My 60th birthday is coming up the end of June. I'm having trouble dealing with that. Just knowing I'm sixty is hard to believe. I'm getting old. I was listening to NPR interview a woman in her 30's who had some illness she was getting over. She had physical testing that showed she tested out as a 60 year old woman. She couldn't believe her physical condition was so deteriorated. I couldn't believe it either. I didn't know I was that bad. ~sigh~

I've always wanted a big birthday party so I decided last year I was going to throw myself one. I wanted to have it at a Driller's game. I have no idea why I picked that. It just seemed like a good venue. I didn't have to plan entertainment or a menu. Or decorations. It's the lazy woman's way. I had planned on booking it last fall so I could make sure and have it on a night there were fireworks but I procrastinated and all those nights were booked. I was lucky to find a Saturday night open on the July 4th weekend when a lot of people will be out of town. Better than having it on a 110 degree August night. But then it will either be raining (doubtful) or it will be 110 degrees on July 6th, the night of the party (probable).

I just ordered Save the Date cards today when I should have been working. They were 50% off so it was the perfect time to order them. I have to pay for 100 people so by golly, I'm going to invite more than that. I decided to include people's kids and the kids will probably drive me up a wall. Except for my grandkid, Guy. Or if my cousin's kids come.

Here is the picture I put on front of the Save the Date card:

I'm sure people will think it is weird that I put this old, silly pic of me. But who cares, I'm sixty. I can do what I want!

The card made me put a picture on the back which I didn't want to do but I couldn't go on without so I added this:

I think I was a pretty cute little girl. I cropped my brother out. I thought it would look strange if I put the picture of him with me on the card. People might think it was Harvey because people can be so dense.

Gallery Jewelry

MA Doran Gallery is a gallery that has been in business as long as we have lived in Tulsa. There are two women that run it and we have bought numerous pieces of art from them. During the recession they started carrying art jewelry as a way to earn extra income and I have bought several pieces of funky jewelry.

My former studio-mate, Lorie, started selling her jewelry through their gallery and has been quite successful. Because they have such a high quality gallery it's always been a dream to be an artist showing work there. So far, none of my jewelry has been good enough to sell until I have started fusing 22K gold to Argentium. Lorie bought a pair of my earrings and wore them into the gallery and they liked them so that has encouraged me to take in a sample of some of my work.

I'm really nervous to take my jewelry by. It's really putting myself on the line. Putting myself out there. Rejection can be hard. Plus they charge 50% commission. I will charge $165 for each pair of these earrings which is quite a bit of money. Their clientele will pay that much and they agreed that is a fair price.

I was shopping in a clothing store next door to Lorie's studio. The owner knew I made jewelry so I showed her some pictures of these earrings and she wanted me to bring them by. I don't know if she wants to carry them or buy a pair. It was nice though!

Creative Process

How do I create a piece?

It's a lot of staring into space with a glazed look on my face. Really. Something starts rolling around in my brain and possibilities start to form. I can look at a component on my bench and try to decide what can be done with that piece. Maybe its a piece of wire, a metal shape, a gemstone or a string of gemstone beads that gets me dreaming.

I love when my favorite jewelry magazines come in the mail or electronically. Some of them have simple projects that gets you thinking of something more sophisticated. Most of them have artist's work that leave you breathless with "how in the world did they do that!". My favorite jewelry books are the "500 Rings, or Bracelets or Earrings, etc". That gets my thinking cap working. (One of my elementary teachers would tell us to put our thinking caps on. I remember vividly what my thinking cap looked like. Kind of like one of those EEG caps)

My jewelry friends are an inspiration to me. They will suggest changes or challenges to my work. Or they will ask opinions of their own work which are creatively stimulating to me. My best ideas are actually my co-workers suggestions. That probably makes them their ideas, but they are all so generous they let me think that they are really mine.

My gemology teacher, Veronica Moody, taught us to take anything, hold up our hands to it, block part of it off and see the design in it.

I'm not a planner. I don't meticulously plan out a project. I usually haphazardly start hammering a piece of metal to see where it goes. Metal has a life of its own even though it is inert. The hammer moves the metal, it stretches it, compresses it. Fire softens it and the metal starts to move on its own as it heats. You start all over with the metal, stretch and compress it some more. You can't always tell how each piece of metal will react. I think there are metal fairies that live inside and change the crystalline structure just to confuse me. I surely can't get matching pieces of metal though sometimes I need to, such as when making earrings.

