Tidbits from Houston

Here's the latest:

Health front

Jack's fever was 104.7 tonight. He's been fighting cold/congestion symptoms for more than two weeks, and had some low-grade fever to go with it, but nothing this high. The doctor gave us yet another antibiotic prescription and Jack is sleeping now (9:30 pm). I swear, this boy has had more medicine in 19 months than some people have in a lifetime. I'm just glad we live in a time and place where this type of care is available.

Our fitness plan continues to go well. Jamie didn't get her workout in today due to taking care of the human inferno, but life happens and the past year or two has taught us how to take these things better in stride. She still cooked a delicious and healthy dinner, and made enough to give a full meal to a family at our church who just had their third baby.

Sleep front

At 5:30 a.m. today a super-loud alarm started blaring in our house. In three years here, we'd never heard that sound before. We have an alarm system that goes off if a door or window is opened... but it wasn't that alarm. We have smoke detectors that go off sometimes... it wasn't that sound either. This was far louder and more obnoxious, more of a wailing than a "beep".

So there we are in the hallway outside the kids' bedroom, with Jamie waving a pillow at the alarm box (in case it was a smoke detector) and me scratching my head incredulously (that word's for you, Lost Dog). Samantha pokes her head out of her room to ask what's going on, and Jamie tells her it's okay and we'll make the noise stop. Jack sleeps right through it -- I don't know how. I've been to two Metallica concerts, and they weren't as loud as this alarm.

I finally decide to just tear the cover off the alarm box and remove the batteries, if there are any. It's clear that the house isn't on fire and we're not in a dire CO2 situation or anything. The cover wont' come off... it's screwed on. Jamie goes downstairs to get the screwdriver and notices that the alarm panel is lit up. She enters our passcode and the noise stops.

Turns out the issue was our phone line -- it's been having issues lately and finally came totally disconnected at 5:30 a.m. Unfortunately the alarm system is connected to the phone line, so I guess this was our alert that we were "off the grid" for the security company. At least now I know that if a burglar ever cuts our phone line in an attempt to disable the alarm, all he'll end up doing is setting off an even louder alarm.

We obviously weren't going back to sleep after that episode, so we just started the day 30 minutes earlier than normal.

Off the front end

Saw several interesting drivers on the roads today:

1. A man in a Chevy Malibu somehow turned right in front of me while simultaneously talking on the cell phone and picking his nose. I'm still not sure how he did it.
2. A woman cut me off as well, driving a huge SUV with three kids and a dog inside. And she was on the cell phone and messing with her lipstick.
3. A woman was just sitting at a blinking red light on a four-lane, low-traffic road. I saw her stopped at the light about a quarter-mile ahead of me, and she was still there as I pulled up next to her. She was still there as I pulled away. She finally hit the gas a few seconds later. Maybe she never quite learned the whole "blinking red light" rule, so she was paralyzed by confusion. Did I mention she was also on a cell phone? (Note: I did look over at her to make sure she was OK... she was fine. Just stumped.)

Apparently most people in Houston have far better things to do with their time and brain than drive vehicles. I'm cool with that, but please don't do all those things while you're driving a vehicle.

Verbal fencing front

Tonight's conversation with Samantha:

Samantha: Daddy, what do you want to be when you grow up again?

Me: You mean like another job? Hmmm, I don't know. What do you think?

Samantha: You could be a doctor, or a firefighter or a teacher. Daddy, do you know how to start a fire?

Me: Yes I do.

Samantha: Good, you could be a firefighter then, if you wanted to. (Lowers head and whispers)...Do you know what I want to be?

Me: What?

Samantha: A window washer!

Upfront about the future

I've been trying to post regularly on Mondays and Thursdays and it seems to be working pretty well, so for now that's the plan on blog updates. Next week I'm planning on writing some short reviews of the two books I recently finished (The Maker's Diet and American Theocracy), but something else might take precedence. Hopefully I won't be writing about re-visiting Texas Children's Hospital with a feverish son. :)