What I did on my spring break in Jamaica

I spent last week at a resort where there was a nanny to take care of my kid and I had no responsibilities other than to sit on the beach while enjoying the view and drinking Adult Beverages.  I knit an entire tank top, most of a size 13 man's sock, and 1/4 of a skirt for the kidlet.

I knit on the beach.

I knit on the balcony.

I knit on the beach again.

I knit on the balcony again.

I knit in the bar.

I did not knit on the glass-bottom boat (too wet), in the restaurant (too many nom-noms in the antipasto bar to try), or while sleeping (at least intentionally).

I also took more than 1,000 pictures and videos, read 3 books and played a lot of Angry Birds.

It was a good week.

This is probably a bad idea

Found a video that was so funny, I had to stop watching it after a minute just so I could catch my breath.  I haven't finished it, so the last 5 minutes of it could suck, and the commentary is seriously NSFW, but daaaaaang, the first bit is funny.

So here it is:



ETA: Oh, sweet baby jeebus, playing this is so much fun! The "Crunch!" when his head hits the track is classic, as is the fake Chariots of Fire theme music that plays if you actually get ANY forward motion going. You have to try it: http://www.foddy.net/Athletics.html

Also, some of my favorite comments from the forum where I found this:

So you KNOW I had to try it myself. I thought I was going to die laughing just at the impossible contortions I was making this guy do. Then he backflipped and his head actually made a thundering CRUNCH on the ground. Now I am dead from laughing.
ETA: I think I’ve got the moonwalk down pretty solid.
ETA: I got to 2.7 meters before he decided to fuck the ground furiously and then crack open his skull on his own knee.
ETA: I got to 10.8 meters! This guy is really good on his knees. (his trainer must be nellum’s mom.)
ETA: STOP RUNNING BACKWARDS YOU NOODLE LEGGED GIT!!!!
*****
Somewhere between the starting line and the finish line is an actual fucking hurdle you have to manage to jump in order to win the race. Seriously, I’m not even sure how it’s physically possible, although I’ve never gotten that far. Most people just wind up pushing it to the finish line as the ground-hump their way along.
*****

YEAH BABY!

Knocked that hurdle down and humped my way over it.

Course, nobody warned me there’s a fucking jump at the end.

*****

I am currently attempting to hump my way to victory. I take breaks sometimes. I do love how each time I sort of move him forward the inspirational music half starts to play. Go QWOP!

ETA I hit the part where you need to jump and I managed to hump the bar to the ground but it is stuck in the characters crotch. I may have to hump it the last 50m.

*****

*****

I think “Humping our way to victory” should become the official LSG motto. I know it’s going to show up in my vocabulary as soon as I can work it in, as a synonym for slogging on the face of ridiculously epic failure. Kind of like this last job I’m winding up.

Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuude, this is awesome

For more details on just why this is so awesome, you'll have to visit the other blog.

Again with the tiredness

Thursday night I made 10 shirts for Liza and the spelling bee contestants from Kindergarten.  Do you have any idea how hard your hand cramps after using that much puffy fabric paint?

Friday I watched Liza at the spelling bee, where she won "Bravest Speller."  The judge said it looked like she was thinking, "Okay, Mr. Microphone, I know you want to eat my face off, but they told me I needed to use you to win, so I'll just stand way over here and be prepared to run away if you make any sudden movements."  What do you think?

Oh, and I hereby declare that the silent "h" in words like "wheel" is stupid and should be abolished.

Saturday I was getting ready to start painting the bathroom when the power went out.  You know, on the day when it was raining.  And the battery backup on our sump pump was out of juice.  So I got to bail - over the course of 3 hours - 60 gallons of water out of my sump hole, or, as I like to call it, The Black Hole of Olmsted Falls.

In the 10-minute increments between bailings I managed to get the basement even more tidy than it was before.  Um, yay?

When the power came back on, Jason asked if I still planned to paint the bathroom that day.  Two-word answer that starts with "f" and ends with "no."

