Gustav May Get My Family

Let us all please take a moment to say a prayer or think positive thoughts, whatever it is that you do as this giant hurricane approaches. My family is in the path but more centrally located. Hopefully the trees and powerlines will stay up this time, and that there will be no tornadoes.

Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

Chicken photo

WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD?

BARACK OBAMA : The chicken crossed the road because it was time for a change! The chicken wanted change!

JOHN MC CAIN: My friends, that chicken crossed the road because he recognized the need to engage in cooperation and dialogue with all the chickens on the other side of the road.

HILLARY CLINTON : When I was First Lady, I personally helped that little chicken to cross the road. This experience makes me uniquely qualified to ensure "right from Day One! " that every chicken in this country gets the chance it deserves to cross the road. But then, this really isn't about me.

GEORGE W. BUSH : We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road, or not. The chicken is either against us, or for us. There is no middle ground here.

DICK CHENEY : Where's my gun?

COLIN POWELL : Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road.

BILL CLINTON : I did not cross the road with that chicken. What is your definition of chicken?

GORE : I invented the chicken.

JOHN KERRY : Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken's intentions. I am not for it now, and will remain against it.

AL SHARPTON : Why are all the chickens white? We need some black chickens.

DR. PHIL : The problem we have here is that this chicken won't realize that he must first deal with the problem on this side of the road before it goes after the problem on the other side of the road. What we need to do is help him realize how stupid he's acting by not taking on his current problems before adding new problems.

OPRAH: Well, I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross this road so bad. So instead of having the chicken learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I'm going to give this chicken a car so that he can just drive across the road and not live his life like the rest of the chickens.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN: We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road.

NANCY GRACE : That chicken crossed the road because he's guilty! You can see it in his eyes and the way he walks.

PAT BUCHANAN : To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.

MARTHA STEWART: No one called me to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the Farmer's Market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.

DR SEUSS : Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed I've not been told.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY : To die in the rain, alone.

GRANDPA: In my day we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.

BARBARA WALTERS : Isn't that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart warming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to accomplish its lifelong dream of crossing the road.

ARISTOTLE : It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.

JOHN LENNON: Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together, in peace.

BILL GATES : I have just released eChicken2008, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook. Internet Explorer is an integral part of eChicken2008. This new platform is much more stable and will never craâ?¦#@&&^(C%..........reboot.

ALBERT EINSTEIN : Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?

COLONEL SANDERS: Did I miss one?

The Hot Russian Nurse

Yesterday, I took little J to the doctor. His ear infection had returned. Again. This fact is neither here nor there in relation to the events that transpired.

There was a new nurse. She called us back to the room, and I could tell from her accent that she was from somewhere in the Russia neighborhood. Being very uneducated about which country is which, I wisely asked her where she was from without mentioning Russia.

"Ukraine", she said.

J proceeded to be his little dominant self opening cabinets and drawers, crawling into a cabinet shelf that was 8 inches by 12 inches, actually fitting inside and then getting stuck. If only I had my camera handy. Continually I gave the boy instructions and as usual he ignored me. Not even a stern "come here" could break him out of his wanton reverie of distruction. It went down something like this:

Me: Stop climbing into the cabinets.

Hot Nurse: "Oh you are naughty boy. You listen to no one."

Me: Come here J so we can put you on the scale.

I heave J onto the infant scales, and he promptly turns it off.

Hot Nurse: "You are such naughty boy. Naughty naughty boy."

"Oh your eyes, I have never seen such eyes like these."

J turns off the scale one more time just for fun.

Hot Nurse: "You come back to Ukriane with me, yes, naughty boy?"

J continues to ignore her and go about his business of destroying everything he can get his hands on.

Hot Nurse: "You tell me bye bye?"

J thinking: destruction destruction destruction.

[Hot nurse exit right.]

Now I don't know about you, but if he had been older it might have been really disturbing. As it was, it was so funny, I laughed all the way home. And when he's a angst ridden angry teenager, I'm in luck! I'll just send him to hot nurse in the Ukraine. Dang it! I should have gotten her number.

A Little Confused...

Little J can't decide whether he's Superman or Zorro.

The Dark Side

Grandma reminded me a few days ago that I never posted pictures from S's birthday. This was the highlight. He's idolized Darth Vadar since he first met him at Legoland.

Mountain Springs

You've seen this kid before. Maybe on youtube.

We got grandpa to smile jet-lagged and all.

Ben and Kim

Hide your eyes! It's me!

The area was ravaged by fire a few years ago.

It's a beautiful mountain spring where the water has bubbled up leaving a strange limestone marsh with pools. The plants are encrusted with the limestone deposits. It also has it's own endemic species of trout.

Grandma and Grandpa.

Burying beetle. Likes dung and dead animals. It's called Necrophora defodiens (probably.)

Way Back Wednesday

Ok, so a little explanation and a few disclaimers. Yes, it isn't quite Wednesday, but this post is for Wednesday, ok? The pictures are fuzzy. They are scans of photos. We didn't have a digital camera back in the day. These pictures are from our spring break trip to Thailand several years ago. I cannot wait to go back. Oneday. I decided to do a way back post after using this really nifty application in Facebook, called Travel Brain. It is so much fun! Unfortunately for me, Darren's travel score beats mine by over 200 points. What can I say, he's a regular globe trotter.

This is the amazing beach house that we stayed in when we were in Krabi.

Aka Hill Tribe Village

Aka Hill Tribe woman

Me right before I entered the communist and slightly frightening nation of Myanmar.

Darren and I in front of a temple in Chiang Mai (I think.)

Buddhist monk ringing bell

A good visit to the Orthopedic surgeon

We went to the orthopedic surgeon at the children's hospital yesterday for N's yearly visit. Since we didn't live here last year, this was our first visit to this doctor. I felt a little sheepish. I didn't have all of her records from Tucson, but I did have a letter from her geneticist, and an orthopod (that I didn't like) who saw her 10 months ago. Basically she's doing great. He seems to think that her muscle tone will improve, and her ligaments will tighten a bit also. Her knees are already less hypermobile than they were at the last visit. Her feet are exceedingly flat, but he says she has arch potential which means that they're not rigid. She could have surgery done as a teenager, but I think we'll have to cross that bridge when we get to it. She does have quite a bit of femoral torsion, which means a twist in the femur. But, it is usually benign and he expects that it will improve with time also. He mentioned that it rarely needs anything done, and I didn't exactly ask what would be done if it needed correction. I'm not sure that I want to know. So far through her orthopedically involved little life, we've managed to avoid surgeries of all kinds, and I'd like to keep it that way. We've moved from hip and leg braces, to just rigid plastic shoe inserts, to now no inserts needed at all!!! The doctor said that we could buy her any supportive insert over the counter. All in all it was a fabulous visit!

Grasshopper Series