Well, Bill is feeling better today and is back in school. Dan is at work, and feeling better (though he had the lightest case). I woke up shivering with cold, and realized my fever had broken, and while I feel a bit shakey, I am planning on going back to work today. But Steven is still running a low grade fever and having a bad headache. I will give him today, and if he's not feeling better tomorrow, it will be the doctor's office for him.

While I was sick, I have been reading in between naps (Dan kept popping his head into my room to check on me last night, and he said about 75% of the time I was dozing with a book open on my chest). I finished up Smith's #1 Ladies' Detective Agency books, except for the last one (last time I checked it was only out in hardcover, so I probably won't read In the Company of Cheerful Ladies until its either out in paperback or I find it in the library). I have also been reading more of Patrick O'Brian's Napoleanic War naval series featuring Capt. Aubrey and Dr. Maturin. I am nearly done with the eighth book now (out of twenty -- maybe I'll get done with that series by the time I am fifty, maybe not). Dan and I also watched three more episodes of Band of Brothers, though the chapter set in the Ardenne forest, with heavy fighting in frigid winter conditions, and starring the medics, made Dan feel rather sick. Perhaps a bit too realistic for him...but this miniseries continues to be the best thing I have ever seen that was made for television (but its certainly not something little kids should watch).

Well, its been an interesting couple of days. I felt weird yesterday, but went into work anyway last night. I only made it a couple of hours before I started getting sick, too, so I came home. At that point, Steven had begun running a fever (but had temporarily stopped throwing up). So I was able to give him tylenol, and take care of him -- and then when Dan came home, he was sick, too.

 This morning Steven was still running a fever (and I had started running one) and we were watching the incredible devastation and flooding down south on the tv when the phone rang -- it was the high school asking if they could send Bill home because he was throwing up. So he drove home (having to pull over and throw up twice on the way home) and we had a quiet day of trying to keep down water, tylenol, and crackers. And, of course, Bill was running a fever by afternoon, too.

At least Dan is feeling better today.

I woke up a few minutes ago, sick again, have tried to take some more water and tylenol (and benadryl to try to help me get some sleep) and will take a hot shower then back to bed.

At least the hurricaine missed us, so no heavy rain. The outermost part came through just before sunset last night, and it was actually quite beautiful -- the swirls of clouds all pink and glowing in the evening sky. You could actually see the curved and distinct bands.

But the devastation down on the Gulf of Mexico is truly horrifying, just incredibly bad. I am equally horrified by the looting in New Orleans. I can see people breaking into food stores to get food and drink if they have no alternative. I could certainly never condemn someone for stealing food or clean water under such circumstances, especially if they have children or elderly people to take care of. But it didn't look like that was the sort of store and sort of stuff the looters the newscrews were filming were taking. Dead bodies lying in the streets, horribly polluted sewer water several feet deep covering most of the city, and people are stealing designer purses and crap like that. Sheesh.

Well, one thing is for sure -- when you have children, nothing ever goes as planned. Got woken up out of a sound sleep early this morning by the middle school -- come get your son -- he's throwing up!

I didn't get enough sleep, so I am now feeling weird and head achey. Stevie, of course (and more importantly) is completely miserable.

We'll see how the rest of the day goes...

Band of Brothers finally arrived in the mail yesterday afternoon, and I managed to watch the first four (of ten) episodes last night along with Dan, who is a WW2 scholar.
I am even more firmly convinced now that it is the finest thing made for television that I have ever seen.

The mini-series is about "Easy Company", a group of paratroopers who fought in WW2. They parachuted in behind enemy lines to open things up for the regular army units to invade. The company took something like 150% casualties over the course of the war.

The first four episodes dealt with their training in the American south, with their actions in Normandy on D-Day where they jumped in behind the Nazi defenses of the beaches, subsequent battles in Normandy, and the last with them parachuting into Nazi occupied Netherlands. There is graphic violence and some swearing, both very realistic under the circumstances (battle scenes).

