free piece of advice. Piles of papers does not equal filing. Finding a reimbursement check stub in said piles, IMPOSSIBLE! Arrrggghhh!

(This Public Service Announcement brought to you by the IRS, who reminds you, taxation WITH representation is different than what the colonists had. So please don't revolt).

eta Found it! Woot!

remember to *flex* the foot, as opposed to pointing the toe- stretch through the heel

Pointing the toe makes my leg cramps worse. I've got to slither out of bed and force my foot down flat onto the floor to make them stop. I'm always afraid I'm tearing a muscle when I do that, but it's the only way.

I pull the toes toward my knees -- it helps quite a bit , but it hurts.

Hil, I think you need some fun. I get the not wanting to bother -- but the way things have been going you need something a little lighter and less fraught.

Sometimes I stand up, flex my foot upward, and place my toes against the wall, and press.

Pointing the toe makes my leg cramps worse. I've got to slither out of bed and force my foot down flat onto the floor to make them stop. I'm always afraid I'm tearing a muscle when I do that, but it's the only way.

Yeah, exactly.

I'm skipping the Purim stuff. I just really don't feel like doing that much walking.

You can look at pictures, Hil. [link]

It's the annual Purim parade and festival near me, including that traditional Purim heroine, Princess Leia [link]

Hee. Those pictures are great, Ginger. Also, from the names on the captions, it looks like a lot of the people are Persian or Arab Jews. I didn't know that Atlanta had much of a Mizrachi community.

And yeah, Purim costumes have long since ceased being just the traditional characters. It's mostly only the very little kids who still dress as Esther and Mordechai.

Today's kidism has been replaced by a Valerieism. Let's see if anyone notices...

We made creatures at work today. It was quite fun, and the kids were very creative. I put out a whole bunch of different crafty things they could use, and off they went. Well, the pom poms were a favorite, and they used them for many different things.

After R2 was done with her creatures, she started stuffing pom poms in her pocket. I reminded her that those belonged to After Care, and she *had* made six creatures, so she really didn't need to take any home.

"But, Miss Val! It's only two!"

"Ok. But, only those two."

So, her mom (who's name is also Valerie) comes to get her, and we're all cleaning up. R2 starts taking more pom poms. I gently remind her that we've already talked about this, and she doesn't need any more pom poms today.

"But I put the others back!" she squeals.

"Let me see your pockets!"

"See Miss Val! Can't I have one to take home?"

I tell her ok as her mom starts checking her pockets as well. Valerie, with her hands in her daughter's pockets, says, "Nope. No balls in here."

Could. Not. Stop. Laughing. And I could hear Valerie laughing all the way out the door.

I have vague memories of dressing up as She-Ra, Princess of Power, for Purim when I was about five or so. And in sixth grade, a boy in my grade dressed up in torn jeans and about four layers of flannel shirts and said he was dressed as this other boy in our class. (This was 1993. The guy he was dressed as took all his fashion cues from his older brother, who seemed to take all his fashion cues from Kurt Cobain. Older brother once came up to one of my teammates at a softball game and asked, "Want me to pierce your ear?" She said no thanks. He said, "Why? It doesn't hurt," and then took a needle out of his pocket and poked a new hole in his earlobe. Their mother apparently said at several parent meetings that the one reason she was glad her son had asthma was that she knew he wasn't smoking pot. Every other parent knew that she was delusional, but no one was quite brave enough to tell her.)