phobia

I have a fear of bridges and it actually has a name-- gephyrophobia
http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=12355 and the following short blurb is sooooo me.

"Fear of bridges: An abnormal and persistent fear of bridges, especially crossing bridges. Sufferers of this phobia experience undue anxiety even though they realize their fear is irrational. Their fear may result partly from the fear of enclosure (claustrophobia) or the fear of heights (acrophobia). Phobic drivers may worry about being in an accident in busy traffic or losing control of their vehicles. High bridges over waterways and gorges can be especially intimidating, as can be very long or very narrow bridges....."

I am ok with driving over and under regular overpasses on interstate roads..as long as they don't curve at all. But wooden country bridges around here give me the heebie jeebies something fierce. As do old bridges,yuck! I hold my breath over them and actually try to squish my legs together and my arms into my body as much as I can. Any bridge that will take longer than 2 seconds to cross will start to give me an anxiety attack...............however, *knock on wood* I am an excellent driver and have never been in an accident, and driving in heavy traffic, including Semi-trucks does not bother me at all....just those damn bridges. Driving through Cedar Rapids IA is a doosy for me as the entire interstate through town is curved bridges. As long as i don't see any accidents, and stay in the middle lane, as it is no where near the guard-rail, I am nervously ok.

So, Estelle, If M and the kids ever come and visit, the journey will be planned with crossing the least bridges as possible. And the Sunshine Skyway Bridge will have to be avoided at all costs EEK! Are there ferries there?

I used to cross a toll bridge from Ia to MO that had a metalmesh road, not one bit of cement, and the tires would make a scary noise going across it. I was white knuckled and scared shitless! needless to say, I have a rerouted my drive and have very few creepy bridges to cross.

December 15, 1967, the Silver Bridge collapsed claiming 46 lives and injuring 9

These bridges are archtetually beautiful, but if I HAD to cross them, i would have to get out of the car and crawl across.


















...and would you look at that! there is road construction!!! narrowing the road even further!!! and narrowing my trachea even more!





How about that for a weird but true phobia?....now if I could find out if the fear of aging has a name.

After all of that---I am NOT afraid of airplanes or flying, at all, in fact it is fun and exciting for me...eh, go figure...my brain is weird!

dun dun duhhhhhhhhh

at 8:40 am US central standard time I officailly turn 30....

I am turning off all phones and I am sleeping all day.

Age ain't nuthin' but a number....

Most of us have heard this dandy little old addage, right? Dear friends, I am having a very difficult time with this year's age. As you may recall, in a few days it is my birthday, and I am looking forwards to it like one would look forward to having novocane-free dental work done whilst systematically having all of one's toenails ripped out AT the same time. Even the weather forecast for my area reflects my mood, stormy and overcast. I feel like I should be going to a funeral.

I had a mini-birthday anxiety thing 5 years ago when I knew I only had five years left of being in my twenties, and that I was one quarter of a century. (my younger brother went through the same thing, perhaps this is heriditary???) In a few days, my twenties will be dead, poof, gone, just fading memories.

Good grief! I AM NOT MATURE ENOUGH YET TO BE IN MY 30'S...My brain says that i am still 18...just with the added responsibilities of being a parent chucked in there.

I set great store into birthdays and I think that out of all the days of the year, that one day, the day that you transitioned from the womb to dry land, should be YOUR day, your day to have attention and you be selfish, screw the diet, and if you are of legal age to have a good screw. Birthday should be spelled BirthMEday, in my book. And it MUST be celebrated ON your birth date and not the nearest weekend for convienience. This year, huh uhhh, somebody else can have it. I'll stay 29, thank-you-verra-much.

I was supposed to go on a 6 hour drive to go see, and "mini-vacation" at their home, some really good friends of mine. It has been at tradition that I spend my birthday with them, unless I am working, or, um, out of the country and spending it with M. Can't happen this year due to several factors. We all are bummed about it. Our little Mini-party before the Fourth of July party and picnic and fireworks.

