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.

Friday's Coming . . . .

. . . . . .and we're going to Summit Speech School's Family Fun Night!  After work, after school, after Brownies, and after hitting the ATM.  Micah is so excited to be going back to his old school and see friends and teachers.  Thea is excited about the basket raffle, since her ticket won us the four-pack of ticket to see Elmo at the State Theater in New Brunswick, so she thinks she has the winning touch.

I worked every day this week, and I am ready for the week to be O-V-E-R, gone, done, history.

Friday is Summit School, Saturday is a CME at the Westin Forrestal in the AM, Sunday Skating, Girl Scouts Thinking Day at High School South and Chinese.  I need a cup of coffee. . . .

Auricle Gazing, Musings from Micah

Micah (looking at the TV a close-up, side profile headshots of two guys on 'Royal Pains'):  Mommy, are all people's ears the same size?

Me: No, a lot of people have ears that look about the same, and most people have big ears, but all ears are a little bit different if you look at them closely.  And your ears are just perfect the way they are, but remember how we talked about if one day when you are older, if you wanted big ears, Mommy and Daddy would help find a doctor to do it?

Micah:  No, I don't want big ears.  I don't like going to the hospital.  I like all the people who work at the hospital and help people, but I don't like going to the hospital.

Me:  OK.  Go to sleep, little creep, little creep. Good night.

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.

Micah's Hearing, in his own words

I've been a little bit slack on writing about Micah and his hearing, mostly because not much has been going on.  His next appointment with his ENT surgeon is April 15, and he'll also be seeing the audiologist as well.  He's wearing one BAHA to school, and a lot of the time when he's home he isn't using it.

Yesterday at the Lunar New Year party, our friend Amy went with Micah downstairs to the basement playroom.  Amy is Lucas's mom, the one other boy in the flock of girls.  I was still making trips out to the car to bring  things in, and I'm hobbling thanks to smashing my right fourth toe into the rolling duffel bag while unloading the car Wednesday night at my mother's.

Amy told me that one of the girls asked what was the thing on his headband (his BAHA).  He answered her that when he was born, his ears "weren't wide enough" so he went to the hospital and had surgeries so that he could hear better, but "sometimes I still say 'What?' a lot so I wear this to help me hear."

I am so proud of him, I could not have explained it that well if I were four years old.

The Year of the Rabbit

What a bunch of gorgeous kids.  The older ones, Thea in aqua, Ava in silver, Lucas in red, Kyra in white, Sorcha next to Kyra in red/white and Kitty in red, sandwiched between her little sisters, all met their families in September 2004.  At least once a year since then we've gotten together, starting in December 2004.  The kids have grown, siblings have joined families and now thanks to Wii and other toys and games, the parents can actually sit down and talk to each other.

If I ever had to spend a two week road trip in a foreign country again, I would do it with these people without a moment's hesitation.  We're lucky that about half of the thirteen families live close enough to be able to get together.

Below the Mason-Dixon Line

Thea, Micah and I drove down to Oma's Wednesday night.  The roads were clear, one or both of the children took naps and I listened to 102.7 FM out of Baltimore and time-traveled back to the music of college.  We had take-out KFC for dinner, and by 11 pm the kids were packed off to bed and I could open the laptop and finish up a few charts.

In my monocular focus to get from point A to point B, I didn't even notice there is no snow  on the ground here.  No piles of snow in the parking lot.

We're going to the German Deli over in Virginia today.  Must replenish the Kinderschokolade supply.