The Neon Nurse's Charting

I have been forgetting to ask this for weeks!

Some lovely, kind, thoughtful person with excellent taste sent a big ol' box of two kinds of Chocolate Pecan Bark (milk and dark) to us, with the notation it was for Mike, but he had to share. The company was Sunnyland Farms. (It would have been way funny if it was SunnyDALE Farms, but I don't think I'd be eating the chocolate.)

Trouble was, the FROM spot on the label was BLANK.

So, if someone reading this is wondering why they didn't get a Thank You...that's why. Speak up and I'll give you a huge virtual hug. If you prefer to remain anonymous...well, consider yourself thankfully hugged anyway!

You will no doubt be pleased to hear that, with the help and support of Caro and Damaris, I got through the eBay Listathon on Tuesday without my brain asplode. Yesterday and today have been mainly devoted to polishing up related details, and I think I can finish up the last few hanging threads tomorrow.

I haven't pushed really hard this time because I am trying to minimize stress. The shingles are going away almost as fast as they came, and I don't want to mess that up for myself. When I was at my check-up on Tuesday, the nurse drawing blood told me that her grandmother had shingles for a YEAR AND A HALF. Yikes! If I can prevent that by taking naps and reading breaks on my new soft comfy memory foam mattress topper instead of slaving over a hot keyboard, well, I guess I will just have to make that sacrifice.

The good news from the doc was that my blood pressure continues to be well-controlled by medication. The bad news there was that I weighed even more than I was afraid I did. So I am just going to have to get serious, I guess, and make some New Year's resolutions!

In the year 2006 I resolve to: Become an online stalker. Get your resolution here

Any volunteers?

Here's an interesting True Fact. Every year, right towards the end of the year, eBay has held a surprise free or discounted listing fee day...this has happened for at LEAST six years in a row I can remember for sure.

They never tell you until the evening before, but it's pretty much a sure thing. So WHY have I spent so much time doinking around the past few days instead of getting ready for it? Did I really think it would NOT come on the ONE day I already had two different appointments that it would be a huge pain to cancel? HAH!

Oh, well, what's the fun of doing something if there isn't a bit of a CHALLENGE to it? I've buckled down and gotten most of the stuff I could pre-do tonight done, and tomorrow will just have to unroll as it will.

Except for tonight's little drama(s), it has been a lovely, fun, lazy, enjoyable holiday here at the Chez de la Poisson Unrulee. Today and yesterday I used two of my gifts for long stretches of time--a new memory foam mattress topper (oh, YEAH baby!) (with my Christmas money from you, Mom!) and Feast for Crows by George RR Martin. This morning I continued stress-testing the foam while Caro and Mike went to the re-opening of the Wal-mart, where Mike scored the one thing he REALLY wanted that we hadn't sprung for, one of those 8 foot tall air decorations, for 75% off. (with HIS Christmas money from you, Mom!) They didn't have a train or a snowglobe, but he's pretty happy with his tree.

I'll see you all again when I come out of my eBay-imposed exile on Wednesday.

I last posted this in 2003, but I know it will be new to some of you! Enjoy!

THE TEX-MEX VERSION OF "THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS"
Jim and Nita Lee (Dec. 1972)

'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the casa,
Not a creature was stirring -- Caramba! Que pasa?
Los ninos were tucked away in their camas,
Some in long underwear, some in pijamas,
While hanging the stockings with mucho cuidado
In hopes that old Santa would feel obligado
To bring all children, both buenos and malos,
A nice batch of dulces and other regalos.

Outside in the yard there arose such a grito
That I jumped to my feet like a frightened cabrito.
I ran to the window and looked out afuera,
And who in the world do you think that it era?
Saint Nick in a sleigh and a big red sombrero
Came dashing along like a crazy bombero.
And pulling his sleigh instead of venados
Were eight little burros approaching volados.

I watched as they came and this quaint little hombre
Was shouting and whistling and calling by nombre:
"Ay Pancho, ay Pepe, ay Cuco, ay Beto,
Ay Chato, ay Chopo, Macuco, y Nieto!"
Then standing erect with his hands on his pecho
He flew to the top of our very own techo.
With his round little belly like a bowl of jalea,
He struggled to squeeze down our old chiminea,
Then huffing and puffing at last in our sala,
With soot smeared all over his red suit de gala.

