My mom's visit was going really well until the 22nd. That day she skipped lunch and ate chocolates instead. Also, she didn't take her nicotine patch. The straw that broke the camel's back was the continuous screeching and battling of her grandchildren. Anyway, she felt like Jill was at fault for the poor behavior of her grandchildren. Jill and I felt differently and Nancy had to take a trip to Brooklyn on e day earlier than planned.

My cousin Michael sent us a game, Cariboo, that I played with May and Jill's dad, Sandy. The game evoked high drama at our house. After matching her drawn card to the appropriate tile, May would press the 'magic key' and open the game board looking for a 'treasure ball.' This worked well the first couple of times, but, in later rounds, after she matched her card to the tile, the tension was too much for her and she would screech and cover her eyes until I unlocked her tile with the 'magic key.' At one point, Sandy went through a dry spell in which he recovered no 'treasure balls' and he pretended to be sad. May was very sympathetic and offered to share with him her next 'treasure ball.'

After we finished playing and before I put her to sleep, May told me, "I really like to win games."

Jill got May and Ben picture albums for Christmas. May hasn't looked at her album very often, but El Destructo ripped right into his. He tore it immediately and we took it away from him.

Jill feels guilty about my mom's early departure. I feel a little bad, and I hope mom doesn't feel that bad about it.

I had a very "east coast" moment at the bagel shop the other day. I was buying some bagels and had everything picked out. The clerk was standing at the register and I had my money in one hand and my son in the other. All of a sudden, a pushy east-coast-woman steps in between me and my intended financial transaction and begins ordering her bagels from a different clerk.

I could not believe the nerve of this woman. She's got the whole store in which she can order bagels, so why does she have to order in such a way that it interferes with my business? Politely, I said, "Pardon me." And she kept ordering.

A little louder now, "PARDON ME!" Still this east-coast woman ignored me.

Finally, I have become one with the east coast, "PARDON ME!!!!!" The lady gets the hint. I think if I had never lived out East I would have let her cut in line. Still, the nerve of this lady. I'm holding my enormous fat baby and can barely hang on. All I want to do is get my bagels and get out of there. Where does she get off standing in front of the register right before I pay.


My cousin Micahel also sent me 'The Diving Bell and The Butterfly,' and I enjoyed it terrifically. A few of the neurologists who lectured to us last year mentioned it, but it wasn't at the library (vast as the holdings of the Collingswood, NJ library might be) so I didn't read it over the summer. Anyway, I really enjoyed it. The writing was economical and poetic.

Right now, I'm almost done with 'White Teeth' By Zadie Smith.

I Am A: Neutral Good Human Fighter/Wizard (3rd/2nd Level)


Ability Scores:

Strength-14

Dexterity-9

Constitution-17

Intelligence-17

Wisdom-17

Charisma-13


Alignment:
Neutral Good A neutral good character does the best that a good person can do. He is devoted to helping others. He works with kings and magistrates but does not feel beholden to them. Neutral good is the best alignment you can be because it means doing what is good without bias for or against order. However, neutral good can be a dangerous alignment because because it advances mediocrity by limiting the actions of the truly capable.


Race:
Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.


Primary Class:
Fighters can be many things, from soldiers to criminal enforcers. Some see adventure as a way to get rich, while others use their skills to protect the innocent. Fighters have the best all-around fighting capabilities of the PC classes, and they are trained to use all standard weapons and armor. A fighter's rigorous martial training grants him many bonus feats as he progresses, and high-level fighters have access to special melee maneuvers and exotic weapons not available to any other character.


Secondary Class:
Wizards are arcane spellcasters who depend on intensive study to create their magic. To wizards, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art. When they are prepared for battle, wizards can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. The wizard's strength is her spells, everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. A wizard can call a familiar- a small, magical, animal companion that serves her. With a high Intelligence, wizards are capable of casting very high levels of spells.


Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)

Christmas season is upon us. My mom is visiting and we are relaxing, as much as we can relax anyway. For regular readers, I apologize for not having kept up. I'm entering a busier-than-usual stretch in my education and induction into the American medical-industrial-complex. I'll do my best to blow off steam and let you know about the minor tragedies and major dramas of my family, but I beg your patience.

My mom is visiting us for the next few days and, when she visits, she likes to cook a lot of really good food. Unfortunately, our kitchen is deceptively small and there is really not room enough for more than one person to work in the kitchen at a time. Mom's food is great, but she seems to be out-of-sync with our normal circadian rhythms. For example, an eighteen pound turkey is sitting in the stove behind me as I type. It is fully cooked and ready to eat with cranberry sauce, stuffing (more on the stuffing later), sweet potatoes, and gravy, yet everyone is sleeping except for me. Then, when people are hungry and meals need to be prepared, Mom is working on her next masterpiece, which should be ready at 10:30 AM or so. Nevertheless, we are getting along well and I am on my best behavior, or at least I am trying to be good.

An important item in mom's stuffing and gravy are turkey or chicken giblets
which Jill loathes. After lunch today, Ben climbed up on the step stool to 'help' me with the dishes. He spotted a bowl of gizzards and turkey necks beside the sink. What could be a better treat? He grabbed a mealy, gamey turkey gizzard and began to eat it. He then ran upstairs where his mom caught sight of him. She came downstairs and we had a little fight about it.

Jill said, "Did you do that on purpose?"

I replied, "No, I did not."

Mom defended the gizzard eating, "Everyone in the Barasches and McCannons eats these, there's nothing wrong with it. Everyone does it. I don't know anyone who doesn't eat the gizzards."

Jill said, "You know me! I don't eat that!" She was angry. Then she fell asleep, too sick for lunch. She has a passing stomach illness that is greatly exaggerated by the sight of her offspring eating poultry innards.

I just finished reading a book for fun, though it has a passing connection to Neurology (my professors kept talking about it last year in neuroscience), called The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. It's about a guy who has a hemorrhage in his brain stem and can thereafter only communicate by blinking. Before his accident, the author was the editor-in-chief of a parisian fashion magazine, so the text is very poetic. It's not as depressing as you might think.


May has beens struggling with potty problems since our Thanksgiving venture to NYC.

May is a lucky girl; she had three birthday parties this year.

Our birthday party was the most wild of the three and had some of the kids from the nieghborhood. Jill had the party planned very well. It was a dog themed party. We began by opening the door and letting the wild children into the house. Then the wild children circulated within the living room and dining room to different 'dog care' stations, including the following: dog beauty salon, dog doctor, pup tent, and canine cafe. Then the kids had a craft activity in which they decorated their 'dog houses' (little cardboard boxes that Jill had gotten to contain little take-home-party-favor doggies). Almost immediately as the kids were starting to get rambunctious after the dog-house decorating, the pizza arrived. We ate and then, like clockwork, opened presents. Finally, we ate brownies and ice cream. It was terrific except that I had the worst laryngitis I've had since I was in college and also no one cried at the end (hardly a good kids party if no one cries at the end). I enjoyed the party, but some of the guests were creeped out by my scratchier-than-usual voice.

Then, on the actual day of May's birthday, she had two parties. The first party was at my sister's house where she received elaborate gifts of jewelry from my sister and camoflage army fatigues from my mom. When Sarah brought the cupcakes out of the back room with the candles lit, May screamed over and over again, "I can't believe it! I can't believe it!" May got a chocolate cupcake (her favorite) everyone else got carrot cake cupcakes (my favorite). Ben wasn't too happy with his carrot cake cupcake and kept pointing and screaming at his sister's cupcake. Ah well, each person's birthday comes but once a year.

That evening we went to my Aunt's apartment where we ate large amounts of excellent food from the extended thanksgiving feast (i.e. leftovers). I like to judge a thanksgiving holiday based upon the quality and quantity of leftovers and this year's holiday was very good. In fact, I ate a turkey sandwich for lunch today and may be fortunate enough to have one again tomorrow.

Finally, it came time for us to leave NY. As I was schlepping out bags down to the car, Benjamin came up to my knees and looked up at me. He asked, "Hep ooo?" Ben is very interested in helping grownups do things. He likes to sweep and take out the garbage. He is most interested in helping in real ways. He really wants to haul a bag of trash to the curb. His sweeping is not super helpful, though it is enthusiastic. He also really, really likes to help unload the dishwasher. He was quite disappointed that I wouldn't let him help me haul the bags to the car and went and cried and told on me to his mom.

I have a really bad cold. It struck Saturday after my exam. There's so much preparation that goes into an exam that I run myself ragged. I felt the cold coming on, and instead of resting a lot and fighting it off, I stayed up late studying for many nights in a row. Finally, my system succumbed to the virus. Yesterday I sounded even more like Krusty the Klown than usual and today my voice is totally gone.

Yesterday May went to a birthday party at Chucky Cheese. While Jill and May were at the party, Ben and I went to the airport to get my dad, who flew East for the holiday. When we picked up Jill and May at the Chucky Cheese, I asked may how she liked it. She said, "I LOVED it!" I asked her, "What did you love about Chucky Cheese?" and she replied, "It was really meaningful." Undaunted, I forged ahead. "What was meaningful about it, May?"

"The lights and everything."

Jill described it best when she said the robot rat was low tech in the seventies. Chucky Cheese, for those who have not experienced it or went there too long ago for the underwhelming experience to be present in active memory, is a robot rat that shakes its head a little while some music plays. Then a costumed rat-man comes out and dances with some of the staff. Also, there were rides and games that May was too small and poorly coordinated to play. She rode a few rides meant for kids that are much younger and tried to climb into the skeeball game. She traded her tickets (that Jill won for her at the Chucky Cheese games) for a tootsie roll.

