Saturday, March 24, 2012

Daffy Down Dilly


Spring has sprung.  This is very mundane account of our first day of spring break.  Feel free to skip reading it.

I am sick.

I haven't been really sick since I started this blog, so now you can officially know what a whiner I am.  Lost my voice at group lessons last night and today am achy and have a soar throat which would send me for a strep test except that I also have chest congestion. I memorized the questions the nurse will type into her computer and which ones will flag me as not needing antibiotics, so I'm going to spare myself the insurance claim and wait it out.  Woe is me.  I guess the jet lag and me didn't agree--losing a night's sleep on the red-eye flight home sent my once fully functional immune system south.  Bill took the kids for pizza and I'm having my own frozen chicken noodle soup.  Tra la la.

Today Bill and I ran into our neighbor outside.  We hadn't seen him in quite a while, but that is not totally unheard of since he travels.  Turns out he was deathly ill out east, in the hospital there for a month in an induced coma fighting sepsis brought on by strep A gone amuck.  That's the "man-eating-flesh" disease. He had gangrene on both hands and feet and was in full body shut down, but thank goodness he beat it.  His feet are still in danger but his hands looked good.  It all started with two cuts on his hands--which will send any germ fearing parent running for the neosporin.  So, neighbor, we are glad you are okay.  Again, we sing the hands song.

He can't work for awhile, so he's doing some spring cleanup, involving commercial construction dumpsters. We are talking about the 15 x8 foot kind.  He is on dumpster number four.  That must feel really good.  A good thing to do while one is not feeling well and has had a life altering illness.

I confess to having had this fantasy every spring.  Not about him. . . but, a commercial dumpster in my driveway, where I can sneak out and put all unloved, un-useful, and unnecessary household items.  By myself.

I was ready to start my own spring cleaning today, even without the dumpster, as it is the first day of our spring break, but alas the instructions say not to operate heavy machinery while on pseudoephedrine and caffeine, so I'll resign myself to sitting on the couch reading a novel (yes, a novel. . . don't laugh) and writing this blog.  I would rather be outside working, that is for sure. The garden waits.

Daffy down dilly has now come to town--pictured above, and I didn't even have the energy to push the dead leaves aside.  Spring is more than six weeks early here in Minnesota, and I can't be the only person waiting for the ax to drop.  Flowers are coming up and if I don't move the leaves they will smother but if I move the leaves it will surely freeze hard and snow.  The last possible freeze date for Minnesota is May 15 so we still have a long road ahead.  Ominous, sanctus, not freeze-ous hard-ous. . .

Bill took the training wheels off Mary's bike this morning.  It took her one try to get it going.  You may wonder why a strong athletic girl of seven years was still unable to ride a bike?  Sometimes these oversights just happen and Bill and I will have to live with the guilt.  She'll look back and say what a great childhood she had traveling and playing piano and doing gymnastics but her Daddy never took the time to take her training wheels off until she got her driver's license.  Drive safely little Mary, on the bike that is.

Sorry for the long blog.  I'll try to write less when I am feeling better. Tomorrow is a new day.




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