The Crash, 2013

Sometime, late this morning, my computer froze while I was in the middle of a patient visit for someone with multiple medications for multiple issues.

Ugh.

So I logged out, restarted.

Tried to sign in.

Nothing, nothing and more nothing.

Deadness.

And I sat there stunned, almost unable to reboot my own brain to start using pen and paper again.

It was horrible, and made more horrible by the fact that most of the paper charts have been scanned and shredded.

Gone.

Having to rely solely on patients' memories for their drug allergies, medications is not fun, I work in the world of "I take a little white pill."  Really, really, could you be any less specific?.

And the process of identifying the problem would take at least two hours.

And all data from 12 midnight onward was lost.

Well, shoot.  Glad I didn't wake up after laying down with the kids to snuggle Wednesday night to finish those last two charts, they would have been done after midnight.

And I'm the lucky fool on call tonight, though fortunately it's been quiet - it just annoys me that four days after being on call for the entire weekend, I'm back on call.  Once upon a time, whoever worked the weekend got at least a week's reprieve from call.

So to symbolize my heartfelt dissatisfaction with Vitera, I made a voodoo doll, Vitera Man, and stuck four lovely pins into it.

Vitera Man,

 my 1st attempt at making a voodoo doll

 I think I may be on to something, a cottage industry of sorts. I would have rather worked on my quilt projects but I felt compelled, pulled drawn to quickly whipping this up.  The best part was sticking in the pins.

Right about the time I finished him, I got the email that the system was working again.

But I still cannot access Intergy from home, so I may have to go back to my pin cushion and grab a few more pins.

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Happy Birthday to my Dad.

He would have been 83 today.

Miss you.

Long Weekend

Time to get little projects done like trying to get some of the dust bunnies lurking under the bed and in corners into the vacuum and some of the clutter out, creating a little nook with a new chair and my laptop on the leaf of my nightstand, getting right of bags of clothing that had been packed up a weekend (or two) ago and cleaning out the pantry to make room for my mother's china.

Time to work, no time to write.  I have become a very lazy blogger, with drafts of posts piling up on my blog post list.  Spring is busy and exhausting, too many activities and too much pollen.  (Written in April 2013.)

Hurricane Irene, Part 2

Rain, rain, rain, rain.

And where is my family?

Out driving in the rain.

Meanwhile we have enough food to feed an army.

No air-conditioning.

Humidity or barometric pressure that is crucifying my sinuses.

Hurricane Agnes.  Much more fun when I was 12 and clueless as to the potential consequences.

Hurricane Floyd:  Umbrella stolen while I was working.  In a prision.  No honor among thieves or them work to incarcerate them.

Time to fill the bathtub.  And thanks to this house, we only have one.

And find my flashlight.  Power had flickered, but has managed to stay on.  For now.

It's All Good Today. . .

It's Friday, and I'm off today, and off Monday.  Still with barking cough, and getting a little bit fed up with it, but otherwise today was good.  I dropped Micah off at Beth Chaim, went over to Princeton to pick up my new pair of glasses (I now have two pairs of tortoise shell frames, the heir and the spare, so the red Ray Ban frames are back on the bench.)  Briefly popped by It's A Grind for a beverage and muffin before coming home and going on a mission that could be best described as the Great Dust Bunny Round-Up of 2011.  Side bonus was one more cardboard box of junk got sorted out and moved off the landing and I hung a few pictures in the bathroom.  I'm back in fighting mode again.

After cleaning, I went back to Beth Chaim to retrieve the boy and zip back to Plainsboro to Thea's school for the Brownies award ceremony.  Today was the day the troop leaders were giving the girls the try-its (badges) they'd earned and the patches for events they had participated in (the Bonfire, Ice Skating, Crafting for the Community and Thinking Day).  Her vest will look much more interesting when I get around to ironing them and sewing them on.

Two minor annoyances this week that fall into that "Be Nice to Me or I Will Blog About You" category:

To get my new eyeglasses I had to have an eye exam, which was with a new provider.  I had ditched the doctor Steve sees after Dr. Felton invited a student into the room without asking my permission which bothered me at the time.  Add to it his personality being in the realm of a soggy Brillo pad, it was time to try someone new, so last time I saw Dr. Epstein and he was fine other than wanting to see me sign up for laser vision correction. But I had to switch my appointment to be able to switch Saturdays with Karen which landed me in Dr. Reynolds schedule.  He was very nice, definitely from my part of the Baby Boomer age spectrum.