My dad is here visiting and the kids are loving it. Ben got really wild with him last night after we got back from picking up Jill and May. He screeched and leaped down on top of him from the back of the couch. He smacked grandpa and cackled. Then he hit him across the face and knocked his glasses off and across the room. I quickly got grandpa's glasses and put them on top of the TV where no one would step on them.

Today, May had a birthday party, but I will write about that in a separate blog entry.

Last night, at 9:30, I went for a run. I ran down by the river. I wore two t-shirts and some sweat pants. It was a little chilly and my hands were cold. I listened to a lecture on 'opportunistic fungal infections' - pretty bad stuff. I had a great run. I ran faster than I ever have before, and on the way back I was running without thinking about it at all and feeling great. It was like I was floating above the ground or having an out-of-body experience.

I have an exam on Friday and am very tired.

Tonight I came up with a new name for my daughter, The Great Negotiator. She's watching a Winnie The Pooh singing video while I type.

El Destructo has been climbing a lot lately. He pushes a chair over to the kitchen counter and is threatening to climb on top of it.

In regards to feelings of guilt regarding the woman with seizure below....

My friend Ibert told me that on the north side of Philly, if someone has a seizure, that person is usually robbed. So, I don't feel as guilty for not helping. I didn't help, but I didn't take her wallet either.

I felt guilty for being a bad medical student today. As I was walking to an appointment about using the new train ticket system for my commuter train, I passed a woman and her boyfriend/husband on the corner. She was sitting on the ground and shaking all over. Her eyes were closed and foamy saliva was coming out of her mouth. Her bf/husband was on his phone calling 911. He asked me and a few other pedestrians what streets were intersecting here. A young woman told him, and then offered to cross the street and get help from the Jefferson emergency department. I assume that he took her up on the offer because when I finished my train ticket orientation, I returned to the same spot and the seizing woman and her husband were gone.

So, I feel guilty about this. A good medstudent and a compassionate person would have helped this patient across the street into the ED. I did think twice about the whole situation, but figured that the woman who crossed the street would get the couple all the help that they would need. When I turned around and thought twice about the whole situation, she had fallen on her back. I *did* after all have my relatively inconsequential class on how to get a new kind of train ticket. How many strangers need to interfere in this couple's health care? Anyway, I feel guilty, again...

I went to see my career advisor today and talked with him about doing a pathology honors project. He seemed excited about it and told me that it would go in my Dean's letter, as long as I remember to remind him that I had done a pathology honors project.

Right before I went in to see my advisor from the dean's office, J called me and told me that B leapt/fell off his chair and landed on his face. She told me that he was really groggy and lethargic. Right away, we were both worried about the possibility of a concussion. Jill and I played phone tag until I went in to meet my advisor.

Despite the fact that I knew Jill was racing to the ER with both of our screaming brats in hand, I was able, with a straight face, to tell my adivsor that everything was going well at home. I guess compared to our troubles last fall, a few trips to the ER are no big deal.

Again, I feel guilty....

Ben has been really interested in books lately. I've been putting him to bed more often and I always make him read three board books before he goes to bed. I think mostly he is just interested in carrying the books around to get attention, so that we say, 'look! Ben has a book!' When we try to read the books he's carrying around he usually tries to run away or throw the book. He only lets us read the book when he's in his jammies and is too tired to run away.

Ben was doing some climbing on a bookshelf a few days ago. He fell and got a cut on his eye. It looks like he was in a fight with Apollo Creed.

I had a rough morning with May today. She dragged our comforter into her bedroom (no problem yet) and hit her brother (or did something else to make him cry) when Ben wanted to play with the comforter too. The situation deteriorated quickly. May came downstairs with me to try to get something to eat but spent the whole time crying and yelling at me instead of eating. Finally, I am ashamed to say it, I put her outside with no shoes or coat on. She cried in the backyard for forty-five to sixty seconds while I regretted doing this and knew that I was being a ridiculously bad parent.

After letting her back in, I told her that she had to eat her cranberry bread. She didn't want to eat it, but I told her she was going to eat it or go back into the backyard. She ate the cranberry bread, which Jill and I made last night and is absolutely delicious by the by. Finally, May ate some of my breakfast and after she settled down and ate was much more easy to deal with.

I will regret my ridiculously bad behavior for the rest of my life. Jill, if you read this, I'm sorry and I'm trying to be a better dad.

On a better note...

Last weekend we went to a great Thai/Malay restaurant with my friends from School, Alithea and Curtis. Both of them are super cool and are the kind of people I always want to be when I grow up. They're worldly, educated, well traveled, interested in art, etc., etc. They're about ten years younger than my wife and I, so we didn't talk about our kids at all while we were out with them. Taking a break from thinking, talking, and worrying about the kids was refreshing and allowed us to briefly consider ourselves as a couple and as individuals. After dinner we went to the gourmet gelatto dessert house, Capogiro, that Jill and I went to last year for our anniversary. The gelatto there is expensive, but unforgettable.

Going out to eat with Alithea and Curtis was the best couples activity we've done in months. It made us feel younger, smarter, and hip (but not in an uber-hipster way).

I had a nice day today. I attended lecture and felt like I knew what was going on, which happens to me occaisionally, and I had a few nice conversations. I had a nice conversation with Perry, the new guy who lives down the street. His wife works in Princeton and he takes care of his daughters (3 and 1 y.o.) all weekend while his wife drives their car to princeton. He's a nice guy, has traveled widely, and seems to have similar values. We talked about running and exercise and local bike paths.

Also, on the train was a strange east-coast-type lady. She was at least middle age, very thin, and wore a black above-the-knee skirt and a black suit-coat. She had black Keaunu-Reeves-in-the-Matrix style wrap around sunglasses. She had some sort of heavy metal/disco music blasting out of her Ipod. The Ipod was so loud that it almost disturbed my conversation with Perry. I kept thinking, "Why is this middle aged woman dressed so strangely and rocking out to her strange music at 8:30 in the morning? Why is she wearing sunglasses on the subway?"

Later in the day, I had a cup of coffee with my friend Kelley. He used to be a fireman before coming to medical school, and for some reason, he has some rental property in Honduras. Last year, Kelley asked for my advice on some thorny relationship issues, which I gave to the best of my ability. Again, we talked about his relationship issues. My advice for this year, "Troll the internet for women."

Tonight I went to a convenience store chain that is local to the Philly area, WaWa, and got Jill and myself 'Italian Hoagies' for dinner. These are submarine sandwiches with Italian style lunch meats. I added LTO, oregano, vinegar, and oil to our subs. WaWa has a computer ordering system, so you never need to talk to the person making the sandwich. You only need to punch in your order and run your card through the machine.

Both kids came with me to Wawa and were very well behaved. Jill made them chicken nuggets, fresh from the freezer, for dinner.

Today was Halloween. May was a dog, and Ben was a frog. Jill took the kids to downtown Collingswood for trick-or-treating which was too busy and crowded. I took the kids down the block for trick-or-treating.

May and I had a fight about who would carry the pumpkin bucket that we filled with candy. May wanted to carry it, so that she could stop, unwrap some candy, and then eat it. This really slowed us down, particularly because May is not good at unwrapping candy. We had a fight, and I won. She said, "Dad, you're a monster!" Naturally, after dinner we gorged on chocolates and we got along a lot better after that.

We ate so much candy that I was too sick to do yoga.

I've very tired today. Ben had another eye surgery earlier in the week and between that and Halloween, I've had to stay up late to keep up on things. Right now, as I type, I'm reviewing the recording of a lecture I missed, reviewing some notes I made on this, and blogging.

The lecture I'm reviewing is talking about the cryptosporidium outbreak in Milwaukee back in '93.

On Saturday, Jill and the kids went to the apple farm while I stayed at home and studied. The got some delicious apples, and some pumpkins, and some other things - particularly apple cider donuts. May got to eat an apple cider donut for breakfast yesterday. I talked with her yesterday morning about it.

"What did you have for breakfast today, May?"

"Oatmeal squares," she said. She likes this kind of cereal.

I said, "Did you have anything else?"

Her eyes light up, "Apple-Cider-Donut!"

"And how was that?" I asked.

"It was awesome!" she replied with absolutely no self consciousness.

Today at dinner, Benjamin was pretty wild and pretty hungry. When he saw me cooking the chicken, he would point at the pan and scream. Usually we figure out what he wants and give it to him, but he had to wait. Jill was able to get him to watch a little bit of Elmo, but Ben is not yet "good" at watching TV. In other words, TV doesn't grab hold of his mind and crush his desire to do things, as it does with so many of the rest of us. Watching TV with Ben is highly interactive and to keep him interested you have to give a constant play by play of what Elmo is doing in the show.

We sat down for dinner and Ben immediately grabbed all the chicken on his plate, crammed it in his mouth, and swallowed. Then he began to bang his plate on the table until more meat was put on his plate and he could cram it down his gullet. He also ate a few noodles.

Earlier today, Ben and Jill walked by the neighbor's house and Ben said (or so I am told) the neighbor girl's name clear as a bell, "Parsley." (That's not her real name, but I'm trying to be more sensitive about protecting other people's identity in my blog.)

Dr. Buesher, the professor who runs our bacteriology lab, had a bad day in the lab today. A lot of people kept screwing up the simple diagnostic tests we had to run to determine the various strains of bacteria we were assigned. He kept swearing up and down that we all had the same samples, then he would catch people doing the tests wrong and explain, patiently and professionally, how to do the tests correctly. We got out of the lab on time, but just barely. I think Dr. Buescher likes to see us all get out of lab early.