So this year, I predict that I will get a lovely bunch of flowers and a card from the folks, we will go clean their church like we always do on Thursdays, and go out to eat like we always do on Thursdays. It will be rainy and horrible out so my kids can't play outside, and they'll be rotten little buggers. I will grow porcupine needles out my back, Sabre-tooth fangs, and the disposition of a badger or wolverine--i haven't decided which one yet--don't touch me, don't hug me, don't look at me....and I will cry, and cry most of the day.

I *know* that I am still young yet, but my white hairs both on my head and ...yes, and the newly found white pubic hairs, say that I am not.

So after reading my long winded pity party: (thank you for making it this far)

Did you ever have an unhappy birthday?
Did NOT want to be wished a happy birthday?
A specific age that you didn't want to turn?
Birthday anxiety?
......or am I a complete nutter and just need to be in a padded room?

I love the 80's

Final Score: 128


Your 80's Music Score

I HAD a great post for LGBT Families day, but blogger ate it!!!

Join
1 a : to put or bring together so as to form a unit b : to connect (as points) by a line c : ADJOIN
2 : to put or bring into close association or relationship
3 : to engage in (battle)
4 a : to come into the company of b : to associate oneself with
intransitive senses
1 a : to come together so as to be connected b : ADJOIN
2 : to come into close association or relationship: as a : to form an alliance b : to become a member of a group c : to take part in a collective activity


I say we substitute from now on "join" for the word "marriage" from now on.

Much love to all my LGBT friends out there and I hope that one day soon that all Joinings are legal.

Celebrating LGBT Family Love

June 1-- Blogging for LGBT Families Day**** the lost post is found!!!***

****WOOO HOOO What was lost, is now found! (and appearantly put in the proper order of posts. This post was really lost, honest, LOL******

In honor of Blogging for LGBT Families Day

I rarely get to show my pride since, well, I have no real life connections to events, so YAY, here is my little snippet for all those families that struggle with obtaining, or completely missing out, laws to legally unite, and protect families. I am bi, have fallen in love with a man, but we must wade through legalities in order to legally join since he is a UK citizen and we are trying to have him legally immigrate to the US.

Our plight is not exactly the same as the numerous lgbt families who are trying to have the same rights and privelidges as straights are given just by being born straight. (Sad states of affairs when a bad abusive straight parent has more rights than a loving non-bio lgbt parent has.) I would love it if my fiance' could adopt both of my kids, but their bio-dad would rather go to the dentist and then smash all of his computers before letting M adopt.

The US gov't takes a lot of the romance out of getting wed. M and I have decided that since the gov't has imposed a timeline on when M and I must legally wed, we are going to just go to a justice of the peace and just sign the document. Just another document and form in the long list of documents and forms. The REAL day will be the "Blessing Ceremony" where we will truely be joined in our hearts and souls forever (as if we aren't already)....and all of this is IF (cross fingers here) the USCIS sees fit to allow it.

I would love to see that someday where all the States get off their high holier than thou horses and allow ALL loving parents to be parents in all senses of the word parent. Could you just imagine the wonderful impact of all these loving arms to be able to open up for all the kids in foster care and those in need of adoption?!?

I remember a friend of mine lamenting how he and his husband would love to be parents some day, and they didn't care if the child was bio-related or not, but the State laws were totally against them. At that point in my life I was too self-centered to offer it, but as I have aged and matured, becoming a surrogate, after I am done with having my kids, is something that I'd dearly love to do.

Memorial day weekend is for lovers

40 years ago this weekend, my parents met at a kegger of all things. Mom was 16, Dad older by 5 years at 21, but he didn't know that, she was a cute red-head to him. He decided to write to her, she wrote back, and love between a sailor and an Iowa red-head ensued. They were married October 25th 1968, and are still happily married. They are cute together, but as customs dictate, i make a great "eww, parents don't kiss in front of their kids" show and pretend to be throughly discusted. (Shhh, don't tell them that, they like to "discust" me) Although there are times that they through me for a loop. Dad does that especially, like whoo hoo-ing the idea of toys, he and mom, and the backseat of their Volvo. Umm...yeah...Mom and Dad are uber-straightlaced Christian folk that live it as well as preach it. Dad once in a while "lets his hair down" but i digress.