Each episode begins with snippets of interviews with the men who actually served in Easy Company.

I cannot stress enough the high quality of this production. Think a ten hour long movie with very high production values, all based upon the letters, diaries, and memories of the men who served, along with official historical sources.

Today, of course, was a work day. It was quiet, which was good as my million mosqito bites from last night's flower planting are very itchy and are driving me nuts!! I am about to take some benadryl, to kill the itchiness and make me sleep like a log.  

There is a terrifying looking hurricaine about to hit New Orleans. Katrina looks like the storm everyone in that area has been dreading for years, a catastrophic storm which might do a huge amount of damage to that large and historic city, which is below sea level. It is supposed to make its way up here on Wednesday, and even after traveling across so much land, we will still get 4-8 inches of rain from that thing. Amazing! I hope the coastal areas which will be hit have been fully evacuated, and that the people who did not leave (for whatever reasons) will somehow be safe.

And my son will two have two extremely muddy soccer games on the road this week!

Tomorrow one of my friends is turning 42. So we are having a little birthday party for her. Should be fun!!

Speaking of birthdays, we are trying to decide where to go (if anywhere) for my birthday, as I have a long weekend for it in October. I had been seriously considering Chicago, but that's out of the question for now. I wouldn't mind going up north, and seeing the gorgeous fall leaves...but Frankenmuth would also be just fine. We'll have to see.

Another busy day. It rained very hard this morning, so I did stay in bed for awhile and just listened to the rain coming down. It was very restful!  I then did some housework (laundry  never ends).

This afternoon when the rain was winding down, the kids and I went to the farmer's market, then went and got the rest of their school supplies. I snuck in a couple more episodes of Highlander  when I got home, and then the rain completely stopped.

It was late afternoon, and I went out and planted a couple hundred spring flowering bulbs. Tulips, daffodills, grape hyacinths, crocuses, and squills. We even managed to find some black tulips, which is very cool, because black and red are our high school colors. It was nice planting flowers because the rain had made the ground all soft. I stayed out until the mosquitos got too bad, then came in and showered. Just a thousand or so more bulbs and roots to go!  I am trying to plant in one fall what might  otherwise take me five years or more to plant. But if Bill does change his mind about having a graduation party, the yard will be pretty. If not -- the yard will still be pretty.

Well, instead of planting flowers today, I ended up running a lot of errands -- going to two banks, going out to lunch with Dan at Panera Bread (I got to eat lunch at Panera two days in a row!  Soup!! ), getting a prescription filled for Billy, and going grocery shopping. Tomorrow I will go with the kids to get the rest of their school supplies, and then I can plant my flowers.

My friend will be taking three months off, so hopefully she can be with her father until he passes, and also get the estate somewhat taken care of, as she is the executor.  Her father being so sick has been bringing back some pretty stressful memories for me of when my father got so sick and passed. I have been feeling pretty down lately. Perhaps its good that things are so busy, so I can do needed things rather than sit and brood.

I've been watching reruns of MASH on satelite television late at night when I get home. That was such a good show! I had actually forgotten how good it was until I started watching those reruns. I have also been watching Highlander  on dvd. Tonight I watched the first three episodes of the first season. That was another very good show, and the guy who plays Duncan MacLeod is a major league hottie. Dan likes both of those shows, and watches them with me when he is awake.

I have been reading my way through a wonderful mystery series by Alexander McCall Smith called The Ladies' No. 1 Detective Agency Series. They are charming and warm, and the heroine is quite wonderful - intelligent, cheerful, hard working, likes to help others, cunning but very moral, and with a heart as big as her size 22 dress size. And the stories have a unique and lovely setting in Botswana.

The titles are:
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
Tears of the Giraffe
Morality for Beautiful Girls
The Kalahari Typing School for Men
The Full Cupboard of Life
In the Company of Cheerful Ladies

Am about to start the fourth Ladies #1 Detective Agency book, The Kalahari Typing School for Men. These books are so charming and warm.

