Friday, September 1 2023

Hey Reader!

It's been a long week. We only got a few days into the school season before I contracted by first head cold of the season. My body fended off any symptoms until my on-call shift ended (probably with the help of all the adrenaline from my pager going off). By the time I woke up from my nap, the "head" part of the head cold was in full force. I spent the rest of the work week battling brain fog.

I think I'm finally on the mend. Yesterday, while waiting for a pair of Dayquil pills to kick in before my evening meetings, I took a walk around the neighborhood. I couldn't find a cloud in any direction - just a deep blue endless sky that disappeared behind trees and rooftops.

It was nice to get out of the house, if anything just to get a little mental break from Miles. He's in a difficult phase where he is content by himself 95 percent of the time, but seems get annoyed whenever we try to leave him alone in his room. His revenge for this is both exacting and creative.

Wednesday naptime sticks out in my memory. He dragged the vacuum out of the cleaning closet and stashed it behind his door. He grabbed the wet jet swiffer and gave his bedroom floor a deep soaking. Combined with the playdough he smuggled into his room, this formed a weird, fragrant slime along his floor boards. He threw a full toilet paper roll in the garbage can. He also ate butter from our butter tray. If you haven't eaten breakfast yet, you might want to do that first before you look at this picture.

Yep. Those are indents from his wormy little fingers. Thinking of him waddling out of his bedroom snacking on room temperature butter like a fancy cheese makes me want to laugh and retch at the same time.

On a happier note, Rodney is adjusting well to second grade life. He brought home his first craft, a construction paper creation he calls the sus bus.

"It's the sus bus, cus' it's a little sus," he explained. Does the fluent gen-z speak sound like total gibberish to you? "On god," I replied, which made Rodney just roll his eyes.

In other news, I'm going golfing with my church on labor day. Last night, I met my foursome at a driving range in Des Plaines for some practice swings. Even though I calmly went along with the plans, I was secretly terrified. The last time I swung a golf club was before the pandemic. As Rodney might say, my golf skills are a little sus.

But I was pleasantly surprised. I still hit a respectable ball maybe about 80 percent of the time. On Monday, I'll consider it a victory if I can just keep up with the group.

What did surprise me is how physically taxing the short evening outing was on my body. I came home with a fresh blister covering the entire pad of my thumb, and I woke up feeling like somebody was trying to yank my right arm out of my socket.

Miles is content watching Dino Dana, so I'm going take advantage of the peaceful morning and start work. Have a nice holiday weekend.