I read over at one of my favorite blogs about Estelle's good friends' commitment ceremony. At the end of her post "so, they did it" she writes this and holy Niagra Falls Batman, this had me bawling---sheesh! STILL does!
"To Mrs(s) Amy and Kendra Kellogg, may your relationship be filled with as many blessings as you bestow upon others. I wish you nothing but happiness, health, great sex, cute kids, and a long life together."
Heck, I don't know them, but I wish them that too! *sighs and wipes tears away*

And then one of my good friends calls me today and she has this to say....Last week she caught her boyfriend setting a fire in their backyard grass. He had poured a circle of gasoline on the ground and lit it. He is one of those people that constantly are playing with camp fires and the burn pit in their back yard. She got after him and told him that was why they had the burn pit and that he could have just as well started a fire in that, rather than ruining the grass and almost starting himself on fire. Last night he pulled her in the back yard, and she smelled gas, but she knew that he was going to start a fire in the burnpit so they could sit by the fire. He lights the grass on fire with both of then in the circle of flames, gets down on his knee and asks "Will you be mine forever; will you be my wife?" He had planning it for this weekend as her eldest two and their shared one were all at the grandfolks' place for the weekend. What she say?..................

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After about 5 minutes standing there saying nothing, mouth agape, in total shock and awe, because he isn't the "marry-ing sort", and he almost in tears because he thought that she was trying to find a nice way to say no............................

.....SHE SAID YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



.....now what would top this off weekend is if M and I get an email from our lawyers saying that we are approved by the USCIS and that my trip to see him in late July/early August will be to help him move rather than to visit............

Happy Memorial Day to all 2 of my blog readers :)

Childhood Memories

You know those little snippets of our childhood that we tuck away safely into our memory, the idyllic days where all thet you worried about was how late you could play outside, or how far down the sidewalk you could ride your bike before a parent came out to tell you that you went to far. I got to travel back in time last evening and relive one of those idyllic memories, with the help of my 5 year old daughter. The backyard isn't the same as in my youth, but the smells sounds and feel was about what it was like about 21-24 years ago.

The day had been hot, and we played at the city park until sunset, when the air starts to cool. We took off our sandals and walked barefooted in the thick cool freshly mown grass. she played on some equiptment that was much like what I played on as a child. I dug my toes in the hot dry sand, and as i dug deeper, it cooled and became damp. There was a little legue baseball game going on at the other side of the park, and the sound of the *THWAK* of a bat meeting the ball and the cheers from the parents in the stand sounded the same as from my youth.

It was getting dark and time to go home, and so we climbed into the van. When I was a kid, my dad would let me "drive" while sitting on his lap. this was of course before seatbelt laws. but since we were less than a block away from home, I let her "drive" we went no faster than 3 miles an hour and even got passed by some bikeriders.

Small town midwest life, where we give directions to get somewhere in town by relation to where it is from THEE only set of traffic lights. Where we don't lock our doors-ever because we know that the neighbors will watch over the house while we are gone. The gas stations are the place to hear the latest gossip as well as the best place to sell your old car/dishwasher/camper/sofa or give away puppies or kittens.

After my daughter had taken a bath and had supper, we went out into the backyard and chased fireflies. My daughter's giggles, bringing giggles of my own bubbling up, as we ran breathlessly around catching and releasing these bioluminescent creatures. it was a beautiful snippet of life that I know that I have filed away, and i hope that my daughter does too.

27 days

Now on our lawyer's site, there are new cases after M and my case. It feels rather comforting not to be the newbies anymore. Strange yeah, but oh well.

M and I have decided that I will be going over to the UK this August for about a 3 week visit. We haven't hugged or kissed each other in 6 1/2 months. Personally, I'd prefer it to be sooner, but he has 2 weeks off in Aug. So I search for cheap plane tix. Any one out there lurking have some good deals from Chicago to London about late July, early August to late August?

Future Mother-in-Law

I just got done chatting with my FMIL, and I have to say that I do have another mother! She mother-hen clucks over me like my own mother. That is fantastic, and I love her :)