Mom, Harry went to go potty. He went to pee, and after he peed he washed his hands. And then he went out of the bathroom and into the bedroom and put his dresses in the closet door and then he went to bed. He put his jammies on too and went to bed. And then Harry Potter was done sleeping and he got his clothes and he went into another bedroom. It was a small bedroom. And then he went into the bedroom with a printer. And he saw something shaking and it was a box so he used his magic and what was inside? It had coins inside. And then he went downstairs and looked at the computer and knew he wanted to print something. So he wrote "it is morning today" and then he went upstairs and chose file and then print and it printed without the file screen, just paper. Then he went downstairs and it was present day. And then Harry went outside, Harry Potter I mean, and he packed up to go somewhere. And he packed up himself, and Ron, and Harmony. And then they went somewhere. And then the big guy...
Earlier he had a whole recitation about Harry and Ron looking out windows and being best friends.
Haven't really looked at LJ since... November? Things got super busy and I had mild pneumonia for a while, then my FIL passed away, and by then I was out of the habit. I'm going to try to pick it back up, but there's no way to catch up on the net evening time, so let me know if I missed anything super-important. I'll post an Actual Update soonish.
Been swamped with a pair of end-of-season concerts, birthdays of all 4 members of the household (Wm's is still upcoming on Saturday, it's hard for him to have his last when he's the one who cares most), various travel (first all of us, currently just wrog), mom scheduled for spine surgery this week and my own unexplained ouchiness.
If it weren't for the "gah mom has to have surgery" (even though it's a repeat of the more minor of the two she's already had in a new location) and the "did I sprain my back? Seems not. Is it kidney stones? CT says nuh-uh" ongoing low-level pain, I'd say things were actually pretty excellent. Concerts went well. Wm is signed up for a few weeks of soccer camp (he is super-excited about this, who knew?). Pip is in his second week of ASD-kids day camp and is coming up on a couple of weeks of his summer school. When mom recovers from her surgery, she will be feeling much better than she has in a few months and we'll all be able to do some fun stuff later in the summer. I'm working on getting both boys some swim instruction - the local pool offers one-on-one instruction for special needs kids, and some preschool classes. Pip is going to start taking clarinet lessons soon in preparation for joining 5th grade band. I'm trying to schedule in some more spinning and knitting time for me, and looking forward to the summer sings the Chorale puts on as a chance to just sing for the fun of it.
By a somewhat circuitous route, I came across "Beading to Beat Autism." It's a cool story: 10 year old girl's brother gets an experimental treatment, it seems to help, the hospital wants to do a study on 20 more kids but need more money, she makes cheap bracelets to sell for donations and raises $300K to fund the study. Now she's set her sights on raising $300 million to "build the most comprehensive, autism research and treatment center in the world" (also an admirable goal), and "eradicate autism forever!"
And that right there is where I insert the record-scratching noise. You watch their YouTube videos, and she and her mom talk about helping people in their "battle against autism." They make it sound like autism is somehow analagous to cancer, or tuberculosis, or something. And... it just isn't. The only way I can think of to eradicate it forever is a lot more genetic research followed by extensive prenatal testing and selective abortions. No, thanks.
Apparently when the zithromax was out of my system (you take it for 5 days, it works for 5 more), I started feeling sick again. That was yesterday, where by lunchtime I had that odd not-quite-dizzy that happens when you're coming down with something, progressing to fever by early afternoon and sore throat by evening. So today's doctor visit started with me explaining the full strep time-line and ended with a different set of antibiotics, because the strep is still there. She took a swab to do a full culture with sensitivities to be sure this isn't a resistant strain of strep (does that freak y'all out as much as it does me? Yeah).
Poor Pip has an awful rash which was finally diagnosed as guttate psoriasis, which is associated with strep, so he's a week into a course of amoxicillin. If my strep ends up being resistant, we're going to have to get new meds for him, too.
Two meals of solid food in a row! I think I'm nearly back to normal, though there is one area of my right tonsil that will not. stop. bugging. me. Yesterday I had a brief bout of "shit, I'm getting a fever again" because my temp bounced over 100, but it seems to have been an aberration (I am still hanging out around 99.6, but I tend to run warmer than average in general).