He did land one minor nail in his coffin by saying to me which will have me returning to Dr. Epstein or shopping for yet another provider in the group in two years, "I can ask you because you're a year older than I am, you have a five-year old and a seven year old?"

What out of any of that sounds the least little bit positive?  Pointing out that I am OLD? Pointing out that most people MY AGE do not have children as young as mine? Yes, you can ask me, but the answer may not give you all the information you're looking for.

Momentary pause on my part to determine how much information I feel like sharing  with a person I've met not more than ten minutes prior, and from whom my ultimate goal is to obtain a new prescription for glasses without being branded preachy psycho patient from Hell.

So the answer was (wait for it, wait. . . . ), "Yes, I do, a seven year old daughter and a five year old son."  In that way signaling the discussion of the ages of my children vis-a-vis my age was closed.  And on with the exam, is number one clearer or number two, number two or number three. . . .

Yes, I could have been the little ambassador mama for adoption, but his job was to examine my eyes and assess their health and write me a new prescription for glasses, not delve into how my family came about or what my ovaries and uterus may or may not have been up to in 2003 and 2006.  Information that did not seem to be vital for this type of exam.  Yes, I am an older parent.  My 'problem,' if you see it that way, not his.  If I really wanted to deflect, I would have told him my husband is going to be 60 this year. 

The first pair of glasses made at the Optical Shop were ready last week, it took slight longer for the pair obtained through VSP.  I am happy to retire my red/lavender frames which were bought to be a fun, every now and then pair but upon the disappearance of my tortoise frames last year and their failure to turn up when we packed up the house for the move they were 'it'. Major excitement on my part, it does not take much these days.

Next annoyance.  Principal of Thea's school. DR. Wellborn.  Doctorate by virtue of an Ed.D. degree, so in my hierarchical, pecking order conscious mind, Ph.D.-lite.  He's pleasant enough, but when Thea went for testing at Wicoff last July, he introduced himself and was doing the jolly "Welcome to Wicoff" routine and had not grasp of how his audience was reacting.  She took an almost immediate dislike to him since this was the first meeting and she's not great meeting new people especially if she senses someone is being ultra-friendly in a false sort of way, it is is just hopeless.  And me, I'm just not that 'into' people who toss their titles around.  (The principal of my long-ago elementary school was Mrs. Mary E. Long, no letters after her name, respect earned daily by her broad portfolio of skills.)

Anyway this week there were a few snafus with the transportation for Jackson and Thea to their after school Mandarin tutoring, so this email was the 'be on time' wrist slap.

At the beginning of the school year we had form upon form with our contact information, names, phone numbers, emails, etc. to fill in and return. And I also registered with the school district's Infinite Campus system (which I think of as Infinite Pain-in-the-Ass, but that's another story.)  The school district has all my information and then some.

So when the email came with the salutation "Mr. and Mrs. Albin" I wanted to beat Mr. Wellborn, Ed.D.

Initial hostile reaction aside, the school's student population is predominantly Asian and Indian heritages and many of those married couples do not have the same last name, we are not some sort of anomaly in the community where we live.  Secondary reaction, you obviously got the information from something I provided, so if my email address is correct, my name should be too, especially when I get the sense that he tries almost too hard to be the super-deluxe-PC type.

But rather than waste my time and energy getting myself branded psycho parent from Hell for asking that I be addressed by my correct name, I deleted the email.   One more year of that place and Thea will move on to Millstone River and there will be a whole new set of people to irk me (though I remember that most of the Millstone River staff were very nice when Micah was there for ESY last summer.)

Every now and then I think about changing my name, mostly for the sake of having it the same as the kids' last names so I don't feel like I need to travel with their adoption certificates.  But the kids don't have a problem with my last name being different (they rather like it since it gives them a sense of being in the Albin majority in our house and outnumbering the lone Grebe.)  And I like my last name the way it is.

Directionally Impaired

Today was a day just destined not to go well.   I got up early, got ready in time to make a stop at the Dunkin' Donuts for coffee and then went off to the hotel for a free CME seminar.  Or what I thought was the right hotel, Westin, Wyndham.  They both start with W, don't they? 

And the email I had to print out to hand in (or face having to re-register on-site) had all of MY information but none about the conference's location.  So what should have been an early arrival turned into being twenty minutes late since for the life me I could not figure out where a Wyndham Hotel was in Forrestal Village, and when I asked the GPS, it directed me to a Wyndham at Routes 1 and 9, 35 miles away.  (Thank you very sparsely, Garmin.) 

