Friday Fragments

Friday Fragments is brought to you by Mrs.4444, friend and teacher extraordinaire.  If you haven’t played along before, today is the perfect day to start.  Just go to her site and link up, then purge your brain of all of those delicious tidbits floating around in your head.  It’s the equivalent of an enema for the mind!

***In talking about the good old swine flu with my doctor/friend on Wednesday, I do believe that when Eli was ill a couple of weeks ago he actually had it.  Mainly the terrible aching joints and the splitting headache and the high fever.  He missed a couple of days of school and just basically felt like shit.  Since I didn’t take him to the doctor of course we don’t know for sure, and of course he wasn’t out of school the requisite forty-eleven days, we also suspect that he single handedly started the epidemic in the school.  Go Eli! *

***In speaking of the swine flu, we also need to speak about the myriad other problems brought up by this illness.  I was reading about it on the district health website and the standard quarantine length is at least a full 24 hours after the fever is gone.  Which could be anywhere from four to ten days.  Of course the standard “rules” apply: don’t go to work or school if you have a fever, even a slight one.  And I get that, I really do, but tell me this: how is this really feasible when you live in a school district where you can’t miss more than XX number of days or you have to appeal to the school board for your credits (even if you are doing your work and getting passing grades on it)?  Or at work-I will tell you right now that there is no way in hell I could miss work for 4-10 days no matter how sick I was.  I have 13 hours of sick time left, so I guess if I DO get sick, I will have to manage to confine it to those 13 hours.  And this is how true epidemics start, when people are forced by necessity to continue to go to work and school when they are ill because they just don’t have any other viable options. 

***For some unknown reason, the kids thought it would be totally okay to have Owen watch a movie about zombies yesterday (they were out of school for some teacher workshop thing).  It was funny when he went to the store with Steve and saw a tall, lurking man and told Steve that he looked like a zombie. It was NOT, in fact, a good idea when he was in bed with us by 10:00 last night because he was afraid there were zombies in his closet.  Guh-reat.  I don’t mind so much when he climbs into bed in the middle of the night; I just move over and make room.  But when he comes in early like that, not all the way asleep, it is hard for all of us to get settled.  And he had an accident early this morning, which means I woke up smelling like pee. 

***I have been struggling with something lately that just doesn’t make sense to me.  You all know by now that Steve likes to cook, right?  So it has somehow fallen on him to make dinner this week, all week.  I did cook last night, but that consisted of throwing potatoes in to bake while the fish (for us) and chicken nuggets (for the kids) were also baking.  I have to guard against this because I feel like I have been taking advantage in some ways of his presence here, laying on the couch reading or whatever while he cooks-as if I am a queen and it is my due.  I think part of it stems from the complete relief of finally having appreciable  help in the house-I was on my own for over six years before he moved in.  Knowing that doesn’t make it okay, though.

***Julie commented yesterday on my not-so-frequent posting, and I have to admit that my voice seems to have disappeared just recently.  I am in a word period of stasis and am not sure how to get past it.

So there are the things that have been happening in my life/head this last week-for more fragments, head on over to Half Past Kissin’ Time .

*I am only teasing about Eli having single handedly caused the epidemic here.  It can’t be denied that there are a ton of kids out sick-dropping like flies, they are.  And I DO take it seriously, but also know that a big part of why it is spreading like wildfire is that there are too many people like me who don’t have enough paid time off of work to either be gone the prescribed amount of time OR who know well that making an appeal to the Board of Education to keep credits is terribly difficult.