Yesteryear, Yesterday

Yesterday was a fine, fine day indeed.

There were no sibling squabbles in the morning.  No one threw up at my house.  I went to work for a few hours and one of my patients showed me a necklace and earrings that she is making for me (oooooh!  they are going to be beautiful and I'm going to show them off, here, when they are finished.).  I saw a wonderful film, Get Low, with Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, and Bill Murray.  No, I didn't go see the film with them, silly Gentle Readers, they were in the film.  I went to see the movie with my friend Willemina. 

The film was at the Normal Theater, which is a wonderful place.   I remember going there as a kid.  Specifically I remember going in there with my mom, Peggy Swearingen, and the kids from both families.  Peggy was sneaking a big shopping bag full of popcorn under her coat.  She looked pregnant and no one questioned her.   I'm not sure if we were all broke or whether my mom and Peggy just thought it would be fun.  Probably a little of both.  My friend Peg in high school once snuck a camera into a concert for our friend Jim using that same technique.  

That trick doesn't work too well in the summer, or possibly can't be done at all if your name isn't Peg.  (Kathy, make sure your mom knows she is now on call for any activities of this nature.)

The Normal Theater is one of the few places in Uppity Town that looks the same as it did all those years ago.  The other place is just across the street, the Normal Post Office.  That building is bigger, but the main part of the p.o., where I used to stand in line with my mom to wait to buy stamps, is just the same. 

After the film, Willemina and I walked around the corner to the relatively new Uppity Town Normal Marriot Hotel and Conference Center for a glass of wine at the bar.  The bar is quite nice, not dark, and blends into the lobby seamlessly.  It was a lively Saturday night at the new Marriot.   I don't know whether it's like that on any given Saturday night, but I overheard one group of people discussing the fact that because of the time change, they should stay and have another round.  So maybe that extra-hour-of-sleeping-turned-to-extra-hour-of-staying-up was a factor.

I myself somehow managed to stay up late and get up at the regular time, but I'm telling myself that I got more sleep in spite of all evidence to the contrary. 

Other things, nice things, happened yesterday, too.  Running into someone I know that I hadn't seen for a few years at the checkout line at Menards, for instance.  (Yes, I finally bought the paint for the bathroom project.  Watercolor Lilies is in the House!)   People drove nicely all over town.  I made a patient who is very sad, for good reasons, smile. (By being silly and kind of obsessed with her beautiful bathrobe her son gave her for her birthday.)   I heard a song on the radio I hadn't heard for a long time:  Do You Believe in Magic?

Why, yes, I most certainly do.  It makes me feel downright buoyant.

Today the kids and I will be hiking some new trails at Funk's Grove with a group from NCC.  It is supposed to be another wonderful fall day, sunny and warm.   The camera will be joining us, and I hope Sierra will have some fine photos to post here tomorrow. 

Flap Your Doodle and Chitty Your Bang Bang

Last night Jeremiah and I played a game called Flapdoodle.  It's a silly game that mostly involves doing or saying silly things to get to move your player across a game board.  The rules say for 3 or more players.  Did that stop Jeremiah and I from playing on our own when no one else (Sierra?  What are you doing?  Oh, you found the glitter glue pens I had saved away to use on a rainy day?  And you're creating Christmas tree designs?  Ok, then...) would play with us. 

We had to say the alphabet as fast as we could to see who could finish first...I got that one by a letter!
Jeremiah had to hum a song while I took my next turn...he hummed Jingle Bells, in case you were wondering.
I had to pretend to sleep and snore during one of his turns.
Jeremiah had to wear a sock on one hand and keep the other one behind his back while he drew his next card.
And so on.
Then I got this card:

Take off your shoes and name one of your big toes Gus and the other one Earl.  Make your toes have a conversation about potato chips.

I don't know who thought up that game card, but I am almost certainly related to them. (Connie?  Moonlighting again?)

I can't remember who won the game, I think it was a tie.

Next we danced in the living room to songs we picked from Playlist.  Mama can still shake it to the music the kids pick.  That will last only a few more years, though.  Last night we played "let's get this party started" followed by "unbelievable" then "thriller" and just for wolf we played "who let the dogs out."  Wolf wasn't dancing.  He was still working on that Flapdoodle card that says "pretend to sleep and don't forget to snore."

