Have you talked to Kathy A. anytime recently?

Just posted that in Natter! Last time I talked to her was around Jan/Feb. She was super swamped with school and work. There had been some downsizing and she got some more responsbilities.

Everyone's life is better than mine. But I suppose I don't have a headache.

erika, yay for no headaches. (please imagine me saying it in the most deadpan, droll way possible - if I can't say something encouraging about the rest of your statement, at least I can be semi-amusing)

Me? I have one. Well, not so much a headache as a face-ache. It makes me suspect that the sinus-y issues are thinking about being infected. Actually, the fact that when I sit up in bed first thing in the morning I feel like I'm riding a roller-coaster kinda makes me suspect that there is a whole eustation (sp?) tube regional issue.

I do not have the patience to wait for microwaved water to cool. I figure the thing to do is heat up some water, and add enough from the bottle to cool it to an agreeable temperature. It's kind of making me want to get a microwave for the bathroom, but I guess I will just have to think about nasal irrigation before I go upstairs.

You can microwave the water just a little and warm it without boiling it, Windsparrow. It'll take a little experimentation to figure out how long and at what power level to nuke a given amount, of course, but once discovered, it would make things easier.

Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes for my beamish boy. (And, congratulations vw! Sympathies to those having a hard time. this has been an awful year for so many Buffistas.)

Ryan has had a lovely birthday. He was quite thrilled to be told he was no longer two, but was now three. He repeated this (with finger counts and hand gestures) several times during the day.

He was especially taken with his birthday cake. (I was taken a little aback - it had coffee-flavored icing, and was decorated with peach slices and of all things cherry tomatoes. Not that Ryan cared, or at least not negatively.)

The rest of his day was filled with birthday lunch, lots of attention and games, animal sticker books, and numerous renditions of "Happy Birthday To You". And the cheeky mummy daddy song. Oh, and we explored more of the neighbourhood. We normally head to the main shopping drag, also home to the buses and taxis that Ryan loves. Today we headed in the other direction, and discovered quiet streets lined with plane trees, with some little shops dotting the apartment complexes. Very pleasant, and really somewhat unexpected. It's still high-density living, but down a couple of gears from China's usual bustling pace.

For completeness, the lyrics of the cheeky mummy song -AS IT SHOULD BE SUNG! - to the tune of "This Old Man":

When this boo, smiles at you
You might think he's done a poo
Change his nappy, good as new
(quickly) He's got a cheeky mummy too.

Anyway, Ryan's lately decided that he can just blatantly override authorial intent, and has taken to replacing "mummy" with "daddy". I don't know where he gets it from. t checks song Oh, wait, yes I do.

Ryan might be funnier than his dad

Aww, sprog breeds true! Happy Birthday to Ryan!

Aw, Ryan's barely three years old, and he's already beginning to filk.

You can microwave the water just a little and warm it without boiling it, Windsparrow. It'll take a little experimentation to figure out how long and at what power level to nuke a given amount, of course, but once discovered, it would make things easier.

Yeah, it only needs to be a little bit warmer, and since it is distilled, I really do not think I have to worry about brain-eating bacteria.

I keep forgetting to get salt packets to make saline. I shall have to do that when I get soup-makings.

I plan to be up wicked late finishing my neuro essays (1 to go, plus making sure I'm APA-compliant). Depending on how long the caffeine lasts, I may also finish the Grief and Bereavement assignment that I am half done with. Which will just leave a book report on A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius to be finished in the next 23 hours.

Praise be to all relevant deities that there is tea.

Bottle of Valium and bottle of deplin missing from my carry on bag from last weekend's trip. Can't find them anywhere. Not good.

Zen, for a second I thought you meant your checked bag, and was like "Aw, damn, baggage people at it again", but carry-on? Do you think you left it somewhere, or someone got into it?

I had dance class tonight for two hours. And am embarrassed a bit now--it's a beginner class (first in a series) that many people who know the dance already are either taking as a skill brush-up prior to the other classes in the series, or are taking as a lead when they've previously followed, or vice-versa. Because it's very basic, it gets boring. People only know how to do two things, so we do them over and over and over. A couple of the more experienced people have thrown in a twirl or something here and there when they realize I am also experienced. One guy asked me to dance afterward (they had some music on) and I was all excited...but then kept screwing up, not because he was leading anything I couldn't do, but because after two hours of dancing, both my brain and my legs were massively tired! But it made me look like I was really not nearly as competent as I thought (and he went back to mostly leading the stuff from class). Sigh. Plus I'm missing next week's class for work, and probably the week after that too. Grrr.