Journal of a Sabbatical

September 4, 1998

especially the turtle

Copyright © 1998, Janet I. Egan

The kids have been back in school for two days and already they have a four day holiday weekend! All the better for a stop at the doctor's office for a throat culture. Lizzy has a sore throat. She wants to give it to me. All day she finds opportunities to breathe directly in my face in the hopes of transmitting something. Both of them team up to try to tickle me to death when Andrea's not trying to force feed me deli meats. Such generous kids! Sharing sore throats and deli meats with their dear aunt.

Our big outing for the day (besides the throat culture) was a trip to CVS for headbands so Andrea can wear her bangs back she's growing them out. The first CVS is out of all but one kind of headband. I find a clerk, ask where the headbands are, and get the "that's where they would be if we had them" response. On to the second CVS where Lizzy successfully locates the headbands. They come in three packs: red, white, and black. In the car on the way home, Andrea puts on all three at once. I catch a glimpse of this in the rearview mirror and advise her not to wear them all to school like that.

Back at the house, besides the aforementioned disease transmission techniques and tickling torture, we watch Animal Planet. I'm particularly fascinated by the veterinary surgery shows, especially the one where they repair a turtle who's been hit by a boat. They put its shell back together with plasticine. We watched this show twice. It repeated later in the day and we just had to see them repair the turtle again. Another item of great interest to me was the segment where people send in videos of their pets' problems and then call in for consultation with a pair of vets. One of the problems was a gosling who had imprinted on a brood of ducklings. The woman tried to give the gosling to a local family of Canada geese and they chased it away. It doesn't know it's a goose anyway. The vets told the woman that once a goose is imprinted on ducks it's a duck for life. I couldn't wait to tell Nancy about this confirmation of my theory about Igor, the goose who thinks he's a swan.

At supper I told them a story about how Bobby and I used to draw a baseball diamond in the dirt in our backyard and re-enact every pitch as we listened to the game on the radio. Lizzy wanted to know if the diamond was regulation size. Kevin tried to tell her it was, complete with a big green wall in left field :-) Both kids were amazed at my tale of life before Nickelodeon or Animal Planet.