Frakking, blessed nebulizer. I hate it, like I hate no other thing I love. I guess I hate that they need it, and hate that it has to be what it is, but love and appreciate that it gets the job done.

Oh, Stephanie! I'm so glad she's home and doing better. She looks fabulous!

bug, you are in Kansas? What for?

Visiting my brother and SIL for Christmas. My other brother flies in tomorrow, so it'll be the whole family for a whole week! YAY!

And, speaking of nebulizers, I'm off to do one. Two cats and a house filled with really gorgeous winter wreaths and trees, etc. have done me in.

Breathe easy, vw. And have fun in Kansas!

Stephanie, the Ellie pictures really are heartbreaking. And she has gotten so big! (I am Repeat-O Girl tonight, I guess.) I think the one of her on the floor with the toys, and the IV still connected, really broke me, because she looks so little, and so happy to be playing, but there's the horrible IV...

I'm so glad you're all home and better.

In Defense of Kansas: [link] Apparantly the Kansas flying monkey problem is exaggerated.

It seems that most non-Kansans I meet have a negative attitude toward visiting the state of my birth. More often than not, they seem to view Kansas as a long, grueling stretch to suffer through while on the way to somewhere else. Upon investigation, though, I usually find that this attitude is based not upon actual experience, but upon two false assumptions.

...

The second assumption is that if you drive through Kansas, you will be attacked by flying monkeys. This canard is the fault of both L. Frank Baum and, especially, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

...

MGM, on the other hand, was thoroughly irresponsible. Their 1939 film version of The Wizard of Oz depicts its flying monkeys as being the size of chimpanzees, existing in large numbers, wearing militaristic uniforms, and possessing the ability to carry a teenage girl through the air. All of these fearsome traits are unrealistic and false, and I’m convinced that such misconceptions are responsible for the loss of millions of potential Kansas tourism dollars.

The truth is that the typical Flint Hills flying monkey is no larger than a cocker spaniel, and the two- to- three- thousand- member troops, or flerds, that once roamed the blue Kansas sky have dwindled every year since 1964, when the last of the great Cottonwood Falls banana plantations brought in its final harvest. In 1998, zoologists at Kansas State University in Manhattan estimated that no more than twenty flerds still existed between Wichita and Topeka, with each flerd comprising only 400 to 600 individuals. Those numbers are almost certainly smaller now.

Furthermore, there is no record of Flint Hills flying monkeys, either as individuals or groups, ever carrying off a human being larger than an infant. In fact, there are only three documented cases of even that happening — and in two of those cases, the infants were dropped before the monkeys could reach their usual cruising altitude of 300 feet.

The pictures of Ellie are making my allergies act up. I am so glad she is home and well now.

I hope JZ wasn't stuck in traffic too long with the baby.

My hair is done. It is not my best red or my best cut, but at least I no longer have an inch of black roots with grays popping up all over the place. TCG and I organized all of the gift basket stuff tonight, which now just need to be assembled tomorrow.

Love the pictures of Ellie coming home.

Yay new hair!

I am uber-pyro girl tonight - there are so many candles lit that I don't need any other lights on in my apartment. Mmmm, candles.

no candles - but then again I am hopeing to avoid heading to the doctor for possible nebulization

and just in case you need some help with your mashed potaotes...

[link]

I hope JZ wasn't stuck in traffic too long with the baby.

They made it home in the rain okay and I had hot pasta with meatballs (veggie, but good) waiting for them. JZ's making cookies. Emmett's bouncing Matilda and watching How I Met Your Mother (his first grownup sitcom!), and I'm posting xmas songs to BR.

I'm glad that they made it home safely.

Well, interesting developments on the old heater front.

When I got home, in addition to finding three (3!!) packages in front of my door, I found two space heaters just inside it.

And a message from my landlord. Guess what? The boiler is not going to be fixed. It's far too broken. (And this is the very same one that was pronounced "fine" after I complained when I got back from Thanksgiving.) And they are switching me to electric, but don't know when it can possibly be done, given the holidays so they left me two space heaters.

Seriously?

Luckily it's not supposed to get too cold tonight (staying in the 40s) but we will be having lows in the low 20s on Sunday and Monday night. I won't be home. I hope my cats will be okay without heat.