess.  I guess a trip to the hairdresser will let us know if we've really gotten rid of them.

Watched the rat-children's Dad lose his truck today (the family's only vehicle).  Looks like it's just stopped running.  Not a surprise--the poor thing has no front door windows (they try to use towels and blankets to keep the rain out), and it's sounded increasingly unwell for months now.  My first urge?

To head over and commiserate, because I have SO been there.  To recommend Brown's Hyundai because, hey, they financed us when I didn't think ANYONE would.  I feel bad for the guy, I do.  I think he's an ineffectual, weak parent whose kids are scary and out of control, but fact is, I think he's a nice guy.  A nice guy who works hard and has it rough--and it just got a whole lot rougher. 

Right before Christmas.

I wish we could afford to step in and be the good guys for him. 

I remember, back in 1995, when we were moving from Fontana (Fontucky), California back to Utah.  It was a miserable move--hubby driving his car, me driving the U-Haul truck (with the broken dash lights) with the Mustang on the trailer (with the broken stabilizer).  I cried from Fontucky to Barstow.  Not easy, driving a 26 foot truck pulling a 17 foot auto transport over Cajon Pass while sobbing.

No, I didn't want to leave SoCal.  In hindsight, of course, I'm glad we did.  It led us here.  Eventually.

Driving that rig was very hard in the dark, and, by the time we reached Jean, Nevada (after deciding against picking up hitchhikers near the women's prison outside of town), I had a migraine that was the size of--well, at least the size of my head.  We pulled into the parking lot at some Jean casino, hoping to find some way, in those over-packed vehicles, to nap.  Understand we were moving a snake, a rat, five cats, and a dog.  All their cages crammed in the cabs of the two vehicles.  Before I could nap, however, I really needed to take something for that eye-bleeder of a headache. 

To do that?  I needed food.  We had no food.  Know what else we had almost none of? 

Money.  In fact, we were not sure we had enough money to keep the U-Haul truck in petrol. 

I tried to beg off, told hubby I'd just take the pills sans food.  He wasn't having any of that, so we headed into the casino in search of cheap casino fare.  And we found some--$2.99 prime rib with baked potato and some rather disconsolate, woobly green beans.  Add a Diet Coke for a buck and we were set.  An eight dollar meal, basically.  Well, a ten dollar meal, once you count the tip.  Of course, this was back when gas was 80 cents or so a gallon.  So ten dollar meal was a LOT of fuel.  We were now even closer to not making it to our destination.

On our way out of the casino, we passed a rather inebriated gentleman who had just hit it on the dollar slots.  He started yelling for hubby to come over.  Hubby, at the time, wasn't the Mr. Respectable he is now in a suit and tie.  No, he was a long hair (down to his ass) in grubby jeans with the obligatory tat on the arm.  He approached the man, who scooped out handfuls of dollars from his machine and offered them to us.  Hubby tried to beg off, but the man insisted--said it would screw with his luck if he didn't share with the first person he saw.  Wisely, hubby didn't persist in objecting, and we walked away with thirty-eight dollars.

38 bucks.

He had no way of knowing it, but that drunk at the slots?  Saved us.  He got us home.  We've never forgotten him.  As much as I fear and loathe those kids across the street, I don't wish them a crappy Christmas where presents go back so the truck can be fixed or replaced.  I don't wish their dad yet another crap job so he can keep them afloat.  I wish we had the money to help.  Because you know what?

I can't imagine anything cooler than being the person who puts a hand out there and pulls someone else up.


Another good diet day. I think tomorrow I'm going to start including pics of bad paneling. Because, as I pore over real estate listings, I realize there is a LOT of really offensive paneling out there. Like this (which isn't the worst I've seen, but it sure would make me sad if I had to look at it every day):

Messy Day Gone Better

So, we had decided to cancel my phone once the contract period was up.  Good way to save 50 bucks a month.  After all, I don't often use it, and it seems silly to keep it.  No, I don't WANT to cancel it, but we need to save cash where we can.

So, hubby warns me that my Christmas is coming, and that I'll need to sign for it but not even look at it a little bit.  No checking the return address, nothing.  He says it's coming tomorrow.  Okay, I agree.  I won't look.  I plan on warning our boy not to look, either.

Except it came today.  And we are expecting other things.  Our boy opened it.  And found two brand new Droid Razrs.  Hubby decided me without a phone isn't good, and we'll just let the Galaxy Tab's contract expire in March instead.  Which makes sense--the Tab will still function perfectly well on WiFi without a contract.  But now the surprise is ruined, and, while he's not upset, it is sort of a bummer for him because they're the only gifts he got us that were surprises.  I flat-out bullshat our boy, told him the phones are for his father and me, and that he'll get his father's old phone.  So at least he can be surprised a little, right?

