Laura

...though I surely don't post like it. October was lovely and I got a lot of things done around the house and taking care of family health. The numbers are working out for me to just stay home, not go job searching. This doesn't preclude my jumping all over a job if someone points it out and it sounds fun/fascinating/interesting/whatever, but the bar is definitely high there, for now. The work itself would have to be worth the time given up to it, not just acceptable in return for money.

Handy, since our youngest has been home sick from school since Halloween with a nasty cough and fever. Negative for flu, negative for covid, negative for patience. Two doctor's appointments this week (the first was 'probably viral, he should get over it, come back if it is not gone by Friday'; the second was Friday). He's on high-powered antibiotics for it now so we will see how that does.

So far either none of the rest of us have caught whatever it is, or we recovered from it easily. (I *think* I may have actually caught it last weekend? But if so, it didn't last a day for me. Maybe I was just having a bad day; who knows?)

I need to find my cute reusable advent calendars and prep them (I need to start finding them now because I am not sure where I last put them away!) - the boys expect one, and I've been buying pre-made ones the past several years, but that costs more and is less personalized, and this year I have time. So that'll be fun.

Maria (tuxedo cat) managed to get some kind of bacterial or fungal infection on her right front paw, so the vet removed all the fur between her paw-pad and toes on the underside and she's been getting an anti-almost-everything cream 2-3 times a day. About half the times I put it on it's uncomfortable for her, and she growls very seriously - the warning rumble of a cat who is about to shred you if you don't stop. For the entire time I'm putting it on. Without following through on the threat. She really is a fairly well behaved cat.

However, it may or may not do the trick - the ointment - because she's SUPPOSED to be in a cone to keep her from licking it off. It took her two hours to figure out how to remove the cone the first time. Second time she did it in under fifteen minutes and it took us until the next day to find it. So I bought one of those orange-shaped donut cone substitutes. Very cute, off in less than half an hour. So I gave up and I cuddle and pet her for a while after most doses (sometimes she leaves too rapidly) to distract her and hopefully keep it on long enough. Statistically I can get her to be petted for longer than the cone or cone-substitute would stay on.

If I call the vet and they want to see her again to check it, I'm gonna say "I told you so" to the cat. And then I may just order this, because it has me giggling a LOT and I don't think she could take it off:

https://www.amazon.com/EMUST-Recovery-Breathable-Adjustable-Alternative/dp/B0CQX832HN/

Sadly the one with the green body suit, which is more accurate and cuter IMO, does not come in a size other than large, and Maria is not large for a cat.

It's finally rainy. I know the state of the world isn't what I want it to be, including climate and weather systems, but it finally feels like a proper fall here all the same.

But why a $14 rock kit (for a kid's birthday) got shipped second-day-air, signature required, I couldn't say. I could ask, but I'm not sure I want to know! I got it before I needed to have it, and it's undamaged; it just had to be left at a UPS pickup point so I could go sign for it, since I wasn't home when they first tried on Wednesday. (Yes, this means they sent it second-day air and it took me five days to get it...requiring a signature is not helpful in delivery speed. Especially if it's on something inexpensive, where I don't expect that!)

So. When I pack a banana as a snack, I take a Sharpie and write a little note on it. Sometimes it's sweet or kind or encouraging.

Often it is, instead, a joke. Usually a corny joke - which around here gets called "a Mom joke" if that tells you anything. :)

So, I think earlier this week but maybe it was late last, I sent them in with bananas that read:

Q: What do you call a fish with no eyes?

A: A fsh!

This is funny, and I thought Ian in particular would get a good laugh out of it. I was right, but I was a little underestimating, apparently. At parent-teacher conference yesterday, his teacher told me he enjoyed it greatly. Then he told it to her a couple times. And he told it to all his classmates, all of whom started laughing. (She's not sure they all got it - some just liked saying 'fsh!' she thinks, or found it funny because everyone else did.) Then they told it to each other. And her.

...I wonder how many parents got to hear about fsh! that night.

There's a variant in our house now - I first heard it from Ian, apparently he got it from Andrew, and where Andrew got it I am not sure.

Q: What do you call a fish with no eyes?

A: A leaky pipe! *hand gestures of water splashing out* FSH!

...my Mom joke has been one-upped, even.

So, yesterday my coworker was less-than-thrilled with the forecast, because he needed to go grocery shopping because they were almost out of staples, and he was going to have to compete with people frantically stocking up for a storm described as 'huge' but that will be worst at the coast (we're a two-hour drive and a mountain range from the coast, here, for context).

I think he ended up doing most of it mid-day to avoid the mess, but I'm not really sure.

I was, however, laughing a lot because he was mocking people who were panicked about the storm. Why was that making me laugh? Because I was ABSOLUTELY planning to run a frantic pre-storm errand after I left work yesterday (which I DID), in case the weather hit early and bad and I couldn't run it today.

...I was dashing to the library to pick up my holds, a larger-than-normal number of books for the boys among them, in case power was lost and the library had to close early at any point.

Which says, I think, a lot about priorities. (Also about the fact that I'd done a fairly large staples run the weekend before, which was pure random luck. But still...I didn't even think about a frantic grocery run. I went to the library.)

