Duped

As I write this, Kyra, my "sick" 6 year-old, is in the next room singing at the top of her lungs and perfectly executing the choreography to High School Musical:

We're all in this together
Once we know that we are
We're all stars and we see that
We're all in this together...

Let's just say that once you hear something 100 million times, it tends to stick.

Kyra battled a mysterious fever all weekend long, and as recently as last night posted one of 100.5. This morning she woke up fever-free, but complained of a sore throat and sounded like snot clogged every orifice of her head. Oh, and she was playing this one up, too. "Daddy," she whispered as if on the very verge of death itself, "I'm too sick to go to school today." I knew she was hamming it up for all it was worth (where does she get THAT from), but since her school health policy states that they'd prefer a child to be free of a fever for 24 hours before returning to school, we decided to keep her home.

As Diane rushed to get ready for work and I rushed to get Kailey ready for school, Kyra laid in our bed moaning, fake-coughing, and complaining of her sore throat. Up to that point I didn't dispute her claims of the sore throat. But now that I've witnessed the family room review of High School Musical, I'm not so sure. Diane told her that if she stayed home she needed to rest. Today is a rest day, not a play day, a mantra that I recited at least a hundred times this morning. For as soon as Diane and Kailey shot out the door, Kyra perked up, turned to me and asked, "Daddy, will you play with me?" I repeatedly threatened to get her dressed and take her to school, but she called my bluff. She knew I had nothing.

When she walked into the den wearing her Hannah Montana Halloween costume and grabbed my mic and mic stand, I knew we were in trouble. I was putting on the finishing touches on a paper for my class, and I promised her that when I was done we would engage in some low-key activities. Four hundred hands of Go Fish and Uno later, it was time to pick up Kailey from school. Tomorrow, come hell or high water, Kyra will return to school, health policy be damned.


And On A Side Note...

This month I'm participating in a masochistic blogging exercise known as NaBloPoMo, or National Blog Posting Month. The goal of this exercise is to post daily during the month of November. I was hesitant to sign up, but I'm happy to say that it's going well so far. My mind has yet to blank out on material, which is good since it's only Day 5. We'll see how good I feel on Day 25.

Bowl Bound?

Whoa, Nelly!

The Fighting Illini picked up 655 total yards of offense and their seventh win of the season with a 44-17 trouncing of Minnesota last night. While it's true that Minnesota is woeful this season, it's comforting that the Illini beat them soundly. And picking up that seventh win should ensure their first bowl birth since 2001. Still, I'd love to see them pick up at least one more win this season, preferably two. Next week we head to Columbus to face #1 Ohio State. How sweet would it be for the Illini to storm into the The Horseshoe and knock the Buckeyes out of National Championship contention? We've looked tough against ranked opponents this season, losing only to Michigan. If the Illini can play tough and keep their heads, they'll have a shot. I can't wait.

Light Sensitive

One teeny-tiny source of contention over the course of our sixteen year marriage has been the issue of reading in bed, or more specifically, lights out time. Diane has developed a need to quash nearly every source of light in the room before she can go to sleep. Clock radios must be set on dim or covered up, a VHS tape is placed in front of the VCR's digital clock, and the bathroom door must be closed to blot out the light from the toothbrush charger. While all of these sources do produce a significant amount of light, they are easily blotted out by simply allowing your eyelids to close. All of my arguments as such have fallen on deaf ears, and over the years I have been gradually trained to cover my clock radio and the VCR, and to close the bathroom door. Yes, I have been assimilated.

So imagine Diane's chagrin when I bring a book to bed and read late into the night with light from my bedside lamp flooding the room. She tolerates me for the most part, occasionally covering her head with a pillow. But when I hear that disgusted sigh emanate from under the pillow, I know that's my cue to reach for the bookmark. Assimilated.