I have an exam on Friday.

I've been interested in creating polls in Facebook lately, go ahead and fill this one out.

Tonight for bed, May wanted to read her 'Jimmy Neutron' book. She said, "I really like this Jimmy Neutron show. It's on Nickelodeon."

I asked her, "What do you like about Jimmy Neutron?"

"I don't know," she replied honestly.

Benjamin took some very poor naps this afternoon. He slept for about 30 minutes this afternoon and insisted on no morning nap. This is not enough sleep for a 16 month old baby to be getting. Jill told me this morning that he spends all day either getting into trouble and making mischief, or having painful accidents falling down, tripping, or leaping off of things he shouldn't. I did manage to see him playing in the sandbox this afternoon without being naughty or getting hurt. He spent about 10 minutes trying to shovel sand into a bucket.

When I got home from dinner, I noticed that Jill was in the process of forgetting about and throughly burning the beans I had asked her to boil briefly this afternoon. I think her plan was to burn the beans and then force me to eat chicken. I foiled her scheme by opening a can of beans and beginning the meal from scratch again. My only regret: canned beans, though still inexpensive, are slightly more expensive that dried beans.

We visited my grandma last weekend and really enjoyed ourselves. It was very relaxing and the kids were very well behaved. They got to spend most of Sunday playing with my cousin's son, Ariel, and they loved it. Grandma was in good spirits, and my aunt and uncle were able to visit for lunch before running back to the office to work on Sunday. We drove back late Sunday and I studied until midnight. I've been feeling a little behind all week.

I'm pround to announce that my tofu polunga recipe won second place in the vegetarian category of the American Medical Students Association recipe contest. To check it out, or perhaps try the recipe yourself, see http://www.amsa.org/tnp/2007RecipeContest.pdf - I always thought it was a good recipe and am proud to see the medical students around the country agree.

Earlier this week, I had more of a mixed bag of culinary achievements. I went to the an Iftar celebration of the muslim student union on campus to support muslim students. Jill normally disallows any sort of evening activity, but because I had to volunteer the same night in Philadelphia, and because Jill is a strong believer in promoting religious and cultural tolerance, I was allowed to go the Iftar breaking of the fast. Unfortunately, many other students arrived before me and, though not many people had been fasting, many feasted on the the food for the fasting before I arrived. I got some pita bread and some hummus, which was really good. My friend, Katina, was so upset that the food was gone that she invited me to come to an AMWA (women in medicine group) lunch the next day. I agreed and then went to get a slice of pizza with Alithea and Curtis to fill up. We went to NYPD Pizza, which has very good pizza, and I got a slice of 'Brooklyn style' which had too much stuff on it. Next time, I'll just get the cheese.

Anyway, we went to the back of the pizza parlor and sat down to eat. The back door of the pizza parlor was open, and an enormous pitbull was restrained behind a flimsy tension gate. This dog's head was about as big around as my chest. The owner and some workers were teasing the dog, by pretending to beat up a kid (presumably the dog's owner or friend). I was trying to eat my slice while Cujo thundered and rattled against the toothpick gate. Finally, the owner must have felt sorry for us and put the dog away.

Before I talk about the next two free lunch events I attended, I should say that there are a plethora of free food giveaways (usually cheap pizza) to convince you to come and hear someone talk about medicine or to try and convince you to volunteer. Many of the clubs on campus that give the free lunches have 'leadership positions' open in which you work with a team of bright, overachieving students to organize the delivery and consumption of the free pizza. I am the secretary of the emergency medicine club, which means I print and distribute fliers about free pizza lunches.

The next day I went to the organizing meeting for the Women in Medicine group. They had wonderful Malaysian food from the Banana Leaf restaurant. The Pad Thai was possibly the best I've ever had. The women were a little suspicious of me, as I was the only man at the meeting, but I had two cover lines that I used to blend in with the crowd.

1. Actually, many of the issues that we talk about as 'women's issues' are really 'family issues.' When there are discussions about work/life balance, only women attend, but work/life balance affects everyone in the family, dad included. Affordable childcare, also sometimes called a woman's issue is really a family issue as well.
2. I support women in medicine (just as I support muslims on campus) and women in general. Women can do anything they want to, often women like to tell me what to do, and I do it. I like working with women and talking with women. I like the way women smell. Men usually don't smell as good and are not as sensitive. Additionally, women can have babies, are smarter than men, and wear a bra.
   

Wednesday was my last free lunch event of the week. I went to a talk on the latino community in Philadelphia (75% peurto rican, BTW) and public health concerns. I had a pickle, half a turkey sandwich, and half a roast beef sandwich. Then I went to a meeting where two faculty members and a small group of other students watched my terrible standardized patient interview. I showed them the best part of the interview and they thought I was pretty good.

News of the kids.

Yesterday, Ben, May, and Jill did their toenails. Benjamin loves to get his nails painted with the girls and practices on his own with toy makeups and real makeups. He also does his own chapstick and can put the cap back on the chapstick by himself.

May and Jill had a fight about what shoes Jill was going to wear the other day. May didn't like the shoes Jill was going to wear and got very upset because they were 'too old.' They went back and forth about the shoes until May earned herself a timeout. Jill got to wear her old shoes.

Yesterday was a really hard day for us. I had to stay in Philly until 10:30 PM, so Jill had to do dinner and bedtime with the May and El Destructo by herself. Whenever I miss the witching hours with the kids, I try to get Jill a chance to get out of the house by herself and do something she enjoys, for example, walking around the town and listening to MP3s of NPR.

Yesterday morning, I was watching the kids while Jill went for a walk. While I was using the toilet, Ben (aka El Destructo) tried to go down the stairs holding the railing and fell. He got a tremendous goose egg (worse than his fall in his grandparents RV) on his forehead. Later that day, El Destructo was struggling with his sister over the position of the cabinet doors of the television armoire. El Destructo lost that battle in a very dramatic manner when his sister smashed the armoire door into his head to give him a matching goose-egg on the other side of his forehead.

El Destructo knows a new word now. He can say, "Out-side." Or if that's not clear enough for you, he points at the door and says "OUT! OUT!" when he wants to go outside to play.

May is really into The Jungle Book lately. She found a stuffed teddy bear that she's called Baloo and a stuffed jaguar that she calls Bagheera. Bagheera and Baloo live a perilous existence at our house and are constantly plagued by diarrheal viruses, tonsilar problems, and scraped elbows. In between these dramatic problems, they have the more mundane trips to the potty and bedtime rituals.

My friend Mike visited this weekend. It was great to see him. We went to a bar and ate chicken wings and watched some of the Phillies game 3 loss to the Rockies. I was really glad to see him, but after he left I felt very sad and lonely.

This afternoon I got the score back on my immunology and virology exam and was pleased with my performance.

When I got home, Jill was very determined to bury some rocks in the back yard. She took apart a small pile of broken asphalt, and for each piece, dug a hole with an edging spade. After burying each piece of broken asphalt, she raked the dirt over the burial ground, and explained her plan to rearrange the kids' outside toys. She seemed pleased with the burial.

This week was a tough week for everyone. I had an exam on Friday and was very busy studying. The kids were very sick, and Jill scratched her cornea.

Early in the week Ben was still taking an anti-biotic for his ear infection, then he started getting the runs. We assumed it was from the anti-biotic, but read on dear reader, read on. After taking his anti-biotic for about four days, he broke out in hives. I was worried that he had developed an allergy to the anti-biotic. The doctor seemed to think that Ben was allergic to shrimp, which we had with some pasta 24 hours earlier. Ben didn't eat any shrimp, but Jill did, and she's still nursing him.

Then, May started coming down with something, we thought it was a sinus infection, and so did the doctor. The next day, however, May started throwing up and having diarrhea. We took her off the anti-biotic and she had the runs for a few more days before she broke out in hives. It took her a day or two to recover her strength, and she'll be going back to school at the next available opportunity.

Jill and I both came up with a diagnosis of rotavirus.

Anyway, on Wednesday Jill scratched her eye, so I cut my study afternoon short and came home to help her figure out how to get herself to the doctor. I looked in her eye and couldn't find anything and then we decided that she had to go see her doctor or go to the ER. Her doctor was out, so a neighbor drove her to the ER down the street.

After that, I drove Jill and the kids around to get some medicine and Jill called a bunch of people and talked about what was happening. She would call them and say, "I know that everything is going to be OK, yeah, I'm trying to take it easy." Then she would get off the phone and cry for a while before calling someone else she could be brave with.

So, there are not a lot of dentists that take our health insurance. We managed to find one dentist in a nearby, rundown neighborhood, called Camden. Camden is a predominantly African American neighborhood with few economic and real estate opportunities. Consequently, people call it a "bad" neighborhood, or, my favorite epithet, "America's most dangerous city." While it's true that a few bystanders were victims of a crossfire in a shooting a few weeks ago, it seems there is a chance of being shot anywhere in the Philadelphia area: a crazy nut opened fire on a bus driver and his passengers last week.

Our new dentist is a fascinating man. He's in the army reserve and has a masters degree in public health. I wasn't aware that dentists ever got MPH degrees as dental schools don't put much emphasis on social justice or public service. Our dentist, who could open an office anywhere, is obviously a guy who is trying to do his part to improve Camden. I think his practice is just starting as he sometimes has to answer the phone himself.

