Not much to tell...

It has been a very quiet day. Not much to share.

Of course, I do have a story to tell. Since you brought it up, Jaci, and need a laugh right now, I will tell.

One year I decided it would be a great idea for my students to build decomposition towers, as seen in the Bottle Biology book. They worked in pairs and made these towers, basically two two liter soda bottles cut and taped together to make a tower. Lacking anything else to fill them with, we decided leftovers from the cafeteria trash would be a good idea. Then we put them in the courtyard at the school to "mature." Fifteen taped together soda bottle tubes filled with rotting cafeteria food in the main courtyard of the school. I have no idea why the custodian and admins were annoyed with me...

(Really I do. Everyone who ever taught with me will tell you if it was messy or smelled bad or both, it belong to me. Worm bin. Fish tank of Science. 100 trout fry. Salmon carcass full of eggs. Cabbage juice. Rocks and sand on the floor.  I could go on...)

So, cafeteria food isn't exactly balanced with browns and greens. And the courtyard was apparently a perfect temperature. After not too long, instead of decomposition towers we had tubes filled with...maggots. Teeming with maggots. Being the good scientist, I figured the best thing we could do was to take them apart and try to figure out what went wrong.

I have the first one in my hand, filled to the brim with maggots. Four liters of maggots. And the tape gives way. And four liters of maggots cascade down the front of me.

This was not the first or last time I was very thankful to be wearing and apron and a lab coat.

I knew this whole event was memorable for my students. They brought it up often. I didn't realize what an impact it had until months later when we started studying the Civil War. In past years, we would read about the food being infested with maggots and the soldiers having to eat it, or wounds filled with maggots and the students didn't understand. I would try to explain. Illustrate. Nope, they just couldn't grasp it.

Not this class. They knew exactly what food infested with maggots looked like. They didn't have any trouble extrapolating from the maggots pouring out all over me to a wound full of maggots. It was much more real to them.

Hence the expression, "flies and an open wound are a little too Civil War for me."

You're welcome.

 Back to the real world.

I took a bath.

Anne came and scooped cat litter. Kelly is torn between feeling guilty that she comes all the way over here just to scoop litter and thrilled that he doesn't have to do it. She was schlepping kids all over so no time for a visit. I am looking forward to prom pictures next time.

I read an entire book. Half-Broke Horses. I wish I had read it before The Glass Castle, although it was written after. I also checked out her newest book, but I dare not open it tonight or I'll be up all night.

There was little else to my day. Eating. Doing a puzzle with Karissa. Listening to Kelly and Karissa try to get together the rest of the items for her electric house/ballet studio and work on her speech about Helen Keller. For such a capable independent child, she can whine about schoolwork like the dickens. She really does not like to do anything that involves being still.

Except TV.

The TV fight sounds just like the TV fight we had with Karina. No you aren't watching endless amounts. And if watching something YOU'VE already seen is this important, maybe you don't need any TV at all. Crying about TV makes us crazy. Can you tell?

I think we've ironed out most of the camp details. Just a few things left to get. Karina helped Karissa go through her summer clothes. This is not a new ritual, but it still warms my heart to see them together. Karina is more the second mom that the big sister because of the age difference. Still, she brought all the clothes out to the living room so I could weigh in with an opinion. My girls are amazing.

No luck on the job front, but something will turn up.

This is a crazy week. Endocrinologist for Karissa. Cardiologist for me. Day Zero of radiation. PT. Book Fair. Carnival. Hopefully Mia. A big meeting for Kelly that he needs to attend in person. That means I'll be going this time as we haven't sorted a nurse situation yet.

Just when I'd say not to worry, we had a vacuuming situation last night. And, even though the canula had just been cleaned an hour before and we were snug in our beds, I still managed to hack something up and clog the tube. Ugh.

Thank you to Nancy, Mary and Malia who are trying to sort out schedules to come and stay and help out during radiation. Thank you to Beth and Rebekah and Lesley for helping get camp stuff together and for coming to the labeling/packing party. And thank you to Beth, Rebekah and Karina for offering to take Karissa to camp, assuaging some of my guilt about not being able to do it myself. Thank you to meal train and all the other wonderful folks who keep us in food. Thank you to Eileen, the true garden ninja and amazing friend who has organized so much help for us. Thank you to all the people who took the time to comment on my blog and tell me to buck up, etc. Of course, thank you to Heather and Angie and Hannah for all the time they spend being surrogate moms to Karissa. And thank you to all the moms and dads putting in countless hours on the school carnival. I know how one person can make you or break you, so thanks for picking up my slack.

Take your visions of maggots dancing in your heads off to bed with you.

You're welcome.

Kiara