The heroine is Precious Ramotswe, a lady in her 30's, and while not well educated, is very intelligent and wise. She is the sort of person you wish you could have as your next door neighbor.

The first book in the series, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, tells of how she uses money from her father's estate to found the first detective agency in Botswana. She does this because she wants to help people. One of the most haunting cases in the first book is that of a missing little boy, thought to be kidnapped by witch doctors.

In the second book,Tears of the Giraffe, Ramotswe considers marriage to a good man, and tries to find out what happened to a young American man who disappeared many years before.

In the third book,Morality for Beautiful Girls, Ramotswe must take care of a second business when its owner falls ill. Her agency is hired by a beauty pageant to see if the finalists behave in a moral fashion. She also is hired by an important government official to find out if his family members are poisoning each other.

But these little descriptions only give a bit of the flavor of the books. One of the main characters is the country of Botswana itself -- a beautiful and beloved land -- and one in transition from cattle farms and extended families to one of a more Western bent.

Well, I think I have helped to talk my friend (the one whose father is terminally ill with cancer) into taking as long as a couple of months off of work. She has the time in her sick leave bank, so there should be no problems with her being paid. Her father's time left sounds like it can be measured in days or weeks rather than months, and she can stay with her parents and help take care of him (in less than a month after initially going to the doctor, he already is very weak). After he passes, she can help her elderly mother. Her parents also have a large camper in the south where they spent winters. This will also possibly give my friend time to deal with that, getting their belongings out and possible selling or moving the camper. I feel so bad for her. I wish I could do more to help.

This, of course, also brings back some very bad memories of when my father got sick and passed only a month later, and I couldn't see him because I myself was sick, and my older son had a concussion, and he lived so far away. I am glad she can be there with her dad, and I do not mind having to work short staffed so that she can be there for him.

The kids had their first day of school today, a half day. Bill is a senior now! Steven was given his list of school supplies and we went out and got him everything he should need between when he got home from school and when I had to go into work. I couldn't do that for Bill, since he had to rush off to physical therapy for his shoulder soon after he got home. I guess we can get his stuff on Friday, as the season's first high school soccer game is tomorrow. I will miss it, as usual, because of work.  The only game I will be able to watch this year is the one on my birthday, and that's only because I have a vacation day.

I was hoping to be able to be a wee bit selfish and take some time for myself and watch Band of Brothers the next couple of days while the kids are in school -- but it hasn't arrived yet. So I will work in my flower beds the next day or so, since the weather is supposed to be beautiful. Some of my irisesneed to be moved and separated, and I might mail a few roots to a friend or two. And I am planting a lot of bulbs this fall. Billy says that he doesn't want a traditional high school graduation open house, but the cheapest and easiest way I can think of to make the yard lovely next spring if he changes his mind is to plant lots of spring flowering bulbs.

Maybe the dvd's will arrive and I can watch Band of Brothers next week instead...

Well, back to work today. Tummy is still bothering me, and one of my friends told me her kids have been throwing up the last couple of days, so there must be something going around. Yuck!

Tomorrow I get to go back to the photographer's and order Bill's senior pictures. It'll be costly, but worth it. The proofs are great!

Wednesday the kids will be back in school. It'll be a half day, and Thursday will be their first full day. Hard to believe my big son will be a high school senior. I have friends and co-workers who can remember me waddling around , hugely pregnant with him!

So on Thursday and Friday I think I will watch movies to celebrate having a bit of time and privacy for myself. I should do laundry, but I think I will watch Band of Brothers instead. I have been catching bits of it on the History Channel (cannot afford any "special" channels like HBO) and was lucky enough to catch an entire episode last Sunday night, my last night of vacation. I have been so impressed I actually ordered it (expensive as it is -- though I did find it on sale at a website) and I hope it will come in time for me to watch it later this week. It is what television could be and should be, but so rarely is. There is violence and cussing in it though (it is a very realistic depiction of war) so its not probably appropriate for kids under high school age. Hence I will wait until the kids are back in school to watch it.