He filled all the stockings with lovely regalos --
For none of the ninos had been very malos.
Then chuckling aloud, seeming very contento,
He turned like a flash and was gone like the viento.

And I heard him exclaim, and this is verdad,
Merry Christmas to all, and Feliz Navidad!

As Dave Barry would say.

Because I am obsessive sometimes, I was doing more research on Google today. I was specifically curious about my status as a shedder of the varicella zoster virus, because I do not want to go around giving innocent people the chicken pox if I can help it. Happily, I learned (and confirmed) from medical teaching sites that with shingles, you are only shedding from the blisters themselves, not breathing the virus out as is true for the starter disease, chicken pox. So as long as I keep my shirt on, innocent bystanders should be safe.

It was in the course of this research that I found the eloquent description of the general appearance of the clusters of blisters -- a "carpet of scabs".

I think you would agree that would be an EXCELLENT name for a rock band.

If you are inclined to enjoy an amusing animated "12 Days of Christmas" card by Jacquie Lawson, click the link!

My particular favorites are the three French hens with tri-color combs, clucking "La Marseillaise"!

If you've been playing along with our home game, you may have seen that several of my friends have had ideas and suggestions about my pesty dermal afflictions.

This morning when I got up I found some of the small spots had gotten bigger. I considered trying to take another photo, but in the interests of public decency, decided to attempt a diagram instead.



(I have obviously been watching too much CSI.)

As you may recall, I was having difficulty believing in the Lone Spider theory, considering the multiple attack sites, and yet, it seemed kind of weird that a whole herd of spiders would be so well-coordinated that they could lay down a nice straight row of about 8 simultaneous bites.

And then suddenly I went, "Grk? STRAIGHT LINES?"

After few more minutes with Google, I can now admit I was led astray. Not an arachnoidal attack, but a viral one. Shingles.

The funny thing is that a friend of mine, who lives a mere three hours away, just recently came down with an outbreak of them, and yet it didn't even cross my mind when I was trying to sort out what the heck was up with the ol' bod. Maybe because I HAVE been spider-bit a few times over the years, and the initial reaction looked similar, so I didn't think to search further. Also, the straight line thing (shingles tend to erupt along a line following a nerve path in the body) wasn't apparent to me until I started trying to draw the eruptions. After that it was easy to, as it were, connect the dots....



Happily, this seems to be a fairly minor attack. It was probably brought on partly by stress, partly by all the darn chocolatey/nutty snacks that keep turning up in a holidayish sort of way, and partly by being over 50 and (maybe) slightly prone to getting hivey when upset. But it's not too painful or itchy and it's in an area normally covered by my clothes. So I will just double up my lysine intake, cut off chocolate and nuts (the arginine in them encourages viral replication) and all should be well fairly soon!

It's either feast or famine with posts from me, isn't it?

I had a lot of little piddly things to do on Tuesday, the last day before Christmas break started down here, but I figured I would get caught up again once the good old vacation started. I didn't feel completely well that evening, and then had a bad night, but I blamed it on eating too many of the leftover goodies Caro brought home from school.

I felt kind of weird on Wednesday, though. My wrist hurt and the skin on my upper arm burned but felt numb at the same time. And I felt achy and sort of queasy. But we had stuff to do, so I sucked it up to leap into the errands breach. When I went to put on 'go to town' clothes, though, I found I had a cluster of weird little lumps on my upper back. Upon closer inspection via Caro, there turned out to be a run of about three clusters, red and raised, but not itchy. Strange.

Running the few little shopping type errands we had just wiped me out. By the time we got home my back, chest and arm were starting to vaguely ache, as though I had been doing actual exercise or something. I was now in full fret mode, figuring something had bitten me AGAIN. (This has happened in a more minor way several times in the past few weeks.) So I went on a rampage in my bedroom, throwing out old (really old) foam padding and pulling things away from the wall so I could vacuum and spray.

All the extra activity plus the ongoing mysterious malady left me moaning around the place this morning, feeling remarkably like someone had slugged me in the back with a baseball bat. I huddled up here at the computer with a heating pad and my faithful blankie and Googled for spider bite symptoms. If you ever go to do that, and you add on a pic search as well, I recommend you use the modifier "-recluse", because I am here to tell you, THOSE images are GROSS.