The need to create is strong. It is overwhelming sometimes. I enjoy going to work each day. I may not get a piece finished every day or even every week, but as long as I am working (sometimes I work on multiple things) I'm happy. When my mother was in her 70's she would work all day, then come home and stay up late painting. I hope I'm doing that until I'm 100. Well it might be hard to hold a hammer...

12 Pound Terror

While Allie is studying and partying in Europe Harvey and I have been left with taking care of her two dogs Presley and Duke. Duke is 75 lbs and Presley is about 12 lbs, but they are the most destructive dogs.

Our backyard looks like a moonscape most of the time from their digging. The only time it doesn't is when Harvey has painstakingly covered up the holes with fresh dirt. We are not talking about a few holes. We are talking about the entire back yard.

Presley is an escape artist. He actually rips holes in our 10 year old fence and gets out. He's so little it just takes a small hole. Harvey, again painstakingly nails a board up to cover up the hole and the next day, guess what? Yep, another hole.

Sometimes the neighbors call or bring him back because he's terrorizing their squirrels by barking maniacally. I know he will come home eventually when he gets cold, hungry or tired. Sometimes I will grab him, carry him in to the house and before I can shut the doggie door he's outside like a shot and back through the hole even though he's been out for hours. I'm waiting for a hawk to get him. I guess Alexandra won't be too happy about our doggy care skills then, will she?

Because having three dogs in our house was a bit much with a big dog I did ask a friend to board Duke. I still get to see him most days. He seems to love living at his new home. He gets lots of love and treats. Plus he has a big dog house with a heat lamp shining down on him. Who wouldn't love that? I'm not sure Alexandra will get him back because my friends are falling in love with him. He's about the best dog you could have (except for digging). If only he were just a little smaller. But then Presley is smaller but he's a little s*#*t.

Addendum: just finished this post, stopped to feed Guy, the doorbell rang and there stood my next door neighbor with Presley. I promised to send Harvey over to fix his yard where Presley had just been digging. In the meantime Guy dumps all of his sweet potatoes in his lap.

Jewelry sales

I love working with metal. I work nearly every day. Chasing, hammering, soldering, anticlasting, raising, and the list goes on. I have lots of product . Unfortunately I don't like selling it. It puts yourself out there on the line. It's business and I just want to create. It's pricing, display, and well, selling. 

Last week I was invited to show to sell my work at a new business that had already had several shows. It was to introduce a new partner in their business. I worked hard finishing new pieces, cleaning and marking and setting up. Lots of worrying. She had invited all her friends and they were interested in her jewelry. I ended up trading a pair with her and selling a pair to another partner and buying a pair from the other. I broke even. I had fun hanging with my friends. And  now I'm set up and ready for my next show!

I don't have a mailing list. I need to get one. I've already had a show where I invited my friends and they were generous and purchased my jewelry. Maybe even some sympathy buys. I don't want to keep just inviting my friends. I'm not quite sure how to go about getting a mailing list except by having more shows and having a sign up sheet. Hence, more shows. 

I could also wholesale my jewelry to stores but then I have to go prostitute myself to stores and sell my work to them. I went to a jewelry store in Owasso last week but the minute I walked in I knew my jewelry was not a match for his store. He was a nice guy and we both decided it wasn't a good match. 

I'm excited that a local gallery saw some of my earrings and liked them so I will be taking more of them by to see if they are really interested in selling them. I hope so! 

I have to get over myself! I'm not so precious and my ego isn't so fragile that I can't take the heat. I would rather whine about it. Everybody hates whiners. So go get busy, Cheri

Babbie spends the night

Jennifer was spending the weekend with her "wine night" girlfriends in Kingfisher so we invited Guy and Greg to come spend the night. Because we all got to our house kind of late, it was too close to Guy's bedtime to go out to eat so Alexandra drove to the liquor store for beer and to Chili's for food. Then we played cards.

Gramps and I were going to keep Guy in our room but I kinda failed getting him back to sleep when he aroused right after Greg put him down to sleep in the pack n play in our bedroom so he decided Guy needed to go upstairs and sleep with him. (That was a long sentence) Guy paid him back for not getting to sleep in Gramps and Gig's room by getting dad up five times in the night. Good for you, Guy!

