Good help is so hard to get

Working from home has it's advantages:

- easy commute

- cheap labor from house elves

However, I found out why cheap house elf labor is not such a good thing. I had a teleconference yesterday and had the Peach elf refill my cup of coffee. She saunters back 20 minutes later with my coffee, (still hot - amazing those house elves). I take a sip and about spew it right back out. As I was still on a call I couldn't discuss the poisoned coffee trick. After the call I peeked my head out of the office and she perks up "Did you like your coffee!!!!"

That's when I realized maybe she wasn't trying to poison me and she continues "I couldn't get the milk so I used buttermilk. I hope that was ok."

Let the games begin!

Jordan Jovtchev former Olympic medalist and current Olympian will be competing for the individual medal for still rings, undoubtedly the most grueling of men's gymnastics events. He's 39 years old and competing because he's trying to revive gymnastics in his home country of Bulgaria. This is what the Olympics is about and why I love watching.

He's trained in his off-hours, 1/2 hr here and 1/2 hr there because he's President of Bulgaria's gymnastic federation as his day job. Obviously he loves the sport.

It's inpiring to see such dedication, such passion, and such single minded devotion. It reminds me that I'm capable of the same thing, but just maybe not on the rings.

Therapy for Papa

We have this little trick we play on Papa after the Peach comes down.. Papa grabs me a cup of coffee, Peach gives me a hug. Just before Papa turns to hand me my coffee I slightly pull down the Peach jammies to expose her lily white butt to Papa who generally looks away and covers his eyes, " Aw, I just got jabbed in the eye with that. Good grief! I'm going to need therapy!"

To which the Peach amused by it all responds laughing heartily, " That never gets old! Just never."

Goodness Reigns

This is one of the video's up for peoples choice awards on Goodness Reigns. It's Natural Family Planning explained.

Do you want a good relationship with your husband?
Do you want a strong bond with your husband?
Do you want to improve your marital communication?
Do you want to raise your level of intimacy?
You know the divorce rate. Does a 5% divorce rate among couples practicing natural family planning surprise you?

Why I should never own a pet.

16 years ago I got a bird and named her Domino, a goffins cockatoo.

She (I assumed she was a chick because of the bitchiness and light brown eyes) but we never actually had the bird sexed by a vet to tell us the sex.

She'd eat off of my plate and I used to get her, her own cup of tea because she wouldn't stop drinking the stuff even after it made her sick, glutton! I stopped feeding her because eating with her was just disgsuting. 

When she'd grouch at me or bite me I'd punish her:

- I'd spray her with a water bottle

- I was known to put her in the freezer for 30 seconds at a time - she didn't like that and I didn't like getting bitten so we both got what we didn't want

- I put her in the dark

Normal type stuff - ok the freezer was a bit mafia but I did make an impression with that one, although I don't recommend it as a punishment. It's been over 10 years that I put her in the freezer last - until a few weeks ago that is.

She used to love to torture the dog, Sabrina our golden retriever who died a couple years ago at the age of 16. My brother used to say (he had a purebred Rotweiller that he BABIED), 

- we would forget to feed Sabrina (cause we would), 

- we'd forget to water her (cause we would), 

- we never took her to the vet (cause we didn't), 

- we didn't give her heartworm meds (cuz we didn't)

and then we had the audacity to call her derogatory names (cause we did but it was cause we loved her), chunky pup, dope-idius maximus(seriously she would fart and then look at anyone else like "how dare you make such rude noises! I was sleeping.", nevermind the stench - she'd just get up and move, glaring at you for inconveniencing her nap with your foul stench.) This was kind of a big deal to him because like I said he babied his dog who he got a couple of years after Sabrina and his dog died 4 years before Sabrina. He found it ironic that his dog died before ours given how well he took care of his dog with his designer food, collar, etc and us who half the time didn't know where Sabrina was or if she had even eaten that day.

Well the bird never really cared for the dog but she would climb off of her perch and feed the dog her leftovers and then bite her nose or tongue- told you she was a bitch. Eventually she did stop biting her but it was kind of cute watching her feed dope-idius. Then the dog died and things got really quite - except the bird screeching. 

About a week ago we got back from our vacation out west. We've left the house before and she has like a 15 gallon water bottle (ok, not 15 gallons but this thing could hydrate a football team in the middle of summer). We freshened up her water bottle ( with the huge bottle we don't normally freshen it up daily but as we were leaving we thought it best to make sure she had lots of water). We were only going to be gone 6 days. Normally I have my best friend check on her when we leave on a trip but this time he was going on a trip 3 days after us and so we just skipped it this time.

So I propped her up near a window and left the blinds open for her and made sure the air was on so it wouldn't get too hot in the house while we were gone.

We came back on the 4th of July. The house was still standing so that's always a good sign. Then I did my typical call out to bitchimus maximus (her Roman name), "Domino did you die on us?" - my normal joking entry call. Only this time she didn't squawk back at me. So I called out again and Peach followed me out to her cage. We noticed she wasn't propped up on her perch trying to glare past the bars of her cage trying to see who's making noises. She was on the bottom of her cage, in the dead bird position. 

Peach lost it and I was, well, speechless. In the past few years once a year someone in our family has died. The dog, my brother, the bird - I guess I was thankful that it wasn't someone else from my family. Monkeyboy was shattered in the speechless, unemotional way only boys and men can manage. They feel so much but just don't know how to let it materialize.

