career change?

I found my perfect job a while back. I didn't tell you because I wanted to be able to post video of it for you...but I can't find it online anywhere.

We were watching Sesame Street, Old School one day (no, it's not being on Sesame Street--that's choice number three. I've wanted to be on the Street for as long as I can remember.) and I saw it. I want to be a postman (postal carrier, postal worker, whatever) in the Appalachian Mountains.

This guy we saw on Sesame Street (who was so old I am sure it's not him anymore) rides on horseback 18 miles three times a week to deliver mail. The rest of the time, I'm guessing, he spends in a cozy little postal shop that is probably in a log cabin with a wood-burning stove...that someone provides the wood for and starts the fire each morning...and maybe is next door to a general store.

How great would that job be? I'd just get Lexi a horse and she could ride along, too.

note to kate: LOOK IT UP!

We went to the doctors yesterday. I was rx'd an antibiotic and Lexi was rx'd an anti-virual medication. When I asked why our SAME illness was being treated so differently, I was told it was because of our ages. Lexi was given her med to boost her immune system. My older lungs were suspected of harboring other infections.

It didn't really make sense, but we. are. so. sick. that I accepted it and figured we try. (Hmm...the peach oil incident didn't spring to mind then but it does now.)

I started our treatments yesterday. Today, I got online and looked up what they'd given me for Lexi--and what I'd given her. (I ignored all my rx-es except the antibiotic. Russian doctors like to make recovering from an illness a full-time occupation. I don't. But, for Lexi, I took everything home they rx'd.)

She has nose drops (yuck) to clear her sinuses. Fine.

She has a medicine that I was told was for her cough. Turns out, it's actually meant to increase mucous production, thereby allowing the mucous to clear the body of infection on its own. This sounds great, all natural and wonderful...until you hear the horrible cough she already has. I think this is meant to be an expectorant. BUT, since her cough is dry and unproductive and her lungs are clear, she needs a cough suppressant and not an expectorant. So, we've gone back to Robitussin.

And then there's the one that makes me a little sick to think about. It's a suppository (okay, bad enough...but that's not why) that is an anti-virual, meant to increase her white blood cell count. But when I look it up, it's all about human recombinant interferon. When I look that up (because it sounds horrible, but what do I know?) there's not a lot of information.

And then it starts talking about invitro testing for compatibility and cloning.

I admit I read no further.

Because inside my head I'd started screaming,
WHAT HAVE I JUST PUT INSIDE MY LITTLE GIRL? YOU IDIOT!!! WHY DIDN'T YOU LOOK IT UP BEFORE YOU GAVE IT TO HER? HOW COULD YOU HAVE GIVEN HER SOMETHING WHEN YOU DIDN'T KNOW WHAT IT WAS? HOW COULD YOU HAVE TRUSTED THE DOCTOR? WHO DID THIS STUFF COME FROM? I'M SO SORRY!!

We've stopped that one, needless to say.

(I calmly called the pediatrician and told her we had some problems with the suppositories and asked if we could take something different. She said it was fine to stop it. We just have to come in next week for an updated white blood cell count.)

I still can't believe I did this.

little known fact

having a seven-year-old makes it very difficult to consume the recommended hours of "junk food television" one needs to properly recover from the crud. ;>

war of attrition continues

We have no school next week. Hooray!

That means that last Thursday, completely out of the blue, a cough that wracked my whole body starting inside my big toe and working it's way up, blindsided me.

Friday fever.

Today Lexi is succumbing.

But...no school! Hooray!

car ps--

• didn't start today (it's -22C...but warmer than the last few days so go fig)
  
• took taxis to rehearsal (the show must go on has never seemed less true)
• and back
  
• called principal for a wrench
• he didn't pick up
• called Lexi's teacher (who lives around the corner)
• who sent her husband with the wrench
• he removed the battery
• and it's sitting in my entryway
• warming up
• along with the last one they replaced
• which was in the back of the car
  
• but could have cracked if I left it there (remember? that happened.)

This was very hard to do with the whole cough/fever/fatigue thing.

I decided that having someone come and "spark" my car meant that I'd have to haul our sick carcasses out every. day. in the SUNNY cold spell (it's worth it for the sun) we're having. Bringing the batteries in means we can just. stay. home.

And that's one of my most favorite things to do.