Sunday I finally got the walls painted.
Monday I got the trim painted.
This morning I got the caulking done and moved all the towel rods and cabinets and curtains back in.  After another hour of cleaning all the dust off of everything, it looks pretty sweet, if I do say so myself.

Even if I still don't have a fucking faucet, which, if you recall, was THE ENTIRE REASON I STARTED THIS PROJECT ALMOST A MONTH AGO.

This afternoon I went outside to look at something other than my bathroom or basement for the first time in like a week and a half.  It was worth the trip.

Don't ask if you don't want to hear the answer

She's not even six, and she's already pulling an attitude on her homework? God, it's going to be a long 12 more years ...

I am so very, very tired

Because:

• Yesterday I finished the first round of taping and mudding on the drywall above my new bathtub ... at 10:15pm.
  
  
  
  
• And then I sat up for a while trying to make sure the sump pump was working.
• And then when I tried to go to sleep, The Storm of Massive Rain and Eternal Lightning-ness started up, making it impossible to get to sleep
• So I checked on the sump pump - still working.
• And then when I tried to go to sleep, I listened to the worsening storm and worried about the sump pump.
• So I checked on the sump pump - still working.
• The last time I checked the clock, it was 3:30am.
• At 6am Jason got up, went downstairs, came back upstairs, and announced that our whole basement was several inches underwater.
• So then Jason, Liza and I carted everything from the basement upstairs, sorting it into "dry," "wet," and "why the hell did we have that anyway?" piles in different rooms in the house.
  
  
  
  
• I also wet vacuumed all the puddles up out of the basement.
• Then I took Liza to school, only an hour late.
• Then I went to Home Depot, where I joined half of the residents of Cuyahoga County in the aisles for mops, shelving units, wet vacs, and garbage bags.  I wish Home Depot also sold alcohol.
• Then I did the second round of mudding on the bathroom walls.
  
  
  
  
• Then I carried the "why the hell did we have that anyway?" pile out to the garbage.
• Then I started mopping the floor in the basement, first with Clorox, then with water.  Now instead of mildew, it smells like bleach and mildew and wet cat hair.
• Then I started moving things back into the basement, sorting out a bunch of stuff for Goodwill and the consignment store.  Goodwill candidates = anything I don't feel like we use enough to justify carrying it back downstairs and placing in an elevated storage spot.  That's a lot of stuff, at this point.
• Then I dug a path through the debris in my office to the computer, where I started typing this post.
• And now I'm going to go find some Tylenol and play Angry Birds until I stop wanting to cry or throw something through a wall.  Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue ...

So, how's your day been going?

Whooooooooosh

That sound you heard yesterday was my 5-year blogiversary flying by, unnoticed by anyone but me.  We've come a long way, baby.

And maybe I'll have more to say about it after I shower off the drywall dust, drive across town, help a bunch of 5-year-olds play with Legos, drive back across town, and meet with the contractor who's supposed to help me remove the cast-iron tub from my tiny bathroom.  That gives me plenty of time to think up something pithy and momentous to say.  Because otherwise, all I've got is BOO-YAH, BABY!!!!

