Ague
1. A febrile condition in which there are alternating periods of chills, fever, and sweating. Used chiefly in reference to the fevers associated with malaria.
2. A chill or fit of shivering.
Ague is a word you know today if and only if you do crossword puzzles a lot. But I got a taste of it firsthand earlier this week. I came down with something awful Halloween night after taking the kids trick-or-treating. I was so sick Wednesday I literally -- literally -- did not get out of bed all day but to use the bathroom a few times. It was 6:00 pm before I even left my room to try to eat dinner at a table like a human being. (I had some low-sodium, organic, fake-chicken noodle soup, which hit the spot perfectly because it was so bland.) Thankfully S was around to help out and do double-duty with the kids, because I was in no condition to take care of them. I don't know how single parents do it, or how I would have done it if S was away on one of her trips. I guess you just suffer through it and do what you have to do, but it's hard to function with a fever of 103.
[This is one of the worst lyrical songs of all time. "I'm hot blooded, check it and see, I got a fever of 103... I'm hot blooded... You don't have to read my mind, to know what I have in mind" So, you're extremely ill, and that's supposed to be a turn on?]
That was the worst part -- the fever. It was way up, and I struggled to bring it down. I even thought about going to urgent care because I know it's really bad for your brain to be overheated for an extended period of time. But I never got above 104 (peak was 102.7), which I read is the start of the "danger zone," and I was pretty sure it would break before too long. It doesn't happen often, but I have been this sick before, and it follows the same pattern: I'm totally wiped out for one day, and then I'm "normal sick" for a few days, and then I'm more or less back to normal. It seems as if the same thing is happening this time. I'm currently in the normal sick stage -- I can get up and do things (like blog) but I'm definitely in no condition to, say, compete in a triple jump tournament.
Every time I get sick, I take for granted how good I have it when I just feel normal. The saying "at least you have your health" is a cliché, but it's also true. It's also nice to just zone out the world and not worry about anything but your own health for a day, even if it's because you are physically incapable of doing anything else. And I missed quite a bit being out. There was the attack in NYC, in which some deranged individual took out a bunch of people with his car, and more disturbing (to me, certainly not to most Americans) there was an incident in which somebody tried to do something similar in my neighborhood. Around 3 am Halloween evening, some guy who lives down the street from me, apparently as part of a neighborly feud, tried to hit the woman who lives next to him with his career. The details are fuzzy -- I'm getting all the information off our neighborhood Listserv -- but apparently she ended up being okay and the guy smashed into a bunch of parked cars. (It also said there was a cyclist who was nearly hit, which seems very odd given the time of the incident.)
The guy got away, but the police know who he is and are looking for him, as I write this, so he will probably get caught soon. Nonetheless, I wanted to find out exactly where this guy lives so that I could avoid his house in future, especially when I'm with my kids. So, I walked down to the scene of the crime and there were two police officers hanging out there. They asked me a few questions to see if I had any new information for them (I didn't). Then they assured me they were going to get the guy. It was nice to see a police presence still in the neighborhood, and according to the Listserv, they were there within minutes after being called, but the whole situation is still unnerving to say the least.
In other news...
The kids are doing pretty well. Lil' S1 seems to be enjoying kindergarten at his new school, and Lil' S2 is starting to speak in (somewhat) coherent full sentences. They do something different every day that makes me smile. When we went out trick-or-treating, Lil' S2 was so adorable. He would waddle up to the door in his little construction worker outfit and say his version of "trick of treat," which is more like "trit o' tree," but he said it so quietly nobody could actually hear him, and then he would just reach into the dish and grab a piece of candy. If he grabbed more than one piece, he would put some of them back, without being told. Somehow he knew he should only grab one.
As for Lil' S1, he did something that really made me proud. It seems silly at first, but stay with me. He watches this show Clifford's Puppy Days. You know, the big red dog? It's about him when he was small. The theme song has a lyric, "I might be little, I might be stuck in the middle." I was singing it because it was stuck in my head (of course), and Lil' S1 said, "it's not stuck in the middle, Daddy!"
"Yes, it is."
"No! It's not! There's no middle to the whole world!"
"It's a saying."
"What's a saying?"
"It's just something people say. It doesn't have to literally be something real."
"It's not stuck in the middle!"
"It is."
"No, it's not!"
At that point I let it go because as hard-headed as I am about acknowledging reality, I'm equally hard-headed about not causing a meltdown on the way to school.
I had forgotten about this when the next day, out of the blue, he comes up to me and says, "Daddy, I listened to the song, and you were right it is 'stuck in the middle.' I'm sorry that I said it wasn't." And that was my chest puffed! He thought something was true that wasn't, sought out evidence to confirm it (he listened to the song more carefully), realized he was wrong, admitted it, revised his position, and apologized for it. I've never been prouder. Seriously. If only our politicians had the integrity my five-year-old son.
Until next time...
1. A febrile condition in which there are alternating periods of chills, fever, and sweating. Used chiefly in reference to the fevers associated with malaria.
