Tubes Round 2

/ Shane / 2 Comments

On Tuesday, Evie went in for another round of ear tubes. For Sara and I, this wasn’t nearly the proposition it was last time. Aside from the fact that we have been through it once, she was so young the first time that it was very traumatic to think of her going off with these doctors to be put put under the knife (can you believe she was barely older than Oliver is now?). She just seemed so vulnerable. She doesn’t seem that way anymore! This time she took the hospital by storm.

Of course, nothing can go smoothly. In this case, they forgot to put us on the surgery schedule. So we had to show up at 11:30 and wait for an opening, which didn’t come until quarter till 4. For an adult this wouldn’t have been a big deal, but for a kid it’s a little hard to not have anything to eat since 6 p.m. the night before, and nothing to drink since 9:30.

Evie was such a trooper though. There was no complaining, no whining, no bad behavior. She was just so excited and so patient. Evie got a “She looks like Reese Witherspoon” from the doctor this time, not the Shiloh Pitt that she usually gets…I guess she’s maturing? She was cracking everybody up at the hospital: telling jokes, singing, shaking her booty in her surgery outfit singing, “Look at me! Look at me!”, and finally, skipping down the hall to the operating room. I’m guessing that is not the typical response to being stuck in a hospital all day with no food, leading up to knives in your ears. Nobody could believe that she was so excited, so they kept saying things like, “It’s not going to hurt at all…” Why would you say that?? She’s obviously not thinking it’s going to, but now you’re planting the idea in her head. A girl like her is going to pick up on the fact that everybody keeps telling her it’s not going to hurt and start to wonder why they keep reassuring her.

I will give them this, the child-life specialist gave her a really nice blonde haired, blue eyed “buddy” doll, dressed in a gown/hairnet/face mask that was ‘just like her’. It’s a really nice, high quality doll (way better than all the junk they piled on us later, like the plush Donald Duck). Evie took to it right away, and took it to school the next day to show it off. She really cares for this doll, putting her to bed, reassuring her she’s not going to have any more surgery, etc. which is a lot more than I’ve ever seen her care for any of her other “friends”. It’s like they went through a shared experience together or something. I’m sure by next week it will just be one of the endless parade of stuffed animals.

I had a doctor’s appointment at 4, which seemed like it would be no problem when we expected the surgery to be in the morning, and even after, when we were told to come in at 11:30. As it was, I left immediately after she went down, and didn’t get back until she was already awake in recovery. I had to take Oliver with me, because we weren’t sure he was going to be allowed in the recovery room, and if Sara had him we wouldn’t have had any choice (ultimately, he was allowed in).

By the time I got back there, Evie already had them eating out of the palm of her hand. The nurse said when she woke up she just said, “Hello!” I imagine this was a bit unusual based on some other examples I saw in other recovery rooms of people waking up from anesthesia. Of course, at some point she ended up singing the “State Song” for a packed room of nurses (and by the way, go click that video and watch her singing it when she was only 2 1/2…ADORABLE!). Her performance garnered her $5 (which was $3 more than she got singing it at karaoke the other night). The nurses wanted to know what her youtube page was, so there’s the link.

One of the best parts of surgery is that you get a lot of popsicles. Evie was munching away on them in the recovery room, and poor Oliver couldn’t take it anymore! He just started crying until he got a popsicle too. We had brought some food for Evie to eat when she was done. Her special “after-surgery lunch” that she picked out was pretzels and a peanut butter and jelly bagel. However, when she tried to eat it, she got a little sick from the anesthesia. So she had to wait until she got home to eat anything.

So that was it, she slept a lot at home and was back to her old self in the morning, no worse for the wear. Hopefully we’ll get rid of those ear infections this time!

The Dangerous World of Illicit and Illegal Gardens

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Okay everybody, check this one out. A woman in Michigan faces 93 days of jail time. Why? For planting a garden of course.

Long story short, the lady’s yard was destroyed for some sewer work, so she decided to build some raised-beds rather than re-do her grass. Seems very reasonable, and looks pretty nice to boot:

Unfortunately though, such gardens are apparently outlawed by city ordinance.