The Wyndham is actually in Plainsboro, to call it Forrestal is a fabrication bordering on a big, fat lie.

Amazingly, it's a rather large conference center, tucked back off the road so as to make it nearly invisible when driving on Scudders Falls Road.

I was glad I persisted, 4.25 hours of CME for free is not bad, and it was on diabetes, but the search and destroy mission to find the location set the tone for the day.

After the conference, my next quest was for large bottles of strawberry-kiwi juice.  Tomorrow is Thinking Day (aka World Friendship Day) for the Girl Scouts.  Thea's Brownie troop has New Zealand, so kiwis or something with kiwi in it will be what they are selling at their table. The troop leader wants large bottles to pour from instead of Capri Sun pouches.

First stop, Target.  No luck (but it does have the Capri Sun Strawberry-Kiwi juice pouches).  Next stop, Shop-Rite in Lawrenceville.  Ditto (but it does stock the Capri Sun).  Third stop, SuperFresh.  History repeats itself.  I give up and go home and get on the computer to start googling.  K-Mart, which is not exactly around the corner, but in combination with a trip to Bridgewater Commons to return a jacket, it's doable.

In the meantime, I also fired off an email to the troop leader asking her where did she see the larger bottles of this stuff (not asking why she didn't convey this information in the first place)?  So she called me (darned downstairs phone doesn't have Caller ID.)

McCaffrey's, back near the old neighborhood.  The last place I would have checked.

Did I mention that my foot hurts like hell from the walking I did today even with the ugly boot on?

Did I mention that the V-8 Splash Strawberry Kiwi juice is a color not found in nature and does not look like anything I'd want to drink?  Pair it with kiwi fruit, I bought and now need to find a way to peel, and I think we're going to have leftovers.

On Better Footing

Ugly swollen foot, ugly shoe

Last Wednesday while unloading stuff from my car, I brought my rolling duffel bag into the foyer of my mother's house and then went out for another load.  And promptly rammed my right foot into the wheels of the duffel bag, the only part that is hard.  At the time it happened, it hurt like hell, but I have cracked my 5th toes multiple times and it usually hurts for a few days and then slowly improves.

Here's my foot one week later.  The fourth toe still hurts like hell, the dorsum of the foot is swollen to the mid-foot.  Time to throw in the towel, crumble, fold, go to the RWJ Diagnostic Center across from the street and have an xray done.

Before I even drove back across the street (yes, I drove, my carbon footprint be damned because my real footprint was killing me with every step), the radiologist was calling Karen with the results. 

A non-displaced fracture near the base of the fourth toe.

That's all.  For all the swelling, all the pain, that's it? 

But the promise that the podiatrist would give me a nice shoe that would make walking a lot better and colleagues who will rearrange my afternoon schedule so that I could go to Foot & Ankle Group's Bordentown office won me over.

So with directions based solely on landmarks alone (no address for the GPS), I drove past Town & Country, past the Irish pub and into the parking lot between two small professional buildings, carrying the CD of my xray but no cell phone.

Dr. Clinch, whose name I've seen her consultant notes on patients and whose handwriting is difficult at times to parse out, was nice enough to wait after the end of her office hours just to see me.  She said the xray looked a lot better than my foot actually did, and even went back to have a second look after she saw all the swelling on the back of my foot and pressed along the 4th MT, making me nearly howl.  Possible stress fracture, nice - but both the toe and the stress fracture are treated by using the hideous Velcro shoe.

The difference in my hobble with the butt ugly shoe is phenomenal.  Major happiness.  Major decrease in pain.  Major decrease in crabbiness and the desire to rip others' heads off.  Total win all around.

Sometimes it pays to listen to one's health care providers.

On Call

Switched my weekend to work from next weekend to this weekend.  While I am eternally grateful to Karen for flipping with me, I'm also dreading being tied to a telephone until 8 am Monday.  Two calls already, but related to electronic prescriptions not making it to the pharmacy at the speed of light - and one was for my last patient of the day (4:30 pm) who was calling at 5:30 pm because it wasn't there.  If I do one thing when I send an electronic prescription I tell my patients that it usually takes more than an hour for a prescription to transit cyberspace to the pharmacist, and possibly more time for the pharmacist to actually fill it and put it on the shelf for pick up.

God save me from people who worship at Our Lady of Instant Gratification.

