30? Already?

Wow... I didn't think I'd make 30 days, but I did. Of course, it's posts like this that make it easier. Although to be honest, I really only did have two or three filler posts.

I am pretty proud of myself, though, and I hope that if anyone has been popping in regularly, you continue. At least, until I stop posting. I won't promise to post every day. But I promise to try to post regularly. Fair enough?

@!$#%!#Y!@$^%, the aftermath

I ended up going to the emergency room last night, and boy, wasn't that a little slice of heaven. There were three major auto accidents that had come in just ahead of us, so they told me the wait would be two to three hours. I sent Susie and the kids home, as there was no reason for them to be kept up all night.
Have you ever had a lash in your eye that you couldn't get out immediately? You know how your eye squeezes shut so tightly, like a bear trap, that it makes the other eye want to stay shut? Imagine a dozen eyelashes. And wait three hours. The pain wasn't just in my eye, either. The squeezing of the eyelids caused a massive tension headache (or maybe a migraine, I don't know). All the tears from the eye watering ran down into my sinuses, causing massive post-nasal drip and a runny nose.

And then there was Charlie.

Charlie was a little boy, 6 years old. He was in his pajamas, and he was there with his mom and his nana. He was there when we arrived, I think, and was still waiting to be seen when I left. Don't worry about him, though. I think he had a raisin in his ear or something, from what I heard.

Charlie never stopped talking the entire time I was there. No, wait. That's not true. Sometimes he stopped talking long enough to make airplane noises. Or car noises. Now, I'll give him credit for this much: he didn't scream. He didn't cry. He wasn't ill-behaved. But he was ... verbal. And, being 6, he had no concept of a "hospital voice," or even, it seemed, an "inside voice."

So for three hours I got to hear all the details of Charlie's world. "Mummy, look, I'm bein' a aeroplane! Eeeeeerrroooowww!! Look at this, mummy, the door to the house is smaller than me! And I can open it! Why are we still sitting here? I need to go toilet... I need to POOP! Hehe.. I need to poop! Where are we going? The toilet? But I don't need to go! Yes I do! NO I don't! What's in there? Why can't we go in there? Is the doctor coming out? Where is he? Remember when I was bein' a aeroplane?"

And so on. In his best 6-year old "mummy and nana are talking to one another so I'd better speak very LOUDLY so I'm sure they hear me" voice. Not yelling, exactly. Just loud.

To be fair, his mom and grandma didn't ignore him. They did talk to him, and answer his questions, so he never got strident or angry. But he just needed to have the attention. It made for a truly magical evening.

Oh, and my eye? Scratched up pretty good. One big scratch, two small scratches, and a "road-rash" scrape right across the middle. But I went to my own opthalmologist this afternoon, and he said that as bad as it sounds (and felt!), the eye heals quickly, and I should be back up to 100% by Sunday. Monday at the latest. So I got that goin' for me. Which is nice.

@!$#%!#Y!@$^%

I just came from McDonalds. As I was buckling Lily into her car seat, the seat belt slipped out of my hand, and it snapped up... right into my eye. I don't mean like getting hit with a punch, I mean the webbing of the belt went right across my eyeball. I am pretty sure I have scratched my cornea. The one that's only recently healed from PRK. In fact, I'm scheduled for my 6-month followup on Tuesday. I'm typing now with one eye open and the other squinched shut and streaming tears. And this happened 30 minutes ago.

Crap. Damn. and OUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The final stretch, indeed

As you NaBloPoMo folks know, we're down to the last few days. I must say, it has been both harder and easier than I imagined. Some days, it just seemed like there was nothing to say, nothing that anyone would want to read about, anyway, and yet I had to go and post about it anyway...and I ended up with a surprisingly cogent post. Some days there was so much going on that I thought I would never be able to write about all of it... and I wasn't.

Ain't blogging weird? There's such a stream-of-consciousness quality to it. Even now, I sat down with absolutely no idea of what I was going to write about. As I waited for Blogger to load up, I checked my email, and noticed the "final stretch" email from Eden at NaBloPoMo. That gave me my title and the first two sentences, but from there, this post just got away from me.