Also, hubby got me the 2012 White House Ornament.  William Howard Taft and the first motorized transportation at the White House.  It's a lovely ornament that I had decided not to get because I didn't want to drop the cash.  Turns out you can get a discount by buying bulk, and a bunch of his coworkers went in with him for a bunch of them.  It's gorgeous!

2012 White House Ornament--flip it over, and you see Mrs. Taft!

Anyway, back to the home front.  The new, stronger lice concoction didn't work, just like I knew it wouldn't.  Just like I tried to tell the doc's office it wouldn't.  Found  a live one on my boy two days post-treatment. None on me yet.  We're lice-combing (isn't that a county in Pennsylvania?) and nit-picking every other day.  And that's almost certainly the way we're going to wind up getting rid of them.  I'm also baking our heads with the blow dryer, which is supposed to be helpful.  Considering getting a bonnet-type dryer, which isn't as effective as a hand-held, but is also a lot easier on the shoulders and back.  Yeah, long-term investment in lice treatment.  Sounds like I've resigned myself to this, doesn't it?

I've been really good on the diet, though I'm planning to screw up today.  Had yogurt and granola for breakfast, and I'm about to demolish some mac-a-chee for lunch.  But I feel in control, like I've managed to flip that switch back on.  Today, I have mac-a-chee, tomorrow back to it without feeling bad about today.  Past four days have been under 1500 calories (with Monday only 1180), so I'm feeling positive. 

We headed out to the Bull Run Festival of Lights last night.  It was very nice, and the difference between it and the similar display they hold in Willard, Utah was clear.  The Utah display has a lot of cowboys and old west themes, whereas the only horse we spotted at the Bull Run Festival was part of a fox hunting party.  Overall, the Bull Run was better, though the Willard will always have a special place in my heart. 

Speaking of Christmas, I ordered 30 custom Christmas cards this year, and used every last one of them.  If I've forgotten anyone, I guess I'll have to drag out one of the old cards from last year.  Guess next year we'll order 40, huh?

Well, that was 35 bucks down the drain

Did the delousing with permethrin rinse on Monday.  Found three live lice on my head via nit-comb after a shower today.  Guess that didn't work.  Really don't want to spend 12 hours with Malathion on my head, but not about to blow time, effort, and hope on wives tales that don't work (like mayonnaise or olive oil).  Going to give pyrethrins a try.  If that doesn't work, going to try dimethicone, which isn't an insecticide, but rather screws with their ability to stay hydrated plus makes them easier to comb out.  And if THAT doesn't work, then I guess it's Malathion Time.

Cue bad MC Hammer music just because it pleases me.

I did go at my head/scalp with the blow dryer on high heat--hot enough that I scorched my fingers touching my super-heated hair.  That's supposed to be effective.  However, I'm pretty sure I can still feel them on my head. 

This is horrifying.

So off to Walgreens for Rid, I guess--that's the pyrethrins one. 

I'm trying to be reasonable about this.  After all, head lice aren't dangerous.  They don't spread disease (unlike other lice).  They don't actually do us harm. 

So why do I want to pour kerosene all over my head and put torch to it?

Our boy is upstairs, washing his hair.  And then I'm going to nit-comb him.  Again. 

I can't even describe how pitched this has got me.

Found this pic on numerous sites, never credited.  I dreamed this very thing all night.

Update:  nit-combed the boy.  Got almost 3/4 through with no lice, no nymphs, and no nits.  And then I hit a patch over his right ear and holy cow.  Maybe a dozen?  I pulled the comb away from his head to inspect it and a dozen or so came boiling out from between the teeth of the comb.  Damn!   

Spoke to the family doctor (ish--she's on vacation, got one of the partners)--she called in a script for MORE permethrin.  I told her we've already used it, but she insisted--she said this is five percent instead of one percent and she feels confident it will work.  If it doesn't, then she wants to see us.  No.  If it doesn't, then we'll get the pyrethrin, and if that doesn't work, we'll get the dimethicone, and if all that (with all the attendant nit-combing) doesn't work, THEN we'll see her.  No way we're dropping 25 bucks per for office visits over lice unless all else has failed. 
Oh, and it turns out there is one of the heat treatment centers locally.  You know, the fancy heat attachment that desiccates the little bastards?  Too bad about the up-to 250 bucks per for treatment. 

