What Happens When a Recluse Emerges

Here is my Cappuccino Soap I made yesterday. It smells yummy and looks yummy! Reminds me of a truffle.


I just finished making breakfast. Eraser Eater was slow to the table practicing his memory verses for AWANA tonight. When he saw that The Oldest and the Daughter were already feasting on their french toast, he started whining and saying junk like I love them more and I probably poisoned his food.
"What?!" I asked. "I don't want to hear any more malarkey like that come out of your mouth, you hear me?"

"Well," chimed in the Oldest, " I have had thoughts like that before..."

"Of ME poisoning your food?!"

"Well, uh, it was probably a year ago now and it probably only lasted about not even fifteen minutes, so..."

"What the heck?!"

What the heck is right. Now that I typed this out you guys must think I am a maniac.

The Oldest then launched into how Eraser Eater was rolling around in bed singing about money. Well, chanting about money. "He was talking about turtles and money and how much they would cost..."

This kid is a money freak. He claims that he will live with the Oldest because they could split the costs of living. It will be "cheaper." He is only seven.
He makes notebooks of models of cars and things that he will design when he is a man and will sell for "a few thousand" a piece. He talks about how he would make things available for all people no matter if they have money or not. He sounds like a Communist to me. Better get him cracking on Adam Smith before he goes down the tubes.


Last night I went to the homeschool mom's group. I was a little disappointed, to be honest. I brought my toffee bars that are made from sweetened condensed milk (I burned the filling and did not have another can of sweetened condensed milk, so I looked up how to make it myself online and BAM! I did it. It took forever, but it was pretty cool.) and put them on a table. I was a little late for reasons I wish not to get into, and so I put a name tag on and the administrator put a sticker on my back. She said it was for a game. OK.

I can't even remember what people were talking about. It was some local thing, and then the Administrator started talking about the "first" game. Each of us had a sticker on our backs with a school subject typed out on it. We had to ask other ladies questions of what the subject was without anyone telling us directly. Dumb. I started with the lady next to me---she started asking me questions as to what her subject was. It was "algebra." Only two prizes were given and by the time this lady asked me her third question the prizes were already snatched. Finally she guessed and I found no reason for my playing at all. I just took the sticker off my back. The Administrator approached me almost immediately. "So did you guess your subject?" She asked me.
"Nope."
She looked at me questioningly.
"I figured since there were not prizes to be had I would just take the sticker off and cheat. Mine is 'spelling'. I would not have guessed it anyway."

Another lady waved her hand at me and said, "Oh, spelling is easy. You had an easy one! You would have guessed that for sure."

"No," I continued, "I am a moron."

I was sitting there wondering why we had to have games to entertain us.

Then someone rang a bell and it was announced that we were to play the game "Bunko." Except, when they explained it, it was way different from the one time I played it. It takes no one special to win. It is a mindless game of rolling dice and tallying down a stupid score. Tallying down the score is the hard part. I hardly talked to a soul the whole time the games were going on. At one point a lady from my team got up and got some books. She opened a few up (they were homeschool books) and scanned them over. Another lady commented that she must have gotten them from the {homeschooling} library.
"How does that work?" I asked. I wanted to know about their system, etc.
"Books." They both said in unison.
"Do you check them out, or..."
No one answered my question although I am sure they heard me. I was irate. I slammed my lips shut and said "forget about it" in my mind.

Finally I got to the table where the president of the group was (she was the one that asked me to help her do a soap thing with her and I canceled because the kids were sick?) and she sort of looked past me and waved. I looked behind me to see whether she was waving at me or not and no one was there. I guess she was waving at me. "Oh, you're Rachel!" She said at last. I looked down at my name tag. Some lady looked at it too and pronounced my name in German.
"Ladies, Rachel makes soap."
"Which reminds me," I said, digging in my purse, "I have a soap gift for you because I felt so bad about not showing up the other day." I did not want to give it to her in front of the other ladies at the table but I could tell she thought I was strange and put up with me. I pulled out the gift pack of soap I made and handed it to her. She gasped and put her hand on her heart. The lady next to me blurted, "Do you sell this?" and that is all she said.
The German pronouncing lady said, "And you make this how?"
"Oils and lye. You know, coconut oil, palm, Crisco, cocoa butter, that kind of stuff."
She nodded her head in agreement and said, "thought so."
Someone said something about it being hard to do and I downplayed it (like usual) and said it was pretty easy. Dangerous, but easy.

I barely talked to anyone else. Some people asked me a few questions but that was it. Nothing spectacular. The president did come up to me again to thank me for the soap and ask me a question about signing Eraser Eater up for a spelling bee. I was interested in that. I asked her the ages of her girls and she said one was in fifth grade.
"I have a boy that is in fifth grade," I said.
"That's ok," she said. {What, may I ask, is that supposed to mean?} She nodded her head at me like I was a retard.

I do have to admit to you that I have trouble speaking my mind sometimes. Thoughts just don't flow out. I write WAY better than I talk, so maybe people do think I am a retard. But, she needed to know what grade my kid was in so she could send me the proper spelling words for him.

I said to her, "My second grader is the one that will be signed up for the spelling bee."
"I understand," she said.
OK.
"My oldest son can't spell worth a lick..." I continued. And here is where I turn myself into the retard she thinks I may well be because I know she thinks this or perhaps thinks this and I get more nervous talking to her and then I end up turning into it.

She nodded her head as if to wave me off and to 'get on with it I am wasting [her] time'.
"It's ok," she said again, quite gracefully this time.

I could tell she was just putting up with me. The sad thing is that she is my age and seems all nice but talking to her is different. Maybe she was nervous. I doubt it though. She seemed pretty comfortable to me. Everything is copacetic, you know? And she is incredibly understanding.

When I came home and told Dear Sir that all we did was play games so hard that we did not have time to talk he shook his head and said, "Just give it another try."

I am not intimidated by these ladies at all, now that I have met them. A few of them have barely gotten their school years started! I am a School Nazi! It is more me that would be looking down at them thinking, "come on, get it together!" But I know many of those ladies have a completely competent school program in their homes and it works well for them and I have no reason to judge or anything like that. I have a lot to learn, actually. I was just hoping that the meeting would be more informative and at least I could make some friends. I was the first one to leave, now that I remember.

Oh well. So, Emma, that is how it went.