Other than work and call, we're going to a Lunar New Year dinner for PIACS, the Mandarin-immersion charter school that hopes to be up and running in the fall.  Micah has been accepted into its kindergarten class.

Then the usual Sunday ice skating lessons - Thea will be moving from Pre-Alpha to Alpha, Micah is staying in the same class, and Chinese school, and making cupcakes without eggs for Micah's Valentine's Day party at Dutch Neck (mercifully, the synagogue preschool does not celebrate St. Valentine.)

Update:  11:46 pm call.  102 fever - do I need to go to the emergency room?  Said a few naughty words after getting off the phone and went to bed.  Do people really, really NOT know how to manage a fever?  Really?

Another Snow Day

. . . .or rather an ice day, courtesy of the West Windsor-Plainsboro School District.  1 am, no news of the closing, 4:30 am no posting on the web site (a large snow slide from the roof crashed onto the back patio and the motion-sensor light went off and it woke me up).  Finally, when the alarm went off, before going downstairs to make breakfast and pack lunches, I stopped at the computer and school was canceled. 

It was also strangely quiet, trains between New York and Philadelphia were not running early in the morning, and it is strange how I've gotten accustomed to hearing the sounds of the NJ Transit and Amtrak trains.

Surprisingly, the inmates got along with each other today, only one small skirmish.  So it wasn't a bad day, especially since the ice on the driveway that Thea and I slid around on last night was gone by midday.  So we went out to Target for supplies (milk, broccoli, limeade) and minor bribes for continued good behavior - one Lego Ninjago each, and Thea used her own allowance money with the addition of 70 cents from me.

If that stupid ground hog is wrong, the kids are going to be going to school until late June, at the rate the school district is closing schools. . . .

Motherhood's Not So Shining Moment

Today I was home with Micah, who had a fever on Sunday and who probably had whatever had gotten me last Tuesday.  He was a pale shadow of his usual self yesterday, and was still in low battery mode this morning.

He spent the morning in his pajamas, being spoiled sick boy in our bed joined by his Star Wars Legos characters and Bunny Bear.  I finally got a chance to load his iXL with the Batman and Toy Stories games.  The iXL seemed like a really interesting device, and one of the accessories was a set of headphones that were the old fashioned kind (not the ear bud type, which I wouldn't want Micah to use and which probably wouldn't stay in his ear canals without the support of an auricle.)  What I should of checked out was how the games get into the device.  Not by a tiny cartridge like the Nintendo DSi, but onto the computer, through the USB port and into the iXL.  Major timewaster, though one of the fun features is photos can be loaded into it, and then Micah can both flip through them, and also draw on them as well.  It made for decent enough entertainment to keep him parked in the bed, under the covers - or he just felt lousy enough to stay put.

Mondays are usually my day to pick up Thea and Jackson to drive them to Ying Hua for after-school Chinese tutoring, so around 2:30 I got Micah dressed and organized (meaning he packed his backpack with the 'necessities' for travel: his iXL, a few Legos guys and whatever else interested him at that moment) and we set out.

The routine after meeting Jackson and Thea at Parent Pick-Up is to take them for a snack.  Today the request was for hot chocolate, so rather than go to It's A Grind for cafe hot cocoa, it was Dunkin Donuts.  Which still can be rather pricey if you're buying for three.

And since it was three versus two, Thea and Jackson got more grief from me than they usually do because they were trying to exclude Micah, and Micah wants to just be in the middle of what he perceives as their bigger kid wonderfulness he puts up with it.  Usually I enjoy taking the two out for their snack, but today it was more of a referee job whose only benefit was the nice large coffee.

As we were finishing up, a large new model, white Yukon pulls up to the curb and the passenger door opens and two kids who are smaller than my two (who are 5 and 7) get out, the older of the two has a coupon and a credit card in his hand.  No coats on, one of the two is wearing slippers without socks, both kids are a little on the chubby side.  The two got to the counter, place their order and take it back to the car.  I'm just sitting there taking it all in, somewhat stunned.

There is a woman behind the wheel of the Yukon, also on the more than just chubby end of the spectrum.

Once we finally get our table cleared and out the door, the Yukon is still there.  The two children make another trip in and by the time everyone in my car is buckled in and we're pulling out, the lady who is working the counter at D-n-D comes out to the car.

OK, I'm no better than she is, I just bought some of the same high fat, high sugar snacks for children.  But at least I parked my car, got out with them, sat down with them, talked to them instead of sitting for more than ten to fifteen minutes in a no parking/no standing area barking orders at two little ones who looked to small to even know what a credit card or a coupon are.

