Jes and I are on opposite schedules today. When she came to bed I woke up. I have a cold and am trying to push fluids to accelerate the course of it. I just don’t have time to be sick with all the grading and prep work on my plate. It is true that teachers only work nine months a year, but they work fifteen hour days and straight through the weekends. I have been pushing myself too hard, getting up at three and going to school at five a.m., which is why I am now sick. Schools are also Petri dishes. It’s going to be a challenge to balance doing everything I want to do at the house with everything that I have to do at school…and then, in six weeks or so, we add a baby.

This is Jes’s birthday weekend (Sunday) so we are going to her Illinois family’s to celebrate this afternoon. We aren’t doing a big friends party, what with the baby shower coming so soon, though in general she likes to keep things low key. Despite that “no fuss” preference, she’s getting flowers and Belgian waffles from scratch when she wakes up.

Jes shares the birthday with her nephew Brad and I imagine that will be the dominant note later today. He has asked for cash to help him save for a car (turning fourteen I think). I did that when I was his age. My father and I bought a VW from his friend Verly and we spent a year or so fixing it up on the weekends. We upgraded it from a six volt to a twelve volt system and changed out the 1300 for a 1600 engine. We had to build a bumper out of wood to make it street legal, it was a dune buggy.




Brad has a car in mind that he and his father can work on. It’s a good plan.

Wow, to use on of my father’s expressions, I really feel like whale manure. I guess I’ll sign off and go make some hot tea (yes, that's me in the picture - 1989).