Upgrading your bathroom in 75,212 easy steps

1. Purchase a house thoughtfully designed with the plumbing for the main bathroom running through an unheated, uninsulated little architectural vomit of an overhang at the back of the house, then wait for a particularly cold couple of nights.
2. Attempt to take a shower the next morning and realize that your cold water line has frozen solid.  Rig a heat lamp in the access panel behind the bathtub and thaw out the pipes, leaving the lamp on until the cold weather ends.  This means, of course, that for fire safety reasons you won't be able to put anything in the closet housing the access panel, and you'll have to go to sleep with light streaming from your bedroom closet like something from a horror movie.
3. Realize that the frozen pipes now have a slight leak in them, just a few drips here an there.  Realize that nothing good can come from this, and you wanted to switch from a two-handle shower to a one-handle shower, anyway, so now's a good time to take care of that.
4. Have George the Plumber come give an estimate for doing the actual plumbing work to fix the leaks and move the handles.  Confirm which area of the tiles will need to be removed to make room for the new controller.  Arrange to have him come do the work the following Tuesday.
5. Decide that since the tile near the current handles will need to be replaced, anyway, and the grout in that area is all moldy and gross, it will be easiest to just remove the bottom two rows of tile from around the whole bathtub and replace them with something pretty.
6. Purchase a grout saw, repair grout (for the moldy gross sections above the sections being removed), extra grout saw blades.  Start shopping for tile.
7. Use grout saw to remove the grossest grout above the area to be removed.  This is fun - look how pretty the white grout looks! Now start removing all of the grout around the four tiles that need to be removed so the new controller can be installed.  This is less fun - feel how much your hand aches!  Remove tiles, taking care to keep them as whole as possible so you can use them to patch around the new controller.
8. Shop for tile, deciding that even if you only plan to replace 8 square feet of tile, you can't justify spending $60 a sq. ft. for awesome tile (below) when there's acceptable tile for less than $10.
   
   
9. Purchase tile, thinset mortar, notched trowel, smooth trowel, more grout saw blades, a more ergonomic grout saw, a Dremel rotary tool, a grout-removal kit for the Dremel, tile spacers, grout, float, sponge, and probably a few other things you don't realize you need yet and that they won't stock at just one store so you'll have to drive for 30 minutes to get to the other home improvement store to buy the rest.  Find your heaviest hammer, crappy chisel you don't mind ruining, safety glasses, ear protection, dust mask, and trusty Purdy 6-in-1 painter's tool.  The 6-in-1 is going to be your best friend for the rest of the project, so go ahead and give it a catchy name now.
10. Begin removing grout along the top of the tiles to be removed, using the grout saw followed by the Dremel.  Tell your spouse that using the Dremel is the most fun you've had with a power tool in a long, long time. 
11. Let your child help with the grout removal.  No, she doesn't get to use the Dremel, that's my toy.
    
     
12. Begin removing tile, trying to keep as much of it in good condition as you can because who knows, you might need it some day there's such a market for used 1970s tile that can be best described as "inoffensive."  Get annoyed when you chip the edges of a few pieces of tile that aren't supposed to be removed, then realize that's why you need the good condition tiles, to replace the ones you mess up along the edge.
   
13. Step back and look at what you're doing.  Seriously.  Take a look at the wallboard and the tile.  I'm fairly certain the paper front of the drywall isn't supposed to come off with the tile, and the inside of the drywall isn't supposed to be gray and spongy, is it? And all that fleecy stuff with little black shiny egg-looking balls in it is just insulation, right?  Not anything to worry about, just JESUS LORD HELP ME JESUS A GIANT MAN-EATING SILVERFISH JUST RAN OVER MY HAND AND MY WALL IS INFESTED WITH (MOSTLY DEAD) BUGS AND I THINK I'M GOING TO HURL ALL OVER THE TILE DEBRIS IN MY BATHTUB 

14. Okay, fine.  You're an adult, you can handle these things.  Sweep up bug debris, bag all funky/moldy/buggy tile and get it out of the house, sweep again, vacuum, etc.  Realize that "I'll just tile an 8" strip around the tub" has turned into "I'll just replace the drywall and then tile an 8" strip around the tub."  Call the plumber to reschedule because god only knows how long this is going to take.
15. Continue chipping off the tile, one row at a time, to determine where the water damage stops.  Maybe it's just a few more rows and then everything will be dry and happy and mercifully bug-free!
16. Or not.
17. Give up when you realize that all of the walls are moving when you lean on them, and you're going to have to take all the tile down to replace all of the drywall around the shower.  Have fun removing tile with no thought to keeping any of it - heavy hammer to the rescue!  The walls move so much that you can whack at a row of tiles halfway up the wall and tiles below it just fall off the wall!  It's so much fun, let the kid help! And make sure you can't see that she's wearing safety glasses so her grandmothers will call up and be all irate about it!
    