Anyway, Jill took May to the dentist in Camden last week. May is always used to being cute and getting whatever she wants. She threw a toy and hit an older African American woman in the hair. Jill asked her not to do that, but May persisted with various antics. May continued to struggle to get attention, and began lifting her shirt up. Jill asked her again to stop. Finally, an older African American woman stepped in and told May sternly, "You put your shirt down NOW!" Naturally, May obeyed.

Jill and May had to wait a long time to see the dentist. While they were waiting, a pair of older gentlemen spent some time de-constructing The Martha Stewart Show, which was playing on the office TV.

One of them said, "This is a crazy show. What's going on with this?"

"I don't know. She has this show that tells you how to do things you already know how to do. I've seen one show where she shows you how to fold laundry and another where she shows you how to set the table. Crazy show. It must be for stupid people." The other gentleman replied.

Neither gentleman commented on Martha's fake-new-england accent, nor on her empire built on selling hand towels to white folks.

I want to quickly mention one thing about my coffee situation. I did use my new thermos today and it worked very well - an entirely adequate replacement for my old thermos, but without the sentimental attachment.

However, just when I thought that my coffee situation was well settled, a distressing event occurred with my coffee maker i.e. coffee storage is secure and adequate, but coffee brewing was problematic this morning. It took nearly thirty minutes for my six cup pot of coffee to brew and I had to interrupt it to use the pause-and-pour feature in order to get a cup with breakfast.

For the record, I loathe the pause-and-pour feature because it creates an unequal distribution of the coffee strength for the batch being brewed. When one uses pause-and-pour, the first cup is stronger than the rest and all the rest of the coffee is weaker. A marxist at heart, I believe each cup of coffee should get an equal share of the boiled juice of the coffee bean.

Jill and I have been running water and vinegar through the coffee maker all day long in alternating batches in order to collect data on the situation. The assay I just finished running brewed the requisite six cups in about seven minutes, so that should be fine for tomorrow.

I had a standardized patient interview today and was not very happy with its result. The constructive feed back I recieved was to carry a clipboard instead of a little notebook. I was a little unprepared for the whole situation. I arrived thinking we were taking a patient history, and then was given the patient history before the encounter. What kind of history can I take when everything is already in the chart? So after covering the Chief Complaint and History of Present Illness I wasted a lot of time by talking slowly, taking big pauses. Honestly, I had to spend some time thinking about my next question. But my interviewer didn't like the pausing or slowness. She said, "It made me feel like you don't know what you're doing." Of course, I don't know what I'm doing, so that doesn't help much.

This standardized patient encounter was complicated by the fact that the patient desired a perscription for antibiotics to treat the apparent viral respiratory infection.

Finally, she said that I should have come right out and said that taking antibiotics when you have a viral infection is "bad for you." Instead of saying that it's not the right medicine, or the tylenol and sudafed are the right medicine. I have some ethical qualms about saying that anti-biotics are bad for you in this case. Certainly, they won't help, and, certainly, they raise the spectre of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, but I felt that telling the patient that anti-biotics would hurt her would be a misrepresentation of the risks posed by an inappropriate theraputic response.

Anyway, my biggest regret about the whole event was not standing up to my evaluator and saying 1) I needed to waste time, 2) notebook vs. clipboard is totally irrelevant, and 3) there are ethical issues at stake in the misrepresentation of the danger posed by an inappropriate therapy.

Two jobs ago, I had an almost equally hilarious assessment when my former supervisor told me, "I'm marking your 'teamwork' score as 'needs improvement' because I'm doing that for everyone this year."

Thanks.

Everyone woke up early this morning. I set my alarm for 6:45, and I remember hitting snooze, but I think everyone was up before then. May came in and told us that Pink Puppy ( a prominent stuffed animal in the pantheon) had an accident in bed. We thought that Pink Puppy might be a fall guy for the accident in bed, but as it turned out, May's bed was dry. She does a pretty good job of going all night without accidents.

Before I left for school this morning, I asked May to play quietly during Jill's afternoon nap. We'll see how that goes. Yesterday May, Jill, and Ben went apple picking with May's school. Jill didn't feel like they got enough time to pick apples.

Benjamin has been wilder than usual lately. He has developed a temper-tantrum-precursor in which, when disappointed, he runs wildly and smashes his whole body against the lower kitchen cupboards while screaming. His hot dog eating is slowing down. Mostly, I think, because I bought cheap, gritty hot dogs rather than the silky smooth Oscar Meyer that he's been enjoying so much. Yesterday he was throwing sand while playing in the sandbox and I had to close the sandbox.

I had something in my eye all morning long, but it seems to have resolved itself.

My new coffee thermos arrived in the mail today. It looks smaller, but it holds as much liquid as my old thermos; one red coffee cup plus a little extra.

At 6:30 today, fifteen minutes before the alarm went off, May got up and needed to use the bathroom. I brought her to the bathroom and helped her out, then got her back into the bed with Jill. I turned off my alarm clock and snuck down stairs without waking up anyone! I am very happy about this, as Jill, I'm sure, would like the extra sleep.

We found out yesterday that Ben's toddler music class will be delayed until after the new year. We may have to sign him up for a class that we have to pay for.

I'm a little sore from doing yoga last night, but not that bad.

This week we are learning about viruses in school. The Norwalk Cruise Ship virus has no phospholipid bilayer enveloping it, so once it gets onto something, like a cooktop or someone's hands, it cannot be removed with soap and water. Normal flu and herpes (I think) viruses do have an active membrane used in spreading infection that can be destroyed with detergent action.

The bottom line: wash your hands with soap and water a lot during flu season to keep from getting sick.

Jill was pretty crabby today when I got home. I think the kids were getting on her nerves. Right now she's out at the Junior Women's Drinking Club. Tonight they're drinking vodka tonics and having sardine-cream-cheese sandwiches with the crusts cut off as a snack.

Yesterday, on my way to the coffee shop, I saw an ambiguously gendered person with no arms. S/he had his/her shoes off and was smoking a cigarette with his/her toes.

My sister was visiting this weekend and we had a blast. Friday night (actually before my sister arrived) we had a cheesesteak binge. We ordered three of them, ate two, and saved one for later, which my sister did get to eat half of before she left on Sunday. In addition to the binge on beer and cheesesteaks, we went on a walking tour of constitutional walking tour of some historic sites in Philadelphia.

The tour was timed perfectly so that the kids fell asleep in their strollers after lunch and we enjoyed the walking tour without any screeching or weeping. The guide was very good and had some interesting factoids and quotes. For example, John Hancock was a rum runner and smuggler and, after the British confiscated a few of his ships, was very interested in taxation and representation. Also, a great quote from Benjamin Franklin, "Beer is proof that God exists and that He loves mankind." (I might be paraphrasing the quote)

The scores were returned on our pathology exams from last week and I scored very well. Every time I take an exam I have a score that I hope for within reason and also an unreasonable score that I dream about. My score was in the 'unreasonable desire' range. I bought one pathology textbook, and two review books, I read all three in addition to lecture attendance and reading the faculty lecture notes. so, I did work hard. Even though the pathology we covered was introductory material, I'm pleased to have started the year with some strong work.

May was a little bit naughty this morning. She put a big pile of her favorite stuffed animals and blankets (handkerchiefs, doll blankets, burp cloths, and cloth napkins) on the kitchen table and wouldn't remove them. We argued back and forth about them until I took them away and put them up on my dresser. Jill, bless her heart, read my intent correctly and kept the animals and blankets away from May all day long. I felt bad after leaving for school knowing that May would complain all day about the animals, and that Jill was stuck enforcing a punishment that I had decreed unilaterally. Still, the vengeful arm of justice must strike blindly and let those who bring toys to the breakfast table beware.

Ben is refusing to be seated in a high chair. Tonight at dinner he screamed all meal until he was freed, whereupon he promptly ran to the living room and dumped out a box of sixty-four crayons and several tubs of toys. Jill ran to the living room, feeling very distraught and discouraged, to clean up the disastrous mess. In the mean time, Benjamin returned to the table, pulled himself up onto his mom's chair, and ate his dinner (or at least the chicken flesh - which is all he eats these days anyhow).

Today on the train I noticed a guy was reading a printout about cheerleading. I couldn't help but read over his shoulder. Apparently, this professional cheerleader (she worked for one of the NFL teams) had worked at NASA and then went on to work as a cheerleader. The article tried to draw a lot of analogies between the two professions. It was hilarious, but in an unintentional and derisive manner.

Yesterday on the train I noticed a woman using her rosary. The Philadelphia area is a lot more catholic than Wisconsin. It's a little shocking, but not altogether unpleasant. The catholics in the area have a long and strong history of social service and activism. Of course, they have a strong anti-choice bent, but, no one's perfect.

Benjamin played a new game today. He climbs up onto his sister's bed, then sits on the edge, dangling his feet over the edge. Then, sliding forward, he jumps off the bed and lands on his feet. After squealing and running around the room, he climbs up onto the bed and does it again. On a completely different subject, he is on a strict cheese and hot dog diet.

Tonight, before bedtime, May and I played 'princess video game.' We made a princess and named her Princess Daddy. May told me that Princess Daddy had flat, blue eyes and wore glasses. When it was time to pick a body for Princess Daddy, we assigned a short, fat body. Princess Daddy got a red dress with hearts on it, a big blond wig, and bows down the front of her shirt. Later on in the evening, she told me, "I've been watching Fox News."

Yesterday on the train I rode home next to a guy with lots of tattoos on his arms. He looked middle age, though he was a heavy smoker and sometimes that gives you an early worn appearance. He got a call on his cell phone and told his friend, Gary, that he was riding the speedline home. He was wearing a t-shirt with a front pocket, blue jeans, and newer tennis shoes.