I wanted to smack her over the head with her designer knock-off bag.

Snow Day, Part 3

You know it is truly a snow day when Princeton University, which usually holds itself above forces of nature, declares that non-essential personnel are allowed to stay home.

This is a good thing because the non-essential Princeton employee in our household was crucial to getting our driveway cleared.  It took a solid four hours of work, part of it with both of us shoveling, to dig out.  And we were lucky enough to have our two-doors down neighbor and his snow blower do the sidewalk.

Then the phone just rang moments ago, and the news is that the idiot school district that could not make a decision about closing until this morning has already declared a 90 minute late start for Friday.

And thanks to all of this, the Advil is doing double duty, for swollen glands and a sore lower back.

52 days until spring, if I live that long.

Snow Day, Part 2

If the weather forecast was event close to what was predicted, I was wagering that schools would be closed today.  The unfortunate thing is that I woke up at 2:30 am, checked the school district's web page and nothing had been posted, and then at 4:30 am still nothing.  Then at 7:00 am the phone rang and it was one of the parent's from Beth Chaim letting us know the synagogue's preschool is closed as are the West Windsor-Plainsboro school.

Good thing.  Thea was up at around 10 pm last night and lost her supper.  I bundled her off with a clean garbage basket and a towel to sleep with me.  Steve's on the pull-out trundle bed in Micah's room, without his BiPAP machine so his snoring is shaking the walls.

Tuesday at work I felt a little like I was coming down with something, but it was the first Tuesday of working later hours with Sarah, so I figured just keep moving forward and eventually the day would be done.

But then I asked Robin to take my temperature.  102.9 degrees on a tympanic membrane thermometer, which I've always thought of as slightly under-reporting the temperature.  Wow. I don't think I've ever had a temperature like that, or at least not since the early 1960s when I still had tonsils.

I was home Wednesday, feeling a little better at least until the Advil wore off.  Chills and cold feet that could not be remedied despite crawling under piles of blankets and wool socks.

A least I managed to get out and clear the driveway.  I have never been one for shoveling, definitely something on the to be avoided list, but shoveling with fever was actually not bad.  Didn't even need gloves and I got about 90% of it done.

I also managed to complete a survey that awards a $50 Amazon gift card for about 30 minutes of picking around in my brain about diabetes care.  Between that survey and one that will credit $85 to my ePocrates Visa and getting close to racking up another 80 Q-points on QuantiaMD for another $100 Amazon credit, I may have about $477 socked away in gift cards and cybercash - or half of an iPad or other tablet computer.

Other than that stuff, I was a guest of slug-puppy city for most of the day.

Frozen Solid

This morning driving the kids to their schools, the dashboard thermometer in my car registered 11 degrees.  I have never seen it that low and I am NOT liking it.  Old, creaky bones and cold do not get along, especially when forced to walk on ice because some twit with a privileged attitude has taken up the ramp that leads from the parking lot to Thea's school and cannot move until the cones are removed after all the buses have off-loaded and driven away.

Dear Fellow Wicoff Parent with the Air of Entitlement: I am happy that your privileged little darling did not need to walk far in this bitter cold, but if I slip and fall because you are taking up all the non-icy space with your extra large suburban assault vehicle, I am going to punch your headlights out, literally and figuratively.  Be forewarned. Love and kisses, Me.

Micah's seeming a little under the weather this afternoon - just as Thea and I are finally pulling out from whatever had us down for several weeks, and more snow is in the forecast.  Lovely.

Soooo. . . . .

I once again tormented our practice administrator to rearrange my schedule to be able to attend the Back to School Ice Cream Social at Wicoff Elementary School this afternoon, and

a)  Thea spent at least an hour this morning having tears and angst over having to visit her new school;

b) having 71 lbs. sitting on one's lap to be comforted eventually will make not one but two legs go numb, more so because another 35 lbs was trying to get in on the lap action;

c) 96 degrees is 96 degrees, even if there is a bit of shade;

d) an ice cream social, in my mind, is not those little cafeteria cups of chocolate/vanilla ice cream that were probably manufactured when I was in elementary school, circa 1968;

e) Thea is in the largest of the five 2nd grade classes, which is a really brilliant decision on the part of those who make that type of decision, a new child coming from a private school who has never been in a room of more than 13 or so children, genius, pure genius;

f) her teacher did not make a brilliant first impression in her welcome letter; numbers below ten should be spelled out, even I remember that little composition factoid, and I wasn't won over by actually meeting her as she seems to have few skills for drawing out a shy child;

