Sophie's Fascinating Story

I will do my best to explain this. But in reality this post will merely serve to remind Carly and I of it, because it is really hard to explain.
Every now and then Sophie gets loquacious and really animated in describing something. And by something, I don't means just anything. There is ONE particular thing or event (we are not sure) that she is conveying. She gets a very excited look on her face and begins to gesticulate wildly.
"One time..." it frequently begins.
There are usually several unintellegeble phrases, many in the first person, some in the 3rd person. "I was.. It was, She was.."
It seems most times that she is reflecting on an experience swimming. The monologue gets more and more animated. Her voice gets louder, her her smile widens, and her tempo increases. Towards the end her hands are waving madly in the air, she seems surprised and in wonder about the sheer magnitude of the event (whatever it is). Then it usully culminates with -
"And then it hit me in the eyes!"

Even though it is mostly incoherent, it seems very consistent. She clearly has something very specific in mind when she starts this, and it seems to follow roughly the same pattern. But whatever it is, we have no clue.

Snow Day

What passes for a snow day in Raleigh you ask?
About an inch, sticking mostly to the grass and tops of cars. And technically it wasn't a full snow day, just a two hour delay. But since my only class on Thursday is at 9:30am, a two hour delay means no class for me.
The schools website, the links to the news sites, and the schools weather phone service all said classes would meet as normal. I went to school only to find out from the security guard about the two hour delay. Thankfully I live about 10 minutes away. I have friends who live an hour or more away.
So We took the kids out and melted all the snow on our front yard by spinning them around on an inflatable inner tube sled (bought well before the inconvenient truth of our warm winter was apparent). They had a good time. We ended up at a not very crowded mall playground, had some lunch, played a board game, in general had a really day off.
I eventually did get this email. Notice the timestamps.


To be fair, the wording does use the past tense, as if, of course you would all know this due to the vast number of forms of communication we made available to you.

Gimme a Mentos... I am making a fresh start.

So I got invited to the IT department to identify the body of my hard-drive.
"Yes.... sniff.... that's it. It looks so.. peaceful."
"Yes sir, sometimes, when the electrons leave the case, the drives really do calm down."
"Did it... feel any pain?"
"Well, we did our best, I tried twice to extract your data.. but the corruption was too severe.'
"It was a good drive, I don't care what you say."
"We'll pop a new one in here today, and you'll be all set.. apart from all the data loss."
"Great."

Nothing earth-shakingly important was on my office computer, just past syllabi, grade sheets, stuff like that. It will be a hassle, but over all, not the worst thing in the world that could happen. Better to happen at the beginning of a semester than the end.

Reindeer Digest

The kids have their own, mercifully shortened version of the old classic. It goes something like this.

"You know Dasher, and Dancer, Prancer and Vixen, Comet and Cupid and Donder and Blitzen. But do you recall.... the most famous reindeer of all?
Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer. He'll go down in History!"

Since none of us know the lyrics, in order, of Frosty. That one can be kind of short too.

p.s. Feeling much better.

Inauspicious Beginnings

Happy New Years!
Here is how mine started. Went to sleep at a reasonable hour the previous night, well before midnight, and woke once with a stomach ache. The next morning, News Years Day I had a strange burning sensation while relieving myself. That, and I never felt quite finished. Throughout the day, this got worse and worse. More visits, more pain. Then blood.
Now, for some of you, a little blood in the urine is no big deal. But, for me, that was a sign something was really not right. Of course, by now it is late afternoon NEW YEARS DAY, which means, doctor's office is closed. So I call the service. Get the on call doctor, who confirmed my suspicions that it sounded like a kidney stone. He prescribed some pain killers and recommended I visit the hospital if I got a fever and/or chills. I hang out for a bit then call the pharmacy to see if my prescription is ready. Voicemail labyrinth, cycling bad music. After twenty minutes or so, I give and decide to just go. So I go to the pharmacy. Oops I forgot, it is NEW YEARS DAY. The pharmacy closed early, fifteen minutes before I arrived. (Do the math). Hulk getting angry.
So I end up calling the service back, the doctor returns my call. I explain the situation. He agrees to call a 24hr pharmacy (I know is open). I wait half an hour and head over.
They did not get the call. Ask again. Oh they got the call, but the doctor left out one small detail, the number of pills, and they can't fulfill even a single pill with out that (I did try to explain that one pill would seem to be implied by some pills, and that perhaps they could give me ONE pill to tide me over). Did I mention the pain was increasing? And I was starting to feel chills. After nearly two hours I went home in frustration. My temperature was crossing 100. But I really wanted to avoid going to the Emergency Room on New Years Day to wait four hours, be given some pain killers and an anti-biotic. So I waited. Carly got nervous and called the service again, and with her persuasive powers seemed to get everything on track, she went and got the pills. (It still took them over an hour). By then my fever was 102 (don't tell anyone).
I was bundled up. I took my pill and went to sleep. I woke up twice during the night and some unpleasantness in the bathroom, but managed to make it. By morning my fever had broken and I was able to fuss around the house while arranging a doctor's appointment.
On the Plus Side. I got to skip Faculty Development Institute!
Yesterday I went to the Doctor. He seemed pretty convinced it was Kidney Stones, I got two more prescriptions, and a filter to catch the suckers as they 'pass.' So far I haven't caught any. But it makes peeing so much fun. That and the bizarre hyper yellow my urine has gotten since I've taken my meds. The pain is mostly gone. I can't tell about the blood since my urine is practical opaque presently. I am feeling mostly better. Still, I don't know if that is the painkillers (2) working or that somehow the stones have moved or passed without my knowledge. There will be some more lab work done in the near future. Hopefully, I will have something more tangible, like a stone, I can bring, to avoid a CT Scan and sonic disrupters aimed at my privates.