We discovered this issue early into our marriage. On an evening that we decided not to do what newlyweds do at night (and morning, midday, and for an afternoon snack), I kissed Diane goodnight and grabbed a book while Diane rolled over. I've noted before that Diane has what I consider to be the "gift of sleeps" and it amazes me how instantly it grabs her. She doesn't drift. She plummets. This night was no different and soon her deep, patterned breathing filled our small bedroom. I smiled as I scanned the face of my sleeping beauty before returning to my book. Fifteen minutes later my beautiful bride rolled over to face me.

"WILL YOU TURN THAT LIGHT OFF! I'M TRYING TO GO TO SLEEP!" she erupted, startling me.

"But, but you were just asleep," I tried to explain, wondering what kind of beast had invaded the body of my wife, who, moments earlier, had seemed to be enjoying a peaceful sleep.

"I CAN'T SLEEP WHILE THAT LIGHT IS ON."

You know that whole thing about not going to sleep angry? At that moment I dismissed it as complete crap. I was pissed and there was no way I was going to try to "resolve" it right then. I would have gladly turned my light if she had simply asked. She didn't have to be so crabby about it. I slammed my book down, turned off the light, and went to sleep. Angry. And I woke up angry the next morning. Diane noticed my moodiness and asked me what was wrong. As. if. she. didn't. know.

"Well, I didn't particularly care for the way you snapped at me last night."

"Snapped at you? About what?"

"About turning off the light."

"What light?"

She remembered nothing of what had transpired the previous evening. In the same way some people walk in their sleep, Diane had bitched in her sleep. I was married to a sleep-bitcher. This scenario played itself out several times over the ensuing months, and I decided to have a little fun with it.

"Turn off your LIGHT."

"You're asleep."

"I am not."

"Yes you are."

"No, I'm NOT. I can't SLEEP 'cause your LIGHT is on!"

"You're not going remember any of this in the morning."

"Yes I will, now TURN OFF YOUR LIGHT!"

"Wow, you sound like a crotchety old woman."

I eventually decided to cut back on my nighttime reading for sanity's sake. Oh yeah, and for the sake of our marriage. Even though I liked messing with Diane during her sleep-bitching episodes, I still couldn't help but be a little freaked out by them. It also occurred to me that it might be possible for Diane's sleep-bitching episodes to transform into a sleep-knifing episode should I continue with my mental hijinks. So I regulated my bedtime reading and sleep-bitching drifted into the memory of our marriage past.

On Father's Day, Diane gave me a gift certificate to Barnes & Noble. I was already working through a small stack of books, so I didn't get around to using it until last week. I picked out three books, and as I approached the checkout line, I noticed a display filled with book lights. I've often thought about picking one up over the course of our marriage. Why I haven't, or why Diane hasn't given me one as a gift, is beyond me. So I grabbed one and added it to my short stack of books, believing this would be the solution to our long-standing night reading conundrum.

In theory, the book light should have worked, except for the fact that this particular model harnesses the light from a thousand suns. It is so frickin' bright. "Oh, that's not going to work at all," Diane commented the first time I tested it. I put the light away until a couple nights ago, when I decided to give it another try. I had roughly twenty pages left to go on Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild and I wanted to finish it. Diane was sleeping soundly, so I grabbed the book light, situated it on the spine of my book and flipped the switch. The incandescent lamp burst to life, flooding the bedroom with an eerie blue light. Diane stirred, then settled, and I felt a wave of self-consciousness wash over me as flashbacks of sleep-bitching filled my head. I laid a pillow between us in a lame attempt to shield her eyes, but it didn't ease my growing anxiety.

I finally pulled the covers over my book and the book light, and curled up into an uncomfortable position on my side so that I could see the pages to read. This is ridiculous, I thought. I'm a grown man who's afraid of waking up his wife. I'm pretty sure I could take her if I needed to. Yeah, right. I finished the book and, disgusted with myself, switched off the light and went to sleep. The next day I awoke with a stiff neck, the result of reading in that weird position. Next week, I'll try to exchange my book light for a "lesser" model. Otherwise it'll be back to the same ol', same 'ol. Assimilation.

Disgusted

Always. Save. Your. Work.

Always.