g) did I mention it was 96 degrees?  And there were a few hundred noisy children, and their parents and siblings?  It was like being at Chuck-E-Cheese, if Chuck-E-Cheese was relocated to Hades;

h) and despite two potty trips before leaving for the event, Micah sounded the "I have to go potty" alarm; I found an officious looking person carrying a clipboard and asked her where the restrooms were and was told, "Oh, you'll have to find the Dr. Wellborn (the principal) because the building is not technically open."   You. Must. Be. Joking.  An event with several hundred little bladders running around and there is no provision for restrooms?  Really?  And I'm supposed to find a man I've seen once four weeks ago out of a crowd of 400 to 500 people while dragging around one child who doesn't want to be there and another doing the pee-pee dance?  Thank you very sparsely. My irritation with this place deepened about a dozen notches.

i) I went to talk with the woman manning the Girl Scouts table, and she wanted a completed contact form and to have the parent check off a volunteer position box; I'm not even sure if my child is interested and she wants commitment;

i) and even though the event was only an hour, Thea was begging to leave by 2:30 pm, and I could not really see much of a reason to stay.

Thus ended our first encounter with the larger Wicoff community. 

The only good thing to come out of it was that a boy who went to kindergarten with Thea will be in her class, and Thea perked up slightly when I told her she could speak Chinese with Brett and no one would know what they were saying.

Why I really despise the school district we live in . . .

. . . for participating in killing the Princeton International Academy Charter School and its Mandarin-immersion program for the 2010 school year:

On Friday, Steve took Thea and Micah to the playground at Wicoff Elementary School to burn off some energy after he picked them up at their camp programs.  Also at the playground was a grandmother and her grandson, the grandmother did not speak English. She however did speak Mandarin.  Steve pushed Thea to talk with her, and the woman seemed impressed at Thea's Chinese - and Thea spoke to her about Micah's hearing aid, his surgeries among other things.

Thea has been in Mandarin-immersion since mid-2007 at Ying Hua.  If all was right in the universe and good always triumphed over evil, the Plainsboro Zoning Board of Appeals had some backbone, and the West Windsor-Plainsboro School District didn't have a $100,000/year salaried public relations hack (when it doesn't yet have full-day kindergarten), Thea would be starting in second grade at PIACS and her Mandarin-immersion education would go forward uninterrupted.

Instead, and despite PIACS being put on a one-year fast-track for opening in Fall 2010 by the NJ Department of Education, the Princeton Regional and WW-P school districts have decided that they want no further charter schools opening in their respective domains and put a significant effort forth to stop the process.  (For this year.)

PIACS is re-grouping to open in 2011, but its charter school application is for Kindergarten through second grade, so unless the application can be amended to include additional grades, Thea is still out of luck since she will be entering third grade in 2011.

And to add to Friday's warm-fuzzy tale of Thea and the Chinese grandmother, today when I picked her up at Ying Hua's, the Wu Laoshi (who has known and taught Thea in aftercare since her pre-Kindergarten days) told me that Thea was her assistant teacher today, helping the younger students learn to count.  (While we were talking in the car on the way to pick up Micah, Thea spoke proudly of how smart 'her' student was and how quickly the student was learning.)

All of this adds up to my blood pressure hitting the boiling point at the sabotaging of my child's education.

Thanks to the WW-P school district, the Plainsboro Zoning Board of Appeals and all those uninformed souls who chose to believe the misinformation campaign waged against PIACS.  If I could sue you or otherwise make your lives miserable, I would.

Strangers in the House

I am fed up with and tired of real estate tourists, real estate agents and home inspectors who move curtains and our belongings around and DO NOT PUT THEM BACK in their original places.  It's bad enough knowing that total strangers are waltzing through the house, peering at the trappings of our lives, but when they leave the evidence of their presence, it is offensive.

Having gone through about a dozen or so homes during our search, I know that I did not touch or move anything while touring any of those homes.  Even Micah and Thea kept their hands to themselves during the two or three houses they went through with us - we watched Micah like a hawk.

Coming home and having to put curtains back in place, put other things back where they belong is a waste of my time.

Today we had the home inspection for the current house.  Mr. Home Inspector, a.k.a. the next person I am wishing shrinkage of the family jewels and a prostate the size of a cantaloupe, moved things around in the purple bathroom, leaving them where he tossed them and moved things in the attic all around.  Did none of these people learn the principles of clean up as you go or put things back where you found them?  Honestly, what is wrong with the world?

