Time flies

Again, I've tried to catch up on recent events by posting but somehow life gets in the way. So, I'm going to try to get up to date in one fell swoop.

FAN OF THE GAME, NOT OF THE TEAM
Last weekend we made a whirlwind trip to St. Louis and caught a Cardinals game. We're Cubs fans, so I didn't really care who won....as long as it wasn't the Cardinals. So, how do die hard Cubs fans end up at Busch Stadium watching a Cardinals game when they aren't playing the Cubs? Elementary my dear, we were at a surprise 40th birthday party. One of the couples of our normal "group" relocated to the St. Louis area about a year ago when he took a new job. They're both originally from the South, he's from Missoura (yes, he pronounces it Missoura and proclaims it to be the "correct" way) and she's from Arkansas. So, since May she'd been planning this surprise party for him and there were 3 couples from home that made the trip for the surprise. She rented a skybox - SWEET - so when the game went into a rain delay for about an hour at the top of the 8th we could have cared less. The bad part was that the beer got shut off already. The good part is that the beer got shut off already - I'd have been a bigger mess than I was to begin with. I ended up with a terrible stomach ache and called my evening short at 11pm while all the others continued on into the wee hours of the morning. And I didn't even drink any booze from mid-way through the game on. It was strange, and took a couple days to get myself back to feeling 100%.

ATTACK OF THE SUPERBUG
Last Monday I got a phone call at work from my mom who indicated that my sister was going into surgery, asking if I could pick my niece up from school at 3pm and keep her for awhile so my sister could recover and get some strength back. So, I took off at 2pm and still ended up having to wait in the traffic line for pick-ups at the school. I never picked my daughter up from school so I haven't experienced that huckle f#ck of a deal. I finally got into the parking lot and parked so I could walk over to get her from her teacher. When I walked up my daughters 1st grade teacher looked at me in a panic and said "You're in the wrong place!!!" I told her I was there for my niece and we found her and away we went. Ends up my sister has MRSA, the icky bad staph infection that basically eats your skin off. She had a pimple like bump on the back of her leg that got infected and they ended up having to remove approximately 8 inches of gunk from her leg. And the wound is nasty nasty nasty. My mom borrowed my digital camera so she could take a picture for me to email to my sister-in-law who is a nurse in charge of wound care at a nearby huge hospital. Against my better judgment, I looked at the pictures. Lets just say that I won't be feeling the need to eat hamburger at any point in the near future. Its gross, it's 4 1/2 inches across and at least 4 inches deep and it's in a V pattern. Oh yeah, it's an open wound because that's how it has to heal, from the bottom of the V up and when it gets close to healing all the way then she'll get stitches to close it up. Ugh, nasty.

SCHOOL DAYS
School started up on the 22nd so we're into the start of the second "full" week. So far so good. My daughter has 2 teachers since one of them is retiring at the end of the calendar year. They worked it out this way so that when they return from Christmas Break they aren't starting with a new teacher, they'll already have had her for half days the first half of the year. I can't believe the things they learn in 2nd grade now...cursive, multiplication. I wonder if they make Cliffs Notes for parents of grade schoolers on what they're teaching now so we don't look like fools. I seriously think kids are much smarter much earlier than when I was in school.

END OF SUMMER
This past weekend we had so much going on that yesterday was just a nothing day. I only left the house twice and spent the rest of it laying in the recliner watching TV. I was nice but at the same time it ended up being the longest day of my life since we had nothing going on. Labor Day has always been the mark of the end of summer here in Illinois. I'm NOT looking forward to the cold weather that's around the bend. I hate it. One of these days I'll move to someplace where it's 80 degrees year round. One of these days.......