What's in an Artery?

Tonight, Son #1 wanted help studying for his science quiz tomorrow.  The chapter in the textbook was about the circulatory system.  Heart, lungs, bloodstream, etc.  

We had two big laughs about the material.  First was that the fancy word for blood pressure cuff is somewhat of a tongue twister for him.  It took quite a few tries to say sphygmomanometer.  Most of the time it came out like sphygmoMOMeter (which I took as a supreme honor, of course!).  Then there were the dreaded hemogoblins.  Don't be caught out late, alone, around the oxygen rich blood that's coming from the lungs, because of the hemogoblins.  This is the stuff that nightmares are made of.  I was reminded of the movie (and the fantastic cartoon) Osmosis Jones.  People and creatures actually traveling around in the bloodstream.  Good fun.

I'm just teasing, of course.  He's a good student, and it was getting late, and we were both tired.   Yawn.  Nighty night.

One Hundred

Hey!  I just realized that Monday's post was my hundredth!   Wow.  If no one else is impressed, at least I am.   :-)

Where's the Cheese?

I think this feeling was magnified by the fact that I had a long list of errands to run last night, so I was unable to go at a leisurely pace, but whenever I venture into IKEA I seriously feel like a mouse in a maze.  I liked some blue pillar candles I saw on their website, for Son #1's bar mitzvah candle lighting, so I went over to the store to check them out.  I grant you, this is maybe the third time I've ever been there.

I climbed the stairs to the second level and asked a yellow-shirted employee where the most likely place in the store would be.  He recommended the kitchen department, which was about halfway through the second floor Habitrail.  They were doing construction in the store, which meant that dropcloths and temporary partitions had obscured the view of the signs that would normally have helped me to navigate the Habitrail.  Just my luck.  Anyway, the yellow-shirted fellow in Kitchens was quite surprised that his colleague sent me there, so I was then instructed to go to the first level in Home Decor.  This blessed young man gave me a shortcut to the end of the maze, where I found the flight of stairs to go down.  

After scurrying around the first floor Habitrail for a bit, I got a female yellow-shirt to give guidance for finding Home Decor.  After I cruised around and found many types of candles, but not the one I wanted, I found a fourth store employee and showed him the printout from the web site and asked him whether I could find this item in the store (that was a lot easier than trying to pronounce the Swedish looking item name).  He knew exactly where it was located, whew, tucked into the middle of a display of large pedestal candles.

After I did a rotation to the other side of the building (jolly good exercise, I must admit) I found some self checkout kiosks (yippee clap clap, let's hear it for technology).  $13.00 later, I was on my way.  And I applaud the veteran IKEA shoppers who zip around the store knowingly and make it look as though any idiot could do it.  I'm not sure I will ever attain that milestone.

Winning Games, Telling Tales

Good soccer weekend.  

My fifth grader's team played the other top team in the division on Saturday, last game of the season, for the first place slot.  The referee seemed to be very hard on their team, making questionable (and in some cases, ridiculous) calls, and ignoring infractions from the other side.  Things got ugly when a call against our team resulted in a penalty shot being taken, which in turn resulted in a goal.  In an exciting spurt of renewed energy and moxie, they tied the game.  So we go to the playoffs in two weeks to see what happens there.

On Sunday, my seventh grader's team was playing on home field against a squad with good talents on both offense and defense.  Lots of threats, but no one was scoring.  Our goalie was doing a superb job.  Almost midway into the second half, the other team caught a bad break.  A defender was called for a hand ball in the goalie box, which meant that we got to take a penalty shot.  My son, who normally plays mid field and sweeps back and forth to aid both offense and defense, got to take the kick.  Off to the right, and in the net.  This was his first goal of the season.  They went on to win the game 2 to 0, but our little hot shot was quick to tell everyone that he scored the game winning goal because the second goal was irrelevant.  (I'll bet the kid who scored it didn't feel that way!)  Interesting way to tell the tale.  I hope he doesn't have a future in politics because I really don't want to see any ex-boyfriends or college roommates interviewed on the news.  

