Author: Doris

I woke up pretty early – 8:12 to be exact. I was supposed to get up at 7:45, but somehow I missed my alarm. Go figure. Anyways, I went off to my very first Dragonboat practice. My friend, Steve, who I helped build up a bike, is one of the leaders on the team. There’s a beginner’s practice at 10:30, but he said, show up at 9am for the regular practice. And of course, today, they make us do like actual racing. Sigh. My lower back hurts. I’ll get him back on the bike. 😛

Funny quote of the Day, “Don keep that arm at a 130 degree angle. Pull out the protracter. I know you MIT guys keep it in your pocket”. Heh.

Practice was done at about 10:45. I headed home, napped for a bit, and when the weather cleared, me and Frank went out for a 40 minute bike ride. Man it’s nice to get out. I haven’t ridden in like 5 weeks. There was a terrible headwind on the way out, but it was super nice on the way back in. The air was so calm with the tailwind. It felt like you were floating. On the way back, we saw a super nice double rainbow. It had a deep deep purple stripe to it. We got home, and I went out to try to take a photo, but it was gone when I got out there.

It was about 3pm, and I was considering pulling the Holy Triumvirate and go rock climbing as well, but then I thought better of it and decided to nap. Laff.

We both slept well last night! We spent the day watching Blue’s Clues and basically vegging out – trying to preserve all our energy for the flight tomorrow.

I am a bit nervous about the flight, it’s 17 hours and Edda will want to walk around. She doesn’t really walk in a straight line, I think the aisle might be treacherous. I hope I don’t puke. I hope Edda sleeps for 12 hours so I get to watch some good movies (I stopped watching movies in 2002 – not exactly voluntarily, I only get to watch on airplanes.)

Good night! See you tomorrow!

Okay Choon. Here it is since you asked for.

Who am I looking for?

I think first off, she has to grab my attention somehow. I tend to place people I meet into a context – basically I try to figure out what kind of people they are and put them into a predefined box. To get my attention, she has to do something that tells me that she’s either aware of her box or that she’s trying to step outside that box. It’s as easy as sitting down in a coffee shop and really listening to someone or turning her head to check me out or going out on 60 dates in 4 months. Something to grab me and say, “Hey this girl isn’t a regular X. She listens or she’s bold or she’s committed.” It shows a certain amount of free thinking and awareness. To me, it’s a sign of why she could be special – how she separates herself from the crowd. I suppose it’s that “Wow” moment.

Of course, it probably a bit hard to tell what that thing is going to be. At least it’s hard for you guys trying to set me up. Ha! It has to be there tho, or she’s just a regular girl.

Hrm. What can be more helpful? Confidence is sexy. Having some sass would be good too. A solid group of really good friends. Somewhat Social. A good hostess. Fiscally responsible. 🙂 Ha. I don’t really care about the biking, or whatever. It’s all really just fluft in way. That stuff is generally negotiable.

And Marrieds, if you want to set me up, please please don’t fall into the trap of setting me up with someone just cause we’re both single. There’s got to be a real reason that you’re hooking us up. Generally I think a good rule of thumb is, if you don’t think she’s super cool/special/datable, chances are that I won’t either. Quality baby. Quality. 😛

Helpful? Questions?

Last night was torture. I’m hacking my lungs out, Edda can’t sleep because she’s running a high fever. I walk around like a zombie, sponging her down. Keeping her cool. Thankfully, we both sleep well from 12-6am.

Rukia, our housekeeper, walks into our apartment and takes one look at me and tells me I should see a doctor for myself. By this time, I can’t really breath lying down and I wheez terribly sitting up.

So I haul ourselves to the doctor at the mall (!) and get the whole nebulizer treatment. (Edda is laughing the whole time because she knows it’s not her going to the doctor. Thanks for the sympathy, girl.)

Thank God it works, I feel much better.

Needless to say, we missed Edda’s last day of school dance extravaganza. I am praying we make it out of here on Sunday.

Oh yes, I also dropped Ruby off at the dogsitter’s today. She ran up to him, happy to be with him. It’s weird cleaning food up in the house without the vacuum dog.

Woo hoo! The link just showed up to move over to beta.

Can we Can we Can we Can we Can we Can we Can we Can we Can we Can we Can we Can we Can we Can we Can we Can we Can we Can we ?

It was a great time climbing with everyone tonight. Arif, Pei-Sun, Xin and Shwe all came out to Planet Granite. Tahera was sadly at home sick. Arif managed to climb up a 5.10d. We tried a 5.11a without much success, tho it was an interesting one – No hand holds for the first 5-8 moves. We did a lot of bouldering, V0’s mostly. Shwe got the forearm burn that most people starting out get. Xin and Pei-Sun were doing pretty well also. They have a good power to weight ratio. 🙂

Funny moment of the night – Getting calloused man-hands might make Xin reconsider taking up rock climbing. Say it ain’t so!

Have you sold anything on ebay yet? Just curious.

Today I went to our favorite Children’s Hospital to get a prescription for a sedative for Edda for our 18 hour flight… She doesn’t sleep through the night at home yet and when she gets extra stimulated, then it gets impossible to coax her to sleep. Our geneticist prescribed chloral hydrate which was used for the last home leave trip and her EEG.

By the time we were finished with that appointment, her temperature skyrocketed to 40.4 so I just wheeled her down to the emergency room for a quick once over. I love, love, love this emergency room. I was in/out in about 90 minutes complete with drugs, observation and the whole thing was $40 US dollars. Crazy.

Anyhow, the doctor took a look at Edda and said that the infection was probably viral and that I would just have to treat the fever with Tylenol and Motrin. This is the weirdest thing about hospitals. In every book they tell you, fever over 40C, run, run, run to the hospital. I get to the hospital and after an hour of Tylenol and Motrin, Edda’s fever dropped to 39.5 and the doctor was sending me home for “fever management”. So I asked how he could tell it was viral vs bacterial. He said that he couldn’t really and that if it persists for a few days, then we would do further testing. I prodded him some more and asked if I could have some antibiotics. Man. He seemed reluctant and I know all about over prescribing of antibiotics, but hey, Edda’s sitting in the stroller all listless with a temp of 39.5, you bet I want to alleviate her suffering. So I behaved badly and got antibiotics for a viral infection.

I showered Edda down at the hospital to try an bring her temp down.

It’s so quiet around here without my boys – the Martin men who talk, talk, talk.

Oh, did anyone read the NY times article about parents using genetic screening to pick out offspring with genetic defects? Granted, dwarfism and deafness aren’t exactly extremely debilitating genetic defects, but still it’s weird. I’ve read blogs by parents who think their kid with genetic anomalies are perfect the way they are and that they wouldn’t change anything about their child, but damn, if I could find that guanine somewhere, you bet I shove it into every cell of Edda’s body.

Boo hoo, I’m sick too and I’m going to bed. Good night.

Yes. I’m a girl. I was reading a Salon.com article about some guy proposing to his wife. There’s an interesting link to another article about man-made diamonds. Lo and behold, there’s a link at the bottom where you can actaully buy synthetic diamonds. The coolest thing probably is that the diamonds are fairly cheap considering that they are colored. Pink. Yellow. Blue. Really rare diamond types. Now the next question tho, do they really look better than white diamonds? Hrm. Now when they can make a red fluorescing diamond, you’ll have my attention.

We slept fitfully last night. Edda and I are both sick. I can’t decide if mine are really allergies or not, but Edda has a fever – highest it was last night was 38.5. No school for Edda today.