We spent a relaxing day of watching Guy, changing poopy diapers and watching Greg try to set up our new Apple TV. As of this writing it is still not working. We found out though that the reason our WiFi was spotty was that our old WiFi was still hooked up along with the Uverse Wifi, which means that for ten years or so we have had competing WiFi's. Now our wireless is speeding fast.

The best part of the day was when I was playing with Guy on the floor while he was lying on his back and I casually asked when we could expect Guy to roll from his back to his front. He's five months. Within about 5 minutes he proceeded to do that. I was excitedly saying, "Greg, Greg, look, look! He's rolling over!!" Of course he only did it once, as if he was saying, "Well, duh, Gigi, I can roll over if I want to, I just don't really need or want to."

Pre-Christmas Rush

Oh, the weather outside is delightful, and the outlook is 40% for snow on Christmas Day. I'm sleepy and tired today. I'm stressing out wondering if I'm going to finish Greg's bowl for Christmas. I make jewelry for my girls and Lou every Christmas. It's a lot of fun and they seem to like it.

Greg doesn't wear much jewelry and I would be afraid to make him something in case he wouldn't like it. I haven't made him anything. This summer I took a raising class. That sounds funny because I already "raised" him. I decided to make him a bowl for Christmas.

Raising is taking a flat piece of metal and hammering it on metal stakes until it curves and forms a bowl. There is a lot of hammering, blood (as in hammering your digits), sweat and tears (as when you poke a hole in your bowl). I tend to hammer so much I thin the metal and I get small tears in them. I try to mend them by soldering the tear closed. If I just left the bowl plain that generally works but I took another class by the same teacher and he teaches how to chase on vessels. It's impossible to chase when you have a hole in the vessel. You have to fill the vessel with a microcrystalline wax so that the vessel will have the strength to hold up to the hammering with chasing tools. So if you have a hole, the hot wax will dribble out the hole. I know, because it happened to me. Not fun...

Chasing is done by using small tools and hammering on the bowls that are filled with wax. You make indentations that look like areas are recessed and other areas are higher. Then you texture them. Or you can make "pictures" such as olive branches or ivy. Again, I go over areas so much that I thin the metal and I punch a hole through the metal, then I cry which is what I did on the first vessel I did for Greg. In order to save time I purchased a spun vessel. It is amazing what machines can do. It's all magic to me. You will hear that word a lot from me. If I don't do it or understand it, it is magic. There are machines that take flat pieces of metal that spin until they form bowls. I then chased on that bowl so I feel I kind of cheated on Greg's. Here is the state his bowl is in three days from Christmas:

This picture shows the impression seen from the inside. The bowl is made from copper. I will be using liver of sulfur (nasty, bad smelling stuff) to patina the outside to a dark brown, darker brown than this photo looks.

This is one of the sides. It doesn't show the levels of heights. There is texture covering the outside of the vessel. I now need to straighten out the top, the wavy lines (which are caused by my chasing), solder on a silver wire, patina the outside, and shine up the copper on the inside, and cover in paste wax. So, I have several hours of work left. The thing I am worrying about is soldering on the silver wire. That will be hard. All told I will have put in 12 - 15 hours of work. Just a guesstimate. I really, really hope he likes it. I will take some good pics of it when it is finished and post it on my blog and on Facebook.

Connecticut Thoughts

I emailed my cousin Joanna recently and she said I should start blogging. I thought, what do I have to write about? Who cares if anyone reads it. Sometimes its just satisfying to put one's thoughts down on paper, so to speak. Plus I have to worry about bad grammar and I know I write like I speak, grammatically poor. So there. Don't look at my grammar.

I would never put anything political or religious on Facebook, but I suppose I could on my blog. There is always the possibility of 100 people or so that could read a political posting (let's not kid, 90% of my "friends" block my posts) so maybe only 15 people.

If I'm going to talk about the awful shootings in Connecticut my thoughts are leaning towards the political. I was in Connecticut last week attending a chasing class. I have been wondering if any of the people in my class have been connected to any of the victim's families.

