Cold Spaghetti

This Tuesday, December 6th, at 8pm EST on NBC, a member of my extended family is going to be on Fear Factor!

The family member is Angela — she is the niece of my Aunt Frances, the long-time girlfriend of my Uncle Gus (Uncle Gus is Grandma Betty’s brother). For those who know me, you know that I come from a very fun and loving extended family and Fran is a great example of the wonderful people who help round it out. (You can see pictures of Gus and Frannie’s visit to New Orleans in the blog archives from July.)

So tune in and cheer Angela on! (And, for Aunt Fran’s sake, keep your fingers crossed that Angela won’t be eating any bugs!)

We (finally!) ventured over to the University/Carrolton neighborhood to try Lebanon’s Cafe. It was *excellent!!!* It is my new favorite place to eat in the city: awesome food, great menu, tons of veggie dishes, fun atmostphere, very kid friendly, and totally affordable. The one upside to Paul being sick is that I get to have all of last night’s leftovers!!

Paul is sick. He was acting lethargic and funny this morning, but still got his work clothes on to continue working on the outside plumbing (he repaired the back faucet yesterday and today, was going to tap into the main line to install a faucet to the side of the house to make it easier to wind/unwind the hose for watering the front yard.) Finally, he gave in and went to bed. He has a temp (100.9 at last check) and I gave him Tylenol to bring it down.

Will is currently napping. He seems fine. He was very “helpful” (read: into *everything*) as I started to tackle projects this morning. These projects include:

– Cleaning out back bathroom/laundry room.
– Organizing cleaning supplies.
– Organizing supplies in laundry/bathroom.
– Doing laundry
– Moving storage shelves to our bathroom
– Organizing and moving Paul’s tools to proper locations
– Going through clothes in guest room closet. Packing to store what stays, gathering other for donation.
– Packing up Will’s closet.
– Organizing our back bathroom with storage shelves for tools and Paul’s housework supplies.

It’s really a several person job over several days. I’m doing pretty well so far (back bathroom/laundry is looking so much better, etc.) but I need some help! I hate that Paul is sick and hope he feels back to normal ASAP!

The weather has been so incredibly beautiful (low to mid 60s with wonderful sun!) that outside study breaks have been mandatory. So, Christmas decorations went up! 

See those red cheeks? That (and the lacy rash coating his little body from stern to stem) are why I am thinking fifth disease. *sigh* 

In 19 hours, I am suppose to begin my comprehensive exams. Two days of questions, 8-5 each day.

The update: Penny hadn’t received any questions when I spoke to her around 11 this morning. She didn’t even know that comps were NOT moved to next week. She was going to check email and look into things and get back to me… that was two hours ago. (She’s distracted with contractors and getting appliances and other post-storm business, so there is a reason.) I also left a message on my committee chair’s cell.

I have to have faith that this will work out. I figure that the worst case scenario is that at 8am tomorrow, I start calling faculty one-by-one at home and tell them to send me their questions via email.

The good news is… I’m ready. I’ve reviewed some development theory, read a few articles, crunched a few odds ratios, computed a sample size. At this point, I’m sort of doing the same things over and over again… I’m ready. Let’s go, people!

Me, just finishing helping Will into shoes and jacket and ushering him out the door to school: “I love you, sweetheart.”

Will, taking Paul’s hand and looking back at me: “I luvu, seehart.”

We got a call this afternoon from Will’s school.

“We just wanted to make sure you knew that Will has a rash all over his body.”

“Yup, we know.”

“Okay. We just wanted to be sure!”

Yes. Will has had a rash for awhile. It started about when the fever broken over the Thanksgiving holiday while we were in Mobile. When we first noticed it, it was quite pronounced. I did the “tumbler test” to be satisfied that he didn’t have some sort of blood infection and reminded myself that most rashes are usually benign. I remembered that roseola comes after fever and thought it could be that. And then just figured that it would take awhile to resolve and as long as he wasn’t in any distress, he was okay.

Now I am thinking that he may have fifth disease. He’s got those red “slapped” cheeks and a significant lacy rash all over his trunk and extremities. It’s not much to be alarmed over, it’s very common, and there really isn’t any treatment for fifth disease (named because it’s the “fifth” common rash illness… measles, rubella, scarlett fever, some fourth one and then fifth). But what is interesting is that it is very infectious (but now that he is in the rash stage, he isn’t contagious) and can have complications in pregnant women. (Granted, it’s rare. But gosh darn, I have honestly been tired as hell the last few days.)

As for Will’s rash, I couldn’t get a good picture of his cheeks (the red color washes out in the photos). But we did get a great one of the rash on his (ahem) other cheeks. I’d post it, but I’m afraid the crazy-people mafia would get me for indecency.

So much for everyone being well. First the cat. Then Will. Now what? (And one more day until comps!)

It started when Paul noticed something strange on the carpet.

“Uh ho.”

From there, we saw the tell-tale signs… a cat was sick. Both ends. We cleaned up the messes, stripped the bed (that is of course where he ended up), and Paul took the cat to the shower.

This is Scout, a little less fluffy than usually and a lot more pissed. He’d deny it if you asked him, but I maintain that he really likes the hairdryer.