After consoling them and sending them out of the room to clean up their faces, husband and I discussed the horror of the situation. You see, her 15 gallon water bottle was empty. She died of dehydration and with that realization, I was shattered because I'm not purposely cruel to animals. I can be negligent in an "oh, we'll get to that in a bit" sort of way but not cruel - ok there were the freezer incidents. Her water bottle apparently had a catastrophic fail. Either the top didn't get screwed on all the way or it developed a leak that we didn't detect.

 If we had not filled her water bottle anew, if I didn't have the air running so it wouldn't have evaporated the spilled water, if I had the neighbor peek in on her, if I'd have done any of these things she'd still be around to squawk at me but I didn't. That is why I will never own a pet again. 

Guess what this is?

You have to love radiologists and MR physicists. I ask them, "Where is the ladies room?". They point me down the hall. All I see is the door to a 4 Tesla magnet (pictured above) and an elevator. So I go wandering around until I do find a ladies room. Later as we were being escorted out we walked past the door again next to the elevator and it was then that they pointed out that this is in fact the water closet and not the MR closet. They decided to playfully relabel it.

Bingo!

Lots of them! Unfortunately we made a rule and taxis don't count. Dang it!

I'm not wearing any underwear

Whoops! Underwear or no, these are beautiful creatures!

Jimmy John's dollar sub day

You can get dollar subs from Jimmy John's today for customer appreciation day!

In Cleveland
In Detroit
In other places, check it out for yourself!

O where is my hairbrush!

Long hair is the bane for the mother of this peach. I've begged her to chop it short. I don't need a prissy little girl with long hair who knows more about fashion than I do but have one I do (sans the prissiness. God is merciful!). The whole time we were looking for the hairbrush we sang the hairbrush song because who isn't amused by that song?

It made searching for it so much more tolerable. Veggies of the world, Thank you!

Through the wormhole

Being an imaging scientist is rewarding particularly when I get to work with physicians, radiologists and patients. This is perhaps one of the more visually stimulating aspects of imaging science and so cool!

Parenting perks

This cartoon from the PoorMD reminded me that the Peach pit refuses to learn. She absolutely despises learning. It is amazing the lengths of torture she will endure to ensure she does not learn.

Granted when I was studying for my PhD as soon as classes were over, the process would begin whereby I would actively forget what I had just learned. We all do that to a certain extent. However our little Peach exerts heroic virtue in withstanding her assignments to the point of making them torturous. She can spend 5 torturous hours on one spelling assignment and at the end of 5 hrs, we are no closer to seeing completion in sight. 

The Premature Detonation

The 2012 San Diego Fireworks display which was suppose to last 15-20 minutes had a premature detonation. The fireworks, all of them, went off...at once and it lasted about 30 seconds, but it was a doozy!

Morning grabby

I thought husband was the only grabby and cranky one but this guy was distinctly not pleased with me. In the octopus' defense he had every right to be displeased with me. I think animals and babies have this instinctive knowledge of an inner dimension and they can spot idiots a mile away.

I have a horrible track record with plants and animals. I'm not vicious or purposefully mean to animals. I am characteristically negligent and that's not good. I used to wonder why God only granted us 2 kids. Now I'm beguiled and curious as to why on earth he ever gave me even 1. Somehow they managed to make it past infancy and I can guarantee you it was not though my tender loving devotion of serving their every need. Through some miracle, they have made it to the age where they are capable of feeding and clothing themselves. Plants and animals are not so lucky around me. For the benefit of plants and animals everywhere I will never to own a pet or plant of any variety, ever, ever, ever again. I will share that story perhaps this weekend if I can pluck up the courage.

Practical advice on attire

Dental floss should be reserved for dental floss. 'nuff said!

More parenting lessons from Atticus Finch

I was reading this horrendous book by someone who is moderately famous and I about puked. The only saving grace was that I didn't pay a thing to read that drivel.

What struck me about this father wasn't his selfishness. He outed himself as being selfish and questioned whether he could be a father knowing how wrapped up he is in himself. It wasn't the snobbery of his Gucci, Hermes coitture. It wasn't the dosh he doled out on therapy. It wasn't the Aspen vacations, his colorful language, his familiarity with the famous. It was the unhappiness his selfishness caused and his complete obliviousness to it.

He told a story of how he broke down crying when his daughter no longer needed him to swim. It was time for her to learn on her own and that just rocked his world in an unexpected way - unexpected for him at least.

I know parents cry at these kinds of moments and that's not a bad thing. However this story was the epitome of what was ailing this unhappy and anxious guy. His kids fulfill a need for him. His kids are an expression of who he is and in many ways he selfishly clings to the kids so they can fulfill his needs but I doubt he'd ever see it as being selfish. He was fulfilled in those moments with his kids and when that moment was over his world got shaken.

Granted if we don't appreciate the people in our lives here and now, we don't get another chance. However if we take a page from Atticus Finch we might learn to appreciate our kids as they grow and to rejoice when they do things on their own because as parents our fulfillment comes in doing our jobs. Our fulfillment comes in the "doing".

This weekend we bought a gift from Napa Valley for Monkeyboy and Peach Pit. I cried my little eyes out not because we dropped half a grand on bottles of wine but because we bought something special for them. We bought them each bottles of Reserved Wine for:

the one day if they are called to marriage
the one day if she is called to profess her vows
the one day if he is called to the ordained priesthood

One day so much like any previous day but it will be the one day where my role as mother will change, where his role as son, her role as daughter will change.  I cried happy tears because that will be a moment I hope that I will have done a good job in all those little moments because I don't get a do-over.