So, a lot of things have changed since I last posted. For one thing, I'm no longer in Georgia. I moved back to Ohio to be closer to my family. And after that, my son moved back to Georgia...basically defeating the entire purpose of my move. Nate's finishing up his senior year in a little high school in Georgia where he's loved and accepted and likely to stay out of trouble. It ain't easy...but I think it's the best thing for him and I'm trying to cope. Wish me luck.

In the meantime, I've acquired a new job and a new girlfriend, both of which are wonderful. The job is running the printing department for a production company. It's a lot of hard work, a lot of stress, and a lot of responsibility. I couldn't be happier. The girlfriend...wow...let's call her Jadyn. She's amazing. Beautiful, loving, smart as hell....speaks Japanese, plays the violin, writes awesome poetry...and for some reason think's I'm pretty cool. What more could I ask for? We've been living together since May, and again, I couldn't be happier.

Jadyn has a four year old son, whom we'll call Peanut Butter (PB for short). There are adjustments to be made, obviously, since I'm not used to living with a four year old anymore. Basically, I'm adjusting to living with PB while I'm adjusting to living without Nate. Life is interesting that way. But PB is very charming and active and just as smart as his mommy (relatively speaking, since he's four), and he's always doing and saying things that I think I need to add to my blog. So expect to see more of him here.

But in the meantime, I want to write about one of my early dates with Jadyn. It was actually the first time I'd ever been to her apartment. First, some background info - Jadyn has MS. She was diagnosed a year or two ago. She has some numbness and weakness here and there, but no great degree of disability, but to prevent excacerbations, or at least slow down their frequency, she gives herself a shot every evening of this medicine called copaxone. More acurately, she used to give herself the shot. Now I give them to her.

Back to the story. This was, as I said, the first time I'd been to Jadyn's apartment -- probably our third or fourth date. We'd been to dinner and the movies a couple of times and discovered that we could talk to one another for hours and hours. Things were going well and I was liking her and wanting to get to know her better. I'd invited her to go to a friend's house with me and came to pick her up. When I got there, she was just preparing to do her shot and asked if I'd do it for her since it was an awkward spot (on the back of her right arm).

I said no.

She said please.

I said no.

She said please.

And so forth. The outcome was probably always inevitable, since as I said, I liked this girl. I agreed to give her the shot, but I was very nervous about the whole process. She promised me that nothing could be simpler, since she had this device which automatically delivered the shot. The needle fits into it, there's a spring or something in there, I guess, and all you have to do is line it up where you want it and push a button, basically. No room for error.

I've heard it said that whenever someone makes something idiot-proof, someone else always makes a better idiot.

So...still nervous as hell, I put the device against her arm while she explained what to do. You press down on the end of the device, and when it's down, you push the button. So she said, "Push the button...." and I did. And then I pulled it out of her arm as she was saying, "...and wait ten seconds."

Er...what? Why? And then I realized that the medicine was squirting out of the end of the needle, all over her carpet. So, in a panic, I tried to hand it to her, which did prevent the medicine from getting on her carpet, because now it was squirting pretty much directly into her face. Horror-stricken, as she flailed her hands in front of her face trying to block the stream of medicine, I did manage to finally direct the stream onto the kitchen table, where it finally dribbled to a stop.

What I really wanted to do at that point was just leave and never come back. Or sink into the floor and never come back. Or just become invisible and never come back. I was mortified. I apologized copiously and blushed profusely. Jadyn, on the other hand, was her gracious self. She wiped her face and told me over and over not to worry about it. And then she somehow managed to talk me into trying again. I am pleased to say that things went much more smoothly the next time around. And she wasn't hearing any of that talk about me never coming back.

And the rest is history.

When my son...I think I'll call him Nate, was about seven, bees had it in for him. On his seventh birthday, a bee stung him right in the face at his birthday party. Then a few months later, I took him fishing at a pay lake and a bee caused him to completely lose his dignity. Except that it wasn't really a bee. It was a fly. He only thought it was a bee. But technically since he thought it was a bee, and since he feared them due to the birthday party incident, you could say that bees were at fault for the loss of dignity also.

A pay lake is one of those places where the trailer park crowd is likely to hang out. I hadn't realized that until I actually went to one. I just wanted my son to have the experience of catching a fish and wasn't sure where to take him. A pay lake, which is just what it sounds like...you pay a certain amount of money and you get to fish all day, seemed like a good idea because I assumed it would be well stocked with fish. There may have been a lot of fish there, but there were also a lot of rednecks there, and a lot of trash, and very little in the way of grass.

I think it's generally true that where you have a lot of rednecks, you're likely to find port-a-pottys.

So Nate's in this port-a-potty doing whatever it is he went in there for, and I'm waiting for him outside (on account of I'm his mom and didn't want any rednecks to kidnap him and sell him into white slavery on his way back to where we were fishing). Then BOOM, the door to the port-a-potty flies open, and out comes Nate, butt-first, shrieking, with his pants around his ankles. Every head turned. Of course he bit the dust immediately because it's really difficult to move fast backwards when your pants are around your ankles. I know this because I've tried it.

It was when I was helping him cover his...dignity...that he explained about the bee. Which turned out to be a fly. A little one.

Once, a couple years ago, I went to Massachusetts to visit a friend of mine. She had this big hairy golden retriever mix named Sammy. This is one of the few names I won't be changing, because it just suited him very well. He was the sweetest dog ever. I have a dog of my own that I love very much, but he's kind of a grumpy old man. Grumpy old dog. Sammy was just sweet.

While I was visiting, I slept in a downstairs bedroom, and my host warned me that Sammy might try to get in bed with me, but that if he did, I could just shoo him away. As dogs go, Sammy didn't smell particularly bad, and it was kind of cold, so I really didn't mind anyway. So, about the time I was going to nod off, sure enough...here came Sammy and parked beside the bed. He sat there for a minute, then put one paw on the bed. He looked at me for a second, and I was sure he was asking me, 'is this ok with you?' I think I patted him on the head or something, and in a few minutes, he put his other front paw on the bed. And waited again. 'Is this alright?' I didn't protest, so next he pulled his torso onto the bed and waited again. I was amazed at how polite he was being. Most dogs would've just leapt right up on the bed. He was inching himself on in pieces. Probably took five minutes or so for him to get his entire self onto the bed. He finally gave me a look that seemed to say, 'well, if you're sure it's alright with you....' and hauled his back legs onto the bed and snuggled up with me. For a dog, he was quite a gentleman.

It's kind of funny too, because I was needing a friend right about then. For reasons which I'm not gonna go into right here and now, that visit with that particular friend was a little difficult for me. I was feeling pretty lonely. I don't know if dogs just know these things, or if it's coincidence, or if any dog is pretty much always going to want to climb into a big soft bed and cuddle up...but whatever it was, I appreciated it. And I got a good laugh out of his approach...like he was asking permission every step of the way.

Sammy died this week. I'm really sad about that -- partly because he was such a good, sweet dog, and partly because I know my friend loved him very much and she's going to miss him.