Just an update to answer those burning questions...

I have not moved to Canada.  We are looking at some towns just over the border in New Brunswick this week to see what they are like.  If  we move, it will be sometime next year.  You will definitely hear more first.

I have not joined the circus, the NAACP or the Columbian cartel. 
I have been busy with the kids, working, playing and juggling
life.  I guess I fell out of habit here and then looked aghast at
the catching up part.   It's an old story and one I'm sure
you've heard before.

I am alive.  And even well.  I don't think I'll ever be gone forever, just taking extended holiday every third blue moon.

I am in another play with
a new theatre group.  This time I play a crazy drunken
witch.  Nothing new here.  I am also building costumes, sets,
gathering props and working as co-stage manager.  I am having lots
of fun all the while complaining about the work.  Still nothing
new. 

I still visit far too many doctors, even though Seeta is doing
great.  She is attending day camp and insists upon hugging
everyone good bye when she leaves.  My other  kids are at
sleep-over camp and will be gone for at least two more weeks.  It
is (relatively) quiet - aside from the roosters crowing and the odd bear in the back yard.

SO... while I won't be here next week, I plan on stopping back, and THYRIO, I'd love to be able to read ya again (hint, hint.)

Jeepers Creepers!  Where does the time go?  When I last turned around it was only May, now looky here, it's almost August.  I think this is something old people say alot.  I must be really getting old.  Not that I'd admit it.

I sat down today and looked at that huge stack of dishes.  Do I want to get this mess cleaned up - OR choose curtain #2 and go to xanga and do some catching up?

Of course it's a no brainer, I'm here aren't I?  My problem is that because I've been away so long catching up is going to take too long to do.  Instead, I've just headed to my own page and write out what a ditz I've been.  I will/have read some, I just have to get some cobwebs out of my brain before I can comment.

Being A.D.D. I have that problem alot - cobwebbed brain.  As a matter of fact, dusting in general is just an evil chore so I usually avoid it at all costs.  There you have it.  I am likely to be behind on all things all on account of cobwebs in my brain.

So, I'm off to read and (hopefully) comment. ta.

My little bunny is sick today.  Not a big deal, a fever and cough, she'll be better soon enough.  So I sit at home with her on the couch while she watches cartoons or sleeps.  Meanwhile there are other health issues for her that I have been dealing with.

The first is her gut.  She has diarrhea and has had it ever since before I picked her up in India.  There are many contributing factors and we have ruled out parasites.  At this time we are looking at food sensitivity and an out of balance digestive tract. 

Since it is an issue we are working on with the doctor's help, and since I have to verify if a treatment is working we talk a lot about poop.  Lucky me, I get moment by moment potty up-dates, "I have to poop, Mom." then, "I only peed, Mom, can I flush the potty?" or,  "I POOPED MOM!  Come see!" 

All these are usually said in her loudest voice and frequently when I am on the phone or something equally helpful.  I am under whelmed to be sure.

A couple of weeks ago when we went to pre-Kindergarten screening, the nurse noticed that Seeta favored her left eye.  This is an understatement.  She refused to look out of her right eye to have it tested.  We'd cover it up, and she'd peek around the paddle.  So I thought, "Is she blind in that eye?"

Last week we went to the eye doctor.  Nope, not blind, but not even close to good.  Without glasses, she can not even identify the big E on the wall.  I'm told she has worse than 20/400 vision in that eye.  She could see the E, but didn't know what it was.  I had no clue her sight was off.  Her left eye is so strong that it compensates totally - even with depth perception, and that's really hard to do.

So, she got her glasses (I'll get a picture of her with glasses, she's pretty cute,) and we have to patch the good eye for an hour a day to strengthen the weak one. 

This is easier said than done, however.  She's gotten really good at pulling off the corner of the patch and peeking out through it so I can't easily tell.  Luckily for me her older siblings just love to tattle!  I've gotten a stronger tape to keep the patch on.  Now the fortified patch is a bear to remove.  sigh.  What is it about raising kids that has to be so difficult?

The good news is that her right eye with work will become stronger.  Not 20/20, but maybe 20/30 - provided she will comply with the doctor's guidelines.  We will have regularly scheduled checks for her in this department.

Have you guessed that I am not thrilled about doctor's offices lately?  I mean I'm glad that we have the ability to get help, but I'm tired of being in them just the same.

My husband is Canadian.

Lately we have been talking about leaving the US.  The politics
here is so messed up and the health care is so expensive that even
though the dollar isn't as strong in Canada as in the US, we are
thinking of ditching.  This is an adventure I'm not really sure
about and I'm not sure that the kids will be thrilled.

The only reason that this is a positive discussion is because we are
talking about some places that are only 3 hours away from here.

This is not exactly going to be a walk in the park for me.  Luckily the first
step is to investigate some communities in Nova Scotia and New
Brunswick this summer.

Isn't it cool how every once in a great while one gets a really great
idea and writes about it and it comes out perfectly!  Something
wonderful that is thought provoking, funny and well put together just
seems to flow out of the fingertips on the keyboard and up on the
computer screen.

