Author: Doris

School hasn’t even started and we are working on Halloween already. Vince has been asking for at least a month if he could be Pikachu for Halloween and I said, no problem! no problem! And then when I went to order the costume in late July, all the Pikachu costumes were already sold out. SOLD OUT! He was heartbroken, just heartbroken. It took a little while, but we managed a compromise. He’s still going to be Pikachu, we ordered a face mask from Asia off of Ebay (which isn’t here yet) and then we got some yellow clothes.

Edda and Jeremy have coordinating outfits this year. I think Edda’s getting a little bit old to be Blue – according to the age-appropriate meter, Edda should be veering off into Hannah Montana-land, but since I found Jeremy his “Steve” shirt, this opportunity could not be missed.

I generally don’t believe in any efficacy of prescribed medication (Jeremy thinks I am crazy). I used to do research in drug delivery systems and I didn’t believe in aspirin. I still don’t really believe that Tylenol works, I mean it does say fever reducer on the side of the bottle, but when I give it to the kids with their 103 degree fevers, nothing happens. It’s weird, is it all a hoax? I am just a terrible, terrible patient. I diagnose everything via Dr. Google and then I tell my office mates that I have black lung.

I stayed home from work today, I went to my doctor – sat in the waiting room for 30 minutes while patients who came in after me got called into the examination area while I sat in my chair wheezing and coughing. Then I got prescribed an antibiotic and an inhaler – the antibiotic itself was $46 for 7 pills. Then I looked up the antibiotic on wikipedia, apparently it’s presribed for severe or life threatening bacterial infections. I felt pretty crappy today, but I did not think I was on the verge of death when I walked into the doctors office. I crossed my mind to not take the antibiotic as a protest to how expensive it was and how I didn’t think I had a “severe or life threatening bacterial infection”. I’m such a terrible patient.

Jeremy made me some chicken soup.

I’m pretty sick, but don’t worry, I’ve been to the doctor who assures me that I do not have the swine flu. But still, I feel pretty bad. So I have nothing to say except that I wish I felt better. I ran through a course of antibiotics and I feel worse than when I started (ahh, modern medicine, how the hell are they going to find a cure for Rett Syndrome when they can’t even figure out my weird congestion? Sigh.)

Anyways, I spent a few minutes between coughing spells writing to Oprah:

I corralled Jeremy into teaching a Sunday School class about John Adams. He’s been reading Adams’s biography as well as the history of Unitarianism, so I figured he’d like to teach a class to the 2nd – junior high kids.

I didn’t realize that I had also signed up to volunteer in the nursery at the same time – so I needed to take Edda with me to my own volunteer activity. I usually don’t take Edda with me to church (or Jeremy for that matter), so this was all new to me. I was a little concerned that Edda would be fussy or unhappy and I would have to abandon my post in the nursery, leaving the other volunteer to deal with 8-10 toddlers – I don’t like abandoning my assigned post.

We buckled everyone up in our own little parade:

As it turned out, Edda had a fine time for half of the service (she was a little loud, but the 2-year-olds took it all in stride). For the other half of the service, she fell asleep on the floor.

Well, I’m trying to get back into shape, as I have both let my fitness and my weigh go a bit the past couple of months. Anyways, As a measure of my fitness, the other day I went and did a well known local climb Old La Honda. I did it in my worst time in probably 6-7 years – 32″27″ – meaning, I’m out of shape. This was a far cry from my personal record. I had tried to set a hard pace up but I couldn’t sustain it, so I blew up about 1/3 of the way up, and struggled to find a rhythm again all the way to the top.

Anyhow, flash forward to today. I decided to go out for a ride, and what the heck, I decided to go up Old La Honda once again today. 29’27”. Not bad. I didn’t blow up until maybe 2/3 the way up. but managed to hold on to come in under 30′. But then on the descent, I remember Steve posting something on my facebook status, mentioning that he was climbing King’s Mountain, and I just thought, why not climb it too? So yup. I went up King’s Mountain as well. 47’01” which is the worst time I have every gotten on the mtn, but I wasn’t trying very hard and I also probably bonked. (This also wasn’t close to my PR.)

Anyways, I do have a couple of bike morals for you:

1) Eat breakfast before you ride.
2) I probably should pack more than one GU packet if I’m going to do this ride again.
3) It’s fun descending 84 twice.

I liked the course. I’ll do it again in the future…

We are dog sitting for our cousins, Eric and Colleen who are spending the week at the Outer Banks. (Lucky ducks.) They adopted Joise the pug from a rescue group about 3 months ago. Josie has a gimpy leg which makes it hard for her to get up from a resting position which was not apparent 3 months ago when they brought her home. She doesn’t seem to be in intense pain, but she takes a pain pill everyday wrapped in a slice of American cheese.

Everytime I see Josie, I want to call her Pugsley (and sometimes I do call her Pugsley – shhhhh, don’t tell Eric or Colleen). Josie likes to sleep in a bed, so the first night, she slept in our bed. The 2nd night, she slept with Edda. Now she’s just asleep on the carpet next to me.

Last week, Vince came on a run with me. We made it about half a mile. Then we walked half a mile.

Rena and I have paid-home-trip each month. To get to Portland, OR from San Luis Obispo, CA by air, San Francisco Airport is the natural place for us to make connecting flights. Therefore, Donald and us take full-advantage of this situation by gathering at the SF airport, and having dinner together, chatting.

Yesterday, we did just that and had a lot of fun together. This year, fortunately, we see Donald more often than any other year after his high school years.

But, I can never figure out why sometimes the long layover in the airport costs much more. And sometimes, it costs less. On the high end, it is about $150 difference per ticket between 1 hour compared with 3-4 hour layover. I kind of figure it has to do with the outbound traffic patterns from San Francisco to Portland, OR. during evening hours at summer time. What is it? Really, I just don’t know.

Oh, when I was on the plane yesterday, a lady flight attendant came by and served us drinks. She asked us whether we would like to have some wine/liquid. I said “No Thanks”. The guy, sat next to me with the military uniform on and, evidently, just coming back from Iraq, lamented that he won’t spend $6 dollars for a drink. The flight attendant smiled at him and said “it is on us” and gave him two bottles of liquid. Several minutes later, she handed over another two. Just before landing, she gave him a gift bag. It had 10 bottles in it. He drank two right away and put all other bottles into his numerous pockets on his uniform.

I wonder how the flight attendant could expense it. She must have a way. This instance couldn’t stop me thinking about everyone’s bail out money out there and the proposed government sponsored public health care option. It is the Obama-nomics grinding its gears.

Another subject, when we woke up this morning, Mom went to our yard right away and found several gigantic squashes. She planted them several months ago. It grew to its gigantic sizes even without Mom around for almost two months. Has she a remote green thumbs? I think so. Too bad, I took several pictures with my phone but didn’t know how to download it into my computer. I will figure it out and show you next time. They are really big.

She also picked a lot of blackberries grown in the protected public natural drainage area along our backyard. They were big and delicious.

Well remember I mentioned that I was getting my own office? Well, it looks like I’m not moving anytime soon. The fiscal year is coming up at the end of September and the PTO is trying to make their budget this year, so office moves have been temporarily suspended. I heard it costs a couple hundred dollars to move someone, mostly for the IT work that needs to be done, but also they have someone move a few boxes for you too. I had even started cleaning the “new” office, dusting the furniture and wiping down walls. Sigh.

Just looking thru some photos of mine on my computer. I came across some funny photos of Vince playing with my Macbook’s camera. This is one we took with Johanna and Felix and of course, Vince.