I'm also annoyed that the pair who showed up for the home inspection accosted the babysitter with a "You the homeowner?"  (Not even proper English, but I digress.) When Tesh said, no she was just the sitter who was there to pick up Micah from the school bus, they made some sort of annoying comment implying disbelief.  Again, what the heck is wrong with people? 

I am done with this whole process and now realize I am much better suited to renting.

Power-less in Princeton

Yesterday I worked in the morning, and despite a driving rain that didn't seem to let up all that much we saw a number of people.  After everyone went home, I finished charts and it was just me and the couple who were in the office to strip and wax the floors.

After a stop at Target, I got on the road for home.

Quaker Road was closed due to flooding.  No big deal, any sort of heavy rainstorm seems to close that road.

Province Line Road to Route 583.  583 was closed due to a downed tree or powerline.

Back to Province Line to Route 206.  206 was closed at some random residential street, so back through that neighborhood and back onto 583, beyond whatever problem that closed it.  Trees and branches down everywhere.  Streets are tree surgeon's and wood chipper's wet dream.

Big back up beyond Princeton Battlefield waiting to turn onto Lover's Lane (a short worthless street) and back onto 206.  More trees down.

206 to Elm Road.  Had to dodge around a downed tree blocking my side of the road, but uneventful until I got to Mountain Road.  Downed tree, low-hanging power line. 

Elm becomes Great Road.  Total misnomer in general, but today moreso than ever.

Onto Cherry Valley, more of the same but fortunately it's moving and there are no blockages or back-ups.

Until I get to 206 and Cherry Valley, where traffic was diverted into the CVS Pharmacy/TD Bank parking lot due to downed power lines on 206 and no signal.  Which was OK, because I wanted to go straight through the intersection and onto Princeton Avenue after a quick stop at CVS.

Which was dark, oh so very dark.  So was the bank.  I should have had a clue by then, but it took getting to the driveway and pushing the garage door opener before all the synapses clicked.

Holy moly, it's a power outage.

Back before the dawn of my nursing career, I lived in Washington, DC and periodically the house would lose electricity during violent thunderstorms, but it was usually a matter of no more than a few hours and Pepco would restore power.  And if it lasted any longer, I could hop in the car and drive to my parents' house - and this was in the day before cell phones, laptops, Palms, Nintendos, Bluetooths.

This morning we woke to a house still without electricity, so we did what I used to do 15 to 20 years ago, we packed up and went to Mom's (or Oma's).  All of us.  Today was a planned trip for me - my mother's final chemo is tomorrow.  I actually like the drive down, it gives me four hours to organize my mental sock drawer.  No luck today, three of my 'socks' were in the passenger seats, and there was hardly a moment of quiet.

Micah wanted "The Princess Song" over and over and over again (Track 9 off of Taylor Swift's 'Fearless' CD, I don't even know it's real name.)  It's not a bad song if one overlooks that Ms. Swift is rewriting the Romeo and Juliette saga with a happy ending, which I can do when I see the look of pure be-bopping happiness on Micah's face.

Thea was absorbed by her new DS game, Pokemon HeartGold, which provided us with additional background noise (she doesn't like the earbuds, unfortunately).  Before hitting the road, we stopped at Target to pick it up and she actually contributed $18.50 of her own money towards it.

And since I worked this weekend, I am also on call - and there were a few calls during the drive down.  The good thing was I had my Bluetooth and I had Steve dial the numbers.

So we're at the Sleep Inn.  The kids got 90 minutes in the pool tonight after dinner at Oma's, so they were happy little dolphins.

Creepy Crawler, Part II

Now I'm mad, which I admit is sometimes difficult to differentiate from the normal me.  It was bad enough to have some corporation's geek for hire or some alien computer crawling my blog, but today our home voice mail was invaded by a representative from the lab that drew and processed Micah's blood work.  The name of said company shall remain un-typed to prevent further crawling the aforementioned corporate entity through this entry, but let's use the initials QD for simplicity's sake.

This is MY blog, for me, for family and friends and a few others who happen to wander in who might be interested in atresia/microtia.  Not for some corporation to be acting like an electronic proctocologist in its own self interest.

Sooooooo. . . . . .

Go away, QD, leave me, my blog and our voice mail alone.  I'm not talking to you by phone, email or any other means, even if hell were to freeze over or if I were offered one million dollars (I might reconsider the latter, perhaps in light of the future relocation, private school tuition for one kid and having to find a good preschool for the other kid by September 2010 - and I could use a cleaning service.)