There is an old boyfriend of mine who I am friends with on FB. He is now very, very religious (Catholic) and conservative. I got sick of his anti-Obama blastings during the election but I felt I needed to read it to hear the other side. I wanted to be Fair and Balanced. He is a detective in the Edmond Police Department. Back when Obama was first elected President he was scared of Obama taking away his right to guns. Yesterday he posted a picture that was really, really offensive to me. He posted a picture of the inside of a gun show showing rows and rows of guns and assault rifles. He posted, "You won't see any mass killers here". I thought that was so tasteless.

I'm not sure how I feel about guns. I think the pendulum has swung a little too far when it comes to the right to bear arms and the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights. I don't feel we need assault weapons to do so. I feel we need some controls. The Second Amendment is now a sacred cow that needs to be harnessed and trained.

Attack of the river otter

We are building a new exhibit in the aquarium called the Ozark Stream. We will be putting mammals on display for the first time. One of my friends was appointed the lead over mammals. She has worked for wildlife rehab places quite a bit. We have two raccoons, two beavers and just received our second river otter, a male. We purchased him from a wildlife supplier for $3000. He is 3 years old and was living in Canada working for a carnival. Apparently he was taught how to snow ski!

We received our female in September. She was captive-born, but not tame. She was just getting used to handlers getting in the tank with her. But, when she wanted to play she would nip them. Otters have big pointy teeth! Like a bobcat. They started wearing lower leg guards made for snake protection.

When the male arrived from the airport we put him in a tank that was converted into a kennel. He played and was so happy. People could pet him and he was so friendly. A chain link fence divided the tank so each otter was separated. This week they removed the fence for a short time so they could get "acquainted". They had been playing with each other by running along the fence and swimming in the water tank.

Greg filmed their first visit. The first thing the male did was hump her. We think it was his first experience being around a female. She growled and fussed at him. After a few minutes they separated them.

Penny is the mammal handler. Since then when she would go in his side to clean and feed he would start nipping her. Then he reached up and took a huge bite of her inner thigh. She screamed and blood was pouring out. It took a month for the bite to close up and the bruise to fade. The second time she got in wearing a wet suit and he put his mouth on her knee. They told her to stand still. She did and he bit her foot. They thought he was curious about her wetsuit. Now each time she gets in he runs to her, "mounts" her leg and bites her. He won't be distracted from her. Even when feeding him his favorite food: horse meat. She was stuck in the tank today and couldn't get out because his mouth was on her leg. She said she started hyperventilating and freaking out.

I've been upset for her, but I don't think the two head biologists take it seriously enough. They haven't seen it happen. Today she told them she refuses to get in the tank with him. I told her she should tell THEM to get in with the male. Except he doesn't bite men.

We've told her she is the male otter's bitch.

Surprise and BIG SURPRISE

My cousin, Joanna, who inspired me to start this blog emailed me to say she had a 30 hour layover in Tulsa. She is a flight attendant on American; her blog is Tales from a Sky Mom and is hilarious. Her sister, Deborah, came along with her. Deb teaches English at Jasper HS in Plano and recently won Teacher of the Year. I can't be more proud of these women. That's my first surprise, getting to spend the day with them.

The first thing they asked me after getting in my car was, "What's the big surprise you mentioned in your blog?" When I get busy, I get tired and even posting on my blog is too tiring. That's the sucky part of being 54. However, I probably would have done the same thing if I were still 34 or even 24. Stamina has never been one of my strong points. So, the BIG SURPRISE!

I'm going to be a mother-in-law. I'm getting the best daughter you could ever ask for!

Greg finally asked Jennifer to marry him over Thanksgiving. It is such a cool story. I'm so proud of Greg for being so romantic and clever.

Here's the story:

Jennifer is absolutely nuts about Disney. Her parents took her to WDW every year. She worked a semester at Epcot selling turkey legs and pop. (BTW, don't eat the ice at those food stands). We asked them to go with us to WDW over Thanksgiving so Greg decided that was the place to ask her. He thought and agonized over how to do it. He asked Jennifer what her favorite place was: Planet Earth at Epcot. He decided he didn't want to ask her with crowds all around. That was out. (But Jennifer told me and Allie that she thought something was up when Greg asked her that. I had to keep silent because I knew his plans). He consulted with Darin, our catering mgr at work. Darin worked 16 years for Disney and suggested the restaurant on top of the Contemporary Resort.