I know you’re probably thinking what I was thinking: there has to be more to this story. But there really doesn’t seem to be anything else (well, there is in the sense that she wouldn’t stand down, not that she should have, but you have to wonder what exactly her attitude was like). However, the weird thing is that gardens are not specifically outlawed (and why would they be?). The rule says only:

“suitable” plant material is allowed on the lawn area of residences. When local media asked city planner Kevin Rulkowski what that meant, he said suitable means “common:” lawn, nice shrubs, and flowers. However, the city ordinance does not specifically state that those are the only allowed plant materials.

So, even if she was being petty, the city was obviously being *more* petty.

This is so horrible, I don’t even know where to begin. However, I am not surprised in the least. I used to think that draconian property restrictions were the domain of fancy-pants subdivisions (where I wouldn’t want to live anyway), but I’ve recently discovered this is not the case. Who would have thought that it is nearly impossible to find vacant land in the middle of nowhere which allows you to build a tiny house? Through an endless supply of township regulations, such as minimum square footage, roof pitch angle, and land usage restrictions, such as no trailers, you have practically no say over what you do on your land.

The supposed justification for this is multi-faceted:

  1. We have to keep out the hordes of drifters.
  2. What you do on your property can bring the value of my property down. So you can’t do whatever you want on your land, because now its affecting me.
  3. You pay property tax based on what your property is worth, so if you have a crappy property but you still use the same amount of services, you’re somehow gaming the system.
These reasons are a load of crap because:
  1. Drifters? What is this, the 1950’s? This only makes sense if drifters is a euphemism for poor people or certain targeted races, which is about as illegal as it gets.
  2. So what? You always run that risk. I can build a mansion and shoot holes in it or paint it puce, or put up signs saying, “This neighborhood is full of dog-rapists” and you don’t have laws against that (although that would be less oppressive than some of the “grass length” rules I’ve seen) (and now a bunch of townships are probably enacting these laws as we speak).
  3. This one has a little merit on the surface, but if that’s really the problem, then pass laws on property tax reform. Besides, if I have crappy property that isn’t worth anything, then my punishment comes when I try to sell it and I can’t.
I think this garden story really highlights the fact that 1) your stupid rules prevent reasonable people from doing reasonable things, and 2) your rules are stupid to begin with (and possibly racist or classist) because you can’t make a rule that says, “I want to stop people from doing things that I personally don’t like.”
Link via Sara.

How well can you distinguish colors?

/ Shane / 6 Comments

This isn’t really a game, per-say, but it’s kind of interesting. Basically you just need to arrange the colors so the hue flows smoothly from left to right. Can your eye distinguish the nuances from square to square?

I got a 3 (lower is better). Apparently I have trouble with the reds, but 3 seems to be pretty good. What’s your score?

Link via Sara (who got a 4) (I’m just saying).

Quote Monday doesn’t like me

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Sara: “There’ll always be somebody who doesn’t like you.”
Me: “What? Doesn’t like me? I only met one person ever who didn’t like me, and I married her.”

::Riding in the car silently for 10 minutes::
Evie, suddenly wailing: “What if I can’t find anybody to marry??”

Really? That starts at 3 1/2 now?

Sara: “What is it?”
Me: “It looks like a stink bug to me.”
Sara: “Can you smell it?”
Me: “It’s hard to smell anything over my own stink.”

Hoverbike

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Forget the flying jet ski, bring on the hoverbike!

This thing looks pretty awesome, however, I’m not sure I would want to be sitting on it at 10,000 feet. There aren’t any videos of it in action yet (there never are, are there?), but it looks a little unsteady to me. And those giant fans…I would be worried about things getting sucked in there. Lean back a little too far…FOOMP, there goes your hat. The jet ski seems a little more commercially viable.

On the other hand, if they can get this thing working…THE FUTURE IS NOW! Let’s go scientists, we only have 4 years to get those hoverboards worked out.