Butt out, QD, if you didn't  read or understand my meaning the first time.  I am permanently unavailable for any further discussions.  Go away, far, far away, leave me alone, bug off, be gone, vanish.

Which doesn't mean I don't like QD - it's the one lab we use at the office because its competitor never managed to be able to interface with my employer's EMR software and its results went off into the ozone constantly. QD has done a good job with its results going into the patient's EMR records. No complaints there, at all.

But in this instance, I have been seriously annoyed, I have a mulish, Teutonic stubbornness that is not to be messed with - test the concept and I will win.  In stubbornnes, I am only out-shined by my lovely daughter. 

I have had a crappy week, thus far and the lashing out at QD is quite therapeutic.

And I am one step closer to going toward a restricted reader list, where interested parties will need to ask to be added to the list.  Kiss the hit counter good-bye, kiss the flags good-bye, I'll toss it all to keep this from happening again.

Creepy Crawler, Part I

Today the number on my blog's hit counter went up astronomically, at least for this particular blog in a single day.  A jump of two dozen may not raise anyone else's eyebrows, but it's an event in this small niche in the blog-o-sphere.  So I went to look at the page that tracks the visitor information, and most of them had a questdiagnostics.com web address.  How very Big Brother Is Watching: Quest must have a web crawler that hunts down references to itself and it doesn't just come looking one time, it returns again and again and again. . .

So while I was temporarily excited a cracking 1,900 hits (proof I'm working too much or need some other form of diversion if something as trivial as that gives me any sort of a thrill), when the reason was known it creeped me out.  Go away, Quest Peeping Toms, you've aggravated me enough for the past 24 hours!  The title for the previous post was changed.

And BTW, Micah's blood work was fine, and I managed to find time at the end of the day to fax it to Pre-Admission Testing at Englewood Hospital and put a hard copy in the mail as well.

Two weeks from today at about this time we'll be home and Micah will be at home almost back to his usual full of energy self - with another gauze turban around his little head.  Another to-do list item, buy Conform gauze for when (not if) he pulls the bandage around his head off and extra Tegaderm for his skin graft site so I'm not making a spur of the moment run to CVS.

Snow, Again

Micah's teacher called at 6:30 am to let us know school would be dismissed early, at 12:45 pm today.  And while checking email in between making breakfast and packing lunches, I found a message from Thea's school with the possibility it may close early, at 1 pm.

Then when Micah's driver arrived to pick him up this morning, the driver told Steve that our school district says that Micah needs to be picked up at noon, not 12:45 pm (and I guess the district somehow trumps the school since it pays the tuition that keeps Micah in the school.)  Part of me says why even bother, but it's Miss Danielle's last session with Micah before she starts her maternity leave, so we put Micah on the van and off he went.

Winter had just better damn well get over itself and make it snappy.  The first day of spring is 23 days away.

Snow

I heard today that the weather forecast calls for snow Saturday.  Supposedly, a lot of snow.  And writing about it will probably curse it into not happening, but I am scheduled to work again this Saturday and if the roads are bad, I am not going to venture out.  With age comes wisdom, and fear of other drivers who are foolish enough to go out when the roads aren't cleared. 

I hope it snows.  A ton.  I'll even help shovel and clear off the cars.  I am praying for snow, in great fluffy heaps on our driveway, on our street.

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Meanwhile the kids had their swimming lesson today, which usually means they are exhausted and crabby by the time dinner is on the table.  Getting Thea through her homework on those nights is a tiny slice of hell.

Tonight they came in tired by happy, I had gotten home twenty minutes before they arrived and banged out a quick dinner, which they ate with virtually no complaints and with Micah's butt only coming off his chair about three times before he finished eating (and he was actually sneaking pieces of chicken off of my plate after he had finished his.)  Thea finished her homework and played Pokemon with her little brother (which somehow involved Micah using the strap from the diaper bag to harness himself to the little plastic trike in order to pull Thea around the kitchen and living room.)  And they were in bed by 8:40 pm.

Except while I was breaking my arm patting myself on the back, Micah wanted some milk, and then Thea came in and crawled into the bed because she was having a bad dream (wrong, one must be ASLEEP in order to dream).  But within minutes of her crawling in, Micah stopped thrashing around and went to sleep, and by the time I was back from brushing my teeth, Thea was out and it was only 9:05 pm.