Greg came up with the idea of a boat cruise and was amazed that they still had boats available since it was high season. He rented a pontoon boat with a driver for the fireworks finale over Magic Kingdom.

The first day we went to Epcot and as we passed Planet Earth and nothing happened Jennifer was disappointed. After all, she had not worn any rings on her left hand for a couple of months. She was prepared for this proposal!




Jennifer has a cheapo Princess crown she wore at her last visit to WDW in May. She and her friend got lots of free stuff because of their crowns. Greg told her Wednesday would be at Magic Kingdom and it would be princess day. Allie and I bought crowns. Mine was an expensive crystal crown more like the queen I am. When you are with Jennifer you skip through the parks, and sing and cavort, et al. We got lots of stares. Kinda like those are stupid people. Little kids were fascinated though. It was loads of fun. Greg was really cranky.

Backtrack a few days. Greg took his dad with him to shop for the ring. He found the perfect one and paid a deposit. Harvey hired him to do web design and he made enough money to pay for the ring. I went with him to pick it up. I wrote the check for it and he wrote a check to me so Jennifer wouldn't notice the money gone from the checking account. Greg had been bragging about how nice it was to have so much money in his account. Jennifer was disappointed because she thought "the proposal" wasn't in the near future. Greg had to lie to her about his whereabouts and that about killed him, lying to Jennifer! I offered to bring the ring with us so she wouldn't find it. Then, Greg asked Jennifer if she wanted to pack together. She was sad because she thought again, no ring.


So Greg was cranky trying to hide all his plans from her. He dropped us off at Downtown Disney and they took the car to the condo to change for dinner. He kept having to make secret phone calls to us because he didn't know the ring was in the safe. Then he couldn't find the safe. Then he had to ask Jennifer for directions to the Contemporary. Then the guard gave away the secret that they were going on the Fireworks cruise.

During the fireworks finale he asked her to stand up. He got on his knees and asked her to marry him. The ring box had a little light in it so she could see the ring.
The rest of the trip she kept showing off her ring.



And we talked about weddings the rest of the trip. I'll be writing about The Wedding the rest of the year. It's October 12th.

Dad's Christmas Present to Me

My dad will be 80 years old in 2008. He was married to my mom for 55 years before she died. He always struggled buying her a Christmas present. Sometimes I just told him what to buy, or I took him shopping. Buying any kind of present was not a priority in his life. Until he became a widower.

His first Christmas alone we started walking together at the mall. He agonized over what to buy each family member for Christmas. I shopped with him to help him with his ideas. The second Christmas was a little easier for him. After that he shopped on his own and seemed to enjoy the process. Except the spending his money part.

He says the hardest present to find was the one for me. Two Christmases ago he bought me and Allie beautiful diamond necklaces. I was so touched. He didn't spend a lot of money on them, but it was a lot for him. Last year he bought me a diamond tennis bracelet with a real garnet clasp. I try to wear it around him as much as possible. The diamonds are tiny chips clustered together to make them look bigger.

This year was the best present yet. He drives by a trophy store every day and wondered what it was like inside. He went in and got the idea of giving me a trophy. The picture above is the present. Isn't that the sweetest thing! I love it and treasure it.

Big Puffer and little puffer bites that hand that feeds them

Honeycomb moray eel

It has been such a long time since I posted on this blog. I have so much news, but I will have to take a little time, sit down and write!

The Friday, October 26th post was all about puffers. I talked about diving the next day in the Reef. Big puffer bit me. It hurt so bad I screamed under water, then looked around embarrassed and realized that no one could hear me. It hurt so bad I could hardly clean. I was trying to feed our new moray eels. You have to entice them with small fillets of fish, wave them around in front of them to get them to come out and eat. As I took each fillet out of the food container I would wrap them in my hand to keep the big fish from swooping in and grabbing the food. Big puffer came up from underneath me and grabbed my index finger thinking it was food. He doesn't have teeth or a beak, but grinding plates that allows him to crush shells. My finger was numb for a week and sore for a month.

There was a little girl (about 4 yrs old) that watched my dive through the whole 45 minutes. I kept waving at her. I could tell she was fascinated. After I finished the dive I walked down to the door in my wet, cold wet suit. She came running over to talk to me. Her grandmother told me she saw me get bit.

