Introducing the Cast of Players

I real­ized this morn­ing that I haven’t pro­vided a much back­ground info about myself or the other char­ac­ters men­tioned here fre­quently. I’ve posted a few small tid­bits about me so far but noth­ing com­pre­hen­sive. So, how about we get a lit­tle more per­sonal?

The Hus­band
He’s 72 years old. He’s sur­vived can­cer twice. Now the first can­cer is back. At this point the can­cer is con­sid­ered incur­able and inop­er­a­ble but the treat­ment he’s cur­rently receiv­ing has slowed the growth rate of the cancer.

The Hus­band still works 7 days a week. He has a master’s degree and had started work­ing toward his PhD but never got a chance to fin­ish. Now he’s on his sec­ond career. He’s always joked that if he were to retire, he’d become a hacker The truth is he works because he loves it all that retire­ment means to him is work­ing for him­self with­out the respon­si­b­lity of stockholders.

The Hus­band is the main bread-winner of the fam­ily. He makes a very mod­est annual salary as the pres­i­dent of his cor­po­ra­tion. In addi­tion, he receives his monthly social secu­rity ben­e­fit, a small pen­sion from his first career, and a very small dis­abil­ity check from the gov­ern­ment for injuries received dur­ing service.

Me
I’m 43. I’m a stay-at-home mom. I’m also a entre­pre­neur — I used to be an eBay Pow­erSeller with annual sales of over $30,000 in my sec­ond year of busi­ness. When eBay took stores out of search results and then hiked fees by over 300%, I left. I now main­tain stores on Wag­gle­pop and eCrater but busi­ness is dead. In addi­tion, I work full time from home for my husband’s com­pany and make a small but con­tribut­ing salary. And I’ve been home­school­ing for 10 years.

I was a poor stu­dent — undi­ag­nosed learn­ing chal­lenges. I have an Admin­is­tra­tive Assis­tant cer­tifi­cate and paid my way through night school for a few years but don’t have a col­lege degree.

Three years ago I suf­fered a series of TIAs (small strokes). Recov­ery was dif­fi­cult and slow. My cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties have recov­ered about 90–95%. I have sleep apnea, asthma, Fibromyal­gia, and exten­sive food aller­gies. Oh, and half a thy­roid and that half needs to come out soon.

The Daugh­ter
She’s a 15 year-old with a driver’s per­mit and an atti­tude — in other words, she’s pretty normal.

The Daugh­ter was home­schooled through 8th grade but decided that she wanted to attend high school and I gave in. Now she’s a Sopho­more in a small pri­vate school. She’s a hard worker and a good stu­dent and very well liked.

At this point in life, she resents all of my par­ent­ing deci­sions. She has assured me that I am by far the strictest among all of her friends’ parents.

Her wish list for her upcom­ing 16th birth­day con­sists of: a car, a nose pierc­ing, and a push-up bra. She’s get­ting a cam­corder. I hope that some day she will for­give me and know that all of my deci­sions came from love.

Despite our dif­fer­ences at this stage, our rela­tion­ship is filled with a great deal of humor, love, and, I believe, mutual respect.

The Son
Nor­mal isn’t a word usu­ally asso­ci­ated with The Son — and that’s just fine with him. He’s bright and has a sharp wit; he’s funny and adorable and as sweet as any 13-yo there ever was. At present, we’re in the process of explor­ing whether or not he has Asperger’s or whether he’s sim­ply quirky. It really doesn’t mat­ter to me; I just want what’s best for him and I don’t want to hand­i­cap his future — he has a lot of offer the world.

The Son is still home­schooled and most likely will be home­schooled through high school. He does par­tic­i­pate in a pro­gram for home­school­ers though our local school dis­trict. The chil­dren were both ini­tially enrolled in the pro­gram three years ago when I was sick and it has served us well so The Son con­tin­ues. The best part of the pro­gram is that he has access to a fab­u­lous Span­ish teacher and a full sci­ence lab.

other minor char­ac­ters include:

The Tank
My 21st cen­tury ver­sion of a trusty steed; my big suburban-mama SAV (Sub­ur­ban Assault Vehi­cle). It seats eight pas­sen­gers with 3-point safety har­nesses (shoulder-lap seat belts) with all but one of those seats also hav­ing a head rest. The Tank was pur­chased used in 2002 and has all sorts of fancy extras that we never would have paid for if we’d pur­chased the car new. I love it.

The grand­chil­dren
The Husband’s five grand­chil­dren from his first four children.

The nieces and nephews
I have four nephews and two nieces — the chil­dren of my three siblings.

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