Lexi p.s.--a dose of bubble gum fever reliever has her off the couch and doing sote-arabesque around the living room. Let's hope that's a foretaste. Of course, as I typed that, she started the gut-wrenching cough.

a calmer kate

my car is sitting in the parking lot near by house--tire on and battery jumped (or "sparked" as my friend said).

oh, my DEAR friend marina! she spent all weekend (from about 10 p.m. friday on) going back and forth between the impound lot, the tire place and the police station. she wouldn't hear of us coming with her, trying to take care of everything--and of US. this when she'd been home for the last two days with fever and a swollen spot brought on by the death of her aunt--the last relative of her father who died last year.

and yet, she gave her weekend (and her husband's) to us.

i send her a million thanks. she is someone i will miss next year--not because she helps me with my car, but because she is a friend.

incidentally, i don't think i ever went to the police station in the US. i've been to three different stations (one of them twice) during my stay here--all for car-related issued. this police station was by FAR the most pleasant.

and the funny bit--when the policeman today saw my dip card, he asked marina if i was the consul general. ;>

seriously? again?

newly returned car got a flat tire on the way home--so flat it's falling off the rim. which, actually, might not be a flat but something like an exploded tire.

there is no aaa (which you'd better BELIEVE i'm counting as a neccesity and not the luxury i'd categorized it while doing the acting thing).

i don't know how to change a flat. maybe i did once...

it's. still. snowing.

so we left the car and walked home.

today they....towed it. nach.

and i don't know where. nach.

seriously? come on. i've only got five more months. can't i be worry-free on the car front for five months?

having to body check everyone as we trudged home on the one-person-wide semi-cleared slush-path--because they shove my seven-year-old out of their way if i don't--made me wonder how many final straws there can be.

wanted: one tower

I'm directing our school musical right now. We're doing Into the Woods. I love this show. It's just. so. clever.

And, this year I'm finding a whole new well of empathy for the witch. Always before I'd been firmly in Rapunzel's camp. "I am no longer a child. I want to see the world!"

This year, it's the witch who is striking a chord within me:

Don't you know what's out there in the woods?
Someone has to shield you from the woods.
Princes wait there in the woods, it's true.
Princes, yes, but wolves and humans, too.

Stay at home
I am home
Who out there could love you more than I?
What out there that I could not supply?
Stay with me.

Stay with me, the world is dark and wild.
Stay a child while you can be a child.

Before we go any further, let me assure you, in case there is the merest shadow of a doubt, that my child is perfect. PERFECT.

She has had some horrible cards dealt her--early neglect, life in a Russian orphanage--and those cards have left their mark. But is does not diminish her perfection in my eyes. It just causes me to marvel at the preservation of her tender heart and her willing spirit. She has a bright, inquisitive nature and a contagious joy.

Because of those early "cards", Lexi has PTSD. Post-traumatic stress disorder. When she is back in an institutional setting, and school is an institution, she dissociates, she regresses. Everything regresses--her coping skills, even her handwriting. School is a difficult place for Lexi to be.

And, she almost doesn't know it. She has an innocence that comes with her developmental age. She is much younger than her seven years.

And all I want to do is to protect her. To let her take her time. To let her make up for all the years she lost at her own pace--and not to rush her to "catch up" with her agemates. To just let her be who she is.

I'm afraid this post is unfinished. And, there is new brain fodder churning around that will make it take even longer to finish. So for now. I'll leave it as it is. But that, perhaps, explains a little more about our decision to come home--and stay home. I'm hoping my planned year home can stretch to two...or to forever. ;> Keep your ears open for a great stay-at-home job for me. I'm thinking about the possibility of other parents wanting me to "homeschool" their children...or the possibility of working for some homeschool co-ops. Or, even better, let me know if you've got contacts you're willing to share in the world of children's publishing.

Okay. We'll stop here.

(And, I'll let you know that we have our car back. This time it needed new "tubes" in the transmission and transmission fluid. $750. Two different friends called to check on the progress and got two different stories. One was told that is has no back brakes. The other was told that the electrical box is in danger of exploding. When she said that we weren't interested in the car lasting more than six months, they said it should be fine as long as I let the car warm up before driving it. (???) The opinion of why the back brakes are bad--I don't drive it enough. Sigh. Looking forward to a new car in the US. I'm thinking a previously-leased CRV. )