I was chatting with a friend this evening, and somehow, through the way the conversation meandered, I found myself thinking about a guy who was in my writing program at Governor's School. We weren't close, didn't even get along all that great, and I literally hadn't though of him for years, but when I Googled him, I found that he died 5 years ago. What an odd feeling it is when you discover that someone you knew years back died, and you didn't even discover it until years later. It was 14 years ago that we were at Governor's School together, and I remember that he was the only guy in our poetry poem. And we all spent the first half of the summer wondering why he was there, because he didn't produce anything at all, good or bad. And then, one day, he just knocked our socks off. Started churning out these poems that totally floored us and just bew us all away. It was crazy. While I was looking at the web pages that mentioned him, I saw that he was a musician and even that an album was released after he died. I can't remember if he had a guitar with him that summer, I assume that he did. I just remember that he wrote a poem called "Look at me, I'm howling" that was a send up of Allen Ginsberg, and how truly impressed I was at how clever it was. Obviously it made an impression, because 14 years later, I can still remember it. And I vaguely remember getting into an argument with him over something, though I have no idea what. I think he was much cooler than me. I was still an insecure fat girl and he clearly had his act together.

So, Flynn Eckenrode, I'm sorry to read about your passing. And sorry I didn't think to look you up sooner.

A plague of locusts

We've had a bit of a run of bad luck here the past month or so. Nothing too serious, though absolutely exhausting when things just come one after another the way they have been. We had a nice family vacation in Florida planned - Haakan made all the arrangements, gorgeous hotel right on the beach, weather was lovely and warm, it was all just wonderful. And then, five days before we were supposed to leave, I got the bright idea to do some laundry.


Now, laundry in and of itself is a fine and necessary thing, but no one ever thinks about the danger involved. and on that fateful sunday, I stepped funny while taking the laundry down into the basement and managed to break my fifth metartasal on my right foot. I didn't even fall, just stepped onto it funny. I spent an hour or so after I did it wondering if I should go to the emergency room, and then persuaded my sister to take me. Luckily we made it in before the post-church accidents and bagel cutting injuries, so it was a pretty quick trip. They sent me home with crutches and Vicodin, and an appointment with an orthapedist for the next day. The good news is that the foot ended up being the least of my worries and it's now pretty much totally healed (or at least, it's not hurting much anymore, though I'm still not supposed to be doing much high impact activities).

So, broken foot, crutches, children, husband, luggage, and everything else, we haul ourselves to Florida for a week of relaxation. Now, I had misgivings about this trip even before the broken foot, call it a hunch that things would go awry. So, about 15 minutes after we take off from Atlanta, Oliver crawls into Haakan's lap, looks at me greenly, and proceeds to vomit more than I ever thought it was possible for him to have in his stomach. I'm talking "Exorcist" type vomit here, like the kind that necessitates a whole lot more cleaning up than was possible on the plane. And it was all over both of them. So Oliver spent the rest of the flight pantsless, wearing socks and babylegs and a t-shirt, and Haakan had to wear the stinky barfed-on clothes, but ok, whatever, we figured it was airsickness. It was not. The virus went through the whole family, except me, hitting Haakan the hardest on the night that Elliot was awake crying ALL night long and I had to walk him up and down the long hallway in our suite ALL night long to keep him relatively quiet. Horrible. We came back a day early, lest our luck go from bad to worse and someone actually end up in the emergency room.

So, back in the winter wonderland of Pittsburgh, I began to feel like, "ok, the worst is over, now we're home, things can get back to normal." Right when I thought it was safe to go back in the water, I got hit with the mother of all stomach viruses. No throwing up, just nausea and diarrhea. but it lasted for three weeks. You read that right. Three. Whole. Weeks. I wanted to die, it's the most misearble I think I've ever been. Nausea that would wake me up around 4am and last until afternoon, then start to lift. And the whole thing would repeat. My docs kept saying it was a virus, though I was skeptical. And it's hard to really express just what being sick did to my mental state. It threw me into a depression the likes of which I haven't experienced since my adventures in post-partum depression after Oliver was born. And of course, I had the misfortune of Haakan being out of town during the tail end of this, so I was alone with the kids for a week, still feeling pretty crappy, and with no one to relieve me, since my mom was out of town, but then came back home with the flu!

The only redeeming aspect of being sick for so long is that I lost 11lbs, which I'm trying to keep from putting back on (though being largely unsuccessful, now that I'm not on the Gatorade dehydration diet), but truly, I wouldn't wish that kind of illness on my worst enemy. And in the midst of all this, my grandmother fell and broke her leg in two places, which majorly shook up the family, since she had been living alone but now, obviously, cannot. And our car had to get 4 new tires. And Inky had to go to the emergency vet because he was peeing all over the place (he had an inflamed bladder, which is now better, thank goodness). So now you can probably see why I titled this post "A plague of locusts", as I keep scanning the skies to make sure that one isn't headed our way. Of course, that would be pretty phenomenonal, being that it's winter and all, but you never know. I'll keep my flyswatter handy, just in case.

Every now and then

My children actually DO interact together! Granted, those moments of blissful laughter from both of them at the same time are usually pretty short - it's only a matter of time before Oliver starts whining "Don't want Elliot to smile at you! Don't want Elliot to touch you!" (we're still working on his pronouns). But Oliver seems to be more and more warming up to the idea that Elliot can be a lot of fun, if he just gives him a chance, and that being a big brother doesn't mean giving up all his toys and attention.

Anyway, here's some photographic proof.

And both of them looking silly and tres serious (though it was Oliver's idea to hold Elliot)

It's kind of interesting that Oliver is such a photogenic kid. My mom and I almost lament that the's so NOT a reliable performer. Kid could be making his fortune doing gap ads otherwise!