White Lightning Axiom: Redux

Now that the sprinklers are in operation again, it's been raining non-stop. Standard. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. The horrific and oppressing heat has tapered off only to be replaced with a soggy and nearly tactile weight of torpid humidity. This has spurred the growth of various autumn fungal flora much to the delight of the Mrs's sinuses. Yep, it's Hayfever season, part two. Now, if I keep the windows open at night to let in this spore laden soup, the house will cool down quite a bit before morning. On the con side though, all these little micro-irritants tend to set off the allergic reactions in the wife like pulling out a 10,000 grand at a fat camp. The AC bill will certainly go down from the budget-breaking 300$/month, but the lack of a restful night for either of us makes this a hollow victory.

Saturday was your standard weekend activity list except we cut the shopping short so we could take Jake to the pediatricians office. He has been running a low-grade fever for the last couple of days and we suspect that it may be yet another ear infections. The Mrs wants to check it out before we drive up to the Haupertonian Outpost in Central NY next week. Rightfully so. Would hate to have to cut short a vacation or try to get someone to prescribe antibiotics for that while out of range of our standard medical avenues. Turns out that it is not an ear infection at all, just some nasty little summer cold virus of sorts. The rest of the day was spent either slacking off with the kids or me slaving over a hot cast-iron skillet while I make one of my signature kielbasa dishes for the family. A good day outside of the wasted hour or two with the medical excursion. I say that now, of course, knowing that nothing is amiss. On a side note, some of my semi-distant relations in the area gave me a call and left a message that they would like to get together next month some time for lunch. Should be interesting. I've been trying to touch base with these folk for a long time but could not seem to get anything started. I joked with the Mrs that they might need a kidney or something ... let's hope I'm just being petty.

Sunday. Ah yes, my day of rest that I usually spend working my rear off. Difference is that today, not only is it raining but we've been invited to yet another party. It's late in the afternoon so I might be able to get a few tasks ticked off my list. Right, who am I kidding. I took Jake to church today for the 0830 mass. He spent most of the time insisting that I coddle him or just laying about. The fever is really taking it out of him. I hate to see him like this, just a complete blob of bleck. Sure, it would be nice for him to behave while we are in church, but not by these means. After we returned home, I found the wife and the littlest tyrant roaming about the house half dressed and quite rumpled. At that point I pretty much deduced that nothing else was going to get done other than the preparations for going over to the party. We gave Jake some Motrin to bring down his fever from 102 and within minutes he was back to his typical mischief.

Later in the afternoon, we zip off to BJ's Wholesale Warehouse to get the SuperSaturn tanked up. The other day, we filled the massive fuel reserve in the FamilyTank and only had to sell a cornea. Since the tank in my car is significantly smaller, it will only result in us having to sell off a few pints of plasma. At 2.57$USD/gal, I don't feel bad about going out of my way to save about 1.20$. It's just a couple of miles down the road from our destination so it's not like I'm going to spend thousands to save pennies. While I was there, a man at the other pump tried to strike up a conversation with me after hearing my rather audible sigh of resignation as I watched the numbers quickly increment on the Crystal LED readout. He started cursing the 'Spek-U-Lators' and mumbling how it was all a plot by the Oil companies to run the world. I snickered a bit an threw him a line about how the PRC was trying to buy up oil companies and take all the oil to destroy America. I also made a note of how the Chinese were sending signals of approval to Hugo Chavez and his Socialst movement in order to obtain a source of oil that did not need to go through the shipping lines near Jakarta that are now in such peril. He became quickly confused and I made a conciliatory statement regarding that we should just get used to it since it may not change. I think that somehow I have fallen out of the main-stream on this issue. To much knowledge ... dangerous.

When we arrived at the pool party around 1600 hours, things were going full tilt and we soon plopped the kids in to the freezing water. A bit too cold in so much that the slightly ill Jacob started to shiver quite noticeably after a few hours. It took a bit of coercing to get him to come out. They sure like to spend time in the water, cold as it may be. The 'ice water dip' brought his fever down quite nicely for a time. Eventually, the Motrin wore off and he was heating up again. We made a hurried exit from the festivities as it was getting late and escorted the tiny tyrants back to the manor. It's been a full day for them by that point and they really needed to hit the sack. I'm not sure who becomes more exhausted, me or them. I'm betting on myself.

# posted by mdmhvonpa @ 9:34 AM