2. A chill or fit of shivering.
Ague is a word you know today if and only if you do crossword puzzles a lot. But I got a taste of it firsthand earlier this week. I came down with something awful Halloween night after taking the kids trick-or-treating. I was so sick Wednesday I literally -- literally -- did not get out of bed all day but to use the bathroom a few times. It was 6:00 pm before I even left my room to try to eat dinner at a table like a human being. (I had some low-sodium, organic, fake-chicken noodle soup, which hit the spot perfectly because it was so bland.) Thankfully S was around to help out and do double-duty with the kids, because I was in no condition to take care of them. I don't know how single parents do it, or how I would have done it if S was away on one of her trips. I guess you just suffer through it and do what you have to do, but it's hard to function with a fever of 103.
[This is one of the worst lyrical songs of all time. "I'm hot blooded, check it and see, I got a fever of 103... I'm hot blooded... You don't have to read my mind, to know what I have in mind" So, you're extremely ill, and that's supposed to be a turn on?]
That was the worst part -- the fever. It was way up, and I struggled to bring it down. I even thought about going to urgent care because I know it's really bad for your brain to be overheated for an extended period of time. But I never got above 104 (peak was 102.7), which I read is the start of the "danger zone," and I was pretty sure it would break before too long. It doesn't happen often, but I have been this sick before, and it follows the same pattern: I'm totally wiped out for one day, and then I'm "normal sick" for a few days, and then I'm more or less back to normal. It seems as if the same thing is happening this time. I'm currently in the normal sick stage -- I can get up and do things (like blog) but I'm definitely in no condition to, say, compete in a triple jump tournament.
[Kind of a weird event, don't you think? Jumping is a very natural athletic competition, but why three in a row?]
Every time I get sick, I take for granted how good I have it when I just feel normal. The saying "at least you have your health" is a cliché, but it's also true. It's also nice to just zone out the world and not worry about anything but your own health for a day, even if it's because you are physically incapable of doing anything else. And I missed quite a bit being out. There was the attack in NYC, in which some deranged individual took out a bunch of people with his car, and more disturbing (to me, certainly not to most Americans) there was an incident in which somebody tried to do something similar in my neighborhood. Around 3 am Halloween evening, some guy who lives down the street from me, apparently as part of a neighborly feud, tried to hit the woman who lives next to him with his career. The details are fuzzy -- I'm getting all the information off our neighborhood Listserv -- but apparently she ended up being okay and the guy smashed into a bunch of parked cars. (It also said there was a cyclist who was nearly hit, which seems very odd given the time of the incident.)
The guy got away, but the police know who he is and are looking for him, as I write this, so he will probably get caught soon. Nonetheless, I wanted to find out exactly where this guy lives so that I could avoid his house in future, especially when I'm with my kids. So, I walked down to the scene of the crime and there were two police officers hanging out there. They asked me a few questions to see if I had any new information for them (I didn't). Then they assured me they were going to get the guy. It was nice to see a police presence still in the neighborhood, and according to the Listserv, they were there within minutes after being called, but the whole situation is still unnerving to say the least.
In other news...
The kids are doing pretty well. Lil' S1 seems to be enjoying kindergarten at his new school, and Lil' S2 is starting to speak in (somewhat) coherent full sentences. They do something different every day that makes me smile. When we went out trick-or-treating, Lil' S2 was so adorable. He would waddle up to the door in his little construction worker outfit and say his version of "trick of treat," which is more like "trit o' tree," but he said it so quietly nobody could actually hear him, and then he would just reach into the dish and grab a piece of candy. If he grabbed more than one piece, he would put some of them back, without being told. Somehow he knew he should only grab one.
As for Lil' S1, he did something that really made me proud. It seems silly at first, but stay with me. He watches this show Clifford's Puppy Days. You know, the big red dog? It's about him when he was small. The theme song has a lyric, "I might be little, I might be stuck in the middle." I was singing it because it was stuck in my head (of course), and Lil' S1 said, "it's not stuck in the middle, Daddy!"
"Yes, it is."
"No! It's not! There's no middle to the whole world!"
"It's a saying."
"What's a saying?"
"It's just something people say. It doesn't have to literally be something real."
"It's not stuck in the middle!"
"It is."
"No, it's not!"
At that point I let it go because as hard-headed as I am about acknowledging reality, I'm equally hard-headed about not causing a meltdown on the way to school.
I had forgotten about this when the next day, out of the blue, he comes up to me and says, "Daddy, I listened to the song, and you were right it is 'stuck in the middle.' I'm sorry that I said it wasn't." And that was my chest puffed! He thought something was true that wasn't, sought out evidence to confirm it (he listened to the song more carefully), realized he was wrong, admitted it, revised his position, and apologized for it. I've never been prouder. Seriously. If only our politicians had the integrity my five-year-old son.
Until next time...
Agreed, your 5-year old has more integrity and common sense than our Commander in Chief.
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