Yesterday I was diving and was told to hand feed little puff. I had two mussels in the shell. I was fumbling trying to take the meat out of the shell and he got too excited to wait and bit the tip of my left thumb. It didn't hurt that much. Now the only thing left is to get bit by a moray. Don't won't to experience that because they have to cut open the bite and leave it open because of infection. Makes an ugly wound.

Harvey says he hates the thought of getting bit by something. It doesn't bother me much. I haven't worked with the water snakes and anacondas yet. I do have a little fear of their bites. After I get bit (if I ever do) I won't be as concerned with it. There are some people who get bit, cut, hurt, etc. I'm one of those people. Just stupidly unafraid. Wait till I post the story of my two broken finger tips that are now healing.

Diving in a Shark Tank

The best part of my job is diving. Each and every time I dive I think that I can't believe I'm getting paid to do this. We dive every Thursday morning in the shark exhibit tank to vacuum and clean. I'm off on Thursdays but I love diving so much that I volunteer as a diver each and every time I can.

We drop a big net into the tank and move all the sharks to the far side of the tank. There are two people on each side of the tank holding the net against the walls and watching for sharks. One person holds a long PVC pipe to move the sharks away from the net. If a large shark gets over or under the net the dive watch bangs two metal weights together to alert the divers.

I was by myself cleaning next to the tunnel when I heard a strange metallic sound. Any type of noise alerts you to stop breathing (the bubbling from your regulator is very loud) to look and see around you. I looked up to see the 300 lb lemon shark rolling in the net. She was about 10 feet away from me and had caught herself in the net with her teeth. There is always an adrenaline rush when you realize a shark is in the tank. I swam up and over the net to alert the other two divers when I realized no one on top had noticed. I surfaced and yelled that a shark was in the tank then descended to find the other two. By that time they had swam over the tunnel. We sank to the bottom to wait and see where the shark would swim. She swam past us, at the edge where we get out. Just as she passed we started to swim to the edge just as she made a sharp 180 degree turn toward us. We stopped swimming, sank back down and waited for her to pass. Usually someone on top takes a pole to maneuver her away from the divers. We swam across the tank and surfaced. We take off our equipment one by one while one diver stays below to watch the shark. We are all calm and cool. But it is so exciting when this happens. We ended the dive then because we were mostly finished.

I love my job!

Navy Yeoman

Received my first real letter from Nick today. He is doing quite well and seems happy. He was made Yeoman in his division. He's in charge of making appointments, paper-work, filing, etc. This cracks me up because he is not a detail person. He loves it because he has more freedom. He said boot camp was not too hard so far, you just have to listen to instructions and pay attention to detail. He says his glasses are horrible. Big black ugly things. Also, he is second oldest in his division of 76 men. Another guy from Tulsa is the oldest at 30.

Porcupine Puffer Fish

We quarantine all new fishes in a separate building before putting them in the aquarium tanks. We treat them for parasites and diseases. We have a large Caribbean Reef with some large fishes including one huge puffer and one small puffer. Big puffer bites little puffer and even took him into his mouth while trying to take his food away from him. Little puffer had to inflate before big puffer would let go. Little puffer's eye was injured and is now blind in one eye. He has been in quarantine for several months. We received a baby puffer recently and has been in quarantine along with little puffer.



Each department has their own name according to what animals they care for. The puffers are cared for by "Warm Salt" (there is cold salt, fresh water, inverts and shark quarantine). Warm salt decided both puffers were ready to be back on display and put them together in one small tank (80 gallons). Baby puffer was happy and swimming around. Little puffer was anxious and breathing hard. He sunk to the bottom of the tank and just lay there. We were all worried about him. He started swimming and kept bumping into the glass so we knew he didn't see well. Until he saw baby puffer. Off he went, like a rocket, and bit baby puffer on his back. We all know what puffers do. He blew up and little puffer had to let go. When baby puffer finally deflated it looked like his hair was ruffled and sticking up, except they are spines. He kind of looked cute, you wanted to stroke his spines down. The biologist intervened a couple of times using a net to keep them apart. She finally had to take little puffer and put him back in the big reef tank and just hope big puffer leaves him alone. He seemed so happy to back in his big tank and away from the boring quarantine tank.