I had an argument with another med student this week. He accused Hillary Clinton of killing Vince Foster, which threw me into a rage. I don't think I called him stupid, but I think I did say that this idea was ridiculous and stupid. Then I said that I did believe in a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy and accused him of being a member. This particular student is both arrogant and naive, which is an unusual combination of obnoxious personality traits.

That night when I got home, I looked up Vince Foster on wikipedia and they presented some compelling evidence. Read for yourself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vince_Foster#Death

As you can tell, I'm still angry about this. If this yahoo brings this up again, I'll mention the evidence of VF's suicide presented in wikipedia, and acknowledge that he doesn't necessarily need to believe in the evidence, but if he doesn't faith in logic and reason, maybe he should continue to study at a more faith based university, like maybe Oral Roberts University, and leave reason and logic to those more gifted with rational thought processes.


My new workout plan is to exercise hard every day. I want to either be working out or sore from working out.

Sadly, earlier this week I lost my coffee thermos. I will need to shell out twenty or thirty bucks for a new one. Fortunately, I found the exact same model that my friend Tony gave me years ago. It's a good thermos that keeps the coffee warm all day. Here is a product description from amzaon.com.

Nissan Travel Companion Stainless-Steel Insulated Bottle
Product Features

• Keeps beverages hot or cold for hours
• Holds nearly 26 ounces
• Easy, no-drip pouring without removing stopper
• Hand wash with mild detergent
• Five-year warranty against defects

I definitely want the 26 ounce model. Bigger than one cup, but not so big as to be unwieldy.

Benjamin has been pushing chairs around for a long time, however, today he figured out that if you push a chair over to the table, kitchen counter, or refrigerator you can climb onto the chair and access previously unreachable and forbidden areas. My cousin told me a few months ago that a friend of his told him, "Having a girl first does not prepare you for having a boy." True words, but bitter, bitter.

May was playing with her stuffed animals on the couch and beside her was her empty rocket ship (a larger basket). Ben brought his toy mop over and began to put it into the basket and began to mop. May was very upset and they fought. I settled the quarrel by explaining that Ben was only mopping out the rocket ship so it would be ready for her to fly to the moon. May told me, "Good. My animals have been pooping in the rocket ship and it needs to be cleaned."

Today I will rectify the inequality in blogging about my children. In the past, blog entries have been mostly about May, but this entry will be mostly about Benjamin, and the things he did yesterday. Our goal yesterday was to go to a Labor Day BBQ at the house of our friends, Dominick and Becky, which we finally did.

Earlier in the day, Jill was moving the family's towels and sheets from one container into a functionally equivalent container in a room next door. The moving of the sheets resulted in the fact that a new container was available in which one could slam ones finger - should you be so foolish. Benjamin slammed his finger with spectacularly bloody results. All day long I tried to bandage that bloody finger tip with no skin on it, and all day long he removed the bandages. I tried to tape the bandages on with packing tape, electrical tape, and medical tape. I taped the bandage on his thumb and wrapped the tape around his wrist; still the bandage was removed. I even taped his thumb to the side of his palm, still the bandage was removed. I must have bandaged his finger with the bloody, flappy skin twelve time. Today, he has a big scab and no bandage.

Our plan was to lunch and then go to the BBQ. We were eating lunch yesterday (I've forgotten what we were eating), and I said, "Who's looking forward to having a hot dog for dinner?" Benjamin happens to have recently developed a palate for hot dogs. However, he has not quite mastered the concept of past, present, future, and our temporal orientation (In a non-relativistic, Newtonian sense; I will not touch on time and relativity in this post. It's too broad of a subject, and quite off topic, as my kids rarely concerned with Einstinian physics.) Benjamin thought we were talking about hot dogs for lunch NOW.

"Hot dog!" He demanded. Then he pointed at the fridge and screamed. Once again, he demanded, "Hot dog!" He kept screaming and demanding a hot dog until we were able to change the subject and he forgot about it.

I hesitate to tell this story, but I should be up front about it. It's a shocking story and it almost derailed our plans to go to the BBQ. The kids were ninety percent ready to go. May was getting ready to go and Ben was all ready to go. I was trying, futilely, to print out directions to Becky and Dominick's house. Jill gave Benjamin a sippy-cup full of milk to drink. It wasn't a good Playtex sippy-cup; it was a cheap, disposable sippy-cup. Benjamin figured out long ago that a fun trick with these disposable sippy-cups is to through them on the floor, smashing them open, and spilling out the contents. This is an extra good trick, because you can both outrage your parents and manipulate them into cleaning up the mess.

So after smashing open his cup and spilling the milk everywhere, Benjamin laid down in the milk on his stomach and thrashed his arms and legs up and down, as if he was swimming. When Jill saw him, she was upset and had to change him into new clothes.

My final story from yesterday about Ben. After the party is winding down, May is watching The Little Mermaid in Becky and Dom's living room. Ben wants to go into the living room, but isn't interested in climbing down the step from the foyer into the living room. Instead, he hurls himself off the step and bell flops onto the carpeted floor of the living room. The first time it happened, I was quite alarmed . The next fifteen or twenty times he did it, he seemed to be really enjoying himself. What would be terribly painful and humiliating for me, he seemed to thing was hilariously funny and quite entertaining.

One quick story about May, then I must go put her to bed. Yesterday, May was talking about New Jersey. She said to Dom, "Would you like to buy a swamp in NJ?" and Dom said, "Sure, I would, how much would it cost?"

May replied, "One dollar."

Dom said, "A whole dollar! I don't know if I can raise that kind of capital. Do you think I could get a loan?"

And May said, "You won't have to be alone with all those things."

May even helped me write this tonight, because she sat on my lap while I was typing and was a very good girl, during the last few paragraphs, by not touching the screen, the keyboard, or anything else on my desk.

I will try to go read her bed time books with her now.

May
-a loan, alone

Today my wife and I celebrated our 6th anniversary. We got hoagies (a Philadelphia word for submarine sandwiches) and went to the park for a picnic while a neighbor watched the kids for a few hours. After the picnic we went to a shop called 'The Christmas Tree Shops' that Jill likes a lot. They have a lot of decorative things there that I am not interested in, but they do have some good deals on food and there are generally good bargains to be found. We got separated in the store when I kept nagging her about leaving and she sent me to the food section.

When we got back to the house, the kids were having a good time, but were very tired. Benjamin didn't take his afternoon nap today. Both kids were a pain in the neck all afternoon.

On the bright side, we saw Pan's Labyrinth last night and really enjoyed it. A little violent, and a little to adult-fairy-tale, but still a cool movie.

I've been hearing a lot of noise about poor Miss South Carolina lately on the internet. If you know about her geographic agnosia and have overcome the bleak depression that her comments have brought upon you and are ready to move on, check out this clip for a good yuck...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cBQXgFn6TQ&mode=related&search=

If you haven't already seen the original, search for it on you tube first.

I feel bad because all of my extended family is visiting my grandma on Lawn Gisland this weekend, but having just gotten back from a really long vacation, we declined to attend the family function. I may try to go out for a visit during october or november. We may even go there for thanksgiving, if Jill thinks that's OK.

I have to finish writing a letter to my other grandparents tonight. They recently moved to a new nursing home in NC and I feel like I should write them more often. Grandpa is deaf as a stone and can't talk on the phone and grandma is a shade on the crazy side. So, they're good people to communicate with through written means.

Today was a nice day. Strangely, I got less sleep than usual last night (6 hours). Nevertheless, I was well prepared for class and attentive. Our last lecturer of the morning was an older German fellow who screeched on and on about autonomic nervous system receptor agonists and antagonists. While I appreciate the effort one puts into such theatrics, a wild display is not necessary for me to enjoy or appreciate the lecturer. However, I demand that a lecturer stress material that s/he feels is important.

Benjamin has been pretty wild lately. He likes to grab his little mop and broom, one in each hand and run around waving them in the air. He hates sitting still. Even more than sitting still, he hates being quiet. Unless he is banging on something with something else, he is always yelling. Having said that, (and here I risk beshriving his good fortune) it's been a long time since he fell down and got a big bruise on his face.

I clipped May's fingernails tonight before she went to bed. She doesn't always like getting her nails clipped. I always like doing things to the kids that are good for them, but that they don't like. It helps me feel like I'm getting even with them for the terrific amount of work they make me do. May doesn't like getting her hair washed or getting her nails clipped, so, of course, I like helping her with those tasks of hygiene. May has lately turned the corner on getting her nails clipped. She still doesn't like it, but she acquiesces without much fuss now. She comes and sits on my lap and we discuss which finger is getting its nail clipped, that finger's unique job, and why each finger, even the little one, is important. Even though I don't get to feel like I'm taking revenge on her for being my daughter, I still enjoy the care taking involved in clipping her finger nails. It's funny how that's changed for me.

Yesterday, I lifted weights, and bumped up my bench press weight to 135 lbs. I did one set of eight and one set of nine. I thought I'd be really sore today, and my back is a little sore, but not that bad. I think this year I'm going to try to lift twice a week, run once a week, and do yoga once a week. We'll see....

I made BBQ burgers tonight with corn and string beans.

Yesterday, I visited my friend and organic chemistry lab partner, Chris, at his new place in west Philly. It's a really nice place. He's already started his first year of med school at a different school, but still in Philadelphia. He made me some very good pancakes from scratch for brunch. These pancakes were very fluffy and airy. A remarkable treat. Afterwards we took a long walk around his campus.