The Problem with Menopause/ICKY GIRL STUFF/AWFUL ATHEISM

You were warned.

*****************BEGIN ICKY GIRL STUFF***************

The problem with menopause?  Is that it's unpredictable.  It's pissy and dodgy and comes in fits and starts.  I'm not happy about "perimenopause."  There are a lot of things I regret in life, but only having one child has got to be top of the list. I always wanted a second, and even now, at 47 years old, I have to work very hard not to think about it too much, else my heart breaks.  Just another for the pile, I guess. 

Anyway, menopause.  To put it delicately, my "cycles" have been a bit less than reliable the past few months.  Skipping here, barely there there.  You know.  This month, I'm making up for it.  Epically.  Like, "At what point do I need an ambulance?" epically. 

****************END ICKY GIRL STUFF*****************

Add that that?  Lice.  Blew my back, hand, and shoulders out yesterday nit-combing our boy.  Took over an hour, and my hand still hurts.  Then hubby nit-combed me, and I him (as well as I could--his hair is very short).  Then the long, pain-in-the-ass process of washing all the bed linens (and rewashing all the clean clothes that had been next to the bed waiting to be put away) began.  We were going to wait until today on the fitted sheet and mattress pad beneath, but our Cairn Terrier Charlie made that decision for us.

He pissed on the bed last night.  No idea why.  No straining or behaving like he doesn't feel good, none of the behaviors I would expect from a dog with a UTI.  No, he just pissed on the bed.

Twice. This has never happened before.

It's happened nowhere else.  Only on the bed.  And only last night.  I don't know what's up with that, if the Christmas tree and the stink of permethrin have troubled him, or if the fact that the bed is where the permethrin smell is strongest has something to do with it.  First piss, he got the fitted sheet and the mattress pad.  Sadly, the second piss (which was much smaller) came after the mattress pad and sheet were in the wash.  In other words, he got mattress.  We do have enzymatic cleaner for just that purpose, but I'm now scared to death this is going to become a habit.  Considering that he's my heating pad when I'm napping cold, that's a tragedy for me.  If anyone has any ideas, I'm open.  I've read that it might be a weird show of submission or a statement of who the boss is and where she sleeps.  It's not a marking thing--he's not cocking leg to do this.  And, like I said, he's not doing it anywhere else--he's not abruptly squatting and pissing on the carpet or kitchen tile.  Only on the bed.

The computer is being increasingly stupid and bad.  Really laggy, really glitchy.  Shockwave and a couple of others crash frequently, sometimes within hours of a restart.  Yeah, I dump the cache.  Just too many competing programs, I think.  I fear it may be time to reformat and start from fresh.  Especially with the new game our boy's getting for Christmas. 

Speaking of Christmas, my present came yesterday--from Amazon, but delivered out of the back of a Budget Rental truck (?).  A big (3.3 ounce) bottle of Boucheron.  See, I got a very small bottle (maybe 1/5 of an ounce) a couple of years ago and fell in love.  I've made that tiny little purse-size bottle last because Boucheron is around $115.00 for a 3.3 ounce bottle.  Last week?  I found it marked down dramatically--40 bucks!  With free shipping!  So there it is--my bottle of Boucheron!  It's very sweet, very romantic and flowery, unlike the scents I normally go for.  But I love it--I've loved it since I first smelled it, though my "Unforgivable" (the really wonderful perfume with the unforgivably bad name) is in no danger of being bumped from its favorite slot.

Boucheron, Big and Small

Gonna wander back to religion for just a little.  Hey, I'm an atheist, so atheism comes up now and then.  I'd venture to say I don't dedicate nearly as much of my blog to atheism as many religious folks do to their particular faith. 

Okay.  Here we go.


******************BEGIN AWFUL ATHEISM********************



Remembering a discussion with a friend years ago, one that featured him insisting that it's not possible for him to be GOOD without EVIL.  In other words, if there weren't EVIL in the world, there would be no good, because everything must occur with opposition (?).  He went on to talk about how, without some deity, he can't be happy because . . . oh, heck, I don't remember what his point was.  Something about how, in order to be happy, we must also be sad and otherwise how can we know it's joy if we don't have sorrow or some such thing.  And then he said it.  You know.

IT.

"How can you know not to do bad without Jesus?"

You know, folks who say things like that scare the daylights out of me.  Because I'm left with the idea that there are bazillions of people out there who are one thin Gideon's Bible page away from murdering their neighbors, raping their daughters, and plundering every shop they walk by.  Are you SERIOUS? 