    
    
18. The drywall probably stopped the moisture from ruining the insulation, right?  So we'll just pull down the drywall and zip - zop - put some back up and we're done, right?
19. Or not.
    
    
20. Door closed, vent fan on high, all debris double-bagged, no one allowed in the room but the worker, work shoes left in room, respirator upgraded to Darth Vader model, all work clothes washed separately from rest of laundry, worker showers immediately after finishing for the day.  Learn new phrase for what we're doing from episode of Glee watched that night - the Full Silkwood.
21. Realize that you don't really feel like doing THAT much tile work.  Maybe one of those plastic tub surrounds would be a good alternative?  Wait, they attach directly to studs, so I don't even have to drywall under them?  Sign me up!
22. Drywall removal - fun when all you need is your hands and a 6-in-1 tool!
23. Insulation removal - fun when all you need is your hands and a 6-in-1 tool!
24. Mold removal - fun when ... oh, fuck it, scrubbing mildew off of the guts of your house isn't fun, no matter what tools you get to use.
    
    
    
25. Call George the Plumber and leave a message.
26. Call Jerry the Contractor and leave a message, because you are pretty sure that getting a giant cast-iron bathtub out of a tiny room is beyond your capabilities, no matter how much you'd like to take a sledgehammer to that ugly P.O.S.
27. Return tile, thinset mortar, notched trowel, smooth trowel, more grout saw blades, a more ergonomic grout saw, tile spacers, grout, float, sponge, and probably a few other things you don't need anymore since you're not doing the tile, realizing that they came from stores on opposite sides of town so it's going to take all day. 
28. Look for new tubs and surrounds at the local home improvement store, and then, dissatisfied with their selection, drive for half an hour to the other major store.  Talk with George the Guy in Plumbing (no relation to George the Plumber) and get the lowdown on how to install one of these babies.  Arrange for spouse to meet you at the store after work, rent the store truck, and haul the new tub and walls home.
29. Realize that you don't have anyplace to store a tub and plastic walls near the bathroom, so the boxes will just have to go wherever you can find a place for them, no matter how inconvenient.
    
    
30. Haul bags, boxes, and trash cans full of waste to the curb, along with the giant part of a tree that fell out of your neighbor's yard during the last ice storm.  The trash guys are going to love you.
31. Wait for George and Jerry to return your calls.
32. Blog.

Organization of my thoughts is a problem when I don't post for weeks at a time

So we'll just go with the tried-and-true (and dreaded) bullet points:

• February is long, calendar be damned.  But for $7 and a trip to the grocery store, I forced spring to come early, at least in my dining room.

• Last week the radio host gleefully announced that it was -5F, the coldest he's ever gotten to say on air.  I dealt with a snow (actually ice) day by throwing my old Calvin and Hobbes books in Liza's direction and taking pictures of her reading them while doing yoga.

• Helping prepare the kindergarten teams for the Lego Olympiad this spring sounded like such a good idea at the time, but after seeing the chaos of 10 kids and one pile of Legos, I may need some sort of pharmaceutical help to get through this.

• But seriously, how can you resist a face like this?  Who's a cute widdle engineer-in-training? 

• Lego Olympiad preparation = perfect excuse for me to play with all the cool working parts that came in the giant box of Lego-y goodness my mother found at a yard sale years ago.  See the working crane I put together in 5 minutes?  It tilts and swivels and has a rachety-winch thing.  

• Too much time indoors = time for a change.  Bye, bye, hair!

• Last week was ugly.  Jason was gone for part of the time, so Liza got to attend the 3-hour PTO meeting with me, where she had to work on the first math homework she's had in months and practice for her spelling test.  Did I mention we also had to decorate a Valentine's day mailbox, go to her science club at the LENSC, and finish her poster for the 100th day of school? And Friday she had a math test, a spelling test, a 100th day poster presentation, and a Valentine's Day party?  I thought her little head was going to explode, but she made it through in one piece.

