Our Poor Bea

OurDad says Beatrice was named for a character from Shakespeare's comedy Much Ado About Nothing. GreatMom and OurDad say she's always played the part being so bossy and barky, but now our comedy has turned into a tragedy by way of cancer. We're gonna loose her soon.

Last night we all slept in the family room with her, and we will for as long as we can.

He send's me to my room for this?

Life with OurDad is just ridiculous!

Did he send me to my room for
A) Forgetting to clean my room.
B) Hitting the GirlChild when she messes up our PS2 Lego Star Wars games.
C) Tormenting the GirlChild in general.
D) Singing, just plain old singing.

And it wasn't even copyright protected, totally public domain lyrics. It's got a nice ring to it.

I don't believe in hum hums... I don't believe in hum hums...

Oh sure the GirlChild had to get OurDad into it. "Dad the BoyChild won't stop killing fairies." "Dad make him stop," she cried. I mean it she cried, she's such a girl some times.

Ok so maybe I was pestering my sister a bit, but was OurDad upset about that? NNNOOOOooooooo. We have been through this before see I Don’t Believe in... or It’s Just a Story

"Get to your room! We do not speak like that in this house, young man!" I could parade around the house shouting F this and F that; he'd be been so proud, but question the existence of fairies, and it's the old heave hoe.

Of course while in solitary I built three Lego star ships. Oh the horrors!

Nikolai Gogol and the Superheros of Literature

You guessed it form the title: OurDad has a new book, and so it's off to Lit Land again as he tries to explain his latest find at the used book store.

"This guy created the anti-hero. His stuff is both sad and hilarious at the same time. He captured the absurdity of real life 100 years before Kafka."

Now there's trouble. Once he mentions Kafka I know the full-on lecture is coming, complete with another reading about that bug again. I had to think fast.

"A hundred years before the communists made Russia really absurd, and 100 years before Orwell, " OurDad continued.

Now Orwell and that Farm book. I was in real trouble, and GreatMom wasn't home to save us with orders to go clean our rooms. I had to get him off track and I thought of just the thing.

"So dad is he a hero or an anti-hero? Is he like say Superman or Lex Luthor?" Misdirection it never fails.

"Son it's not that simple. First off William Shakespeare is the Superman of literature, and Lex Luthor of literature-- that would be L. Ron Hubbard. Gogol would be one of those obscure nearly forgotten heroes maybe one of those mixed up anti-heroes, not all bad but good in a bad way. Actually Gogol might be the Northstar of literature. He was the first superhero to come out the the closet, but really it's only speculation the Gogol was a homosexual." I realized this was backfiring terribly, and it could only get worse if I didn't work fast to control the conversation.

So if this Shakespeare person is Superman, who's Batman, or Spiderman? Who are the other super villains of literature? OurDad thought for a minute and I could see a light at the end of the tunnel.

"Batman-- a heavy hitter, very popular, a dark side, but with no real super powers-- maybe Steven King. Spiderman-- that's got to be some satirist, very popular-- Of course that's Sam Clemens, better know by his secret identities Mark Twain and Kurt Vonnegut.

"So who's Wonder Woman dad?" That stumped him and thank God I could get back to my homework.

That's our dad...

On Time?

Getting OurDad to do something on time is impossible and he is always blaming us. I wonder what he tells his students about deadlines?

Well a deadline caught up with him this time. He submitted one of his weird stories to a blog that hosts writing contests-- 250 words with this picture as the prompt. Well he was too late, but here's the story.

Cross Words

He folded the gray paper in half and then in half again, took out a pencil and scanned the clues.

“Are you going to do that now?” she asked. He shrugged his shoulders at her, looked back at the puzzle and gave his mechanical pencil a pair of clicks.

“Hey, I’m trying to tell you something.”

“Uhhm,” he replied around the pencil in his mouth. Then he removed it and asked, “What’s a four letter word for barrier?”

“I don’t know, wall? I’m trying to talk to you.”

“I know, I’m listening.”

“No you’re not. You’re doing the crossword puzzle,” She looked at the paper, and added, “yesterdays.”

“Yeah, that’s so I have the answers if I get stuck.” He pointed to indicate today’s paper on a pile under the table.

“Two across is waver,” she said. He gave her a quick glare, and she folded her arms as he penciled in the letters and continued reading the clues.

“How about a five letter word for gray?”

“Does dingy fit?”

“Oh, yeah,” he replied as if he’d known that himself.

“Seven letters for electrified,” he thought out loud.

“Charged?” she said, again he glared, but wrote the letters.

“Blank dreams,” thinking out loud again.

“Four letters? Pipe?”

“Why don’t you do this yourself,” he said holding out the pencil to her.

“No, I’m going to sleep,” and she walked down the hallway.

He nodded and looked back at the puzzle and thought one down and filled in the letters s-l-e-e-p.

Weird... Anyway, I wonder what would happen if he was on time once in a while.

You can see the winning stories, by writers that kept to the deadline.

OurDad and the Copycat Germs

Friday OurDad elevated the Microbial Alert to condition Scarlet. This means active infections and it takes us from the eradication plan to antibiotics. Both the BoyChild and I have step throat. Streptococcal pharyngitis caused by Streptococcus pyogenes says OurDad (and yes he made me type that in italics).

Now at this point I should let you know aside from being a germ freak and a microbiologist OurDad is an microbial geneticist. Which basically means he knows who they evolve. Anyway he loves to preach doom and gloom about the antibiotic era comming to an end. He goes into this whole Darwinian diatribe about the evolution of bacterial resistance to antibiotics... Click the link if you want, but I'll spare you.

