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Objects in mirror are closer than they appear!!
Love is: having a pet in your dorm room, even though your bunnies can’t be with you.
La Petite calls him Lenny Briscoe.
>Love Thursday
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Monthly Archives: February 2007
>The Flu Flew Through
>Today’s timeline:
5:30 — alarm, I wake up,
shower, feed rabbits, get breakfast on the table
6:05 — Amigo gets up, gets dressed, comes down for breakfast as is routine.
6:20 — Amigo hugs me.
Mom: “Hey, kiddo, you feel warm.”
Teen: “I feel achy all over.”
Mom: “Hmm. Let me take your temperature. 101.5 — you’re staying home today.”
After a brief discussion, it was determined that I would stay home with the sick boy. I zoomed off to school, left sub plans, checked in with a couple of key co-workers, and came home.
Since then, Amigo has only left the couch briefly to use the bathroom. He has sipped copious amounts of water and other refreshing beverages, but has wanted nothing to do with food. Ibuprofen is not bringing the fever down. He has a hacking cough. He is exhausted. The only effort he makes is to reach for his drink and occasionally wake up and change the TV channel. In fact, he slept all morning and on and off all afternoon.
Everything points to influenza.
I have homemade chicken noodle soup in the crockpot. He won’t want to eat tonight, but he might eat the leftovers tomorrow or Friday.
Poor guy.
I’m feeling a little under the weather myself. I hope my annual flu shot keeps the worst at bay. Meanwhile, I’ll keep drinking liquids and washing my hands and resting.
Pandemic? No. It’s just the family. We’ve coped with this before, and we can cope again. but all things considered, I might add a few stock-up items to the grocery list in case things get worse. I mean, we did miss the blizzard this time. We might not be that lucky the next time Mother Nature unleashes her power.
>Chocolate is the cure
>There’s a Nestle’s Crunch bar in my schoolbag. It’s been there for at least a month. I haven’t eaten it (yet). My co-worker handed it to me one day in return for a favor. I reminded her that she didn’t have to bribe me, and I really did try to give it back, but she insisted. Just twisted my arm. Ouch. Uh-huh. I was totally forced to accept this chocolate bar.
Segue to the current day. My period is starting, I had a challenging day at school teaching sex ed to sixth graders, and now I sit with a cup of sugar free Cafe Vienna in front of me. I plan to read the newspaper or pick up a book and slowly sip this delectable beverage. I just haven’t decided what my after-school snack will be.
I’ve been rereading the Harry Potter series in preparation for the summer debut of the seventh and last in the series. I just pulled the third, Prisoner of Azkaban, off my shelf last night. I really enjoy observing the writer’s craft, the way JK Rowling develops her plots. I hadn’t realized that she uses the term “Azkaban guards” for several chapters before actually introducing the Dementors by name.
Come to think of it, the newspaper and the real world can wait. I think I’ll combat this PMS with a cozy blanket, a cup of Cafe Vienna, and a Harry Potter book. And if I encounter any of those nasty dementors —
I might have to open my school bag for the cure.
>Spell this: Autism in the News
>I was all set to write one last “Funday Sunday” post about the Pro Bowl. For a change, the game last night was fun and exciting to watch. We bonded as a family as we ate quesadillas and talked about football one last time.
Then I woke up this morning and read the Sunday paper. Ouch.
This headline “Chilton student overcomes autism to win spelling bee, advance to state contest” caught our attention. Overcomes autism? Did he leave his autism offstage as the spelling bee began? Did some magical cure turn up just before the competition?
How about “Student with autism wins spelling bee” or “Student demonstrates excellent memory and spelling skills despite disability” instead? The student in question is an excellent speller and strong student in many ways, according to the article. Autism could have been an factor in the stress of the competition, but this is a factor for neurotypical students as well.
I am always happy to read of children with autism succeeding in school. The misleading headline, however, may be all some readers see. This is a successful student with autism who shows a talent for spelling. He did not “overcome” his autism in order to be successful.
Editors need to be more thoughtful and insightful when putting these banners in print.
>Earth Mother is hibernating
>Or maybe I’m just taking a nap. It’s so much easier to be “green” in the summer when the weather is warm and I’m not working full time. The sun comes up earlier and stays out later, so I can be outside instead of using up energy with lights and television and computer. Laundry gets done at off-peak hours so the washer and dryer don’t heat the house when it’s already hot outside. I can compost my coffee grounds and kitchen waste. The bunnies graze on grass and chow down on the garden leftovers.
It’s not easy being green in the winter, but I still minimize my impact a little bit whenever I can. The sweatshirts and sweatpants are hanging over drying racks at the moment, and the load of jeans will hang up, too, when the washer is done. I’ll put all of these heavy items in the dryer on low for a few minutes at the very end of Laundry Detail.
One of my “cabin fever” projects this winter is the gradual purging of our old file cabinets. I stand next to one cabinet with a paper grocery bag and a box. Junk goes in the bag; anything that might need shredding goes in the box. Both eventually get recycled. I work until I finish a file drawer or fill the bag. The file cabinet will either get reorganized and used more efficiently or we’ll sell it at a rummage sale this summer.
