Hello, internet.

I'm still alive. There's just not much going on. Oh, except Antarctic Uncle! He's here. The kids want him to play with them all day every day (and then they scream bloody murder above his head in the evenings). Poor guy. We're going to enjoy his company for a few more days, until he escapes our grotto.

Otherwise, no news.

In lieu of any interesting news, here's the latest edition of "What we've been reading":
Me: Schuyler's Monster
Dutch: Goddess Girls series*
Skipper: Hurricane
Cook: An article about face transplants.

* And now she wants to go to a boarding school for junior high. Oh, AND she announced to me this weekend that she is now more interested in fashion and her appearance. What am I supposed to do now?

Not much going on.

• What I'm watching:  this*
• What I'm doing when it isn't raining: this
• What I'm doing when it is raining: this
• What I should be doing, but am not: this **
• Number of jobs for which I've applied in 2012: 6
• Number of jobs for which I've gotten an interview in 2012: 0
• Approximate amount of time it's taken me so far to get our taxes together: 5 hours
• How crushed Dutch was when we realized that our schedule precludes her participation in the K-2 Talent Show (she was planning to play Yankee Doodle Dandy on the piano, because it's easy and she wouldn't have to practice it, because my daughter is both lazy AND a total whore for the spotlight): this
• Percent of American girls Skipper's age who are larger than she is: 75
• Percent of American girls Skipper's age who are louder than she is: 1

* Is it okay that I love Blake Shelton and his little waistcoats? And is it okay that I don't understand what "pitchy" means?
**I KNOW. I just got stuck. I will get back on track. I don't want to weigh 500 pounds any more than you want me to.

One of the things I did on my mini-vacation two weeks ago was go through a lot of my old books/stuffed animals/embarrassing letters and diaries. My brother, reeling from the mortification of reading all HIS old journals and letters, was kind enough to loan Skipper and Dutch his large collection of playmobil toys, circa 1985.* The boxes arrived this week (thanks, dad!), and Cook and I spent some time trying to figure out how to assemble all the buildings, using photos mined from the internet. The kids are pretty delighted - the toys are all "western"-themed, and perfect for Dutch's ongoing Laura Ingalls obsession. The covered wagon has had quite a bit of action already.

*He kept his collection of star wars toys. If you go visit him any time soon, I bet he'll let you play with them!

My husband is broken.

Poor Cook has been trampled by the flu, which is lasting even longer in his system than it did in mine.* His February hasn't been so great - one weekend of single-parenting, followed by a weekend of lying in bed feeling terrible.** My three-day weekend wasn't the best, but at least I was vertical.


*Dutch processed it twice as fast as I did, and now feels fine. Before I had kids, I thought they were weak and fragile, you know, being the ones who die of flu. Now I know they're actually ridiculously effective at coping with viruses (and other stuff that feels terrible to adults, like falling down, or getting stabbed in the eye with a fork). Whenever the family gets an illness, Dutch breezes through it with a fraction of the pain and duration of the adults' experiences. Skipper doesn't even bother to get it.


**He does get up periodically. I've seen him every once in a while. He staggers into the kitchen looking grey, clammy, and red-eyed, apologizes for being useless, washes dishes until his knees give out, scavenges around for ibuprofen, and then creeps back to bed. It's like having a zombie housekeeper. 

We Have The Flu.

I started feeling better Friday night, about the same time Cook fell ill. On Friday, I also belatedly put together my symptoms and realized that I had the classic Flu. I can't remember the last time I had The Flu! Of course, I also immediately realized that I had done a woefully bad job of avoiding making other people sick. (For one thing, I took Dutch to school every morning, a herculean effort that left me exhausted for the rest of the day, and also provided the virus plenty more opportunities to find new hosts.) I'm sorry, everybody. I thought I just had a cold. And a fever. And aches and pains,including really achy eyeballs. I know, it was obvious, and I'm sorry.

Last week while Skipper and I were reading in bed, she read me an article* in the Atlantic about how viruses change host behavior. Apparently, The Flu makes you more social (before you crawl into bed feeling like you're going to die, that is). I may have missed that part, or maybe the impulse was quashed by the experience of my seatmate on the airplane home saying to me (among other things), all in the first two minutes of our acquaintance, "Hello sweetheart! I'm so glad you made it!" and "So what do you think of Obamacare?"


Dutch came down with The Flu today and has been holed up with My Neighbor Totoro and Little House on the Prairie** all day. I'm pretty sure Skipper is waiting until Wednesday to come down with it, in order to maximally screw up my work schedule. For now, she's very jaunty, maybe because she enjoys having the run of the house.

It hasn't been a great week, for sure. But I did get some pruning done today! AND! I got to attend a PRUNING WORKSHOP! So the weekend was salvaged. I really, really enjoy pruning things, I really do.




* Just kidding. She actually just summarized the key points. 
**Two things that could actually mash together pretty well.

I am still alive.

I went on vacation! I visited family and reverted to childhood. I didn't clean anything or cook anything or do anything responsible at all, really. I just waited for more delicious food and entertainment to be provided to me, and I never waited very long. I was like a Roman aristocrat, lounging limply on my lounging couch.* Nobody needed me for anything, and I slept as long as I wanted.