Anyway with us at condition scarlet he's worse than ever, "Damn the Lysol." Ok it was our pediatrician that prescribed the BoyChild and I antibiotics, but then OurDad calls his internist, "My kids have strep and I've kind of got a sore throat." What a copycat.

Give me a break he just wanted the drugs, and you know what they gave them to him, sight unseen. That's some doctor that can diagnose strep over the phone. So now everyone but GreatMom is on antibiotics.

So dad what was all that contempt for the prophylactic use of antibiotics. Prudent use, in theory only.

Just Say Hi

Hey it's National De-lurk Week.

So at least say Hi to OurDad. He's really the one putting all these words in our mouths anyway, but they do approximate what goes on around here.

Another Roman Parallel

"George Bush is the new Pontius Pilate!" says OurDad. I know the hanging of Saddam may be old news, but around OurDad the anti-Bush rant is non stop and since Wednesdays presidential address it's been elevated to indoctrination.

"Handing Saddam Hussein over to the Shia's was just like Pilate washing his hands of the death of Jesus . I tell you this country is going the way of ancient Rome and this is just one more example." Then list of parallels ensued: devalued currency, brazen military challenges, moral decay, failing democracy. Great Mom tried to stop him, and this usually works, but not this time, only got worse. He started in on the dollars flowing into the pockets of his Bush/Cheney friends in the oil industry and military industrial complex.

But my quick thinking stopped him. "So dad does this make Saddam the new Jesus?"

He didn't have a answer for that one.

I wanna be just like...

OurDad because he's still got his tonsils, and great Mom has had hers removed. I really don't want to go to the doctor tomorrow.

I told Ourdad that my throat still hurt today. OurDad said my tonsils look even more swollen. "What?!" Boy you should have seen him back pedal.

There is a bonus to getting sick. Were on page 527 of Order of the Phoenix now.

Diary of the germs of a sick girl part 2

Just because I was sick over the weekend doesn't mean I can't get sick again. I told OurDad I had a soar throat this morning. He gave me some Tylenol sent me to school. An hour later I called from school and told him again that my throat hurt. He said I didn't have permission to be sick, and that I should call him back after lunch. I knew I shouldn't call GreatMom at work to ask to come take me home when OurDad was already at home. So I suffered till lunch, and tried to eat some grapes, it hurt. So I called OurDad again... at least I didn't need to call him three times.

Of course when we got home he went all epidemiological on me, shining a flash light down my throat. "No, I can't get my tongue out of the way." Then he tells me my tonsils look swollen. I told him he was not a real doctor and then asked him for more Tylenol.

He did spend the afternoon reading me Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. We're on page 438.

Diary of the Germs from a Sick Girl

OurDad is a Microbiologist, and a bit of a germ freak. Think Howard Hughes without the money, pilot's license or starlets. He had the BoyChild spraying the whole house with Lysol this weekend, and he wouldn't come near me. What does the word "quarintine" mean?

GreatMom took care of me, that is if starving me on a strictly pediapops diet, and persistently asking me, "Which end?" denotes care. "Which end," I'd rather not say.

Whenever anyone gets sick at our house OurDad activates the Family Emergency Action Plan section 5 and elevates the Microbial Alert to condition Red. A condition red automatically activates the Microbial Eradication plan. This basically means three cans of Lysol are used to fumigate the house and another is sprayed onto every possible surface. I don't think it worked this time. OurDad wasn't looking so good this morning. Perhaps he was dreading another semester at the old cc as he trudged out the door to his first day of classes, but I'm think his antiseptic aptitude failed him and he caught my germs. Sorry Dad. I hope he can look at this not as a failure of his microbial expertise, but as a measure of his dedication to students.

I wonder if he had an in-class gastrointestinal demonstration.

Fresh Fish Tonight

He may not bring home the bacon, but today there were two new gold fish and an algae eater friend for Algi, our only remaining fish. Our goldfish, Rock and Speed died over the summer. I was... was... was.....

WHY did they have to die...


Sorry about that. The BoyChild took the death of our fish pretty hard. We all did. I just told him I would finish this post so he could go visit Rock and Speed's marker stone in our garden cemetery. It was a bad day when OurDad woke the us with a gasp of, "Oh No." And there they were Rock floating and Speed sucking his last watery breaths over his pale little gills. He struggled to survive, but by the end of the day Algi was our only fish.

Rock and Speed had first stayed with us over the summers after the BoyChild, and myself two years later, were in Mrs. D's first grade class. When they retired from their several dedicated years of service to the WoundTight School District they came to live out there remaining years with us.

But that's behind us now. OurDad brought home a friend for Algi and Rock and Speed Jr. They are smaller than Rock and Speed were, but were gonna feed them up. New Fish! Three new fish for Algi top play with. He even cleaned up the tank and bought a water thermometer, water conditioner and very thing.

Not sure what made him do it, maybe we could start calling him GreatDad.

Maybe He's Just Recharging Over The Holidays

It's not that OurDad hasn't done anything worth writing about, we're sure he did, but we didn't notice. Santa dumped a PS2 and a computer on us. We figured we'd have plenty to write about when Grandma and Grandpa, GreatMom's parents, stayed with us for a few days over New Year's. They aren't Great Grandma, and Great Grandpa, because they aren't; they're mom's mom not moms' mom's mom. Got it.

Anyway, if something happened we didn't notice. Our grand parents brought great stuff with them too including our cousins. We had a great time with extra kids in the house. Maybe OurDad was just hiding the whole week. It was kind of noisy. We really didn't notice him until he woke us up for school yesterday. Ahhhhhhhhhh!