Then Jeremiah wanted to play one more song.  And knock me over with a feather, he picked "Chitty chitty bang bang" from the movie, sung by Dick Van Dyke.  Where he heard the song I don't know, as we've never watched the movie.  But that was one of my favorite childhood books, and only later did I find out that Ian Fleming, the author, was famous for writing the 007 books.

The party ended with a movie (Flicka 2) and Sierra sobbing with a box of kleenex in her lap at the end of it.  Tears of joy and maybe a little bit sad when I said only 1 root beer float.

Then we shook our booties into bed and fell asleep!

Hi Ho Hi Ho...

I got well Thursday!  Now I am rewarded with returning to work.  My boss was calling me frantically much of yesterday afternoon.  Apparently we are swamped.  No surprise.  When someone goes on vacation or gets sick, the number of patients magically doubles or triples before our very eyes.  She called me last night about 8, and I answered the phone, laughing, and said Don't be calling me this late.   She was laughing too, and had called me to tell me how she had tried to smooth my day for me a bit.  So, nice, and then I told her to, for gosh sakes, stop working and get some sleep.  She's had a sick child, too, this week.

While I wasn't talking to the boss about today's schedule, I watched a fabulous video on Netflix about origami.  It's called Between the Folds and it was mesmerizing, full of suprises.  Some very talented people around the world can take one sheet of paper (admittedly of various sizes) and create almost anything you can imagine.  Or beyond what you can imagine.  They are artists.  They are teachers.  They are physicists, mathematicians, papermakers, scientists who quit "real" jobs to pursue this fascination.  Some of them are even French!

I think I most closely related to the people who started out not folding, but crumpling the paper first.  Yes, that would be the Kimster's style.  Irish origami:  fold, spindle, mutilate!  Or is that Florida election judges origami?  Inquiring minds want to know! 

Well, that brings us to the subject of elections.  I'm going to coin a new term here (I think) and I want credit for this one.  Greedlock:  what will be happening in Congress over the next 2 years.  Argh.

More on this in future rants, I mean blogs.

Have a smooooth day everyone.

Dear John, Dear Abby, Dear Me!

Dear John Prine,

What seemed like a bend in the road to recovery yesterday turned out to be, instead, a traffic circle that led me back around to some previous state of un-wellness that I passed by going the other way earlier.  More couch time is needed.  Work can wait, sort of, though the patience of my patients may soon wear thin and they will...have to wait for me, of course.  They do not want to share in my viral experiences, I'm sure.

It's difficult to stay home sick when you work in health care.  But it's still a very, very, very good idea. 

It's difficult to lie on the couch while your dog is giving you those puppy-dog eyes and whining about not getting to go out and do the business of dogs, which is to keep the home turf labeled with pee. 

I'm writing to you, Dear John, because I am reminded now of your song Dear Abby.  "

Dear Kimi, dear Kimi,
you have no complaints...you are what you are and you aint what you aint, so listen up buster and listen up good, stop wishin' for bad luck and knockin' on wood, signed Dear Abby."

I'll stop whining now John, and play some of your music to get me through. 

What's that?  Yes, my readers know you didn't really write a verse to dear Kimi.  They know I must be delirous with fever or something.  Why heck, you don't even know me or anyone in my family and you didn't answer our invitation to my parent's 50th anniversary party.  Buy we still love your music, and we can dream that you might, someday, make fun of one of us in a song.

Signed,
Not whining

Fantasy Book Group League

Sierra is home from school again today but she is definitely on the mend.  She's eating again (oyster crackers, green beans) and watching a video on Netflix Instant View.  I'm now the sickest one in the family, but at risk of jinxing myself I won't tell you that I think I turned a corner about an hour ago when I got up off one couch and moved upstairs to another one.  Baby steps.  I'm sitting upright now which is a new development that may or may not last long.  And I'm awake.  In the past 24 hours I've slept about 19 of them.

Good thing Sierra is here to take care of me.

You probably think, given the amount of sleeping and whining I've been doing that I have nothing to blog about.  Ha.  Haha.  Hahahaha.  And so on.

Before I succumbed to the virus I started reading a book of essays by Barbara Kingsolver that has been sitting on my bookshelf for a very long time waiting patiently for my attention.  The book is Small Wonder and it was written in response to the events of 9/11.  It speaks directly to my heart.  I wish Barbara Kingsolver was in my women's group book.  I wish she was my sister, my neighbor, my friend.  I wish I were as ariculate and thoughtful as she is.  I think she is the bomb, the cat's meow, that she rocks, that she is groovy and awesome.  I heart Barbara Kingsolver.

