Squeaky Wheel Gone Flat

It is unusual that there are blog posts two days in a row from me, however, there is an issue to be addressed. Yesterday, I was complaining/ whining about being called a "Pest" by my oldest, only brother, Matt, in a letter that he had written to our sister, Nikki. I challenged the fact that I was a pest in a series of texts to him before he had major surgery to correct a faulty heart. He posted this on Facebook today (which is where my blog posts go, so it may seem like nobody likes me because no one writes a comment on the blog, but 99% of the comments are on Facebook. No one wants to admit that they are a follower of me. Too much of a commitment. Thank you Jeri and Emily): "Kim, I haven't received any texts from you in months. First rule of pestering: make contact with target. Somewhere, somebody (who may or may not live in the same area code as me) is saying: "Why does this Kim person keep pestering me?!" Me, I've been sitting here wondering why my fantastic sister Kim hasn't contacted me in weeks :-)." Yeah, I'm a little shocked by the ":-)" at the end, too, since Matt is not the kind of guy to go around putting an expression to the written word, but it may be the new heart that he has. Here I was miffed that I was labeled a "Pest", but apparently it is worse. I am an INCOMPETENT Pest. When I first started my nursing career, and there were no jobs to be had, nurses were getting laid off, and I received some of the best career advice "A squeaky wheel always gets the oil." And I did get the job she was referring to, but now, I feel like I'm a squeaky wheel that has lots all of its air (this parallels with another physical feature that has lost its volume as well), and while squeaking, am not doing anything. But, he did call me Fantastic Sister Kim (I know he didn't capitalize it like it is a real title), so I guess my flat wheel did serve some purpose.
P.S. I love spellcheck again! I just wish there was a log or something of all the times that I have correctly spelled the entire body of a blog or whatever, and then it gets tallied and compared to other bloggers or overachievers, and then you get to share with the rest of the world your accuracy in spelling.

I am not a Pest

When my sister, Nikki, turned forty this year, my over super mom achieving sister, Jen, made her a scrapbook with a letter from all the family about how great (or crazy things) it was growing up with her. I was really glad, because it gave me an opportunity to remember all of the fun times that we had. She brought the scrapbook to St. George when we ran the marathon so we could read what the others had to say. When I read the letter from my brother, Matt, I was a little miffed that he chose to say that I was a "pest" when we were growing up. A pest? Me? How could I have been a pest to him? Sure, I went with him downtown to the Video Cave and hovered watching him play Space Invaders for hours, and then I lingered outside of his room waiting to get a chance to sleep in his bed when he was gone, and may have listened in on a few phone conversations while he was talking to a girlfriend, and may have just been hanging around when he had his hot friends over, but does that really make me a pest? I beg to differ. So he had a minor life threatening procedure does this past week. An ablation. The name is so fun. It required a highly skilled physician sticking a cautering device into his heart to burn the area that was causing his heart to be stuck in atrial fibrillation. He'd already been cardioverted before,, but that didn't work. SO before the procedure, I felt that it was the perfect opportunity to have him rescind the label that he had given me as pest. First I texted: Hey, before you go under the knife, make sure you change your will to say "fantastic sister, Kim" and not "pesty sister, Kim". I waited for a generous amount of time (two hours) without a response. So again: Hey, I can wait for that update on your will as long as I know you are speaking with your lawyer. Nothing. I waited until he was done with his life and death situation to try again, but I went through his wife (my favorite sister) is your husband circling the drain? If no, ask him why he hasn't taken back the pest statement. She said he had a diagnosed case of no remorse. Certainly, this brush with death should have cracked him and gone through the stages of grief including 8: Make a list of all persons we have harmed, and become willing to make amends with them. So again, I texted the SIL, I can't take it. Pull the plug on him. I'm willing to have that will read with the Pesty Kim label there. But she wouldn't do it. He didn't have enough life insurance to give her the life that she deserves, so I guess she's keeping him. But now as he recovers, I see another opportunity to pester him. I may embrace this title and show him what a real pest can be. Too bad he lives so far away.

No Swimming!

Last Sunday, I was enjoying cleaning up the kitchen, when I noticed I had a visitor at my kitchen window, out on the counter top. I let out a shriek and landed on the counter in the kitchen yelling for the kids to GO GET DAD! It was a mouse. Kevin picked up his weapon of choice, a broom (he had used a broom to kill a mouse years ago when we lived in the Avenues), and wounded the rodent leaving a trail of blood and two boys, one spotlight, and a broom, searching in the backyard in hopes of finishing the job (sorry if there are any PETA people out there). No luck. Fast forward two days, while in my role as the pool girl, I found it. Stiff and floating. I quickly escorted Blake back in to the house, and waited for help to arrive. This came in the form of a 12 year old boy, who ran outside when I told him what I had found. He thought this was the best thing that had happened in a long time. He now had a passenger for his RC boat that he had been cruising around in the pool. I was a spoil sport and nixed the idea. I have never been so happy to say that we will not be swimming for seven months. That will give me plenty of time to decontaminate that pool.