Anyway, spider bite does seem to be the most likely cause of my problems. (No, not ALL my problems, just these recent ones.) I did take advantage of today's really balmy temps to take all three of the pets who sleep on my bed outside to give them a good inspection in the bright sunlight, and nothing. Nothing but slightly confused dogs and a kind of pissed off old cat.

As of this evening, the soreness is pretty much gone. Beside the bite clusters on my back, I developed two more on my upper arm and two on my chest, leaving me wondering what the HECK was going on? Was it one crazed spider on a Susan-eating rampage, or a whole bunch of tiny babies that I rolled on or something?

Or do I really want to know?

Do you have someone hard to buy for on your Christmas list?

(And no, I do NOT know how someone got that to appear on Amazon as a listing....)

We had a pleasantly busy day yesterday, ending in a family trip to FINALLY see HP and the Goblet of Fire. Mike thought it was a bit scary, but was engrossed enough in it to be continually stage-whispering questions about the action in my ear. Luckily the theater wasn't crowded and the only people this distracted was me and Caro....

Mike and I had our second visit to the "feelings doctor" Friday, and I am happy to say he is in agreement that improvements need to be made, and he is making a very clear effort to hold up his own end with the assignments we were each given. This morning he wanted to surprise us by changing two burned out light bulbs over the sink in the bathroom. The sound of breaking glass DID wake me up, but happily he was uninjured, and already picking up the bigger shards when I came trudging in to help. So no harm, no foul.

A friend of mine shared this very cool link about a way to help give micro loans to individuals in impoverished African countries, even using Paypal if you want!

http://alternet.org/story/29345/

I plan to give that a try after the next payday, and I'll let you know how it goes!

From today's LA Times, by Rosa Brooks:

The Grinch factor

THE WHOS down in Who-ville
Were a tolerant lot:
Who Christians, Who Muslims — a Who melting pot.
Who Hindus! Who atheists! Who Buddhists, Who Jews!
Who Confucians, Who pagans,
And even Who Druze! The Who 1st Amendment's Establishment Clause
Said, "No creches in courts," and the Whos loved their laws.
Because somehow … they worked. The Whos rarely fought,
Mostly, each Who did just what he ought.

Every Who down in Who-ville
Loved the Consti-Who-tion a lot.
But the O'Reilly, who lived up in Fox-ville,
Did NOT!

The O'Reilly DETESTED the Who Consti-Who-tion,
He thought it was some sort of liberal pollution.
Now, please don't ask why, for I really don't know.
Perhaps it had something to do with his show.
It could be that his head wasn't screwed on quite right.
Or it could be, perhaps, that his shoes were too tight.
But I think that the most likely reason of all
May have been that his RATINGS
Were two sizes too small.

Well, whatever it was, bad ratings or tight shoes,
He stood there one Christmas, just hating the Whos.
"They're so multicultural," he sneered, "and wherever they're from,
They lack the good sense to just launch a pogrom!
There's no Who ethnic cleansing, no Who Inquisition,
If this PEACE can't be stopped, I may lose my position.
Those sensitive, tolerant Whos! It's quite grating.
I must think of something to fix my show's ratings!"

Then he said with a smirk, "I know just what to do
To destroy all the joy in the land of the Who!
I think I can end that PC Who peace.
This year, not one Who will enjoy his Roast Beast!

"Here's just how I'll do it:
I'll tell each Who Christian
That the liberal Whos have devised a new mission
To take away Christmas!
To mock and destroy
Till no little Who Christian is left with a toy!
And when secular Whos — most likely Who Jews —
Attempt to deny it? Why,
I'll just SPIN THE NEWS!

"I'll bluff and I'll lie; I'll sow seeds of mistrust.
Soon they'll form battle lines into
Who 'THEM' and Who 'US,'
Based on which Whos prefer
To sing out, 'Merry Christmas'
And which Whos say, 'Kwanzaa!'
Or 'None of your business!'

"They'll get so confused and so MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD
That they won't even notice the way
They've been HAD!
They'll be so busy squabbling
They won't notice the war!
They won't care if Who rich
Start to trample Who poor!