ARE YOU?

Are you really suggesting that, without a Bible, I won't know not to kill my neighbor's toddler or torture his poodle or rob banks?  Are you kidding?  What about people who've never read the bible?  Are they just murderous, raping, pillaging fools who have no morals?  And if that's so, why is the U.S. so highly religious AND so violent?  Why doesn't someplace like, say, Great Britain, with its hordes of godless atheists, have a murder rate that leaves ours in the dust? 

And do you really, really need religion to tell you what's right from wrong?  I ask because . . . because I don't believe that.  I can't--like I said, that's just too scary.  I don't do bad, cruel, violent things to other people because that's hurtful, and it's harmful, not just to them but to all of us.  I don't hit people or shoot them because I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of that same thing.  I don't steal from others because it sucks to be stolen from.  I don't lie about others because it sucks to be lied about.  I don't cheat on my husband because it sucks to be cheated on.  Call that "the Golden Rule" if you wish, though it seriously pre-dates Christianity (Confucianism was saying "What you do not wish upon yourself, extend not to others" centuries before the advent of Christianity), call it "the Silver Rule," but recognize it for what it is--not some supernatural edict from the sky, but rather a common-sense idea that arises from our natural propensity toward empathy.  I don't do "evil" upon others because to do so is hurtful; if I wouldn't want that hurt coming down on me, why on earth would I do it to someone else?

If some holy book is the only thing standing between you and mayhem, if the threat of divine punishment is the only thing that keeps you in line, you've got some terrible issues and you scare the wits right out of me.

And that's that.  I've been kicking around writing an entry about how everyone is so sure their religion and their deity is the right one, and yet the overwhelming majority of people are of the faith predominant to their geographical area.  In other words, where you're born almost always determines your faith.  Which means that if you'd been born in Punjab instead of Pittsburgh, you'd almost certainly be of a different faith.  And you'd be proclaiming just as fervently that Sikhism was the true religion.  But now it looks as though I've already written it, so never mind.

*********************END AWFUL ATHEISM**********************


That's all.  I'm going to go scrub some toilets now, because there isn't much that makes me battier than dirty toilets.  Seriously, it's a "thing." 

Christmas Tree Day/I May Scream Myself to Death

Well, we bought a lovely tree yesterday--nothing from Walmart, we're not doing that place anymore.  After today's revelation about creatively cutting employee hours to deny them even the abysmal health benefits they were getting?  All done with Walmart.  We have Wegmans, we have Costco, both of which have terrific records when it comes to pay and benefits. 

Anyway, the tree.  It's a Fraser Fir, same as last year.  Got it from a little lot over by Sudley.  Local folks who bring in trees from North Carolina.  Sad about the Fraser Firs, though--apparently, some nasty non-native insect has decimated the old growth Frasers.  They reproduce eagerly, so there are plenty of babies, but once they're large enough for their bark to start cracking and giving an opening, they may be toast.  Apparently, they thrive in Scotland, so that's something.  Until some dip introduces some awful non-native thing there, too.

Our Fraser Fir--pay no attention to the horrendous mid-decorating mess.

We were a bit worried about the dog with the tree--after all, is it realistic to bring a live tree in the house and expect a dog to not lift leg?  Luckily, we've had no issues thus far.  Of course, the decorations aren't on yet.  Let's see how that goes, chewing-wise. 

Last night, our boy announced that he'd found a louse on his arm earlier in the day, after his Hapkido session.  He had tried to put it aside, but it had escaped somewhere in his bathroom.  So I took the fine-toothed, rat-tailed comb and went over him.  Nothing.  This morning, I was taking a shower.  After shampooing my hair, I looked down at my hand to see two strands of hair being held together by . . . what was that?  Was it moving?

Was it a damned LOUSE?

Yeah.  Yeah, it was. 

One is a coincidence.  Two?  Two is something more sinister. 

Once again, it was time to check heads.  This time I checked our boy's while hubby checked mine, and then I checked hubby's.  Nothing.  NOTHING!  Now, it's not like I don't know how to look for lice--last go-round, I mastered parting off the hair and checking, line-by-line, for those bastards.  No lice on either of my men's heads.  Our boy does have what looks like maybe nits, but not down near the scalp--these are 1-2 inches up the hair shaft, which isn't indicative of a going infestation. 

After all the combing through and checking, I feel a tickle on my bare leg.  I look down, and, sure enough, there's a LOUSE on my leg.  Smaller than the first ones, but absolutely a louse.  No mistaking it's blood-filled little abdomen. 

What the hell?