Then I drove to my school, took my inaugural first-shit-of-the-second-year-of-medschool and lifted weights. After that, I came home, cleaned up a little, straightened up the house, and watched a little bit of the eagles-steelers game.

Remarkably, I drove into Philly, parked twice, each time less than two blocks from my destination, and received no parking tickets. I was also able to avoid any fender benders. Yeah!

Today was my second year orientation. After the orientation, I am excited, but nervous. There is a ton of new material to learn, but the stuff we're learning this year is what we came to school to learn.

I've got to go pick up Jill and the kids at the airport tonight. My dad is coming too. I'm really looking forward to seeing them, but I'm nervous that Jill will be angry with my dad, after having spent the weekend with him, and will wreak her vengeance upon me. I don't think their visit went as well as she had hoped. We'll see....

What better way to prepare for 2nd year of medschool than binge drinking? Thus, I met friends last night and we went to a bar called McFadden's in Philadelphia. I did a lot of drinking and a lot of dancing. Hangover today: moderate. I think I have another round of binge drinking ahead of me tonight.

A few strange things bear commenting upon from last night.

When we first got to the bar, I was shocked. "We're not going here are we?" I asked. There were a lot of good looking skinny people waiting in line to get inside. I don't know why they made us wait in line, the place wasn't very crowded. Maybe they like to make people wait just because they can.

At one point a busty bartender lined men up, back against the bar, and after wrapping a towel around each man's neck, stood on the bar and walked its length pouring a long stream of red liquor into each victims throat. The red liquor splashed all over each man's face. The psychosexual connotation is, of course, a golden shower. I don't mind being treated like that, but try not to drink anything red. Later in the night, this same bartender lost a chugging contest and the DJ kept trying to get her to do a keg stand.

At another point, the DJ promised free shots to women who would dance on the bar. They didn't have to do anything lewd, only dance, but on top of the bar as a public spectacle. Finally, a handful of women did dance on the bar. They weren't great dancers, it wasn't like Coyote Ugly at all. The women were kind of shy and didn't know quite what to do with themselves. They danced for one song, some dancing together, some separate. Then they got down from the bar to walk among the rest of us.

The music was loud, which I don't like, but at least Philly has banned smoking, so I didn't smell like smoke afterwards. I didn't know many of the songs, but when a song, or a remix of a song, I knew came on, I tried to dance with more enthusiasm. I even tried to dance like Axel Rose, but wasn't very good at it. Later in the night, Curtis danced just like Axel Rose. It was uncanny.

I met a few first years and told them things like, "Welcome to Hell" and "Enjoy Yourself!"

Though I really enjoyed myself, I was very glad not to be involved in the bar scene. What a drag it must be to squeeze into some tight jeans and go out to these places and try to attract someone. Going to the bar reminded me why I like going to bars and why I do not like going to bars.

The jury is still out on this new keyboard....

AAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH! I am trying to get my new laptop set up and am angry, angry, angry. I was unable to use my old copy of symantec antivirus, which means I have to switch to McAffee (wierd...) which was included on the new machine and is compatible with windows vista. I got some heartening advice that it was easy to install XP, so I tried it. It may be easy for some, but not for me.

Unfortunately, manufacturer drivers were only available for Windows Vista. I tried looking on OEM sites, and after a few hours, ran out of time. I will have to run an 'out-of-the-box' restore to return the laptop to factory condition. Then I will have to figure out a way to make sure that the McAfee virus protection stays up to date.

More depressingly, I will be unable to avoid the new headaches and heartaches that micro$oft has forced upon me by, once again, changing their fucking menus, buttons, and control panels.



On a brighter note, I put the last coat of polyurethane on the bedroom floor this morning. It looks great. When Jill arrives on Monday evening, she'll be pleased.

Later tonight, I'm going out for a 'post-exam party.' Second year students haven't had an exam, but we get to tag along with the first year student party. Some folks from my study group and I will go for a few hours.

I arrived in NJ at 12:30 AM today (that's technically today, though I would consider it last night because I slept after my arrival.) I woke up at 8:30 AM to go get some blood work done at the doctor's office. They drew their blood, then I went to the post office to priority mail Jill's driver's license back to her. After that, I went to the hardware store to look at wood stains. Then, home for lunch. While my lunch was cooking, I had a long phone chat with my dad. After lunch, I went to the library and signed Ben up for a music class for toddlers. I think he'll love it. Also, I checked out a book for myself, "The man who mistook his wife for a hat," by Oliver Sacks. It's a neurology case studies book, but is well written and interesting enough to be read by non-neurologists (or so I'm told - we'll see).

After the library, I went to the grocery store and got some stuff for dinner today, tomorrow, and Thursday. Today, tuna mac; tomorrow; salmon with green beans and potatoes; Thursday, turkey chili and grilled cheese sandwich. After the grocery store, I came back home and unloaded the groceries, then I moved all furniture and everything else out of my bedroom.

After moving everything out of the bedroom, I went to home depot and rented two large machines used for refinishing floors; a drum sander and an edger. I got home, unloaded the machines, made dinner, and started sanding at 7:15. I finished sanding at about 10:40, and my next door neighbor helped me load the drum sander back into the car.

It sounds like I did a lot today, and I guess I did, but I never felt panicked or rushed. I often thought to myself throughout the day, "Should I hurry and get this done so I can do the next thing on my list?"

"Nah..."

The kids are with Jill back in Wisconsin. They are eating her alive.

We watched the last episode of The Tudors on Jill's parent's On Demand digital cable. The show features King Henry the Eighth of England. He is, of course, a barbarian. Still, he has some qualities worth emulating. He is smooth with the ladies. He is well dressed. And, he has great abs. I've never had any of those qualities, but if I can dream of being the king of new jersey, I can also dream about having great abs.

I'm almost out of stories about my mom. One last story about her, though, and then onto the standard cute stories about my kids. When we were visiting my mom, I went for a run down by the lake. Naturally, I got quite sweaty. The sweaty shirt I wore for the run was in my sister's room (we always sleep in my sisters room when we visit my mom). The next day, my mom is parading around in my running shirt. It's flattering that she likes to wear my clothes, but when I realized she was wearing my running shirt, I asked her, "Isn't that shirt a little damp, mom?"

"Why, yes, it is a little damp."

"That's because I wore it while running yesterday. It was drenched with sweat and has dried out a little."

"Oh, I thought it was recently out of the wash."

Yuck.

May has recently been interested in watching "The Lorax." While we were camping up north, we even played a lorax-like game in which one stands on a tree stump and shouts. During the campout, she kept rolling onto me in the tent and finally I pinned her down with an arm so I could get some sleep. She eventually settled back to sleep, and quietly murmured, "I speak for the trees."

Ben took a bad tumble out of Jill's parents RV during the camping trip. Jill's dad was watching him, and went on watching him as he fell down the RV steps and bounced his head off of the metal landing in front of the steps. Ben had a small cut in the middle of a huge bump above his left eye. I was really angry and worried that he would have a concussion after a fall like that.

First I yelled, "Goddammit, Sandy!"

"He's so fast, I turned away for one second..."

I yelled at Jill's dad, "Sandy you were supposed to be watching him. 'Watching' means with your eyes! It's hard enough to go camping with a one year old! It's hard enough to have a family!"

A few seconds later I said, "I'm sorry. I was frightened."

Sandy is a good guy and didn't get sore about it. Ben was fine afterwards. Normal appetite, normal balance, normal sleep patters. I didn't bother taking him to the doctor.

On Saturday, we met our friends Jamie and Howard for a donut breakfast at Lane's Bakery. May ate three donuts and had a stomachache afterwards. Ben ate no doughnuts and cried and clung to his mom the entire breakfast. After breakfast, we went to the farmers market. I hate the central Madison farmers market.

My hate is a composite of multiple feelings.

1. I do not like expensive things (except for sushi)
2. I do not like crowds
3. I do not like tourist traps

Jill decided she would stroll May around while doing the shopping. My job at the farmers market was to stroll Ben around until he fell asleep. I made the strategic error of getting a balloon tied to his stroller. He was way too excited to sleep while he could wrangle with a helium balloon. So I went to the Jazzman, a men's clothing store in downtown Madison, to do some shopping of my own. Usually the Jazzman has clothes that are made for people who are thinner and more wealthy than me. However, a few days earlier, I had noticed a faux vintage shirt in the window that I wanted to purchase.

The shirt is a yellow Milwaukee Brewers shirt. It is faux faded with faux blotches of color on it from faux uneven washings. The faux damaged print is of three clearly German brewmeisters riding an enormous keg of beer. I really, really wanted to buy the shirt but now I have some reservations.

If you think about it, the whole faux vintage thing is ridiculous. Why throw out a perfectly good old t-shirt and buy one that looks old but isn't? Ridiculous.

Also, am I a poser by pretending to like the Brewers when I can barely name one player on the team? I prefer to think that I am displaying home-state pride rather than being a poser.

I just got a really large life insurance policy, so if you're planning to kill me, now would be a good time.

I haven't posted much since we've arrived here in Madison, WI. We've spent a lot of time visiting friends. Last night, we went to Sa Bai Thong, my favorite Thai restaurant. I had the Gaeng Phet Fach Tong. Delish!

Two nights ago my friend, Rakesh, had a party at his house and all of my friends (except Brian, Megan, and Jason) in Madison came. It was great to see them. There was an elaborate spread of food with cupcakes, lamb biryani, jambalaya, taziki, and chips/salsa. I ate too much and drank too much. The afternoon before the party, I did some racing with my friend Jamie and Howard. The wind was strong and steady; the sun was warm and shining. It was fantastic weather for sailing.