When I dive in the Reef I have to be aware of the big puffer because he is such a bully. We have to feed him at the top before divers get in because he is so aggressive towards food. His favorite food is live crawfish. Once I was moving my hand in the water and it felt like I had touched a cactus then I realized big puffer was following me around. It taught me not to wave my hands around. One of the volunteer divers decided to dive without gloves and insisted he wanted to wear his gold wedding ring. Puffer bit his ring, smashed it and the volunteer had to have his ring cut off.

I'm diving in the reef tomorrow. I'm thinking of taking my underwater camera with me and taking pictures of the people on the outside who will be taking pictures of me. Just think, these visitors have pictures of me in a wetsuit. Yuck! I've got to remember to take my swimsuit back to work so I can wear it under my wetsuit. All of the 20 year olds are buck naked under their wetsuits. They still have these perky boobs and flat stomachs. I have to take an old swimsuit because it has to go in a bleach bath along with my wetsuit and mask. More about this later

Good Karma or Bad Karma?

Harvey is always saying, "The Aquarium is a dangerous place to work". I've had stitches twice for cutting myself while filleting fish. I've been complaining that we don't have an exhaust hood in the chem lab because some of the chemicals we use during testing is carcinogenic. Namely the molybdate mixed with amino acids. I have to hold my breath when dumping it in the sink and rinsing the cylinders. Have you ever had a whiff of industrial strength hydrochloric acid? It sends up visible fumes. I have to wear a mask and rubber apron and gloves. I still cough.

The guy I work with is a royal jerk. He's mostly stoned. He'll go for a couple of weeks being the nicest guy. Then "Mr. Hyde" shows up and he gets real nasty. He gets turned in by other employees because of yelling or talking ugly to them. I'm trying my best to learn how to get back in his face, but that's just not my personality. I HATE confrontations. Sometimes our boss comes in to tell me something she wants us to start doing and she tells me to tell him. Cop-out.

Well, one of our hardest jobs is to make salt water. We fill up a 9,000 gallon tank with filtered fresh water. Then we slice open around 40 boxes of salt. Inside the boxes are two 27 lb plastic bags of salt. We lift them up to a cat-walk where I stand, receive them and stack them up 3 steps. He slices them open with a box knife and pours them into the top of the tank. Talk about a dirty, sweaty job. I try to look on the bright side and realize I'm getting a weights work-out. Well, yesterday I was stacking away when he (not going to use his name to protect myself)walked underneath the catwalk. The bags were wet after sitting outside for 3 months. That made them slippery. They slid and one fell off and hit him. Smashed his hand against a pipe and macerated his hand into two huge gashes. The funny thing was I didn't particularly feel bad about it. He was yelling and cussing and dripping blood everywhere. They bandaged him and sent him to the work-med clinic for stitches. We had to spend 45 minutes cleaning up his blood he flung everywhere. We were concerned about his blood because of his drug use and his past, so we were really careful. We used tons of industrial bleach.

One of my funny co-workers said, "Well you know how bad karma can really be good karma, considering he was the one who got hurt". I was shocked when he said that, but he said, "Come on, Cheri, you were thinking that too, weren't you?" Well, yes, I was.

Sending my son to the Navy

Yesterday I drove Nick to the Navy recruiting office so he could leave for boot camp. I had such mixed feelings. I was so glad to so him go and get out of my house. He had been lounging without a job since the end of August. He didn't try hard enough to get a temporary job and must have had enough saved from his camp counselor job he could be a goof-off.

Nick is 26. He joined because he was doing nothing with his life.

I was sending him off to learn to do a dangerous job. As I hugged and kissed him good-bye I was thinking about how parents feel sending a kid off to Iraq. I'm lucky but who knows what will happen in the next 6 years.

He doesn't stay in touch much, but now I'll never hear from him. He tested high on his aptitude tests that he was offered a post as a missile tech on a nuclear submarine. It is a volunteer post and he will have special psychological testing to determine if he can handle being on a sub. He'll make more money and when he gets out he will be eligible for high paying work in the private sector.

Nick was always a difficult kid and he turned into the grown-up version of the kid who screams and throws a temper tantrum in the grocery store. The one who punched his brother (two broken bones and a facial burn) and never got along with his little sister. But then, that worked both ways with his sister. Both of his siblings were glad to see him go. I had to make them stop telling "Nick" stories about what a jerk he was. As his mom, I see his negatives, but I love him too much to hold them against him. I told Allie and Greg that I would always love him no matter what he did, except maybe commit murder. But I would have to be in that situation before I could be sure how I would feel.