Then I came home. Everybody was glad to see me.** People need me for things, and I can't sleep as long as I want.

Then I got sick. This is the third day of me lying in bed while "caring for" Skipper. The first day, we took turns reading books to each other and reading magazines to ourselves. (Skipper prefers Atlantic Monthly and I prefer the New Yorker.) The second and third days, we took turns choosing which TV show to watch. (Skipper watched "Wonder Pets," a show that actually featured in an essay about children's television in the New Yorker I  was reading. I watched "Hoarders," a show that makes me feel uneasy about some of my piles of stuff.) Skipper has been fending for herself while I lie around - on Wednesday, when Cook came home, she showed him proudly that she had stripped all the sheets off her bed in an attempt to change her bedding.


*Did that even happen? I have a mental image of grapes and whatnot, but I have no idea whether that's actually based in history. Regardless, all I needed was a toga and a tiled pool to fulfill my mental image. 


** Cook swears that he was glad to see ME, not just to have me back on duty, but after his first weekend alone with both girls, he has also gained even more respect for single parents. 

Yes!

This is a letter I really would like to plagiarize.

WWRLaHD?

My buddy Ray LaHood is mad, you guys. He's mad about what he calls "the worst transportation bill I've ever seen during 35 years of public service."

Ray LaHood is a Republican. (Or at least he used to be. I hope he's come to his senses.) If he thinks it's bad, you can imagine how bad it is. It's really shitty.

You can do the online-form thing here or here. Or you could just call your rep and say something like "Dude! Don't you care about ANYTHING except packing more cars onto freeways and being all socialist with your parking?"

Do it for the kids! And the old people! And the small businesses! And the poor people! And people who want to get some exercise! And the people who don't want to be killed by a car! Actually, everybody, except some idiots in Congress.

Today Dutch started two savings jars - one is labeled "collage" and the other is labeled "horse camp" (by which she means a week at a sleep-away horseback-riding camp in summer 2013).*

Dutch is planning to be a wildlife biologist. Four years at a public university (in-state tuition) is likely to cost something like $40K/year by the time she gets there. I think it's probably a good idea for her to start saving.**


*I'll leave you to guess which one gets the larger portion of her allowance.
** And learning how to spell "college."

Fighting the Gallant fight.

The world seems like a very bleak prospect right now, and I feel like every time I hear or read anything of actual news, it just seems bleaker than ever.

I'm pretty sure I've written about this before, but I can't find where, and screw it, you'll just have to hear the story again. I used to work in an office that hosted a crew of regular weekly volunteers, women in their seventies who had been volunteering for the organization for decades. There wasn't really much for them to do any more, because many of the chores they used to do had been contracted out or made obsolete, but their weekly visit was a tradition that was absolutely not going to end until they were physically unable to come any more. One of these volunteers was a smart, impressive woman who was UNBELIEVABLY negative. Endlessly, relentlessly negative. I don't think I ever heard her say a sentence that was happier than neutral. One of these volunteers was a smart, impressive, woman who was just terrific. She was warm, perceptive, funny, and generous, and managed her substantial health challenges with what seemed like genuine good humor. I started thinking of them as Goofus and Gallant from Highlights.* (Gallant was so kind that she was even nice to Goofus.) When I told them I was pregnant, Goofus delivered a small speech on how much work and pain children cause, and how much suffering I had ahead of me.** Gallant said "Oh, that's wonderful! Children bring so much love!"

I don't want to be Goofus. I really, really don't. I want to be Gallant when I'm an old lady. But I'm afraid that I'm on a Goofus track, and when I feel like sending Dutch to DC to stab John Mica in the eye with a fork, I am certain that I will end up there.

Fortunately, the kids are a temporary anti-Goofus treatment. I don't mean that in a children-bringing-love kind of way, of course, because I'm not a generous soul like Gallant, but in the sense that they do inadvertently hilarious things on a daily basis. Dutch has actually asked me to stop laughing when she says or does unintentionally funny things, because it embarrasses her. I try to respect that, but I did point out that it's generally a good thing to learn to laugh at yourself when you do unintentionally funny things.

Today, I agreed to buy Skipper a treat out of the bulk bins at the grocery store. She chose some chocolate hearts wrapped in colorful shiny foil, because she's basically a magpie in the shape of a human child. When we left the store, I gave her a heart. She took it and immediately put the whole, foil-wrapped shebang right in her mouth. I managed to stop her from eating it, in spite of being almost immobilized with helpless laughter.*** The look on her face when I showed her how to unwrap it made me laugh all over again - the realization that oh my GOD there's CHOCOLATE in there! This was the best thing about my day.


*I've spoken with people who said they had sympathy for Goofus in their Highlights days. I did not - I hated that little shit. Rules are IPORTANT!!!!!!
** I'm exaggerating here, but really only a little. She was a really sad person.
*** I know this doesn't sound all that funny. But dear lord, it was totally hilarious. You should have been there.