"Forget torture, and terror, and taxes, and health!
They'll waste all their time on some red-hatted elf.

"And the Who Consti-Who-tion?
They'll stretch it or burn it!
If it came as a gift, they would try to return it!

"The Who Christians will think that they fight the good fight,
They won't know that they're puppets of the Fox-ville Far Right.
They'll forget all that DRIVEL about faith, hope and LOVE
And say 'Merry Christmas' with a sneer and a shove.

"But I? I will prosper! My ratings will soar,
And maybe at last they'll forget I'm a BOOR.
Then for every Who Christmas tree
A most fitting adornament:
My O'Reilly MUG on the tackiest ornament!"

—

… And what happened then?
Well, the rest's up to you.
But I know what I'd like this holiday season:
A little less NOISE and a little more reason.

So Who Christians! Who Buddhists! Who Muslims! Who Jews!
WHOever you are, just say NO to Fox "News!"
If you don't want to lose the whole Who Consti-Who-tion
It's time to reject the Far Right Revolution.
So turn off O'Reilly and everyone shrill,
Let's have some peace
And old-fashioned GOODWILL.

As you may recall, my daughter Damaris and her kids recently moved away from Lamar, which made everyone down here sad. But at least Brush is not TOO far away and we can still visit.

Damaris and the girlies had a Girl Scout event to attend here Tuesday, and Damaris decided to make it a family holiday, staying over so they could spend extra time with us, visit school friends, and stuff like that. She called me Tuesday morning with a dilemma.

Lamar has two hotels with indoor pools. One is older and thinks it's all that and the prime rib platter with free dessert, but it's actually only so-so, and way over-priced considering how it smells of mold. But at the newer, cheaper hotel, the hot tub part of the pool was down for maintenance and being painted. So Damaris wanted to know which to pick.

Did I say it was morning? I tried, I really did, but factoring in so many variables broke my brain. So I just told her to do whatever SHE wanted to do, and she started accusing me of acting out the family joke:

Q: How many mothers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. It's fine, I'm okay, I'll just sit here in the dark....

I pointed out SHE is a mom too...and it got silly from there. We decided, as we laughed harder and harder, that we would just sneak out later, after the pool area closed, and sit in the hot tub anyway. We could find the mostly empty paint buckets and use those, meaning we would be sitting in ankle-deep coldish water opaque with paint, and probably those strings you get from latex when it has partly dried. There might even be some old cigarette butts from the painters. So we could sit there morosely in the dark and the gross water and share a motherly bonding experience.

Naturally when we eventually went down there with the kids, Damaris egged me on to pose for some pics.



I look a little funny because I am trying to mope without bursting into laughter.

We make our own fun around here, as you can tell. I have a sheet that is printed with fish, part of the House of Unruly Fish collection. And when its turn came round again recently to be used on the bed, I decided it was nicely fishy but otherwise sort of boring. To remedy that, I went on a hunt throughout the house for permanent markers. Yes, vast improvement! But a lot of work, even if Caro and Mike help out now and then. The visit from the kids was an ideal time to get lots more fish colored in!

Susan's Queen-sized Cotton Aquarium



Here's the end result of the great Shampoo-to-Glitter-Bubble-Bath Experiment:



I found out some things. Shampoo by itself is too thick. You need to cut it with glycerin and water, and then the glitter can get shaken up nicely before each use. Also? If you buy the cheap glitter, the color comes off both the gold and the multicolor kind. So BEWARE!

They have this cool map down at the offices of the Prowers County Development place, where our community movers and shakers meet once a week try to think of ways to promote prosperity. (Me, I just watch and make the occasional joke.)

There is a project going on right now called Ports to Plains, intended to develop a super-highway system that will take some of the strain off the aging ones in our area, like I-70 and I-25. Now it appears there is some kind of project going on with US Hiway 50 as well. And just LOOK where they cross over! (Can you see me waving from deep in the heart?)



So whether your auto journeys take you north and south or east and west, if you are going cross-country I DO expect you to stop and say Hi!

After all, some of our finest Avian-Americans do. Click here to read about the Bald Eagles who are wintering over at John Martin Reservoir, which is about 25 miles west of my house.