Creatively Suggestive Spam

OK gang, I think I have to make some commentary now.  This has been accruing for months.  At work we contract with Postini to catch a very large percentage of junk emails (they advertise a success rate of well over 90%) but of course some still makes it through.  Other local filtering mechanisms, plus my own management of my Mac Mail's "Junk" folder, keep even more of the nonsense out of my Inbox.  Overall, I've no cause for major complaints.

However, I find that some of the "male enhancement" messages that do make it through are pretty amusing.  They provide some new euphemisms for me (although, admittedly, I don't get out much).  Some sample subject lines:

Make your zipper knight the best in the whole town.

Support your custard launcher.

Give squish mittens due attention.

Best oil for pork motor!

Launch your love spaceship.

This reminds me of the standup routine that Dom Irrera used to do in the late eighties, with his cutesy accent (samples available on YouTube) complaining about how so-called macho men would brag about their sexual pursuits.  "I have to go home now to hump my honey...to lay some pipe...to hide the salami...to bury the bone...to moisten the wick...to slam the ham...to stuff the donut, to shoot the sherbet, to yodel in the canyon, to smack little Johnny behind the ear!  I don't talk like that.   Do you?"

Bull's Eye

We finally had the archery party!  (See April 21 entry for background info.)

The archery place continues their streak of casualty free kid birthday parties.  Thirteen kids, plus a couple of younger siblings who got to try a little too, unofficially.  They had to sit on the bleachers and listen to about 20 minutes of military style instruction (including the booming authoritative voice that commanded obedience).  Then they got to get up and try the actual bows and arrows.  They had many rounds of shooting, and they lucked out because the pizza guy was late...so they actually got close to half an hour of extra time while we were waiting for the food to arrive.  True to rumor, we did get a Carvel cake with a bull's eye on it.  And the kids all got to keep the paper targets that they shot full of holes, plus a certificate for one free hour of shooting time in the future.

And no one played the role of William Tell!

Remember, Kids: Crime Doesn't Pay

Last week, Son #2 was Student of the Week in his fifth grade class.  This was the week prior to his birthday, and he was a celebrity.  He got to bring in various show and tell items from home, and on that Wednesday he got to bring in a special person who does something really cool for a living and who doesn't mind talking about it in front of the class.

Luckily, we do have a friend with a really cool job.  She is a federal law enforcement agent.  She agreed to come in to the classroom and make a presentation, but she confided that she found it more intimidating than going to court to testify.  LOL, so Mom went with her and took some pictures.

The kids liked seeing our friend's bullet proof vest (which my son got to carry around the room as executive assistant).  They had dozens of questions about stakeouts and shooting and evidence and even wardrobe.  No, female agents in real life do NOT wear skirts and heels like they do on TV -- can't chase after criminals dressed that way especially if it involves hopping a fence!  But the best demo was "how to handcuff a perp" -- again, my son, with my happily given permission.  I was surprised that the kids didn't ask to see their teacher in cuffs, but she's really terrific so maybe that didn't occur to them.  

In spite of being in handcuffs, Birthday Boy had the time of his life being in the spotlight...broad grin, chest puffed out with pride.  What a lovely prelude to Mother's Day for me!  Check out the photos.

Dangerous Game

I'm not sure whether this has anything to do with the fact that hubby and I recently took the Defensive Driving course.  I am getting increasingly alarmed at the thought that a lot of drivers seem to think they are playing a video game and not actually piloting a vehicle that weighs thousands of pounds and can easily cause death and devastation on Earth.

I spend about half an hour on highways each time I commute to or from work, and quite a bit of time on secondary roads and side roads in the course of chauffering children around town, running errands, etc.  If I do nothing else but work, I put 500 miles on the mini van each week.  So I feel qualified to comment on what the Long Island drivers seem to be doing out there.