Visiting everyone reminded me that it is the people inhabiting a place which makes the place special and unique.

Tomorrow, I help my inlaws load a mountain of boxes into their RV for the first part of their move. Later this morning I'll do some yoga and watch TV.

One quick funny story about my mom before I go. Before my cousin's wedding, my wife and sister took my mom shopping for clothes. In the first store, the changing room (where one tries the fit of the clothes one is considering for purchase) was seperate from the public by a curtain which my mom either neglected to notice or decided not to use.

Always helpful, my wife told her, "Nancy, let me help you with this." Jill closed the curtain for her, mentally making an allowance for my mom by allocating the immodest behavior to my mom's meager techinical abilities - i.e. my mom was not able to master the privacy curtain technology, must have been frustrated, and decided not to use it.

However, the changing room at the next store had a more standard privacy technology, a door. Again, my mom gave everyone a peep show until my wife closed the door for her.

I feel as if I were Bilbo Baggins after he wrote his famous prequel, 'There and Back Again.' We've returned from Oregon and my cousin Michael's wedding and the kids, Jill, and I are exhausted. Our flight from LAX to OHR was delayed and we arrived in Chicago about 9:30. Our bags got screwed up and we weren't able to collect them until about 10:45 PM. Finally we took the shuttle over to the hotel for the hotel parking and got on the road around 11:30 PM. We arrived in Madison about 2:10 AM and I was asleep at 2:15 AM CST. We woke up at the hotel in Bend, OR at 4 AM PST, which is quite early, but I was able to take a nap on the plane for about 30 minutes.



My cousin's wedding was a lot of fun and a great cermony. It's nice to see him settled down with a real beautiful woman who is so kind and friendly. It's also nice to see him married into a large family. My daughter got to be a flower girl at the wedding, which I think she may remember, even now, a few days later. Apparently, my daughter did some last minute negotiating with the bride and only agreed to fulfill her flower girl duties on the condition that she get to carry the bouquet after the wedding. When I found May carrying around the bouquet after the wedding, I was mortified. Because of the confidential nature of the bride-flowergirl negotiations, I thought she had swiped the Bridal Bouquet. Only later did Kelly, the bride, tell me the tale of the aisle-side negotiations. In a few weeks, I'll post a picture of my daughter in the flowergirl dress.



Ben was too crabby to see the wedding.

A few unusual events at the wedding deserve comments.

A woman attending the wedding had very large ears. She was a normal, attractive, young woman. She was dressed well and attended by a handsome companion (I believe they were unmarried). She was a tall brunette and at the reception and wedding had her hair pulled back behind her enourmous ears. I, myself being of the large auricular appendages, am sympathetic to the cause of the large ear-ed. Still, I thought, "Why not wear your hair down?" Her ears were large, protruding, and highly circular and symmetric. An attractive young woman with very large ears.

Secondly, at the reception, I was waiting in line for the bathroom when a middle-age/retirement-age woman came out of the bathroom. She looked me right in the eye and cackled hideously. I kept my silence and thought to myself, "What's so funny?" Upon entering the bathroom I smelled a very foul odor. The older woman had clearly taken a shit and stunk up the bathroom at the wedding reception. I try never to shit at a party, so she must have really had to go. Anyway, old ladies stinking up the bathroom with their foul bowels is noteworthy.

Today we fly out of ohare airport in chicago for my cousin's wedding in Bend, OR. I am not looking forward to this grueling journey.

The kids are sick and we had to take them to the emergency room here in Kenosha (not an emergency, except that our insurance covers emergency room visits when we are out of new jersey, but not standard doctor visits). The kids both have pink eye and Ben has an ear infection. I thought the nursing care at the ER in Ktown was excellent. I usually don't completely evaluate the doctor until a few weeks have passed; if in hindsight, I feel like the problem has been adequately addressed, I'll be happy with the doctor. It was a fast trip too, probably only because the ER was not very busy, but we were in and out in two and a half hours. A record setting performance.

Benjamin has learned to enjoy chicken wings. He loves to screech around the house chewing on one for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. He also has learned to say, "Smit - tee."

Both kids have really enjoyed my mom's dog, despite the fact that he's terribly ill-suited for my mom's life style. One thing in smitty's favor is that he is also incredibly tolerant. You can pull on his ears and swat his nose all day long, he barely notices.

After Ben went to sleep the other night, Smitty was howling. My mom sent him to his room, and Smitty got a time out. May was very interested in Smitty's time-out. She asked, "How long will Smitty have his time out for?" Then she asked, "Does he have to go right to bed?" May really liked seeing someone else get a time out. Smitty did not cry a lot when he got his time out. He was rather stoic about receiving his punishment.

The list below is the contents of my mom's 'silverware' drawer. I loosely call its contents silverware as this is the drawer in my mom's house where one has the highest probability of finding a piece of silverware that one might desire to use, for eating, or whatever. Many people use a tray to organize silverware. These conformist robots foolishly sort the silverware into seperate sections of the tray so that each time you reach for a desired piece, be it knife, or fork, or spoon, your hand easily finds the piece of silverware and withdraws it.

Now I ask you, where is the challenge in that? Isn't it more exciting to get a mild surprise when you want to get a fork or knife and instead withdraw a nearly-as-useful spoon?

Contents follow:

• Assorted miscellaneous flatware
• 2 packs Captain's Wafers: Cream Cheese and Chives Crackers
• 1 wire wisk
• 8 lids to sour cream, cottage cheese, yogurt containers
• 3 pickle jar lids
• 1 peanut butter jar lid, well cleaned
• 1 can of Chicken of the Sea Pink Crab
• 2 packets of soy sauce, Kimlan
• several ounces of whole cashews, roasted, salted, and stale
• spatula
• shears
• garlic press
• 36" gold-colored chain
• 1 pack Aqua drops breathmints
• 12 pieces, individually wrapped, Nicorette gum
• 1 pie knife
• 3 packets containing one moist towlette per packet
• 1 baking spatula
• 1 set disposable chopsticks
• 1 plastic grocery bag
• 1 potato peeler
• 1 corn holder
• 1 package of seeds
• 1 rubber band
• paperclips
• Roland kobe style mustard
• several twisty ties
• 1 fine tip artists paint brush, stained and battered
• 1 charcoal pencil
• 1 paring knife sharpener taped to a 3x5 piece of corrugated cardboard

I am writing today's blog entry while visiting my mom in Kenosha, Wisconsin. We're having a nice visit with my mom and dad. Last night, Jill and I went out ona pub crawl with our friend Brian. We visited the following three bars: The Port of Kenosha, the Boathouse, and Paddy-O's. At Paddy-O's, we ran into my friend Erik. Erik and I grew up as nearby neighbors, and were very good friends in high school. He and his mom fed me almost one million lunches. We used to watch 'The days of our lives' soap opera and have lunch at his house all the time when we were in high school.

I was very happy to see him as We've lost touch over the past six years. He was very happy to see me. I used to think Erik was crazy, but I've realized in the past few years that he is a normal russian. He showed his pleasure by smashing his wine glass and giving me a big furry kiss on the lips. Then we watched some You-Tube videos on his computer projector. I made him watch a Shakira parody video that I think is hilarious. It's got a big fat white guy in a blond wig who dances around as 'Shakira.' I take ironic pleasure in this particular video, because I actually have no clue who Shakira is and, really, know nothing about her place in the American pop culture pantheon.

My mom, for those who don't know her, is a little unconventional. She is a well educated woman and has a professional practice and dabbles in art and literature. Despite this, she owns as a pet a blue tick coon hound, Smitty. Smitty would be a great dog to release in the north woods of wisconsin, and wait until his thunderous howl alerts you to the fact that he's cornered a racoon in a tree. Like most Blue Tick Hounds, Smitty's voice carries well over distances of several miles - very useful for finding him after he's accomplished his mission.

While Smitty's powerful voice is useful in hunting situations, it detracts slightly from his charm here in suburban Kenosha. I had just gotten my daughter to sleep upstairs and a few minutes later heard her and her brother screaming. I ran upstairs.

"May, why did you scream and wake up your brother like that?" Waking up your brother is an offense for which one sometimes can get a time-out.

"But dad, Benjamin woke me up, and Smitty woke him up."

"Oh, honey, I'm sorry."

Benjamin is now climbing in and out of my mom's file boxes and screaming.

Forgot to include details about our trip up til now. The drive was pretty uneventful until now. The trip from Philly to Pittsburgh was relatively uneventful and we enjoyed visiting Jill's cousins and their kids. We spent the night, and the next day I took a long afternoon nap and then we drove all night to get from Pittsburgh to Chicago. At about 5 AM, we were driving through Gary, IN and almost done with the trip when a terrible rainstorm enveloped us. Visibility was low and we crawled along at 35 MPH while compound semi truck trailers splashed torrents all around our tiny SUV.

It was terrifying, but productive. Nothing like a jolt of terror and brush with the grim reaper on I94 to wake one up after driving all night.

We had a great time visiting Jill's brother, sister-in-law, and our nieces, and 6 wk old nephew. It was a blast.

Some of you know I have been running for occasional exercise. I bought a special running shirt that is one size too small for me. It is a red t-shirt (size medium) that says 'Jersey' and has a picture of a devil on it. The 'Jersey Devils' must be some kind of a sports team. I wanted to have a shirt that was too small to wear while I was running because my normal size shirts occasionally give me a severe nipple chafing while my enormous man-boobs bounce up and down against my t-shirt. Anyway, I saw some plain gray t-shirts at Walgreens that were $1 (with the purchase of a bottle of sunscreen), but I felt like I could do better than that. Sure enough, a super cheesy home made jersey devils shirt turns up, sized properly, for sixty cents, with no epithelium preserving ointment purchase required.