Today isn't one of  those times.  So I leave you with a picture of the monkey girl:

I wonder why when people see water in a pond situation they feel
compelled to throw money in it.  Is there some compulsion that the
money will grow from being in water?  It must work on one level
since more people throw money into a pond after they see some money on
the bottom.  Who's wish are they really trying to make come
true?  The only one's wish I can see being filled is the poor
sucker who rolls up his pant legs and goes in to get the coins. 
It's not a very big wish generally though.

Part of this query comes from the knowledge that money in water is a
bad thing for the ecology of the water - especially salt water. 
Copper is used to kill off plant life (algae)  in water and heavy
metals aren't good for the animals either.  When I worked in a pet
store, some numbnuts hid a penny in a coral rock in the large salt
water aquarium and killed everything in the tank.  That person
knew they were doing something wrong since they went to such lengths to
hide the penny. 

Speaking of pet stores... this past week I went into a pet store where
there was a nurse shark in a large fish tank.  There of course is
the clever sign that basically says, "Don't put your hands in the
tank."  I remarked to the person working there that it seemed
pretty self evident that one should not put body parts into a tank with
a shark (or a piranah, or a snapping turtle, or an electric eel for
that matter - all of which I have seen needing signs.)  He said
that adults are the worst
offenders.  Go figure!?  And for those of you who need to
know, it is more for the protection of the animal than the person -
people's hands are not clean, but still!

Now here's an odd fact about me.  I have my certification for SCUBA diving and the first dive I went on was a shark dive in the Bahamas. 
It is a dive where the Bull sharks are used to being fed so they hang out
and tourist divers watch.  These are not Nurse sharks.  So, by definition, I am a thrill
seeker, right?!  And I still wouldn't put my fingers in a tank
with a "dangerous" animal.

So, how about it.  Are you the kind who tempts the fates with
sharks?  Don't forget to wish for immunity when you throw that
penny in the pond then.

Here's hoping that this thing actually works.  If not I'll have to go to my parent's house to post...

It's been a while since I've given "The Seeta
Report."  I know I've been asleep at the
wheel there.  The alter ego wants to have fun and not bother
with reality.  Reality's always so pervasive.  Basically it
gets boring always saying what a wonderful happy child this one
is.  Believe me, it doesn't get boring living with her though!

Oh, don't worry, she's not a perfect child by any
means- her overwhelming happiness is tempered occasionally by
equally dramatic unhappy times, usually when she hears the word, "No."

She's still the big singer and dancer.  She
doesn't really know the words though, so we get: "Twinkle, twinkle,
little car.  How I wonder where you car."  OR we get
re-wording and combining: "Twinkle, twinkle little car,
e-i-e-i-o.  Up on tella wait. Up on tella wait, e-i-e-i-o. 
Up - oh, Down - oh, e-i-e-i-o.

Food is a funny issue.  Being a typical five year
old, she has her likes and dislikes.  When she says she wants
something because she sees someone else with it and is told she
doesn't like it, she will argue that she does.  And will eat the
food smiling the whole time.  Even something like raw chopped
onion - the kind that makes your eyes really water.  She has to
prove her mind, can't be making mistakes in opinion.  It
doesn't mean, however, that the next time she gets that food that she
will like or even eat it.  Only when she has been told she doesn't
like it.  Anyway the reason I find it so odd is that the other
ones decide that they don't like a food before they try it, not that they do like it.

Then there was the time she got really insistent, "The
Cat in the Hat, my sister's shoes."  She was very angry with us
because we didn't quite understand.  It took a while to figure
out that she was trying to say, "The Cat in the Hat,
by Mr. Suess."  Now, though, she knows that he's Dr.
Suess, and everything is much better.

It's been five months since she came into our
family.  Next month the official adoption will happen.  Since
then we have been only awarded guardianship.  Our last official
social worker visit is happening next week.

So, hopefully the computer is going to let me
post.  I think it's time to replace this ol' thing.  I think
it's trying to die.

Just do like my husband did to me.  He returned home from a week away and said, "Oh it's so good to be back in my own bed with my own wife!"

Oh, and whose wife have you been in bed with lately then?

OK, I didn't ban him to the couch, but he did get tickled.  alot.

I don't remember which comedian I heard this from, but it was such a profound concept that I had to bring it here to you.

Why do Coke® and Pepsi™ still bother to advertise?  The annual
budget for advertising for just one of these products is enough to feed
a third world country for a decade with enough left over for a few
fifth world countries as well.

Do these people really feel that their ads will get folks to switch
tastes?  How many people have even walked out of an establishment
because the wrong carbonated beverage was being served?  Perhaps
the strongest I've heard was a patron changing their soft drink order
but that was someone with a pretty strong dislike of 'the wrong'
cola.  And it wasn't for any ad.

For Fleener...

... because he told me Bloom County was his favorite, and because we
all need to know, "Where's the beef?!" especially when it comes to
fleen.