I've been a bit down lately. A friend's father is desperately and rather suddenly ill with cancer, and it doesn't sound good at all for him. She helped take care of me (making sure I was eating, etc.) when my father passed, and I am horribly afraid her father will pass soon, too.

Well, we got up early and headed up to Montrose. The place was so hot and crowded that Dan pretty much ordered me to go shopping at the outlet mall. He said I would literally have to claw and fight to even get a glimpse of any of the mats. The two stores that I enjoyed were Pepperidge Farm outlet (Gold Fish crackers and Milano cookies) and the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Company outlet (chocolate).  There were many clothing and shoe stores, and places to buy china dinner plates. I wasn't so much into that stuff.

They called  when Steven got done wrestling, and I drove back down the one exit to Montrose and picked them up. We then went to Frankenmuth, where we visited the gourmet cheese store and Steven's favorite candy store.

Steven was facing kids his own age and weight for the first time in a long, long time today and he came in first. One of the area high school coaches was there and was amazed that Stevie is only 12.  He had brought his team to our high school this summer and Steven demolished every kid on his team under 120 pounds.

Long, sort of weird day today. Took the Jeep in for its oil change, and that was fine. Dan came and got me to go out for lunch, and that was fine. Then the kids called our cells  to tell us that the power was out at home, and what should they do? So after eating, we headed home to hook up the generator. The power was out for a rather widespread area (and with no reason, as there were no storms in the area), and Dan had to drive about five miles to find an open gas station with power. So we got the generator going to run the fridge, then had to head back to pick up the Jeep. In the meantime, the Chinese food I had eaten at lunch was not agreeing with me, so when I got home with my Jeep, I lay down.

When Dan got home from work, thankfully the power came back on, and we got into the Jeep with Steven and drove up to Montrose so he could weigh in for a big wrestling tournament they're having up there tomorrow as part of the their big blueberry festival. There was a lot of construction on the freeway, and the drive up there stank.

After he weighed in, we headed up to Frankenmuth/Birch Run, a couple of exits north, through another construction zone. We ate dinner up there in a restaurant by the huge outlet mall. That food, rather plain pasta, doesn't seem agree with me, either, so maybe I haven't quite beaten this tummy bug yet.

Then the drive home, again through creepy construction zones, in the dark.

Tomorrow we will get up and drive up there early, in part to make sure Steven doesn't miss any of his matches, and in part to beat the horrible storms that are supposed to be moving through tomorrow. Since we'll probably be in Montrose for at least a couple of hours before Steven will have his first match, Dan wants me to go shopping -- but I'm not much of a shopper, other than books, and there are no bookstores in the huge outlet mall. Maybe I can find him some Christmas presents at the power tool outlet.

I haven't been feeling well the last couple of days, and today Dan told me that he has been feeling sick to his stomach as well. That was a relief of sorts, as I had been thinking I was sick from stress of going back to work, before he had told me that.

The wildest thing happened as I was driving to work today. I was at an intersection waiting to make a left hand turn, and someone on the crossroad, also waiting to make a left hand turn, was driving a white Dodge Intrepid that looked an awful lot like my old car. Same rusting out spots, everything. When I made my turn, I saw the same dent on the left front fender and the same trailor hitch on the back. It was my old car! It had so many miles on it, and it was ten years old when I traded it in, and needed so many thousand of dollars in repairs, that I thought they would just junk it. I was great to see it still out on the road. I actually laughed for joy. It was like seeing an old friend!!!

