RE: Smiley's Foot

Smiley has a "questionable" fracture in his 2nd metatarsal. How can be questionable when they can name the bone? I'm not sure. Sees the specialist in 5 days. He doesn't whine, but crawls around the house instead of putting any weight on it all...my poor baby. I'm convinced it is not a questionable break at all and he needs a cast so he can walk instead of crawl!

And for those worried about my other baby, I'm not mad at him. I was mad for a minute by his less-then-sympathetic initial reaction, things are fine now. Shit happens.

Update 5:03pm: Smiley has three broken metatarsals (bones on the top of the foot). He now has a BRIGHT orange cast, and is much happier now that he can walk around (albeit slow).

- Lisa

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is posting FB messages in Arabic. Odd, and a wee disturbing, to see my 'wall' decorated by 3 posts in Arabic, w/ no English translation on hand.

Parent Teacher Conferences

Went right from work to YaYas parent-teacher conference. It went much better than I feared, w/ her teacher heaping praise and compliments on her. Still, she rightly pointed out that YaYa, if we can speak plainly here, rarely gives more than a half-ass effort in math and anything she finds 'boring'. Time to break her of that before it gets too ingrained (sp?) in her personality.

This week's Lost

Lost: Excellent episode, u can really feel the season picking up steam. So in alt. timeline Locke is happy; he has his woman, comes to grips w/ his paralysis, and is fufilled @ wrk - all by abandoning faith, making him a true opp. of his 'old' self. Will Jack be equally fulfilled by *embracing* faith in that timeline? Yin/Yang, etc?

God Bless Her

 God bless my mom. She took YaYa, LuLu, and Smiley swimming! Junie is resisting a nap pretty hard core, but hopefully she'll settle down and peace will occur. At least for a little while! Happy Thursday....later today, YaYa's conferences.... - Lisa

Facebook Feb 6th - 9th

Feb 6th: MacMillan books are now back on Amazon. Correct me if I'm wrong, but BN and Borders did little to push that publisher's titles during the drama. It seems to me like waste of a golden opportunity to profit at Amazon's expense.

* Cases of whisky left behind by explorer Ernest Shackleton were found in the Antarctic

* LuLu is cute as can be, asleep on the couch, Ginger is coloring at the dining room table, and I can hear YaYa singing along upstairs to the soundtrack of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat. Me? I'm sitting here with a smile on my face because it's the little moments that make the day worthwhile.

* Re: the Super Bowl. I have no dog in this fight, so I'm good with either team getting the W. NO's a better story, no question, but as a Favre basher I recognize that another ring for Manning - one more than Brett - gives him even more ammo in 'best of' discussions. So . . . slight nod towards Indy.

* (re: a tazering at Southridge Mall) Screw the crime and tasering. They lost me when they lost Cinnabon's.

Feb 7th: Worked all day, didn't even know the outcome of the SB until minutes ago. Congrats N.O.! Meanwhile, my Dad took Grace rollerskating. On the bus trip back a drunk woman got on, stumbled, fell, and then began vomitting blood. The bus was evac'd by police and they stood in the cold for an hour until a replacement bus arrived. I guess the woman was only 16 or 17, so just a girl. My Dad and Grace said a 'friend' of the girl literally pushed her aboard. She spoke no English, and within a mile was doing her Ebola impersonation.

Feb 8th: Tonight we watched the Black Eyed Peas concert from Malta. What a crowd!








Feb 9th: The poster above Grace's bed reads: "School prepares you for the real world . . . which also sucks"

Lisa's take on the poster: Is it wrong that when I saw a picture tacked above my daughter's bed that said "school prepares you for the real world....which also bites" I kinda was proud that she's got the gist of life down? LOL....I mean the resignation that things will be hard but you keep going anyway? Or should I be worried that at 8 she's alr...eady showing signs of my "glass is half empty" genetics? hmmmm....

* On our way out the door to go to Ginger's playgroup, snowstorm be damned. But I still can't believe MPS chose to stay open, not with 14 inches expected to fall.

* MPS cxl'd school halfway through the day for @ least the 2nd x this yr. WTH - either have the foresight to close in the AM or the courage to ride it out. Even tho' the girls attend Catholic school, I went & picked them up. I think we're housebound for the rest of Tuesday.

Valentines Pics

I Salute U

To the unknown person who donated the coffee maker to the Value Village, which I purchased 2day for $3: Sir/Madam, I salute u. No castoff this, no 'best fit for the rubbage heap but donate it 4 the write-off'. I can see the love u had for it, the care u took in maintaining it. Even on the shelf it shone like a glimpse into the Hereafter, so spotless my efforts to 'clean' it were superfluous @ best. Well done.

A 3rd Grade Photo from 1983

An old classmate posted this picture, dated June 7th 1983, on Facebook. I'd completely forgotten about this get-together in the intervening years.

I'm in the second row from the top, wearing a lovely red-white-and blue shirt with horizontal stripes. In those days I wore a newsboy hat, or a white leather cap that my Grandpa gave me, so the Brewers hat doesn't jibe with my memory. It's a shame I didn't recognize the value of my fantastic hair at that age. I would never have worn a hat and wasted the God-given gift.

The woman in the picture was Mrs. Kusch (sp?), my 3rd grade teacher, and at the end of the year she invited the entire class to her home. It was certainly a more innocent time, as I can't imagine a teacher risking the liability today. I don't remember much of the day. I have a flash of hurrying through her kitchen, and of actually posing for the picture, but that's about it.

Man, its 27 years later and I have a third grader of my own -yikes!

Proud Dad

[wipes tears of pride from my eyes] Smiley just brought me a copy of Dr. Who magazine and asked me to read it to him while he ate lunch. "umtimes I 'ared, umtimes I not" he said. The other day the family watched "Lazarus Experiment" (great underated ep.) and he was petrified but stuck it out, even as he said to me "I ave night'ares tonight, it your 'ault"