Aack!

I just spoke to my German teacher and guess what? She's just been diagnosed with Lyme disease. AAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Lemon Lyme

So B has only just finished his round of antibiotics for Lyme disease. Our next-door neighbor is awaiting blood test results for a steadily growing rash on her leg, and I just heard that a boy who lives about five houses further up has also been infected.

Is this a burgeoning epidemic or just sheer coincidence? I'm not taking any chances-- have bought some industrial strength insect spray and have been dousing the kids every time they go out to play in the woods...

Creative visualisation

Picture if you will a fresh smoothie made with blueberries and raspberries. Now imagine said smoothie falling from a height of about 4 feet and landing in the vicinity of white walls, butter-yellow chairs, light wood and a freshly clad boy, the unwitting catalyst of this catastrophe. There are, of course, only ten minutes before he has to leave for school.

What was going through my head at that moment?

Call a realtor, find a new house and leave no forwarding address...

Hickeys.

Wordle is a completely addictive tool that generates word clouds from any text you provide. Who knew that my hickey post could morph into an artistic expression? I must be even more talented than I'd ever imagined...

COOKIES!

My house smells delectable! I have been craving ginger snaps for days now. Found this quick, easy highbrow recipe on Allrecipes.com.

(For those of you following sadistic diets like myself, the shortening can be replaced by applesauce, the all-purpose flour with whole grain spelt flour and the sugar can be reduced. They still taste delicious!)

INGREDIENTS

3/4 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup light molasses
1 egg
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoon ground ginger
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt


DIRECTIONS

1. Cream together shortening and sugar, add egg and beat until fluffy. Stir in molasses and mix well.
2. Sift all dry ingredients-twice, then add to molasses mixture and mix well
3. Using a cookie scoop or spoon scoop out spoonfuls of dough and form into round balls. Roll tops of balls in sugar. ***note: if you have replaced the shortening with applesauce the batter will be runnier. just drop tablespoon fulls onto a greased cookie sheet.
4. Place the round balls on a cookie sheet, these cookies flatten as they bake.
5. Bake for exactly 9 minutes in a preheated 350 degree (175 degree C) oven. Remove from baking sheet and cool.

That's my alibi and I'm sticking to it...

I was getting dressed this morning when M suddenly said:

Hey, what's that red ring on your back?

WHAT?! You're kidding, right?

No, I'm dead serious. It's right here and... uh oh.

WHAT!?

There's another one. and another one. Holy shit, Betsy, you've got at least 5 or 6 of them!

I raced to our full length mirror and contorted myself so that I could take a look. Sure enough, there were several round rashes on my back. Bright red at the edges and clear in the center-- very similar to B's except that they were perfectly round instead of elliptical. Could my entire back have been covered with ticks without me knowing it???!! With a sinking heart I twisted further to get a better look.

M? These don't look like bullseyes, they look like... hickeys!

What?! Want to tell me how you ended up with 6 hickeys on your back?

All of a sudden I burst out laughing. I had an ECG stress test earlier this week during a routine checkup, and that must have been where they attached the suction cup monitors...

Big career decisions

On the way to school this morning B told me unequivocally that he has no desire to become a teacher when he grows up.

The reason?

He doesn't want to have to clean up all that confetti in the classroom after Carnival.

100% organic wholegrain porn

My husband was watching the news on Tuesday evening when I suddenly raced in, flopped down onto the couch next to him, pulled down my pants and pressed a slice of frozen bread to my thigh.

To his credit he hardly raised an eyebrow.

Was this an act of seduction?

Hardly. I'd spilled hot water on myself while making a cup of tea and couldn't find any ice cubes...

Straight out of National Lampoon, episode #232

Some are destined for greatness, others for parody. My life seems to fall consistently into the latter category.

I just got back from another field trip. S's class visited the hospital after school today and I agreed to be a chaperone under the condition that I could bring B along with me. The teacher wasn't happy with the plan, but she needed all the help she could get, so she agreed, as long as B was discreet about it. Those of you who know B are probably already chuckling-- discreet is just not in his vocabulary.

So we get to the hospital and get a tour of the lab there. The technician whipped out a vial of urine and demonstrated how she tested sugar levels with a dipstick. Then all the children got their very own dipstick to take home to test themselves. As a joke I suggested to the teacher that she might be able to include that as part of the lesson tomorrow and she stared at me horrified. I keep forgetting that my dry sense of humor doesn't go over all that well with Germans.

B, probably inspired by the multiple vials of urine, suddenly had to produce some of his own. As we were leaving the lab we spotted a bathroom. I sent him in hoping that he could go really fast and that we could catch up with the group before they turned the corner at the end of the hall. I was hoping he'd be discreet.

Suddenly I hear B's screams echoing throughout the hallway. I raced in to find him at the sink, rubbing his eyes and howling. He'd tried to squirt disinfectant on his hands and somehow it had splashed up into his eyes. I stuck his head in the sink and washed his eyes out with water. It sloshed all over his hair, shirt and pants. A nurse brought us a towel and gave B a wet washcloth to hold on his eyes during the rest of our tour.

Then we wandered around in the pediatric ward for a while trying to find the class. B got a lot of attention for his wet washcloth, which spurred him on to new thespian heights.

Next stop: the emergency ward, where all the kids got to have a cast put on their finger. The teacher told B that he couldn't participate since he's not part of the class and he burst into tears. The kindly hospital staff, who had already offered to have his eyes checked out by the paramedics, felt sorry for him and intervened. So now he could get a cast too, as long as I accompanied him.

When we got back out one of the girls came up to me, held the arguably very phallic cast up to her pants and said: "Look Betsy, I'm peeing!" Of course then the rest of the children followed her suit. S turned to me very proudly and said: "I taught her that. Thought it up all by myself!"

I would not be surprised if the teacher is at home right this very minute sticking pins into a voodoo doll with my name written on it...