Nick will be having the worst two weeks of his life according to his recruiter. I'm sorry for him, but he got himself into it. The best part is that he has to quit smoking. I curious to see if 9 weeks of not smoking will cure him. I really doubt it. He won't get to drink and Nick does love his alcohol. Harvey and I had to hide our alcohol in our house to keep him from drinking it. I admitted a long time ago my son was an alcoholic. He never agreed. Really, only his opinion is the one that counts. You can't make someone stop.

I have started looking at the military in a completely different way now. Two of my uncles were in the Navy, but that seems so long ago. I have to admit I am proud that I have a son in the military. That surprises me a lot. I'm just glad that he won't be on the ground in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Wow, I feel better now that I have written this! I'll post something in a few weeks when I hear from him. I made sure to have our family pics taken.

Is he my son or just the new employee?

Greg started working at the aquarium yesterday. He is starting a new job titled Marketing and Production. It was weird thinking that my son was starting his first day on his first real job at the same place I work. How do I keep from crossing the line of mom? I offered some suggestions to him that he clearly was rolling his eyes at. But then I thought I didn't say anything different than I would to any new employee.

Since most everyone I work with is under 30, I call them the "kids". I had taken home 3 new aquarium t-shirts (they provide)for Greg to wear. The kids told me I had crossed the line and that was a "mom" thing to do. I told the kids to keep me informed when I cross the line into mom-land. They promised to do so. And they will do it with glee.

We went to lunch together both yesterday and today. Remember how strange it is your first day anywhere? When and where do you go to lunch? That strange feeling of the lunchroom at school, carrying your tray and thinking where am I going to sit? Will someone be nice and invite me? Do I have to eat alone? Of course, I paid for both lunches. I told him I was glad to pay, but when we went out with the other employees they would start giving both of us grief if I continued to pay for his during group lunches. We all tease and rag on each other and they would really go after both of us.

I'm always cheerful about helping anyone at work. Well, I really screwed myself last night. The aquarium has a big Halloween production called Hallomarine. I noticed a few employees waiting in the office after work. I sat down to talk and they were complaining no one signed up to help. Well, dummy me, said "I'm not busy. I'll help you". They had rented a big truck to load and transport the walls to the Haunted House. We moved 25 huge walls, plus assorted and sundry other decorations. At 8:00 pm my t-shirt was drenched in sweat and I had three cuts on my legs when we finished. The whole time I was helping I was mad at myself for being the Good Samaritan. Plus I missed out on a drama going on in our sting-ray tank. 5 fishes died over the day. It was a big mystery as to what killed them. We were worried they were poisoned with pesticides. I could have been there watching all the drama as they necropsied the fish and did a huge water change. I could have learned something instead of schlepping huge walls!

Day at the fair

Thursdays are my day off. I love the night before a day off, because I think of all the things I'll want to do and have to do. Sometimes I make these ambitious lists, start carrying it around and mark off the things I actually complete. But you know how those lists make you create sublists....like call BMW to schedule windshield replaced...but then you get the guy's voice mail, so I can't exactly cross BMW off the list. Or I need to go pick up the dry-cleaning, but 95% of it is Harvey's and all I really want is my favorite pair of jeans but I forgot to pick up the coupons. So I have to add "find dry-cleaning coupons" to my list.

Well, today is the first day of the fair. I start planning last week to go to the fair. I ask Nick if he wants to go. Of course he wants to go since all he is doing is lying around the house and playing Halo and making dirty dishes (it would take too long to write my litany of what it is like to have a 26 year old non-working offspring in your house, but ask me how the inside of my microwave looks). Then Allie hears about it and wants to go. I also ask dad to go since I try to get him out of the house as much as possible and we would both enjoy doing this together.

I got all my errands finished around noon and was ready to go to the fair. Dad calls while I am in Sam's and tells me Lance needs a ride home from the airport so he will take a rain-check. Nick tells me he has made plans for lunch with his friend John and will be home around 3. Allie calls me and tells me she might get off early from work (around 10 pm) and could she still go with us.

I'm pretty independent and would probably enjoy myself going all alone. Instead here I am on the computer and really want to take a nap. Let you know later if I ever make it to get my corn dog fix.