I _did_ go to the grocery this afternoon, on the grounds that I normally do my shop-ahead on Saturday and I really would rather shop mid-afternoon today than during a panicked Saturday morning rush or out in the thick of the weather later in the day if it does get bad. I didn't buy the full week's supply - if we come out of the storm in good shape, I can get it Sunday afternoon. If we don't, I don't need to have a week's worth of perishables going off after we lose power. :P I'm out about $8 if the perishables from this trip get lost because of power outage, so. That's not too bad.

But we'd have been fine if I didn't, too, I'd just have had more limited options for myself. But the books--! Gotta have the books, I'm telling you.

I was re-reading early 2002 (January-April) tracking down when we started the move into our first house (April, we got the keys on the 23rd).

I used to post A LOT back then. And I'm wistful for some of the exchanges and fun then.

I have two kids now, and I don't have as much time to post, but I am going to try not to be radio silent for weeks or months at a go. *nods*

Yesterday, we had our "regular" Thursday night gaming session. I put regular in quotes because we now only have one of those a month starting this month - the other three moved to Fridays!

That's awesome because Drew is five and starts kindergarten in the fall, Ian is two and will move up to preschool sometime in the next year (probably in about six months when he turns three, I'm guessing, but he's VERY verbal, so maybe sooner), and the "Friday morning meltdown after a late Thursday" symptom, which hits about 25% of the time, bites. So reducing it to once a month instead of four times a month for a potential trigger? HUGE.

Anyway, last night we were playing the Pathfinder Kingmaker game Scott runs (the one that is staying on Thursdays) and I posted a couple Facebook statuses that I think my friends here will also be amused by:

( And now I cut because some of you are both places, and it's probably not so funny you want to read it twice. )

And a random bit of silly from Tuesday, involving picking on a 5-year-old a bit.

( ALSO already posted on FB. )

Drew: "No, no, don't pause it, Daddy!"
Scott: "Yes, yes, pause it, Drew!"
Me: "Are you theorizing?" *
Scott: (groans) "Yes, I'm hy-pause-thesizing."

...he wins.

[* If that made no sense, I treated 'pause it' as 'posit'.]

Scott and Drew had Kraft Mac & Cheese for lunch. In the interests of not fiddling with pills, I didn't.

Me, wistfully: "That looks delicious."
Scott: "It is."
Me: "I'm still not having any, though. There's half a stick of butter, and a little milk, in." (I saw him make it.)
Scott: "And the cheese powder."
Me: "I'm not worried about that being dairy."

Which, yes, is an unfair zing and actually if there were no other dairy I would worry about it and check what it actually is, but KM&C is not the most natural thing ever, and in any case the butter out-masses the cheese powder when prepared as directed. :P

So, we got a Roomba. (We had one years ago, but it could not cope. This one seems to be hardier, although it has needed a couple brush cleanings already just on these two rooms.)

Tonight we are running it. Ray and Apple are...not impressed. Ray has been stalking it jumpily. Apple has been staring at it and jumping, with an occasional paw-swat. (Ray hasn't actually gotten close enough to hit it; Apple seems to be fear-striking, not hunting.) We have tried to reassure as best we can, but mostly they just have to get used to it.

Ray was calmer, so I got him up onto the chair beside me and was petting him, letting him get used to it and realize it CAN'T GET HIM UP THERE. He began the Snoopy vulture posture. I began trying to figure out how to prevent him - all "I must be at least partially Maine Coon" umpty pounds of him - from coming down on the Roomba like the Wrath of Cat.

The Roomba went under the chair he was vulturing from. Feline doom waited for it to emerge.

The chair in question is right next to the five-foot-high writing desk I inherited from my parents, helping to block access to it so that Drew doesn't open it repeatedly (only about twice a week). The doors on the desk no longer latch well, so a small heavy box sits in front of them, keeping the right-hand one closed (it is otherwise inclined to swing open).

Roomba, under the chair, bumped this box and shoved it aside. The door swung open. The box from my new web cam, tossed up there to keep it out of Drew-reach, fell onto Ray.

Ray abruptly appeared about halfway across the room, trailing a nearly-visible thought balloon: "I was above IT. How did IT get above ME???"

Roomba, meanwhile, jostled the chair a little and ended up stuck in a no-longer-exitable space between the chair, the box holding the desk closed, the web cam box, and an adjacent side table. Scott had to rescue it, because I was laughing too hard to save the robot. I was almost laughing too hard to BREATHE.

We were sitting in Drew's room. I was about to go start laundry (still am...) and Scott had his latest book and was reading it. Drew was playing happily with a top on the far side of the room. I commented that Scott seemed to get a lot more reading done these last few months, now that Drew can move around and plays by himself a lot more. Scott said "sometimes" and noted that sometimes Drew wants the book, which then has to be put away.

I said that was easy to solve. Just get the book/series (I suggested Lord of the Rings) in board book format.

Scott made the mistake of trying to envision the size of Lord of the Rings in board books. *cackles*

I like this one. I often don't post meme results, but this year's "you go trick or treating" meme was SO MEAN to me that I have to post it. You folks are meanies! ;)

( meme quiz spam )