Live From San Diego

In which Earlgirl shares travel mishaps, toilet tragedies and more.
So I'm here in beautiful San Diego at an ACN convention with a room full of exceedingly fun gals. It was a rocky road of traveling to get here, believe me. We had to fly in a little turbo prop airplane over a mountain range. Patty and I were snug in our seats, vibrating away to the drone of the engines, pitching up and down with turbulence, when this cute mommy with a toddler on her lap leans across the aisle and asked if we had any airsickness bags. We gladly hand her ours, and watch with curiosity. Nothing appeared to me wrong until her daughter started to retch. Remember the movie 'Stand By Me'? The 'total and complete barfa-rama' scene? We lived it. The girl covered her poor mommy. She filled mommy's shoes. She splatted the seat in front of her. Then came the smell. "Focus on the window, smell your juice!" Patty admonished me. I did, and it worked, but I don't think I've recovered yet. It was a very close call.
Then today, I was at the convention with a fresh spiral bound notebook, ready to imbibe wisdom. I took a quick trip to the potty first, and balanced my notebook on the toilet paper dispenser. You guessed it. After I stood and before I flushed, in went my notebook. It was a pitiful sight, let me tell you. There was nothing for it but to grab it by its dry corner and bid it adieu. We had a fantastic conference, and an eternal night-time walk back to the hotel fraught with danger. I arrived back at the hotel anxious for a trip to the ladies room. I had exercised my considerable powers of retention all during the long, long, long walk. It was with great relief that I was able to unburden myself. As I sat there, contemplating life and the meaning thereof, a thought struck me. I was still wearing my jacket that ties around the waist. Instead of belting it in front, I had knotted the belt behind me to a maximize the slimming effect. Just as I suspected, the ends were floating in the toilet water. Ew.
It's not my day for toilet luckiness, is it?
Don't feel too sorry for me though, I'm not cooking, cleaning, or being blamed for items my children have lost. It's all good.

Another 'Mother of the Year Award' coming my way.

A few weeks ago, a really bad cold went through my family. Almost everyone fully recovered. Kelton was left with a sore throat and swollen glands. Some days it would be bad, others it would pretty much go away. He was still chipper and enjoying life, and I let him miss a day or two of school on the days it was painful in the morning. Liam had a pretty bad cough that gradually recovered to where he only coughed maybe once an hour. It was a deep and wet sounding cough, however infrequently I heard it.

I finally made and appointment to take Kelton in, and wouldn't you know it, he woke up feeling fine. No sore throat. His glands were still like marbles, so I figured "What the hay, it's a $30 copay. At least he'll get looked over."

No fever, no red throat, big glands: sinus infection. It must not have been a very serious one. Just as we were getting ready to leave, I mentioned Liam's cough. Can I tell you, I have the best pediatrician! He didn't hesitate, and reached for Liam with a serious face. He frowned when he listened to his lungs. Pneumonia. Yikes.



It was the 4th case he'd seen that day.

No fever either, happy, playing, just an occasional deep cough.



Pneumonia.



I was so glad that I followed that whim to just go in anyway!

So here's to my poor little Lee-bee.

True Story

On Valentine's Day, my husband was out of town. I decided to surprise him by writing a Facebook note on 25 things I love about him. I worked on it for the whole morning. I was on #23 when Liam came over and pushed a key, I have no idea what it was, and my note was gone. Poof! Gone. Irretrievable. It had been clever, tender, funny, and absolutely impossible to reproduce. Sad, huh? I have now decided to dedicate an entire post to telling one story that I think was #17. It's too good to be missed.

One of the things I love about my husband is that he's brave.

He's always thinking of contingencies- what to do if a car swerves in front of us in our lane, what to do if this or that bad thing happens.

One day he was driving to work and took a turn he'd never taken before. Just as he realized his mistake, he saw a pregnant woman hurrying across the busy street pulling a toddler along behind her. As he approached, he saw another car coming, and it was obvious to Lewis that the other driver couldn't see her because of the glare. Without thinking, he sped up and stopped his car between the woman and the other car. The driver screeched to a stop, barely missing Lewis' demo car and was furious with him for being in his way. He never saw the woman and child he almost hit.

Brave and heroic? That's just the beginning.

A few years ago Lewis was in school full-time and in order to see each other, we had to sneak late-night dates to fast food joints. It was a hot summer night when we decided to hit Carl's Jr. As we pulled up, I was jabbering away, trying to download a whole day's worth of thoughts in a short time. I didn't notice that a car had pulled up the wrong way, parallel to the entrance. Lewis noticed him though, he saw him pull up farther until the driver could see the counter and who was working. He told me later that the hair rose on his neck. He'd parked by this time, as had the suspicious car. He'd just decided that we should just bag it and go, because of the bad feeling he had about the situation, but I was already almost to the restaurant door. A short skinny Mexican kid got out of the car beside us. He was wearing a big, puffy satin coat, with one arm tucked in the front zipper concealing something. I noticed this, and thought it was odd, but what was odder was what my husband did. He held the door open for the guy, and looking down at him with a smile, clapped his hand on his shoulder, greeting him in a really friendly way. The guy looked way, way up at Lewis and smiled nervously. I assumed that Lewis must have known him from school. The kid walked up to the counter and just stared at the lone teenage girls working the late shift, all the time holding his hand inside his coat. None of the girls working seemed to recognize him. He never even glanced at the menu. My husband walked right up and stood behind him, right in his space. He looked from the girls, to Lewis, then back again. Before long, he walked out without a word.

All this time, I was oblivious. I was thinking about what flavor of milkshake I wanted. I didn't know that Lewis was calculating what he would do if the guy whipped out a gun. Depending on the caliber, he had it all planned out and was ready.

Now is he a handy guy to have around, or what?