• This weekend it warmed up enough to actually let the child go outside without risking any of her extremities.  So she threw snowballs at the house and attempted to stomp through the 2" thick layer of ice on top of the snow in our yard. 

• And then we went to see them band birds at the Rocky River Nature Center.  Liza got to release a downy woodpecker - she was much more enthusiastic before she realized that even small birds have talons.

• Also, we went tobogganing, but I think that deserves its own post.

38 don't get you nothin', buddy

It's not prime, it's not a multiple of 5 or 10, it's not a milestone - you get the DQ mini ice cream cake and some dudes to paint.  Next year I'll dust off the cheesecake recipe for you, okay?

Happy birthday, Jason!

True/False

1.  I let my kid go out in public looking like this:

2. I took 200 pictures at a kid's birthday party, and this was the least blurry one of them all:

3. My daughter has a great future ahead of her as a hairdresser.

4. Saturday nights at my house are a total party!

5. Prisms are just for making rainbows.

6. She hates waterslides.

7. I will never allow myself to appear in a swimsuit on this blog.

8. Fifty-four days from now, Jason and I will be sitting right here while some Jamaican nanny is in charge of our kid:

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9. My cat has no interest in wiping the smug expression off of this guy's face:

10. Sometimes I suck at keeping the blog updated.

Blergh

Again.

At least I had a day in between to feel halfway decent, right?

Saved that one.

     "Cummins leaned forward over his paper-strewn desk and told me about a poet who had been walking along the beach one morning at low tide.  The poet saw thousands and thousands of starfish that had been stranded on the shore, baking in the sun.  If they were left on the beach surely they would die.  In the distance, he saw a boy sifting through the sand on the beach.  The boy would stoop down, pick up a starfish, and throw it back into the sea.  When the poet reached the boy, he said, 'What are you doing? You can't save them all!' The boy knelt down, picked up another starfish, threw it into the ocean, and said, 'I saved that one.'  And he did it again.  'Saved that one.'  And again.  One by one, until soon the poet joined the boy, and together they saved as many starfish as they could.

     "That's how people who make a difference think and live."

I found this today as I was reading a parenting book, and it struck me as a good explanation for why I'm still trying to eat as locally and sustainably as I can.  No, I can't singlehandedly change the food system in this country - or even in this town.  But by choosing to buy local/organic/sustainable products whenever I can, at least I'm doing something.  It's not as obvious as throwing a starfish back into the ocean, but when I drive past the vegetable lady's house or the farm market where we shop in the summer, I think to myself, "Helped that one."

That's a big Twinkie.

The other night I watched Ghost Busters for the first time in years, and I was really surprised by a couple of things.


1. Aside from some occasional crap-tastic special effects, you can't tell this movie was made more than 25 years ago. Okay, okay, the actors look really young (especially since I just saw the modern-day Bill Murray in Zombieland a couple of weeks ago), and Dana's wardrobe and interior decorating style scream 1985, but other than that, it's a solid movie.

vs.

2. Does anyone else find it creepy that Dr. Venkman happened to be carrying 300 cc. of Thorazine with him to his date with Dana?
3. Even after all these years, Jason and I each remember startlingly large portions of the movie, word-for-word. I guess it wasn't just me and my friends who spent our formative years quoting it at each other.  Some of my favorites:


Dr. Peter Venkman: [to librarian Alice] Are you currently menstruating? 
Library Administrator: What has that got to do with anything? 
Dr. Peter Venkman: Back off man, I'm a scientist. 


Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm studying the effect on negative reinforcement on ESP ability.
Male Student: [Aggravated] Effect? I'll tell you the effect is, it's pissing me off! 


Dr. Peter Venkman: [after capturing Slimer] We came, we saw, we've kick its ass. 


Dr. Peter Venkman: oh, wait, wait, i've always wanted to do this! and...
[he yanks the tablecloth off of one of the tables, upsetting and breaking everything except a vase of flowers on the center of the table]
Dr. Peter Venkman: [shouting while offscreen] the flowers are still standing! 


