It was 18 years ago that I first walked onto the campus of Tufts University.
That doesn't make me that old, does it?
I'm currently in Arizona for a series of community foundation meetings and I had the opportunity to visit with a very old friend from Tufts...
Matt Goode and his wife Deb.
We were sitting in the lounge after dinner and I noticed Matt was playing with his hands. It then came rushing back to memory that Matt is the guy who taught me to twiddle my thumbs.
As Matt said to me this evening after seeing that I had truly mastered both the forward and backward twiddle, "You have learned well, grasshopper."
My journey to perfect the spiritual and mystic mystery of the twiddling thumb has come to an end.
Seriously, though, I had heard the expression of "twiddling your thumbs," but it wasn't until I saw Matt doing it at lunch one day that I actually understood what that meant. I don't think I told him at the time, though, because I didn't want anyone to know that I was this dink from Hawaii who didn't know anything about big city thumb twiddling.
Needless to say, Matt was a slightly more serious student than I was.
Here's a picture of the two of us in front of the restaurant where we sampled an Archetype Shiraz, a very nice bottle of wine. Maybe not as good as the Marietta Wine Cellars stuff that our friend Jen Bevins liked so much, but hey, ya gotta start somewhere.
This afternoon, our 5th child, Nalani, had an unfortunate run-in with a vacuum cleaner.
We're not exactly sure what happened, but we know Nalani was running down the stairs and across the entryway to our home. Then, accordingly to our little girl, the vacuum jumped up and grabbed her and caused her to fall down (it wasn't that she was running in the house, of course).
The truly unfortunate part is that she must have been biting on her lip when she was running because when she hit the floor, she bit clear through her lower lip. It was so bad you could have put your pinky finger through it.
The poor thing bit clear through the left side of her lower lip. She needed 5 injections to numb the are before they were able to stitch her up. In anticipation of a scream and squiggle fest, the male nurses came in the room to wrap her up in blankets, pin her down, and immobilize her head. The female nurses came in to try to make her smile. (Sexist, maybe, but that's how it happened!).
The doctor was worried because the bite went through the bottom of the lip, but also through the surrounding skin. If she didn't hold still, it might be difficult to stitch her cleanly and avoid the lip healing up unevenly.
But Nalani was so brave. She never cried once and held still the entire time they were injecting her and stitching her up. It was amazing. The doctor asked her questions and she nodded yes or no, but never lost her cool.
The tough part is that they don't stitch up her inner lip -- only the outer. The doctor said that there is so much bateria in her mouth (as is the case with all of us) that you cannot sew it up on both sides or it could lead to an infection inside. So this little girl has a big gash in her mouth that is an open wound, so she cannot drink juices (too acidic) or even go to McDonalds like I had promised (the fries are covered in salt). They even want her to avoid anything but soft bland foods for the next few for fear it could irritate or reopen the wound.
This poor little girl had such a bad experience. But just look at our wonderful ray of sunshine even now, just a few hours after it all began...
What a terrific, amazing little girl!
Yes, the NFL playoffs have arrived and for the remaining teams, the stakes have never been higher.
For millions of rabid fantasy football fans like us, however, the real NFL playoffs are just an annoying reminder that the fantasy football season has come to an end.
Fantasy football can consume you during the season, and so it is the case in our household and those of so many of our friends and family that play with us. Each year, we purchase an online fantasy football league from NFL.com -- the BICOY FOOTBALL LEAGUE! Then we invite others to join us.
This year we finally decided to break down and legitimize our pathetic obsession with pretend football with a championship plaque...
Notice that the biggest names on the plaque are those of the commissioners -- if for no other reason that neither of the commissioner's teams have ever been in the Bicoy Football League Championship Game. We figured that listing us as commissioners might be the only way we'd ever get our name on the plaque.
The plaque itself is displayed appropriately in an upstairs alcove in our home...
Notice the statues appropriately writhing in agony over the idea of anyone so annoyingly enamored with play football games.
And you didn't think we'd send it to the winners of the Bicoy Football League, did you? The Champion is invited to visit our home to see their name!
Ah, but this year we did break down and decided to send the Champion a giant trophy of their own...
Okay, "giant" is a relative term. Maybe it's 4 inches high, but hey, it's better than nothing!
So join us in celebrating this year's Bicoy Football League Champions, my wife's sister and brother-in-law, Chrissy and Brandon Scharer...
Their enthusiasm is overwhelming.
Posts