One of my friends is off of work for three weeks starting tomorrow. He will be spending two of those weeks camping on a lovely beach on Lake Michigan. And another friend is off for more than two weeks starting on Friday. Last summer she followed my footsteps out to Albuquerque and the Grand Canyon. She'll be heading out there again. I have a few long weekends, but no vacation again for months. I am thinking of taking off the kids' spring break next April and going someplace warm and pretty, like Charleston, South Carolina or Savannah, Georgia, or New Orleans, Louisiana.

In the meantime I need to figure out what I'll be doing and going on my long weekends. A couple of them I took off to specifically go to Sunday concerts, like the one in September where I will take the kids to see Green Day at the Palace. But I have a four day in October where  I was thinking of going to Chicago to hear the opera Carmen and to hear the CSO play Mahler's Fifth Symphony. But I have decided that I do not wish to go to Chicago anytime soon, for personal reasons. I have a long weekend in November where I had been planning on going to Madison, Wisconsin to a book convention. Now Steven will be wrestling in a national championship that weekend (and needless to say, he is more important than a dumb convention), and I was thinking it might be good to get hotel reservations in that town so we can splash around in a swimming pool and stuff...so a lot of things to think about...

Back to work, and it was busy. Every bed was full, the ER was spilling over, and we were sending some of the ER patients who needed to be hospitalized to other hospitals on ambulances.  What a way to go back after more than two weeks away.

I had a productive day before going to work, too. I scrubbed down the kids' bathroom, floor to ceiling. I was tired of it being grungy. And I boxed up a couple of boxes of books and dropped them off as donations to the library. And I had an appointment with the photographer to pick up the proofs of Billy's senior pictures. They turned out great, and though I know Dan will fuss when he sees how expensive a professional photographer is, to me it is well worth the once in a lifetime expense (well, twice in a lifetime, as we have two children ).

I will have to point out that since Bill has made it very plain that he does not want the traditional open house, the saved money from not having to rent a tent and table and chairs and all of that will probably come close to paying for the pictures.

But I will still be planting hundreds of flower bulbs this fall just in case he changes his mind about the party, so the yard will look gorgeous come late spring/early summer.

Last day of my vacation, and I did not want to spend it doing housework, which I have done plenty of the last two days.

So we cooked a big, hearty breakfast and then Dan and I went up to Ypsilanti to visit his brother and his sweet wife and darling little girl. We then did a bit of shopping and went to see a movie, War of the Worlds. We came home, and Dan played soccer with Bill in the backyard for awhile.

When they get back in, I will make some dinner. I bought a cool small kitchen appliance today, a quesadilla maker, and I will use it to make some yummy food.  I did bake a delicious cherry cake with vanilla frosting last night, and buttermilk biscuits this morning. I love it when I have time for baking.

here is my movie review -- contains spoilers!!!

 

spoilers!

 

spoilers!

 

you have been warned!!!!

 

War of the Worlds (2005 release) -- spoilers

I went to see War of the Worlds today. I thought it to be a pretty good updating of the classic Wells story (from what I remember of the book which I did read some years ago, the narrator quotes it pretty much verbatim at the beginning and end of the movie).

The special effects (usually pretty important in a science fiction movie) were pretty good. The tripods were genuinely creepy and threatening. I'm not sure if the scale of them will translate well to the little screen, so I am glad I did make the effort to see this one at a movie theater.

The little girl was pretty good for a child actress/actor. I thought she stole the movie from Tom Cruise, in fact. Though I am no fan of Tom Cruise, so take anything I say about him with a grain of salt.

My primary complaint is that there were continuity glitches in the plot that were distracting to me. For instance -- if all electronics are disabled, how are people able to use their cameras and camcorders to film the tripods? And why can't anyone else figure out how to get cars/vehicles running other than Tom Cruise and the US military? Why are the cars from areas where the power still works nonfunctional? How come the ferry boat engine still works when all the cars aren't working?

However, those are minor quibbles, and I did enjoy the movie. It was good to see a modern updating of an old classic.

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