Last week I met a family of central Illinois farm women.  The mom, in her 80's, was my patient.  The 2 daughters, one of whom lived with their mom in the farm house that had been in their family for 5 generations, were there caring for their mother.  A friend had come over to sit with my patient while the daughters went to run some errands.  These 4 women were talking about books.  And it turned out the sisters and their mom all had read and loved Barbara Kingsolver.  I think the mom had read all of her books.   I love finding kindred reading spirits where I least expect them.

Returning to Barbara being invited to our book group...I would also like to invite Haven Kimmel, Isabel Allende, Alice Munro, Allegra Goodman, and Mary Doria Russell.  Now that would be one lively discussion.  At least by them.  The regular members would just be sitting around stunned and possibly drooling like fools.  What would we read for THAT meeting?  Probably something by Marilynn Robinson!

Twosdee

I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today!

I am staying home from work again today, this time with Sierra who got very sick at school yesterday in the late afternoon.  Jeremiah, who was feeling quite well by late in the day yesterday, should be able to return to the hallowed halls of learning at Oakdale Elementary.

Sierra appears to be feeling a little better this morning, able to keep down a little juice.  She is channel surfing and has so far rejected Curious George, the Beverly Hillbillies, and I've rejected Sponge Bob.  We are selective women.

I think the TV is about to be selected to Off for a while.

*^*^*^*^*

I suppose no one except Jeremiah and I are sad that baseball is over until next Spring.  Only 149 days until Opening Day, Next Year!!!

Go Cubs, Go!

Halloween

Update on the boy:  slowly progressing and feeling better until about 4 pm when fever and exhaustion pulled ahead in the race.  Boy has been resting up since then, having a little ibuprofen, some yogurt, and today he will get to hang out at home and watch Star Trek movies to his heart's content with his mom.  His dad will be over to help out for a couple hours, though, while I dash over to teach my monthly class at the Cancer Center.

Yesterday, before she was allowed to go trick-or-treating, Sierra was told she had to clean up her room, at least enough so that I could run the vacuum in it.  For Sierra, this turns out to be
1. a task that should take 5 minutes but turns into an hours-long ordeal (yes, that s at the end of hours is intentional) and
2. an opportunity to be in her room and create! without interruption except an occasional "Sierra are you still cleaning?" from her mother.

Yesterday, about halfway through the afternoon, she came down the stairs from her room into the living room, carrying...a big rake.

I asked two questions in no particular order:
1.  Are you using the rake to clean your room?
2.  How did you go outside to get the rake without me noticing you walk by and carry the rake up the stairs?

The short answer to number 1:  No.
The short answer to number 2.  I didn't go outside to get the rake.

Long answer to number 2 is now about to unfold.

On Saturday afternoon Nick had stopped by to play with the kids.  I was raking leaves in the front yard and the kids were on their way home from their dad's house.  So I told him to wait if he wanted to.  While waiting he took Wolf for a walk and then took the rake from my hands and finished the job for me.  I was so stunned that I didn't remember to put the rake away, and apparently it spent the night sitting outside under Sierra's window.

On Sunday afternoon, while "cleaning" her room, Sierra noticed the rake, because after all climbing up on your bed and looking straight down into the yard below is an important part of the process.  She decided to bring the rake in for me, but just two little problems.

1.  Still wearing her PJs and didn't want to go outside in them
2.  Not supposed to leave her room until floor cleaned up.

So, she did what only Sierra could do.  She took a cardboard tube from a roll of paper towels, a spool of purple thread, a paperclip, and some parts of some toys I could not quite identify (they were just for decoration) and made a rake-rescuing tool.

She is definitely Ted Tingley's granddaughter!

I took some photos of her using said tool to raise and lower a big stick from the yard.  Of course you can see them, thanks for asking:

What does a girl that smart and clever dress as for Halloween?
Answer:  anything she wants to!  This year it was a red ninja, shown here with her dad in a combination of Dr. Quacko wear and an old Dora the Explorer wig.  Yes, she put that costume together for him herself!  I think he looks like a reggae rapster. 

She came home with enough candy for herself and Jeremiah, plus a small army.  So even though the boy slept through all the trickortreating he will get to experience the joys of the sugar high again soon, but not today.