Time for seasonal greetings!

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit our best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all...

...and a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2006, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great, (not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country or is the only "AMERICA" in the western hemisphere), and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, or choice of computer platform of the wishee.

(By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.)

For CSI fans!

Click here to read about the Clark County (Las Vegas NV) Coroner Gift Shop!

Half.com has an email promo thingie they run now and again, where they urge you to resell something you bought from them and make money! This time it went wonky, and I got one with this enticing subject line:

Want $0.00? Sell your items on Half.com

It's actually kind of truth in advertising. The rule we go by here is, BUY on Half or eBay when we want something. (That's where the good deals are.) But for selling, it's NeonHearts.com or Amazon, hands down!

Good ol' Carol Kimball sent me this fun link!

If you dig a hole in your backyard and go straight through the Earth, where will you end up?

http://grad.icmc.usp.br/~cipriani/bighole.php?lang=en

I didn't do too much yesterday except decompress a little. I appreciated all the nice responses I got, and will say stuff back soon. Ish.

Today I had planned to be all busy and productive, but apparently my decisions in that area as every bit as intelligent as my stress management ones are, because I got sucked into trying to change my main mail program from Eudora to Thunderbird...which didn't go well for the LONGEST time.

See, we started out on Eudora, which came bundled with our first internet hook-up (ruralnet.net), and I faithfully got upgrades for years. But the last time I looked, they wanted $50 for an upgrade! And I said, "I don't think so, Tim."

But I had to do something, because the 5.2.1 from 2000 is just not Playing Nice with all the new stuff onboard, and I'm tired of messing with it. So after those few hours of my life I'll never get back, I found the main problem (hidden lurking mail from the last time I experimented with Thunderbird back in 2004) and am on track to getting it set up like I want it.

Anyway, just wanted to get on LJ with a little update, so no one would worry.

If you know me even a little bit, you know my mantra for almost any situation in life is "Oh, well, it could be worse." Very tedious of me, I know, so I try to keep that sort of thing to a minimum and instead make everything funny.

I'm kind of stuck for this one, though.

Yesterday didn't start out too well. A spider bit me in the night. (I'm guessing that's what it is, since mosquito season is well over and I can't find any sign of fleas on the animals.) Then something I ordered from Sears which was important to my gift-giving plans came, and it was TOTALLY the wrong item. And it's way cold, and it's the Christmas season and I'm way behind, blahblahblah.

And then there's Mike.

The Mike thing has been going on for a while. Some of it is the changes of adolescence. Add to that, the emotional changes normally seen at around 9 or 10, which is about where he's at behaviorally due to his disability.

Some of it is, I think, a function OF his particular disability. His biological mother's family had to commit her to a full-time residential facility when she was about 12 because she was acting out violently towards them, including her 4 year old half-sister. Considering she had really very little contact with Mike as he has grown up, it's kind of disturbing how similar their personalities are in some ways.

Mike is also under stress from some school things, like new standardized tests, and less aide help because they are being spread more thinly these days, due to budget problems. Also, he was quite upset because Damaris and the kids moved away.

But basically, the problem is that he has been acting out in a major way from time to time in the last month or so. We've consulted his docs, adjusted his meds, and last week he and I had our first appointment with a counselor. Oh, and I'm reading a book. Slowly, as it's actually more a book for training counselors than parents. Probably I should go and try to read more of it faster, all things considered.

There are several reasons why I am posting about this. Partly it's because one of the useful things about blogging is that it does in fact act as a journal, so you can go back in time and review how things were at various times of your life. Partly, it's sort of a vaccine against denial for me. Writing it down is acknowledging it really happened, which theoretically will encourage me to address the problem.

Partly it's to apologize, for the past and future. If I have seemed like I ignored you in emails, if I haven't been around much, and haven't been very funny, I'm sorry. It's not you, it's me.

I think I'm kind of depressed.

It's 11 am, so it's already a balmy 7 degrees outside. Bright sunny clear skies, though, which of course means it will be down to -5 tonight. I have turned the thermostat up to 64 degrees, and am snuggled up in a blankie here in front of my warm glowing monitor.

