ARRRGGGHGHHHHHH

okay, so Andy has the flu - the one with vomiting and diarrhea and a cough that keeps him up all night. Only he doesn't know barfing etiquette and runs upstairs for the sink (!), dribbling up the stairs and down the hall and so on, passing FOUR empty plastic wastebaskets as he goes. He then pukes in the sink.

and

I am sick (fever, achy muscles, fatigue, headache), too sick to properly care for him, too sick to be cleaning up all the pukey bits, though I do

and

my husband is dog-tired from 5 weeks of working 12-14 hour days -- no days off -- and is generally only home between 8:00 pm and 6:00 am, on good days. When he is home he needs to be fed and put to bed, but that isn't an option right now.

and

then the fun starts.

First, Juliana finds the little glass on the window sill and spills it. You know, the little glass with an inch of red wine left in it on the window sill right under the silk burlap curtains and next to the beige-ish couch.

Then, while stuffing the couch covers in the wash (whilst almost passing out, as I am too sick to be doing this) every yellow-jacket in the neighborhood comes to help me. So there I am swatting at yellow-jackets and I do confess, naughty words were escaping my lips.

THEN our dear old dog drops a puddle of pee in the middle of the wool rug and, as we rush her to the front door, she dribbles all the way. She did not even seem aware of it, or she would have been mortified.

Barf, Red Wine, and Dog Pee all in one day. What did I do? Annoy the Stain-Gremlins?

Happy for you . . .

We've been working on finding something more pleasant to say when someone gets something we want and we get nothing. We've ruled out saying "ME ME ME ME" and "I want one! I want one!" and decided that saying "I'm happy for you," would be nice. Jamie and I have been role-playing this and the kids have been practicing it in silly ways.

This morning, Juliana showed Andy the very cool mini-flashlight that she acquired yesterday during her big day in Seattle. You have to know that for Andy-The-Gizmo-Kid, there is nothing more attractive than an item that has both buttons and lights. With shaking voice he looked at it and said, "I'm happy for you Juliana." Then he burst into tears.

I'm so proud of him! I buried him in hugs and told him what a good boy he was.

In the orphanage they didn't give things to children unless they had one for everyone, or if it was a shared item. The idea of one child having a private possession and the other child not having is a big new concept. We are so pleased that they are accepting it.

Yesterday we went to Children's to see a doctor who said that Juliana was tiny. We are seeing a series of specialists who are all ruling out bad things, so it is rather good that all the doc has to say is that she is very small. We don't want the doc coming into say that she has some really interesting and unusual condition. But still, driving all that way to hear that she is little seems a bit unproductive.

My mom went with us and we redeemed the drive by going to Bellevue. We stopped in to visit my Father-in-law at work who was very pleased to see us. Then we went to the mall and rode the glass elevator up and down and waved at all the giant snowman and gasped at the flying reindeer and visited the LUSH store. We tried very hard to visit Trader Joe's, but after an hour of driving (slow progress due to street-lights being out), we got there only to find them without power and closed. They couldn't sell anything, as neither their tills nor fridges were working, but they did have a little generator going to keep the lights on; they kindly let us in so that Juliana could use the bathroom. At long last, I finally got into a Trader Joe's, I just didn't get to buy anything.

So that is all the news. Part of my long lull in posting was a case of the blues brought on by the return of Holly's cancer. Surgery is on Friday.

Holly Update

Holly came through surgery quite nicely. She has a big bald spot and a blechy looking scar; our cousins tease that she needs to wear a tutu to shield it from our eyes. She's more concerned with the collar she has to wear to keep her from messing with her staples.

Now we just wait for the lab results.

Name that author

Great Expectations: surf on over to D&L's blog to congratulate them on their long-awaited court date. D&L were our traveling buddies on the last trip. They will arrive in Khab right before our court date and will have their date while we are still there.

Hard Times: our beloved Holly dog has a cancerous tumor. Surgery on Friday, biopsy to special lab in Colorado, results back in two weeks: the day after court day.