The Christmas cards await the fun craft scissors. I’ll turn them into tags for next year in another “cabin fever” project.
I won’t compost my coffee grounds today (they don’t decompose much in the bitter cold, anyway), but I’m acting locally and thinking globally, in my own small way.
>Love Thursday
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Love is — having a good crib, pegging high, and —
–beating your dad at cribbage.
The loser took out the garbage.
Amigo keeps his own score on an abacus (on floor, near his knee). He plays with a deck of Braille cards. They have Braille labels on the corners, and they’re printed normally for us non-Braille-reading folk.
>How cold was it?
>Blooming Meadows, Cold Spring, Rapids, Edgewater, Clay, Rock, Maple, Oak, and Homestead are all roads I passed on the route home. Dark Acres and Spring Creek were both subdivisions-in-progress. Despite the seemingly contradictory names, they are only miles from each other. I keep wondering if “Spring Creek” isn’t an example of the department of redundancy department.
>How cold was it?
>It was so cold….
(Insert punch line here.)
On my road trip to take La Petite back to college today, the Transport Weather Report (a.k.a. the minivan’s thermometer) ranged from -4 degrees to a positively balmy +2. Wow. I almost had to unzip my jacket at the sight of the number on the plus-side. The van’s heating system kept up with the cold well enough, as did the defroster. The windshield washer could use some help. I’ll be curious to find out whether the fluid simply remains frozen or if the reservoir is empty. Mythbusters, can you help? Just kidding. The van is down to half a tank of gas, so as soon as I think I can handle standing outside long enough to fill it, I’ll go to the gas station and wash the windows at the same time. Brrrr.
I enjoy the drive to and from the school. It’s mostly along secondary roads — those two-lane highways with lots of farms and little towns and very few type A drivers. With that in mind, take a look at this list. Can you figure out what these have in common?
Dark Acres
Blooming Meadows
Cold Spring
Spring Creek
Rapids
Edgewater
Clay
Rock
Maple
Oak
Homestead
>Funday Monday
>Yes, it’s TOO COLD for school to be in session! So I am wide awake, having fed the bunnies and turned off Amigo’s alarm. Husband is off for work already, and La Petite is sleeping until I wake her for her doctor’s appointment.
Some of my favorite bloggers are reacting to the Super Bowl. Surprisingly (or not), very few are talking about the game itself.
Mocha Momma comments on Prince’s halftime show, especially his, um, headpiece.
Mir wonders if she’ll ever be credible again if she un-grounds her kids to watch the game (and its commercials) with her.
I think many of the others are sleeping in or drinking coffee while their kids snore.
I’ll go on record saying that I enjoyed the game. The sheer number of miscues, odd for a game of this magnitude, made it exciting. When the Colts pulled ahead for good, the game excitement waned, but watching Tony Dungy get showered in Gatorade (as though he wasn’t already soaked!) was pretty cool. He really deserved this win. What took Peyton Manning so long to finally smile? Didn’t he realize he earned his Super Bowl ring at last?
Commercials? Bud Lite was disappointing. Budweiser itself was okay, with the dog wanting to be a Dalmation, but it didn’t quite reach the level of the donkey wanting to be a Clydesdale. Oprah and Letterman? Yes, we laughed.
Doritos. Now Doritos had a couple of effective ads. These were the kind that held us to the screen wondering what was coming next. Sorry, Doritos, I still don’t like your chips. Your sales won’t change.
I liked Coke’s classy spots, emphasizing the longevity of their product and its place in U.S. history.
Chevy? Hey, the college freshman who won with her car-wash design is a University of Wisconsin student. Amidst this cold and snow there are many creative minds!!
But my favorite, the one that made us laugh out loud and keep on laughing, was the NFL spot. If you didn’t stay on the couch for the two minute warning, you missed a good one. As hard as it may be, I guess I’ll have to put the cheesehead and the singing Packer in storage for the off-season. My fleece, however, is still warm and cozy for days like today.
>Funday Sunday — of a different sort
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Well, I can’t cheer for my favorite team tonight, but I am wearing my socks.
It’s too cold to go sledding, so I baked banana bread instead.
My cold is gradually getting better, so I’m drinking lots of liquids and hanging out by the vaporizer to keep fighting.
The temperature has reached a high of (gulp) 1 degree below zero so far today. I think we’ll stay inside and huddle around the cozy blankets and the bunnies.
Everyone has cabin fever (Amigo is sitting beside me begging me to hurry up so that he can use the computer), and we’re likely to get on each other’s nerves, so I might have to bake cookies, too. Darn. Such a sacrifice.
And the truth about tonight’s Super bowl: I’ll watch the game and the commercials, but I’ll really be cheering because Favre is going to give the Packers and their fans at least one more year.
I think I’ll fill my own Lombardi “trophy” with cappuccino and join the family “huddle” in the den.