Thank goodness none of the guys got it. Also, viscous lidocaine is very odd stuff.
I had to go back to urgent care this morning because the amoxicillin was taking down the fever, but not the tonsils, which were completely white and danged near touching my uvula. Got a shot, got new antibiotics, got steroids, got lidocaine to gargle with. Between all these things I hope to be able to maybe eat some food tomorrow? Smoothies, boost and popsicles are getting old.
But the icing on the cake is my period started last night and my lower lip has that "here comes a cold sore!" tingle.
Which adds up to: over the next few days I'll be taking nine pills a day *before* pain relievers.
ETA: Best quote from the doc: We really don't want you to have to fear your own saliva.
After the winter of half-a-dozen colds, I got to have the Spring Break of Gastric Distress (all I can say is thank goodness zoos and amusement parks have bathrooms EVERYWHERE). And now I have strep -- last night my fever shot up from 100 to 103 in two hours, whereupon I took 600 mg of advil and watched it continue to climb. After 2 hours of chills and a new high of 103.6 I took a gram of tylenol.I'd been unable to find any of the grownup tylenol, so I choked down 2 tablespoons of the kid version. That got things down to 103 again, but a call to my doctor's after-hours advice line said I should go to urgent care. kathrynt graciously came to drive me so the kids wouldn't have to come along after bedtime, and the super-quick strep results were in even before the doctor came to see me.
This morning I went to the appointment I'd made last night when things were around 100, because in the night my throat started hurting so bad that I have a full-body wince every time I swallow. So now I've got vicodin, too, which doesn't seem to be doing a whole lot for the pain. I also threw up while checking in at the doctor's office and lost my morning antibiotic dose. When I asked the pharmacist about it, he said that it wasn't a reaction to the meds because it had been half an hour since I'd taken them. But he demanded to know why I wasn't lying down in bed. So I guess it was standing in line in a warm office wearing my coat and little paper mask that caused it.
So that means this weekend I'm missing Kathryn's birthday dinner and taking my kid to the Spring Fair in Puyallup in favor of lying in bed trying to keep hydrated. This could all be done any time now.
Went to the Madrona Fiber Arts retreat. Won a door prize of a $25 gift certificate which I used to get some lovely cashgora/tussah silk fiber. Yum.
Took a class on preventing RSIs with Carson Demers, which was fun and informative, and learned that I mostly do pretty well in that regard. My current project is on needles which are slightly too slippery for the yarn, so my left index finger is working harder than it needs to. An easy fix, though I'm probably going to finish the project out on the current needles, at least to the point of a pattern change (though any gauge diff would probably block out anyhow).
Took two dye classes from Judith MacKenzie, and ended up with a bonus of two quarts of cochineal dye bath. Current plan is to spin up that door prize fiber ASAP and dye it in that. Told wrog that even though it looks like a pitcher of fruit punch in the fridge, he doesn't want to drink it. ;-) I now want to buy a huge jar of turmeric and make everything bright yellow, also go out and find lichen and stick it in a crockpot full of wool.
In my moment of preen, Judith told me "you're a beautiful spinner" in the top/roving/batts class. *swoon*
I also took a boucle class with Jacey Boggs and successfully made a classic mohair boucle for the first time. More swoonininess.
I got to sing! On the off-ramp en route to the hall I looked in my rear view mirror as we all had to stop and saw the car behind me getting uncomfortably close. I like to believe I held him off from rear-ending me through sheer force of projecting NO ACCIDENTS, I AM SINGING TONIGHT ;-) ... all of which was good, because the soprano section was down to 17 today. Thinking back to the years where a previous director would FREAK OUT if we had fewer than 30 sopranos on stage for Beethoven's 9th... how things have changed.
We did have a touch of 2010 getting in final digs when one of our altos (who is pregnant) passed out 3/4 of the way through the first movement. Which is a good time to do it, as we are sitting down. There was Much Very Quiet Bustling and once she came to she was off stage within moments and made a full recovery once she got to the fresh air backstage. I am so relieved everything turned out fine (if slightly embarrassing for her). The music went on undisturbed.
Ah, the joys of live performance! Also, the 4th horn player (who is either new to the orchestra this year or filling in for this concert series) was excellent.
sick