I hope I can keep up the posting. I know it will be hard, especially when I end up going away for months at a time, but there are ways... Ah, seeee, here's the stream-of-consciousness thing striking: I was going to mention how hard it is to think of topics every day, and I was reminded of a topic I wanted to get into based on a news story I've been hearing. Maybe I'll post it tomorrow, but for a preview, it involves a teacher and a teddy bear. And my opinion about how it reflects the state of things in the world and in my country. Which I probably shouldn't write about, for fear of alienating you, Gentle Reader (that's singular, I know). But maybe... just maybe, I'll get all in your face with controversy.

Because that's part of the point.

It's not FAIR!

I had some pretty exciting news to post here... but before I blog, I like to read Susie's daily post to see what she's written.

She stole my title. Harumph. :)

But, yeah, my assignment here got extended for an additional three years, which means we'll be here until the fall of 2011. That's what we were hoping for, and we're really happy about it. It puts David well into "Year 9" of the British schools, which is about the same as 8th grade in the US. That's a very good time for him to make a transition to the US educational system, as he'll have a good foundation to bring with him. It also puts Lily into Year 4, which is a very solid start and should give her a little advantage going into 4th grade.

Yay!

Eating the raw earthworm

I was hoping it wouldn't come to this, but I don't know if I'm going to get a "real" post in this evening (too beat), so I'm posting this. Because "every day" means "EVERY day." I'll TRY to come back in a bit and post something pithy. No promises.

There's a reason that movie takes place in the mall

We went to IKEA today, which was nice. IKEA is always a destination for us, not just a place to shop. Read Susie's blog for some insight there. Had a lovely lunch, the kids played in their play area, and we communed with the oddly-named flatpack furniture.

Then we went to the mall next door, Lakeside. Yesterday I said this mall wasn't a "big" one, and as American malls go, it's on par with some of the larger malls I've been to. Crossgates Mall in the Albany, NY, area is the one I think compares most closely. But malls are not what they do here in the UK. They do "the high street," which is what all the local merchants in the US are decrying the decline of. But when they DO get a mall here, they flock to it. Now, I'll grant that it's a month until Christmas, and that probably brought the numbers up, but the masses of humanity seething through this mall were enough to overwhelm the senses. They don't do Thanksgiving here, so it wasn't "Black Friday" shopping. I don't know what it was, but it was ... crowded. Let's just leave it at that.

On the other hand, for dinner, we went to a Japanese noodle place called Wagamama, which Susie was lukewarm toward as we went in but which turned out to be the calm oasis in our evening. In fact, it was calming enough that we decided to pop over to Borders (yes, Borders! In England! Woohoo!) for a bit.

Not so much. Borders closes at 8 on Saturdays. Huh?

Worlds apart

How different the US and the UK are, despite being so similar. I mean, in the US, if you want to go to the mall, you hop in the car and pop on over. Here in the UK it's a weekend outing. There aren't malls every 4 miles here. There are probably a dozen really big ones in the whole country, and maybe 20 small ones. And by "really big" I mean "would pass as a half-way decent mall in the states." And by "small" I mean "in the states these malls would probably be struggling for business."

Anyway, we're going away for the weekend. To the mall. And for a pilgrimage to IKEA. We're bringing a computer, so we SHOULD be able to blog.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm thankful for...

...the two greatest kids any dad ever had.
...the greatest wife any man ever had.
...not having had to go away for over a year.
...a wonderful home, in a wonderful village.
...a Thanksgiving dinner that didn't take all day to cook (or clean up after).

What are you thankful for?

The darnedest things

Because David and Susie both had appointments this morning, and I had the day off, it fell to me to get Lily up and dressed and off to school. As we were driving there, she asked me, "Can Jack come round?"

"I'm sure he can. We'll ask Mommy and she can talk to Jack's mommy and see when he can come."

"Because Jack really wants himself to come round," Lily explained.

"Ah. And do you want Jack to come to our house?" I asked.

"Well, I just want Jack to be happy," was her ever-so-considerate answer.

As I marveled at my 4-year-old daughter's thoughtfulness, she then asked me, "What makes time run?"

"I don't know, sweetie. It just does," I answered.

"Maybe God's hands make time run."

"Maybe so, honey, maybe so."

She thought about this for a second, and then said, "Time runs, but we walk."

There's a profundity in there. I have the best kids.