Moving on to news of the kids:

In order to get my daughter out of the house in a normal human amount of time, I have a creed that I recite with her before we go places. It goes as follows:

- Rule number one: Must wear clothes
- Rule number two: Must wear sunscreen
- Rule number three: Must wear shoes
- Rule number four: (the most important rule of them all) Obey your father

When I'm trying to get May to go somewhere, I go through the list to remind her of The Rules. The other day I caught her telling some of her rules to her stuffed animals. May's rules for her animals are as follows:

- Rule number one: Must saw wood
- Rule number two: Must dig holes



Ben has a new tool for manipulating me. He stumbles around, like he is having trouble walking, then when I hold out my hand to offer support. He grabs my hand and leads me to something that he feels needs to be done. The other day, he led me to the front door and stood there looking at it, as if he was thinking, "Here we are at the front door. How long will it take dad to realize that I would like the door to be opened for me?"

One last story about May. She has been potty training lately, and got up in the middle of the night. She needs to go to the bathroom, but doesn't really know it. So, I take her to the toilet and get her settled. She says to me, "Dad, will you marry me?"

"I'm already married to mommy, sweetheart."

"BUT WHO WILL MARRY ME?!" She cries and screams.

"When you find a man who loves you as much as daddy does, you'll know that he's the right guy to marry." Good advice?

I've been doing EBay a lot lately - but SELLING not buying! It's actually very exciting. It has all the 'turn-your-trash-into-cash' giddiness, but none of the irritating 'be-nice-to-a**holes-who-want-to-bargain-you-down-25-cents-on-your-old

-van-halen-cassettes' pitfalls. Very little human contact is involved. They buy my crap, I send it. I've also learned how to collect money via paypal, which makes it a lot easier. I also get m money a lot faster when I use paypal. I'm very close to going to an 'only paypal' Ebay selling dogma.

I'll be honest too - I like going to the post office. All the rows and rows of stamps lend an ordered and calming feel to my perception of the universe.

Jill finished painting May's room today, so May is sleeping in our room on the inflatable mattress. This means I have to be super quiet when going to bed.

Tomorrow I'm going into Philly to lift weights and have lunch with a friend.

On Tuesday, we’re leaving for a drive to Chicago with an overnight stop in Pittsburgh, at Jill’s cousin’s house. My plan is to stay up late once we arrive in Pittsburgh and to take a long afternoon nap before we leave in the early evening. Then we’ll drive all night to Chicago. We’ll spend three days and two nights with Jill’s brother in Chicago before driving to Kenosha to spend until August 2^nd at my mom’s house. On August 2^nd, my mom, Jill, the kids, and I will take a flight to Bend, Oregon to celebrate Michael and Kelly’s wedding. The resort looks great and even has a childcare facility at which we can leave May while Jill and I do some bicycle riding on their extensive nature trails.

We return from Oregon the evening of August 6^th, and will drive from Ohare airport to Madison, WI. We’ll visit with friends and do some relaxing in Madison until August 15^th, when I will help Jill’s parents move out of their condominium in Madison and into their new house in rural Wisconsin. I hope to leave Wisconsin and begin the drive back to Philadelphia on August 19^th or 20^th. Jill will stay a little while longer with her parents and do some additional visiting with some of her friends.

If I survive this ridiculous and suicidal vacation, I start my second year of med school on Aug 27th. Good luck and god bless.

This morning Benjamin had a procedure done in which the ophthamologist opens his tear duct, which has been clogged - causing continuous gunky-eye. The procedure went fine, but afterwards he was very wobbly (from anesthetic) and has been crabby all day. My job has been to keep May out of his way. Even though I don't think she's any more likely than usual to damage her brother's eyes, she has the potential to hit him in a new weak spot.

May and I took the car to get an oil change, browsed at the Italian deli, Severino's, got some ice cream, and then went and got her hair cut. May has a particular stylist she goes to at the Hair Cuttery who does a great job. Right now, May is trying to use the potty. If she's succesful, we'll play video games from the Curious George website.

While May and I were out running errands, Ben was home with Jill. He got up from a *very* long nap and Jill let him run around without a diaper on. Ben promptly relived himself in both ways. Ben hasn't been feeling well lately and has a bit of diarhea. His waste splashed on the floor in every direction and he promptly splashed himself into it, through it, and around the living room. It took Jill a long time to get things cleaned up. That must have happened while May and I were at the ice cream shop. May had vanilla custard. I had vanilla custard topped with lemon flavored Italian water ice (a local treat; called a 'gelati').

Loyal blog readers will know that my cousin gave me some suits. I tried to get one altered to fit me, but the tailor told me the suit was too big. It would have cost almost as much as a new suit to get it fit, and it would never look quite right (pocket would be too low, coat would be too long, etc). As it turns out, my cousins rehearsal dinner is a picnic, so I probably don't need a second suit. Instead, I'll go in a shirt and tie to the rehearsal.

Tonight I will ride my excercycle and read my biochemistry review book while Jill attends the Junior Women's Drinking Club of Collingswood. Last night I installed a magical garbage can which hides under the sink and rolls out of its den on silent wheels when called upon to store our trash.

Join me in celebrating the overthrow of the French despotic monarchy three hundred years ago. though there were no (or almost none) prisoners being held in the Bastille when it was torn down, the destruction of this monarchist political prison is the symbolic event that represents the advent of the French republic. Vive La France!

We went to a Bastille Day party down the street at the house of our friends, Keith and Chris. The rule was - you get to drink one bottle of french wine for every child you bring to the party. I drank two. Keith drank four. May took a nap before the party, so I stayed later and left at nine with her. Jill left early (eight-ish) with Ben.

I hate talking to people now, because they always ask 'what do you do?' Then, I have to admit that I'm a full time student. Fortunately, Keith told a lot of people my ridiculous life story, and after that, and the requisite wine, I was able to relax and be social.

We brought an onion tart to the party. I got the recipe out of my 'Recipes from Provence' cookbook. It turned out amazingly well. It's a savory tart.

We filled up the kiddie pool and the neighbor girl, Janee, came over and played with the kids. Janee is eight years old, very nice, very polite, and very respectful. May spent a lot of time teasing her today.

Tonight, just as I finished watering the plants and flowers in the yard, it began raining.

I don't know if you've read this in my blog(s) before, but the philadelphia area is very humid. The other day, I was coming home from Jefferson and descended to the train platform. As I came down the stairs, condensation formed on my glasses. Here's another problem. The humid air condenses on the concrete floors of the subway stations, making it a slick, wet, and dangerous surface. I try to never run in the subway or train stations.

Today I was walking my cousin's old suit downtown to get it altered to fit me for my other cousin's (on the other side of my parent's divorce) wedding. As I'm walking down Fern Ave. I see the following peculiar site:

A squirrel sprinting across the road with a small bird in close pursuit. The bird is flying very close to the ground, at the same level as the squirrel, and the bird periodically stabs at the squirrel with its feet. They run across the street with the bird in hot, violent pursuit. Finally, the squirrel runs up a tree on the opposite side of the street. The bird lands on a nearby branch of the same tree and they sit for a moment together before the bird flies back to my side of the street. What gives? Your comments are appreciated.

Even more remarkable is that after relating this bizarre occurrence to my wife, she admits to having seen the very same event on the very same location of the very same street about a week ago. Curiouser and curiouser...

Benjamin is running around the kitchen with his toy broom and dustpan as I write this. His toy mop is a special favorite, but he's not using it right now. Benjamin enjoyed a pretty wild game of 'whale on the mountain' with May and I earlier this morning. Whale On The Mountain is played by picking a kid up off my bed carrying him/her around the room and dropping them on a large pile of pillows and tickling indiscriminately. The dialog closely mimics the children's book of the same name.

The tailor had already left the cleaners for today so I have to return on Tuesday morning. As I was walking back from the cleaners, the pants I brought for alteration slipped out. I noticed and ran all around looking for them. Someone found them on the street and brought them back to the cleaners. I was relieved.

Dear friends, family, and creepy anonymous blog readers, I am posting again to try to update you with what is going on here in Jersey, where only the strong survive.

Jill bought a ton of stuff at the local farmers market, where, oddly, not much of the produce is organic. Having to choose between local and organic, we pick locally grown - a smaller carbon footprint. I'm blogging while cooking. Jill is giving Ben a bath. He's crabby and exhausted from poor napping today. We're having leftover bean soup with some swiss chard sauteed in garlic and oil for dinner tonight. Swiss chard is a rare vegetable that I don't particularly care for but seems to be stalking me up and down the east coast as we ate some swiss chard last week when we were visiting my grandma on Lawn Guylen. I will probably also eat a side of egg salad. For desert, everyone's favorite LEMON PUDDING.

May is watching the end of 'Finding Nemo.' She had a good day today. May is now between zero and one naps each day. I took the kids to the library this afternoon, and on the way home we took a forty-five minute stroll. In order to be sure May didn't fall asleep on the stroll we played a 'who can scream and grunt?' game. Thankfully, both my kids can scream AND grunt.

For those who haven't talked to me since my last post, Benjamin walks. He's not very graceful, and he walks as if he were a robot in lead boots. He clunks around the house, grabs some of his sisters stuff, waits for his sister to protest, then hollers right back at her.

I'm still in the literature search phase of my summer research project. I was able to finish my anatomy review, and am beginning my biochem review. As you can imagine, it's fascinating stuff.