Gozer: [after Ray orders her to re-locate] Are you a God?
[Ray looks at Peter, who nods]
Dr Ray Stantz: No.
Gozer: Then... DIE!
[Lightning flies from her fingers, driving the Ghostbusters to the edge of the roof and almost off; people below scream]
Winston Zeddemore: Ray, when someone asks you if you're a god, you say "YES"!
Dr. Peter Venkman: All right! This chick is TOAST! 


Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, "biblical"?
Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly.
Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!
Mayor: All right, all right! I get the point! 


Dr. Peter Venkman: Someone blows their nose and you want to keep it? 


Dr. Peter Venkman: Hee hee hee! "Get her!" That was your whole plan, huh, "get her." Very scientific. 


Dr. Peter Venkman: Mother pus bucket! 


Dr Ray Stantz: Symmetrical book stacking. Just like the Philadelphia mass turbulence of 1947.
Dr. Peter Venkman: You're right, no human being would stack books like this. 


Dr Ray Stantz: Listen... do you smell something? 


Dr. Peter Venkman: No, no. Just asking. Are you, Alice, menstruating right now?
Library Administrator: What's has that got to do with it?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Back off, man. I'm a scientist. 




Janine Melnitz: I've quit better jobs than this.
[answers phone]
Janine Melnitz: Ghostbusters, what do you want? 

[a giant marshmallow man crashes through the streets of New York]
Dr. Peter Venkman: Well, there's something you don't see every day. 

[in front of the library ghost, their first ghost sighting]
Dr. Peter Venkman: So... what do we do?
[Egon and Ray stare at each other in silence. Peter grabs Ray's ear]
Dr. Peter Venkman: Would you come over here, please? That's it, c'mere Francine. What do we do?
[Egon pulls out a calculator and starts punching in numbers. Peter slaps the machine out of Egon's hand]
Dr. Peter Venkman: STOP THAT! 

Dr. Egon Spengler: [about the storage facility] Wow, its getting crowded in there and these readings point to something big on the horizon.
Winston Zeddemore: What do you mean big?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Well,
[shows a twinkie]
Dr. Egon Spengler: let's say this twinkie represents all of the psycho kenetic energy in the New York area. According to this morning's sample it will be a twinkie, 35 feet long and weighing approximately 600 pounds.
[Ray coughs, in disbelief]
Winston Zeddemore: That's a big twinkie. 

And my personal favorite, the quote that will live on forever in the minds of junior high school kids who can only get away with cursing by quoting a movie...

Dr. Peter Venkman: Yes it's true.
[pause]
Dr. Peter Venkman: This man has no dick. 

Blergh - or, I need to be more specific about methods and timing when making weight loss goals

I had all these intentions of starting the year off right, making substantive, thoughtful posts for a whole year.

Then I spent the whole day alternately crapping or puking my guts up (or moaning and clutching my stomach and wishing I would hurry up and complete one of the former actions so I could feel better for 10 minutes).  I'm the third person in my house to come down with The Great Intestinal Discomfort of 2010/2011, and hopefully I'll be the last, because I wouldn't wish this on anyone, not even my husband who decided it was a good idea to fill the house with a cloud of bacon grease this morning while I was hiding in my bedroom trying not to puke.  Sorry, dude, but that ranks right up there with the Burrito Incident of 2007 in terms of thoughtlessness.

So, I get to start off my year with ... intestinal discomfort.  Not very life-affirming, or substantive, or thoughtful.  It's very hard to find inspiration while drowsing in a sour-smelling bed, dry-heaving in a trashcan, or sitting on the toilet.  Well, okay, the toilet can be very inspiring***, but it's hard to work up a good blog entry when every minute or two your thought pattern is interrupted by "ohmygodjustkillmenoooooooow."  I got a few rounds of knitting done in between rounds of illness, so I guess I get to Lysol the heck out of my new sweater once I'm better.  And I have no idea how to disinfect my iPod, which has been propped on my pillow playing hour after hour of old This American Life and RadioLab podcasts to keep me from sleeping all day.

