Wordjanitor Strikes Again

Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil...the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for any inconvenience.

I found myself in a familiar position yesterday, surrounded by familiar sights and sounds. And calm, but not at all thrilled about it. I spent most of the day sitting in a chair next to a hospital bed while the alarm for the oxygen saturation monitor squawked at me every few minutes. @ had his tonsils and adenoids removed yesterday. The surgery went well, but recovery turned out a bit trickier. We started our morning with an early breakfast-free start and a drive up to Stanford. He had a great anesthesiologist who sang Thomas the Tank Engine songs to him while he drowsed out on the way to snoozeville. The docs had initial concerns about his history of lung damage and recent croup, but everything turned out to be fine and his airways were clear. Original estimates were an hour for the surgery, with an hour or two for recovery, putting us home around 12:30 or so. If there's one thing you learn when you have a kid in the NICU, it's that all estimates are best ignored. @ initially ...

I can't help it. It just makes me laugh. Out loud and everything.

The CAL FIRE stats are pretty amazing. That's all I know. I called LD to find out where the nearest one is to where he lives since a map shows one much closer than I'd prefer it to be (probably within 10 miles). Luckily, he's a big proponent of defensible space, ponds, irrigation ditches, and oh yeah, his own fire truck...

Once upon a time, long ago, my left foot and I had a great relationship. We walked on the beach, played soccer on the fields, swam in the ocean, hiked in the mountains... until "the incident." Like many that change relationships, this incident changed the foundation of my relationship with my left foot. One day we went a little too far afield and met the edge of a sidewalk with all of the force you'd expect a soccer player to deliver in pursuit of a round spotted object. There was the realization of "Hmm... Gee, that hurt" followed by a bit of tenderfooting around for the next week. Ah, but it was the end of the season and tournament weekend had arrived. No visible injury, probably just bruised... A month or so later my first visit to the podiatrist began with him staring at an x-ray while delivering a question along the lines of "See these two pieces of bone? How did they get so far apart?" He really didn't like my answer of, "Well, I thought...

@ ain't available either.

My guess is that I'm not the only parent on the planet who is a bit squirrelly about having a son learn to drive. My guess is that fear typically sets in around age 13 or so. Not me and my overachieving and amusing kid. His feet can't come close to reaching the pedals, but he can steer a tractor. Not just a little lawn tractor, but a full-size Kubota farm tractor. And that's a good thing when mama's car is parked between Point A and Point B of "Adventures in Tractor Driving 101" as taught by Grampa LD. Strangely, I'm pretty sure LD would have sooner eaten granite gravel before putting me or my brother behind the wheel of any such vehicle when we were only barely at the midpoint between four and five years old. My how adding the "grand" prefix to parent changes things. Note how, except to redirect a certain kid's gaze forward, LD's hand doesn't even get near the steering wheel. And how Luke wisely stays four legs and two steps ahead of...

Once upon a time there was a worker named @. He was very good at working hard and had lots of buddies who liked to help him. One day, @ decided he was a little bit hungry, so he decided to build some dessert. First, @ used an excavator to dig a big bowl in the ground. Then he drove his tractor to the warehouse and used the scoop to get some chocolate chip cookies. He carefully brought them back to the jobsite and put them in the bowl. Blue Doggie drove his backhoe to the ice cream factory and got a big scoop of vanilla ice cream, brought it back, and put it on the cookies. Then he went back for a big scoop of chocolate ice cream. Then he went back again for a big scoop of strawberry ice cream. Engineer Doggie drove the tanker truck to the chocolate sauce station and filled it up the whole tank with chocolate sauce. He drove back to the jobsite and used the hose to put the chocolate sauce on top of the ice cream. Kermit got his cement mixer and went to the dairy for some fresh milk and ...

Mock my cheese allergy all you want. his would never happen at Chuck E. Tofu. Two moms allegedly brawl at Chuck E. Cheese in Massachusetts By Associated Press NATICK, Mass. - A child's birthday party at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant was cut short after a fight broke out between two mothers. Natick police said the mom of the 9-year-old birthday boy apparently became enraged because the other woman's son was "hogging" an arcade game. Sgt. Paul Thompson said Catherine Aliaga, 38, and Tarsha Williams, 33, both of Boston, would be summoned into court to answer charges of simple assault and battery stemming from the scuffle. Thompson told the MetroWest Daily News that police received a number of 911 calls about the fight Saturday night. He said what started as a birthday celebration turned into a "birthday melee."