Here are some observations that cause me to want to cover my eyes and scream (which I do not do while driving, of course):

1.  People don't seem to come to a full stop often when making a right on red, but often do turn right on red when there is a short gap in oncoming traffic that is just large enough to fit their car.  Worse still, I've seen many people cause drivers to screech to a stop, or slow down rapidly, because they've made a right turn from a side street onto a major road when it was clearly not legal or safe to do so.

2.  People seem to delight in being the last car to make a left turn after the green arrow has been extinguished and before straight-going traffic has reached the middle of the intersection.  People who are waiting for the green light so they can move forward are anxious to hit the accelerator the nanosecond they see the red light disappear.  Little sports cars and huge eight cylinder trucks are going to be through there lickety split.  It's not like the late left turners can say "Whoops, I got crushed so I'll hit Restart."

3.  Are stop signs in residential areas optional if the driver doesn't think anyone else is coming?  What, not much risk of getting creamed so we aim to shave a few seconds off our best time?

4.  I wish I could see the thought bubbles working in this situation.  The other driver may be imagining, "I know I got to the all-way stop after you did, but I'm probably in more of a hurry than you are and I'm definitely more important than you."  Sigh.  Not too much fun to explain to the kids why the other driver went first, and what to do about it.  And what NOT to do about it.

5.  Way too many drivers still do not use turn signals when changing lanes on highways.  When I see a car drifting over the lane boundary, I can never tell whether the driver intends to come into my lane, or whether the driver is sleepy or drugged or distracted or nervous or hasn't seen that there is another car alongside.  If the turn signal is not used, and I can't get away from this driver, I keep watching for a repeat performance of the drifting.  It's nerve wracking, I tell ya.

6.  More regarding lane changes:  this reminds me most of video games.  If there is a space in between two vehicles in the next lane that is slightly larger than the vehicle I am driving, I would never think of quickly zipping in there.  But many drivers do just that.  They zip in and out as though they are avoiding hurdles on a computer or TV screen, or if all of a sudden they realize they must drive over a particular spot to pick up 500 bonus points.  Yikes.  I have also wondered whether some drivers believe that there is a force field around their vehicle, sort of like virtual bumper cars, that prevents another vehicle from entering their space no matter what kind of crazy maneuver they make.  

7.  I have seen countless drivers on the Long Island Expressway and on the Sunrise Highway who zip in front of a tractor trailer in order to escape from the dreadfully slow traffic in their lane, only to discover that there's someone in the way and that they must immediately slam on the brakes.  I give these truck drivers a lot of credit for their alertness and skill because, by rights, they ought to routinely be mowing down these people.  I guess they take it in stride because it must happen dozens of times in just one long distance run, but my heart is in my mouth every time I see it.  Particularly if I'm in one of the adjoining lanes and could catch residual effects of the crash.

That's probably enough for now.  Is it helping me to verbalize some of my greatest daily fears?  I don't know; I'll have to see when I get on the road later...

Caught the Worm...Whew!

Last summer, we had switched to a new pediatrician's office.  We'd been having trouble getting timely appointments because, even though our old doctor had great hours, his partner had flown the coop and he was stretched too thin.  Our new office had six doctors, yippee!  Well...when I called in July to ask for appointments for the kids' physicals, I was politely told that there were slim pickings for late August into early September.  We managed to get them all seen by the end of September, just under "school nurse radar."  

So I, the princess of anally retentive planning, asked when I should call for the following year's appointments.  I was told that they begin booking up quickly in May.  (!)  As soon as I bought the 2009 wall calendar, I wrote a little note on the May page.  Dutifully, I called this morning and was told that, yes, they have indeed begun the process.  With no fuss, I was given appointments for all three kids for the week after summer camp is over.  A sigh of relief has been expelled.

Not only am I incredibly unlucky if I wait until the last minute, having procrastinated, but these kinds of things give me heartburn and keep me up at night.  One down, however many more to go...   :-)