What Is Your Secret Useless Mutant Ability?

Glenn and I have this theory that everybody has a "super power" that is generally useless. I have several.

First, I remember birthdays. I know more than I can count. I remember birthdays of people I haven't seen in years. If I am told one, I can't forget it. It's kind of embarrassing, and I have deliberately tried to not learn birthdays to appear less freakish.

Second, I get along well with cats. I can generally get a timid cat to come to me eventually, and cats tend to like me better than others. I guess this has come in useful recently, with all the new kittens.

Third, I remember a grammar or punctuation rule after hearing it once. This is useful, but also makes people look at me like a freak.

More Shorts

We had a visitor at our new house last year. Jaelyn, all excited, said, "We have two back yards! One in the front, and one in the back."

We were out to dinner with my parents, and Glenn asked my dad to pass something at the table but stumbled on how to address him. He said, "What do you call your father-in-law, anyway?" My dad said, "'Your Highness' will do fine."

I usually skim through the listings on freecycle.org every day. This posting made me look twice:
"Offer: one night stand."

Our Lives -- November 2009

Saturday the 7th I went to the annual Cub Scout pow-wow. It started very early, but it went fast. In the games class, where I got a bad rug burn on my knee while diving for a ball. It still has not totally gone away. Afterwards, I couldn't find the car, so I wandered the parking lot for about twenty minutes, periodically hitting the panic button on the key chain. It was quite uncomfortable walking that long while eight months pregnant.

Deven and Jaelyn were still off-track from school when November began. They went back on the 10th. The school schedule said it was the 9th, so I had scheduled my final ultrasound for that day. The hospital doesn't allow children in it at all now because of the swine flu scare, so I had find a neighbor to watch all four kids for me. The ultrasound showed kind of lot of fluid, which they said could trigger early labor, which it did.

Corin was born early in the morning on the 18th after my water had broken the night before. I got an epidural before it got really awful, so overall it wasn't that bad for labor. Corin came home with bili lights for jaundice, but he's been growing really fast since then. He eats constantly. One of the nights he was supposed to be on the lights, the power went out for about four hours. It figures.

Friday the 13th Jaelyn's grade did a Veterans Day concert at school. They recognized each branch of the military and sang songs and stuff. They were cute.

The city offered to fix all the cats for us, even those we've technically adopted. We spent one night trying to round them all up but were unable to get two of the kittens. However, by the next day we'd gotten them since they'd gotten hungry and came into the garage to eat. So we traded cats when the animal person came back.

I got a new prescription for Imitrex when I left the hospital. It's a very effective but expensive migraine medicine. It retails for about $200 for nine pills. With insurance, it's usually about $50. So I was really surprised when I got charged only $10 for it. Then I discovered it is now available as a generic! I've been waiting for this since 1997, so this was incredible news.

For Thanksgiving my cousin Jonia spent the weekend with us, from Wednesday night to Sunday night. She helped entertain the kids while I tried to sleep with a baby. Glenn made most of dinner on Thanksgiving, and we had a real turkey this year. Glenn's brother David also came over on Thursday.