not a very good time for writing; too much happening on the home front. a pair of twins happened upon our lives and filled them up. i am retreating ok, sitting with my puppy ok, getting some peace yet still mangled up with the angst of dealing with young lives so badly torn asunder, still unable to relax and, say, upload a photo, or write a story, or better yet a chapter in my book.

in the end we put a seven-year-old in the hospital for several reasons. one was she had almost killed her twin sister, right in front of a social worker. that put it out of our hands, really; but there was more, and in the end we couldn't handle the both of them when one was so out of control. what i'm saying is that there are strong forces at work hoping that we don't spend the next ten years dealing with another mental illness when basically that has been our entire lives for many years, and i for one am exhausted. i try to keep such things out of this blog, but if you're trying to figure out which of my kids i'm referring to you are probably right that it was probably this one, and maybe that one, and that other one too. it's been one after another. and even the totally sane and together ones take it out of us.

enough of that. let me just say that a folk tale, the beauty and the beast, is what i should be worrying about, and i will get back to that as soon as i can. and meanwhile it's spring.

last night was st. patty's day; the hospital was full, people parked in the hallways, people mangled themselves up, apparently, with drinking and whatever they'd been doing being a bad combination. this morning, much quieter; people at the hospital were friendly and a little more relaxed. i'm not sure how much of a burden it was, working st. patty's when it's so busy, like new year's eve, but everyone was professional, if dressed in green, they were still at least doing their jobs.

i however, though not having drunk a drop of alcohol, am totally drained, exhausted, spent. will try and pull it together, and give you a better report.

sunday morning and the house is full of the energy of the seven-year-old twins, the second of whom we took in last week. the first has been with us a couple of weeks and has already changed our lives significantly. but it turned out they were somewhat connected and there was no way to just stand by and watch the second one be shunted from foster home to foster home with trips to the er and hospital in between. so we took her in too.

the pets are of course most alert and responsive to the change of circumstances. there's a little puppy who's been confined to my room because he almost got his head bitten off by the big one, and he's overjoyed at having young girls around to play with and tug things. they come in after him every once in a while because they can't resist the fact that, being small, there isn't much damage he'll do even if they tug him too hard. i'm a little overprotective of him, knowing he won't back down in a fight with a larger dog and also knowing that he will snap at them if they tug him just a little too hard.

we actually had a police incident last night. i came home from door dashing and the second twin was in a kind of rage. she was tearing around the back yard, throwing things, trying to climb the fence, swinging away at my wife who was trying to restrain her. my wife didn't want her to go back into the house where she had apparently thrown things and broken them, etc. the problem was that she wasn't calming down at all and she was resisting all attempts to restrain her. her older sister for a while was helping her but then calmed down and was not really getting involved. but even after we brought up the idea of having her taken away she wouldn't calm down. i advocated for calling 911. for the most part i guarded the gate, keeping her from running down the street, trying not to be the one restraining her. it was remarkably easy staying calm, even after the police officer arrived, even though in some ways i'm at the end of my patience. the police officer was smart and focused straight on the little girl, telling her that kids need breaks to calm down. In the end she calmed down. maybe it was the police uniform. maybe she just needed to see how we all responded to a crisis.

it is this kind of excitement i can live without. there is a natural tendency for two seven-year-olds to feed off each other and get wild very easily, and to some degree that comes with the territory. we knew going in that it would push our limits. we may have to put our foot down though to make sure she's placed somewhere else. it could very easily push us both over the edge if we don't.

they are sweet, and very cute, in their better moments. their older brother, who we've had for more like three or four months, helps to the degree that he can. i think he's more than familiar with girl-wildness in the house, but really hasn't had much in the way of guidance in how to distract and divert them in crisis situations. our sixteen-year-old was very helpful and, in spite of limited skill in other areas, actually was able to focus right on what was important and help the non-aggressive twin come back from panic and hyper-activity. at their age, hyper-activity is their response to many things. one can't blame them for being a little excitable in the circumstances.

their biggest problem is that they keep seeing their mother regularly, and she tells them she loves them super-much but then they can't come home with her. that's because she apparently beat them very badly more than once and there were other signs of trouble being investigated. i can't really claim to know much about the details and shouldn't be putting them all here in any case, so i'll only say that for whatever reason they're not ready to return the kids to their natural parents, though they have made it possible for them to visit as often as the situation allows. and this has sometimes turned out to be too often.

a terrible cold settled in and gripped me for about a week, and also another disaster: my keys simply disappeared from the peg. i was unable to door-dash (didn't want to anyway, being so sick), and we had to have the car towed to moline where they put in another key, almost five hundred total for tow and key job. i was angry about it all week. i figured there were four of us - me, my wife, a son, and his friend, who could have inadvertantly (or advertantly) taken it from its peg, but eventually i had to accept the other three's accounts that it wasn't them, and in fact they never turned up anywhere, nobody was trying to use the garage or house key in the middle of the night. only my wife and i can even drive the honda, it being stick-shift and all. it was all very confusing, missing keys not turning up, and i just had a kind of constant anger which i guess i still have. but we got the car and now at least i can dash. making a tiny bit of money is like my only solace in this situation. and my only psychological escape.

the first came on a saturday so i did all my amazon ratings and my blog visit counts - blog visits are up but as usual i blame it on the weather. there are actually thirty-seven of these, some barely alive, and some totally dead but i keep track of them anyway, and this one is the leader, the one that is totally me, that i post on no matter what.

i'm in a general malaise ever since i saw all the social media boys lined up with their good friend that they elected or got elected or whatever they did. one side of me wants nothing to do with social media anymore though here i am blabbing away anyway, partly because i love blabbing away and don't reallly believe i can hold it in. so i'll let you in on a secret - i'm actually quite radical but i don't believe one can advertise that anymore without risk to one's life and family. but i have other venues where i can express myself and probably will. my temptation is to write in the dust on my car's back window (which i don't use because the main rearview mirror is broken), something like "love that price of eggs do ya?" but i don't even do that. someone will smash my poor little car and i don't want that. it's better to just let the obvious reality come crashing down.

the winter is finally breaking up - yesterday was cold but i think even that is about gone though who knows if it will stay gone. i have a lot of work to do and don't have to rely on social media to make a living or anything else. though i must say, some of my best friends are on there, around the world, writing and doing other things. i'll continue to support friends and family. may even keep kindle unlimited so i can read all kinds of things which i really enjoy. but for my own books, i'm thinking of stressing getting out of the loop and being a little more independent. maybe even stop keeping track of my ratings, and just let them drift. i am, after all, more than my amazon image.