Notes from the Cave

The kids finally have a bunch of other kids in the neighborhood to play with.  This is a first for them.  We didn't live in our first house long enough for our older daughter to ever reach the point of playing outside, and in our second house, there were no other kids on our end of the street for her and our younger daughter to play with.

That's all changed now.

Across the street are two boys and a girl.  Next to them are two girls who are the same ages as my two girls.  And next door to us is another girl and boy.  There are a few others a bit farther down the street as well.  It's been sunny and warm this week, and the adults all stand around outside talking while the kids run rampant across the yards of four houses.  We've been getting all the good neighborhood gossip and finding out about the people who lived here before us.  Turns out, the original owners are people M knows from the school where she teaches (which is just around the corner from us).  That's a bit weird for her, as you can imagine.  

Someone - I think it was a commenter right here on my blog - suggested jumping rope to get some exercise, and I've taken their advice.  I've been keeping a log each day ("not that I have a log") of how many jumps I do - 50 has been the minimum I've started with.  It's a heck of a lot harder than you might think - especially if you are 50 pounds overweight like I am.  I can feel fat and tissue in my body jiggling that I didn't even know I had. 

I've had to start taking Prilosec for a stomach problem that has cropped up over the last few weeks.  Basically, I've been having frequent - sometimes constant - upper abdominal pain.  No nausea or vomiting or anything like that, just a stomach ache that comes and goes.  I got an Ultrasound of my gallbladder, to rule out an infection there (the exam was negative).  The Prilosec seems to be helping so far, but we'll have to give it a little more time to make sure the symptoms don't come back (they went away originally for about a week before coming back again, and it was after that second bout that I started the Prilosec).  

My house will be infested with 3rd graders this weekend.  My oldest is having a belated birthday party.  Her birthday is in early January, and that was a really bad time for us (we were still in the apartment, and getting ready to move), so we had to postpone her sleepover with friends until now.  The Cave is going to be Romper Room for a night, and M is bugging me to get the Wii set up downstairs for them.  

Saw a Motley Crue concert on TV the other day (sorry, I ain't searching the keyboard to figure out how to put the little umlauts over the o and u).  It was from 2005, and they are all wasted old ex-addicts, but they still sound really, really good.  Nikki Sixx somehow manages to make bedhead look cool.  I don't know how he does it.

Most former heroin addicts don't look this good.  Believe me, I see them at the hospital all the time.

In the world of college basketball, I was happy to see UK get past West Virginia - whom they lost to in the Elite Eight last year - and move on to this year's Sweet Sixteen.  I'd love to say I think they have a good shot at beating OSU in the Sweet Sixteen, but I don't see it happening.  If UK brings their A-game, then it might happen, but anything less than their best is not going to cut it, and even their best may not cut it, if OSU is also on their own A-game.  

A recent Facebook post that eleventy billion people "liked" said something about a spur-of-the-moment standing ovation that a group of people in an airport gave to a group of soldiers getting off a plane.  First of all, I suspect the whole story was probably made up for the purpose of giving people a warm fuzzy.  Secondly, can you gag me a little bit deeper, please?  Sheesh.  Just because a few hippies spit on a few Vietnam vets and called them baby killers 40 years ago doesn't mean the rest of us should have to spend our lives making up for it.  I'm all behind our troops, hope no harm comes their way.  But I ain't gonna applaud them when they walk by, for cripe's sakes.

Federal taxpayer money spent each year on NPR: About $7 million.  

Federal taxpayer money spent each year on Congressional salaries: About $105 million.  

How about instead of de-funding NPR, we cut Congressional salaries by 7%?