Actually, I exaggerate a little. (You didn't know that about me, right?) That number on the thermostat is fine for keeping the house warm, providing we humans are going around in warm clothes. (The dogs and cats curl up in our/their beds and grumble a lot, but hey, THEY aren't paying the darn propane bill!)

Now YESTERDAY was a different story around here, and it's why I have borrowed the ways and moniker of the famous landscape artist.

Prevailing winds in our area tend to be from the northwest, but with the storm system yesterday we had bitter cold blowing in from due east. Our back door, which opens on the hall where Mr. Thermostat lives on the wall, faces east. There is a semi-new storm/screen door on it (that comes close to fitting the crooked door frame), but the back door itself...well, let's just say it wouldn't make the grade as airlock material. So SOME of the rooms of the house were actually HOT (to someone wearing two sweatshirts), being as how the hallway was full of slivers of very nippy incoming breezes, making the heater stay on pretty much continually.

Clearly, now was the time to bump another chore to the top of the list. I found my trusty roll of duct tape, which had last been used LAST week when we had a more traditionally produced storm roll in from the north. The old tape edging the smaller back up AC unit (in the north wall were birds sometimes nest) had curled up like a bad perm and fallen partly off the wall behind its wall hanging disguise. (Oh, ok, fine, it was really an old leather jacket! Happy now??)

I had committed much of the roll of tape to the mummification of that AC unit, which DID look rather sci-fi-like afterwards, hanging out of the wall in its new subdued silver wrap. (I hung the jacket back over it anyway. Maybe I should find an Indiana Jones hat and whip to hang by it and make it look like a deliberate decorative statement....) But there was plenty to use on the leaky bits of the wooden back door, and it did successfully stop most of the incoming frosty air.

I was on a roll now (a roll! Of duct tape! GEDDIT?!?) and decided to finish off by attacking the very worst leak, the window in the north wall of the basement where there is also (coincidence? or FATE?) a seldom used AC unit haphazardly installed in the window well. I KNEW this one leaked badly, since an actual DOG got through the air baffles several times. And I could see it was not a moment too soon to address the problem, since SNOW was slithering in past the edges of the old baffle and tape arrangement.

So the basement AC also got the Cristo treatment, and all is well, except we need a new roll of duct tape.

For all Harry Potter and/or SpongeBob Squarepants fans:

Click here...if you dare!

A true story: The other day my grandson Zach asked me what I thought the worst virus was.

"Gosh, I don't know, Zach," I told him. "I don't know all their names...but they are ALL bad. I guess the worst one is the kind that shuts off your firewall and virus protection and then overwrites your registry so your computer won't even boot anymore."

He just stared for a few seconds, and then said, "Thank you, Grandma. But what we are studying in school are the kind of viruses PEOPLE catch...."

Suddenly I realized I haven't posted anything since before Thanksgiving!

It was a five day family holiday for us, you see, so we somethinged the shining hour by doing a lot of cleaning and re-deranging and depacking of the Christmas Stuff. Then I needed Monday and Tuesday to recover from all the extreme antics. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of THIS week proceeded to be as busy in their own way as the holiday weekend had been...which brings us up to today.

Some of the things that happened:

Found the lost Hungarians. (Folk ballet program, which I could not mail to the buyer because I could not FIND it.) It had been really bothering me, so that was good.

On Thanksgiving we ate the traditional many good things, including our famous 'clown-in-a-blender' fruit salad. The feast was a bit hit and run because Damaris, Nigel, and the kids were using the holiday to move away. (*sob*) Nigel has been working in Denver the past year, commuting down on the weekends, and he's understandably tired of it. So on Thursday we zoomed over with our half of the feast, gobbled the gobbler, and then went back home so they could get back to shifting residenci.

The high-water mark for excitement that day came on Nigel's drive to Brush, hauling a trailer and three excited kids. One twin accidentally smacked her sister in the mouth, causing the baby tooth with had been hanging by a thread to finally break free--accompanied by the traditional gushing blood. The Belle Girlie Now Sans Tooth is not a blood sports fan, and instantly responded by throwing up.

So that was exciting for all concerned.

I have a few other odds and ends of things I will try to post at decently spaced intervals, so as not to over-spam you all. But this broke the ice and got me started, so that's good.

PS...Happy Birthday, Mom!