I'm less than a week into this and I've already skipped a day. My youngest daughter's birthday, no less. Her first. However, as nearly every parent knows, we'll still have to express her age in months for another year. It's a big leap from 13 months to 20 months, even though she'll still be 1. She had a happy birthday, I think; lots of toys and clothes and stuff that makes a 1-year-old smile real big and say "Aaaaaaaacccck!" (That's what she says. Really.)
As it turns out, Mom and Dad have had better days. More on that later. But first, some totally unrelated thoughts:
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On my Very Long Drive Home one day last week, I was flipping through the smorgasbord of talk radio stations that spew forth right-wing invective. I stayed on one long enough to hear this much of this exchange:
HOST: And now, on a car phone, here's John from Houston.
CALLER: Uh, yes, thanks for taking my call. I, uh, I've been microwaving my mail ...
and I moved on to the next idiot rant on the dial.
Today, I'm making the Very Long Drive Home, and I'm flipping through the talk-radio smorgasbord. (I have a very nice CD player in my car; I really should start using it more. Anyway ... ) I'm flipping through the talk-radio smorgasbord at the top of the hour, and I hear ...
ANNOUNCER: This is CBS News. The Postal Service is considering irradiation of the mail as a means of neutralizing anthrax ...
Another example of my world: Gone from mildly amusing to completely stupid.
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One day last week, it was announced that the company that owns the Very Large Metropolitan Newspaper for which I work is planning to cut 160 jobs at the end of the month. If our math is correct, that means about 20 of my co-workers won't be my co-workers when I change the calendar at my desk to November. A lot of breath is being held as we wait for the ax to fall. No announcements yet; really not much in the way of general buzz or rumor or innuendo, for that matter. Each one of us thinks we're the one getting cut. That kind of makes speculation less than fun.
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My source at RER tells me that there's some bad Listerine going around in the Carolinas, dude. I'll steer clear of that stuff.
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Received word last week that one of the finest sports scribes at the Anytown Daily Bugle called it quits Saturday after 38 years. He basically taught me how to write, when he wasn't threatening to fire me. No greater teacher in all the world than he, I'll say that. Dedicated himself totally to his job -- at the expense of pretty much everything else, I fear. But he found a way to weave his life -- watching sports, hunting and fishing -- into his work. Not very many of us get paid to do what we love, and not very many of us are allowed to do it for our entire lives. Catch a crappie for me, Rigg.
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Now back to our top story.
The Young Daughter (not to be confused with the Old Daughter) went to the doctor on her birthday, which in itself kind of sucks. Nobody should have to get shots on her birthday, but hey, when you're 1, you don't have to worry about a whole lot else. When she balances the checkbook for us, she can decide when and where she gets shots. We're feeling bad enough about giving her vaccinations for her birthday when suddenly the doctor wrinkles her nose a bit. In roughly the time it took her to execute that wrinkle, we've gone from routine checkup to having to make an appointment for an MRI. Seems her birthmarks are a matter of concern. The MRI happens Friday. The disease we're trying to rule out is neurofibromatosis. In its mildest form, it's an appearance concern. I never voluntarily go to worst-case scenario, so I'm not even concerned about that. We get answers Friday. Until now, everything's fine.
And after then, everything'll be fine, too.
Certainly was a solid reminder that the anthrax is half a continent away.
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