The annoying part of the situation is that ever since my mother came down with something similar right around Christmas, we've been vigilant about cleaning up and washing hands and flushing with the seat down and all the other stuff you're supposed to do to prevent transmission of a stomach bug.  Only it turns out that Norovirus isn't killed by standard soap and water, so unless we'd completely Chloroxed everything she touched or breathed on, we were still at risk of transmission.  Me sitting there with the kid on my lap while she puked probably wasn't the best idea to slow transmission, either - but in my defense I almost ALWAYS get whatever she comes down with,  no matter how far away I stay or how much I wash, so I figured the proximity wasn't going to do anything other than speed up the show.  I'm just hoping that by staying in my room (and the bathroom) until after my mother-in-law changed her flight and left to go home a day early, I've kept the germs away from her.  She visits her mother a couple times a week, and I'd rather not have some offspring of my illness infect anyone in Mom-mom's nursing home.

What's really ironic is that, after Liza had been puke-free for more than 24 hours and was back to actually eating something other than Pedialyte and crackers, we went to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and spent a lot of time exploring the Disease Detectives exhibit.  You know, the one with all the hands-on exhibits where you can try to figure out what got various mannequins sick by checking their temperature, listening to their heart, or exploring other the very touchy-feely-movey-aroundy exhibits of the data the doctors used to diagnose the real-life cases.  It's a really cool exhibit, and Liza loved it, but about 1/3 of the way through you learn how long bacteria and viruses can live on dry room-temperature surfaces, and all of the adults in our group started looking for hand sanitizer stations and making up excuses to go to the bathroom so we could wash our hands.  I'm willing to bet that the museum's water bill has skyrocketed since they installed the thing that demonstrates exactly how long you have to wash your hands to get them fairly clean.  Twenty seconds seems like forever ...

I feel bad that I didn't find out until about 10 minutes ago that Liza was probably still contagious when we went to the museum, and she may be able to spread the love for another week or so.  Me?  I'm potentially on the hook for another day of two of active symptoms (whimper), followed by up to two weeks of being contagious.  Guess I'm not helping with Pizza Day at school on Thursday, huh?

At least I've managed to keep down the 1/4 cup of flat ginger ale I've been sipping for the past couple of hours.  Maybe by tomorrow morning I'll be able to nibble on a cracker!  Yay!  In the meantime, I'm off to see if I can locate a copy of Fever Dream by Ray Bradbury, a short story I read as a child (while suffering from stomach flu at my grandparents' house, as I recall) that I just now finally found confirmation actually exists and wasn't just a dream of my own.  Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to know the name and author of a story and STILL not be able to find a copy of it?  I'm just happy that, at least according to Wikipedia, I remember the story pretty accurately.  It would have been even more annoying to finally locate it and have it be nothing like what I remembered.  At any rate, I'm off to request the book from the library so I can lick all the page corners and spread my infection to EVERYONE!  BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

(5 minutes later) Well,  I'd have to special order one of the short story compilations in to my local library, but there's also ... HOLY SHIT WHAT KIND OF SICK FUCK MADE THAT STORY INTO A PICTURE BOOK FOR KIDS?!?!

(5 minutes later) Anyone other than me notice that my sentences get even longer and my punctuation gets even more creative when I'm sick?  Another day or two and I'll be at one with good old e.e. himself.  And is it just me, or is that poem totally about sex, not cars?  Wait, not just me.  And why did they let us read it in high school, if that's the case?  Ms. Leonard-Peace, you dog, you!


***Ari, remember Pete in high school and his legendary bathroom trips to get "inspired" for Stage Crew?  Good times, good times.

Happy New Year!

from me, Jason, Liza, my mother-in-law, and Pete, the shirtless redneck neighbor (TM):

I guess he decided tonight was the night to unload some of the excess inventory he's been storing since the cops busted his July 4th extravaganza before he was even halfway done. Here's to freeing up lots of space in the garage to stockpile next year's display!