So that's another 40 bucks in lice treatments.  It's not that this has been an ongoing thing--the last (first) infestation, which only affected our boy, was  back in early July.  Five months ago.  This is a whole new group, and here's the thing--we don't hang out with anyone, really.  The closest contact we have with anyone is shopping, visiting various historical sites, our boy's Hapkido, and hubby's daily bus commute.  My money's on Hapkido, since that involves a lot of close contact and rolling around on the mats.  Whatever it is, I've gotta say, I'm unhappy.  You know I hate ticks, but at least ticks don't lay EGGS on you.  Of course, lice don't have the potential to give you possibly deadly diseases, so I guess it's "ick" factor vs really dangerous. 

But ICK, you know?  I really may scream myself to death.

Our boy just started another online course, this time with hubby.  A course on logic and arguments, offered up by Duke University.  We're really liking this Coursera gig--gives us the opportunity to fill in any gaps in our boy's education.  He's got the basics, but this gives him those electives. 

Anyway, I need to give up my post on the computer so they can get back to work.  It makes me very happy to have them sharing the time!

The tree--not done yet, I'll likely fiddle with it for a few days.  But done-ish.

Avenue of Misfit Children

I've seen lice before. Once, when I was working up to my "beauty school drop-out" status, I saw a whole head crawling with them. Swimming, in fact. I'd seen a few other lice--or, rather, lice children, in the years since.


Lice children? You know, Lipnicki kids, those poor children with the buzz cuts who remind you of nothing so much as mean, neglected junkyard denizens. Not a FAIR assessment, I know, but it's what always leaps to mind when I see young kids with buzzed hair. I think "mean" and I think "dirty." Too many years living in a town where those stereotypes were all too often true.


You'd think, then, that when my boy's head started itching, I'd have known. Rather than saying, "We'll get you a new shampoo," I'd have LOOKED at his head. But I didn't. When all the ratty, awful kids in this neighborhood suddenly started sporting buzz cuts, you'd think I'd have caught wise. But no, again, I missed it. You would certainly hope that, when I pulled the live bug out of his hair I'd have realized what was happening, but no. No, I missed it then, too. I figured he'd picked up a bug while letting the dog outside.


In fact, it wasn't until we found the second and third bug (the third was crawling on my back after our boy had rested his head on my shoulder) that I began to catch a clue. At first, I feared bed bugs--see, we'd taken a small out-of-town trip a couple of weeks before. Closer examination of the bugs (including the first from a week or more earlier, which I had saved in a bottle of water because I'm strange that way) revealed them to be lice.


Oh, my goodness.


My first response? Revulsion, of course. I took a good look at my child's scalp and, sure enough, he had nits and adult lice. My second response? Rage. Rage because the neighborhood boys who had spent the night at our place just a couple of weeks before had shown up that night sporting brand new lice cuts. Sporting the lice cuts and saying NOTHING about having lice. Instead, they just rubbed their heads all over our sleeper sofa, our pillows, our sheets, our chairs, and our SON without giving us an ounce of warning.


Who does that? What PARENT sends their kids over to someone else's house when they know they've got lice? It's not like they didn't know--these kids had longish hair that they were obviously quite proud of, and then WHAMMO, it's buzzed to less than a quarter inch. That's a clear lice-related buzz cut. But not word one of warning to us.


So, what to do now? That is the question. What if these parents think a buzz cut is enough or they rely on some silly home remedy and they forego the permethrin shampoo? What if they just pick up MORE lice? How many lice episodes am I willing to suffer through before I say "ENOUGH" and stop allowing them to hang out with my boy? The kids in this neighborhood are scary, awful, and--well, and awful. Someone just sent me a youtube video of three of the local kids bashing about a rodent with baseball bats. These two, the lice-bringers, are the best of a really bad lot, and if we drive them off, our boy has no friends on the street. What a mess!


I don't know what to do. Just as I was at a loss when the small-animal-killing rat child across the street started stealing from us every time he was in our house, just as I was at a loss when our boy's best friend suddenly dumped him with no explanation (turns out it was a mixture of our lack of religion and our vigorous condemnation of small-animal killing--we didn't know at the time that he was part of that), I'm at a loss now. Do I just accept lice as the price we pay for these kids being our boy's friends? Do I offer them some RID shampoo and help them use it? Do we approach their parents and say, "Yo, did you know your boys have lice?" I swear, some of the parenting disasters we've had to face here have been SO beyond anything I thought I'd ever have to deal with. Avenue of Misfit Children?  Avenue of Misfit PARENTS is more like it.