plot thickens

so...we didn't make it to monday. an hour after his last dose of motrin, felix's fever got worse. he was breathing fast and shaking and his armpit temp was 103.1. "ok," I said, "lets go to the ER." this was at about 11:30pm. when we checked in at the ER his rectal temp was 104.1. felix has very accurate armpits, it appears. and so they gave him tylenol I think and his temp was last recorded at 102.something. we've seen a doctor and are now just hanging out waiting to get his chest xrayed. we are up past everyones bed times. i'm supposed to go to work tomorrow but we'll see how that goes...

end in sight?

with the new year upon us I find several plots hopefully coming to an end, or at least taking a mid-season break:
icehouse 2007 - insured! but what else will happen next?!
feverboy - this is hopefully a pre-new years cliffhanger subplot arc that will resolve itself before 08. basically, sometime saturday felix pitched a fever. could have started in the AM but we gave him motrin for teething so we never noticed the fever until the afternoon when he woke up from his nap. highest recorded was 102.5. we called the nurse line to find out when and where to take him. then called his peed office and the oncall doc called back. he said we can treat the fever with tylenol and motrin to get through the weekend and if he's still feverish on Monday then they will see him there. he goes up and down during the day and obviously his nap schedule is blown all to hell. Its really strange to have this child be so unlike his usual self, tired and cranky and wanting to do nothing but lie still because he's so hot and feeling sick and then two hours later he seems completely back to normal for about two hours and then he slides right back down to the previous feverish state. I was really fantasizing that he would break out of this fever cycle sometime today but the later it gets the more I'm beginning to feel like he and Andrea will be going to the doctor tomorrow. or maybe I'll take him. Nobody will care if I am in to work late tomorrow, especially with a good reason like a sick toddler.

Have I mentioned lately how amazing he is? He is. Truly amazing. He communicates fairly well, he's a super monkey ninja toddler, for real, and he's still just about the cutes thing ever ever EVER. Really.

Xtra xmas

well, i got the word from our adjuster today and WE'RE COVERED! woo!
I'm sure that this process will be less than painless, but at least we're over the first (and hopefully the greatest) hurdle. At the very least, I feel a lot better today and a lot less stressed out. now if only I could get in touch with anyone to share the good news...

eve

As I grow up and my family becomes larger and more geographically dispersed, I realize how arbitrary holidays are. Their primary purpose to me and my family is to server as a starting point to the conversation which results in some sort of agreement about when, where, and how to get together. This getting together is the primary purpose of the event, not the underlying mythology or story or event that originally marks the day that starts the aforementioned conversation. I guess these things are useful because without these arbitrary traditions, people wouldn't do the same sort of things.

Seriously, how many people do you know would just agree that on some specific day they would give gifts to nearly everyone they know in some form or another? Mostly gifts of "thought" but for their closest friends and families it might add up to some very significant expense. Who would do that just out of the blue? Nobody. It has to start small. But it essentailly starts the same way. SOmeone has a story about a day and someone else says, "Hey, you know what? We should give our kids a cookie on that day. And a cokkie to our friends, etc. et.c" and so on and then advertisers get involved and soon you have Santa Claus and all sorts of ridiculous expectations like fur coats and iPods.

I like the getting together part. I'm sad to not be able to have the big get together live and in person with my extended family, but we are planning to have our own first xmas tomorrow (or second, really). It will hopefully bring some respite from the possible bad mojo looming over our heads.

Merry xmas, happy holidays everyone.

how far up the hill do you live?

the hill I'm referring to is the one that all the shit is constantly rolling down. As anyone firmly planted in the real world knows, this is not a nicely sloping hill either. It has some very steep drops and some very flat middle parts and I think at the foot is actually an above-ground swimming pool that is fed by the constant stream. At this point, I don't feel like I'm living at the bottom of the hill, but I do feel very much like I'm living in a bit of a valley or a wide pass where the shit tends to hit hard suddenly and circle around a bit until we manage to shovel it over the lip of the downward side. Right now I'm looking for my shovels.

train writer

I have had relatively good luck with
using my transit time for scribbling down
my ideas, pieces of dialog, even whole
sections of prose in my handcrafted
notebook while riding to or from work.
The hardest part is doing it when the
train is really crowded. On those
occasions I opt to read instead, or
watch a show if I have any queued up.