This morning I downloaded ScribeFire, a blog editing add-on for Firefox, because I wanted to experiment with an editor other than the one here on Blogger. I set it up and linked it to my Blogger account and typed up today's post. I didn't want to publish directly to my blog without looking it over first, so I clicked the "Post as Draft" box, then the "Publish" button. Several seconds passed when a "Publish Successful" box popped up, followed by a prompt asking if I wanted to save or clear my post.

Always. Click. Save.

Always.

Before I knew what I was doing, I clicked on the "Clear" option. That prompt was immediately replaced with a honkin' huge "Error" box. Oh no. What have I done? I cleared the error message, and in a mild panic, called up my blogger account. No draft. I went to my blog. No new post. Insert expletive, no, series of expletives describing the depths of my stupidity and incompetency here. Now in full panic mode, I reopened ScribeFire and furiously searched for an "Undo" button, a "Magically Reappear" button, anything that would bring my post back. But to no avail. It is lost, free falling into cyberspace, where no one can hear you scream. Or is that just "space"?

I started to reconstruct my post, while it was still fresh in my head, but lost heart. I'll work on it later this afternoon and publish it tomorrow, if I can only remember to save it, that is. Frickin' idiot.

Obligatory Halloween Wrap-Up

Halloween has come and gone for another year, and for the most part, the girls came through it unscathed. Both came home with a butt-load of candy. What exact measurement a "butt-load" is, I'm not sure, but suffice it to say, it's a lot.

First of all, I have some clearing up to do. No, Kyra did not go trick-or-treating as a hooker. She was Hannah Montana, and for the second straight year, no one knew who the hell she was supposed to be. Last year Kyra dressed up as Princess Leia, minus the most important part of the costume, the cinnamon-roll side-bun wig. As a result, everyone thought she was an angel. This year we insisted she wear the Hannah Montana wig, primarily because she conned us into ponying up an extra $15 with the promise she would wear the cockamamie thing. She tried to back out of her promise an hour before showtime, but relented when we told her she needed to reimburse us $15 for the wig. Greed sometimes IS good.

Wig or no wig seemed to produce the same stymieing results. Each door that opened to her found the occupant asking the question, "Oh my, and who are YOU supposed to be?" I SO wanted to prompt Kyra to reply, "I'm a hooker," just to see their reaction, but I restrained myself. Instead, we tried to get her to say "Britney Spears", but she wouldn't bite. She just patiently replied, "I'm Hannah Montana," as she received her treats. One elderly woman asked her where she lived, to which Kyra promptly recited her address by rote: "I live at 123 N. Calle Street." Yeah. We need to tell her NOT to do that. But since this time it was only a little old lady, we got a nice chuckle out of it.

Kailey was a hooker for Halloween this year. Kidding. She finally conceded to being a "Vampiress" when she tired of correcting people by identifying herself as a "Vampire", a role, as you can see,that she took VERY seriously. She had fangs to go along with the costume, but she didn't want to mess up her lipstick. Her logic was a little more reasonable than the "I hate wigs" crap that Kyra was trying to pull, so we let it go.

Kailey spent the first half of the night running from house to house, like she was afraid they'd run out of candy or something. "What's the hurry?" I asked her.

"No hurry. I just like to run!" By the end of the night she was dragging her butt up people's driveways looking like she'd collapse at a moment's notice.

The girls made it home with quite the load, but they clearly need some instruction in the way of their post trick-or-treating routine. When we were kids, all the candy was promptly dumped on the living room floor and sorted into the "score" pile and the "suck" pile, which included candy corn and that horrible "taffy" candy that comes in the black and orange wrappers. Then we would gorge ourselves on the "score" candy until we puked. Ah, the good ol' days. In contrast, the girls set their pumpkins on the kitchen table then asked for a piece of the pumpkin pie that their Grammy brought over for dessert. No knock against Grammy's pumpkin pie, but this is frickin' Halloween! At least make an attempt to feign a little interest in the haul you just made! That explains why we'll still have leftover Halloween candy next October.