Boy Out of Context

Drill baby drill

During my favorite externship - still a student but working under another veterinarian outside of the teaching hospital - the doctor pulled me aside just before I scrubbed to spay a dog. 

"There is almost nothing you can do in there that can't be fixed," she said.  "If you cut or slice into something that you shouldn't, we can repair it.  The only thing that can't be fixed is if you cut the aorta, and if you are anywhere near the aorta with a blade during a spay, you have no business doing surgery."

It stuck with me.  The idea that there really wasn't much I could do that couldn't be fixed was often a comforting thought. 

I thought of it today, as I was attempting to do some work in our bathroom. 

Rewind back to 10 years ago when we just bought this house and Paul and I panicked when it came to painting.  We painted everything white, but we weren't even normal enough to paint everything the same white.  One room was a white with slightly green undertones.  Another, white with slightly blue undertones.  We were a little insane. 

Eventually we decided to get more creative with color and most of the rooms have been repainted.  What remains are the master bedroom and bath and our Arizona room.  I decided a couple of weeks ago that I was ready to tackle the bathroom. 

Painting, I discovered, is a lot harder with two small people attempting to help, so everything went much slower than the first time.  Paint is finally up, though, and I was ready to change out the towel bars, etc. 

I learned a lot from my mistakes when I installed this stuff the first time.  Ten years ago, I saw those anchor things and attempted to install them in our second bath.  This is when I discovered that you don't need those anchor things in stucco, and installing anything in stucco kind of sucks.  More so when you fear power tools.  When I installed the new towel hooks (white! to go with our white walls!) in the master...well, I had already learned you don't need those anchor things, right?  Too bad our master bathroom is actually drywall.  When I pulled off the towel hooks before I painted this time, I found not only the actual installation holes, but also all of the extra holes that I apparently made when I screwed the whole thing up the first time. Actually, I just had to pull off the brackets, because since none of the screws were actually anchored, the bars had already fallen off the wall.

So this morning I collected my tools.  Drill with bits, pencil, measuring tape, hammer.  I marked the location, drilled four holes, tapped in the anchors, used the drill to install the screws to hang the bracket, and, easy as pie, a toilet paper holder, well anchored, on our wall. 

I was so pleased with myself I decided to press on with the new towel bars. 

I started out fine.  Measured, marked, got the drill ready.  First two holes went great.  But then I moved across the wall.  And hit wood.  I have just drilled two holes, the appropriate size for the anchors, into wood. 

And what did I do next?  I did the exact same thing on the next two holes. 

Was there any point where I stopped?  When it crossed my mind that perhaps I should maybe just take a second and THINK about what I'm doing?  Nonononono.  Press on!  I'm nowhere near the aorta!

What really kills me is that my kids love Bob the Builder.  How many times have I watched On Site Houses and Playgrounds, and it never occurs to me that of course there are going to be wood exactly where I'm drilling? What did I think was holding up the drywall?

There seemed to be only one way to fix this.  More drilling.  I expanded those holes, determined to get the anchors in.  Then I tried to forget the anchors, but now there was no purchase for the screw.  And a little voice pipes up, "Mommy, what are you doing?"

Fucking this up, baby, that's what I'm doing. 

It was about this point that Paul walked in and pointed out that we could just repair and repaint and try somewhere else.  It was also at about this point that I remembered that I am currently defrosting an 8 pound turkey breast for our one dinner guest who eats meat.  And that one dinner guest does all sorts of work on his own house, and would certainly OWE me two towel bars in exchange for cooking meat for him. 

In the end, I was too ashamed to let him see my work.  After letting it sit for a couple of hours, and after buying superglue, because I was fully prepared to glue that bracket to the wall and just never, ever repaint that room, I realized that the bracket had a middle hole and that I had not yet destroyed the wall in that area.  One little screw later, our towels are hung.  And I need to touch up the paint a little.  

It is true you can repair most things.  In 11 years, I had one complication during a spay that required additional surgery to repair my mistake.  But I still wasn't anywhere near the aorta.

Skunk

I was planning on posting about the various goings-on here in the past week.  Fascinating stuff.  We're all sick.  I had this cute picture of Julia sacked out on one of the dogs, but at the moment I'm too tired to try to find the cord for the camera so I have to think of something else.  We've already been to the ER with one kid and I suspect I'm going to have to get both kids into the doctor before the holiday.  In the season of H1N1, I'm beginning to think we might just have whooping cough. 

So, I'll tell you about my first patient one day last week.  Beautiful cat.  But the client was actually the interesting one. 

He arrived right on time and was shown into an exam room by our receptionist (cat not in carrier - BAD).  Our tech, who is relatively new to the clinic, went in first to grab a quick history and take the cat's vitals.  After she came out, I quickly reviewed the chart (nothing to see, it was their first time at our clinic) and went in.  Technically I'm supposed to take a tech with me but I have a tendency to get away from my assigned technician. 

I walk in the room and find the owner seated in a chair and the cat curled up underneath. 

"WHOA!" he says.  "ARE YOU EVER YOUNG." 

Well, thanks...it's been a long time since I've heard that. 

The owner proceeds to tell me that his cat, a polydactyl, has a claw grown around into his pad.  Usually I would still take a look at the cat and do my exam, but this time I instead told the owner I needed to grab a certain pair of nail clippers and I would be back. 

I went in search of my tech and gave her a soft punch on her arm. 

You're supposed to let me know if the owner is drunk.

She thought/hoped that it was just leftover from the night before, she said.  But no.  The man was drunkedy drunk.  At 9 a.m. 

I returned to the room, nail clippers in hand and technician by my side, and the owner started in about some confusion (I'll bet) about which clinic he was supposed to be at and he thought he was supposed to be at the other clinic and his wife made the appointment...

Then he mentioned that he liked the artwork in the room.  One of our assistants is an artist and we have her work throughout the clinic.

"THIS ONE LOOKS JUST LIKE ME," he said, gesturing to a large painting of a man passed out with a cat on top of him (in reality, the man in the picture is the artist's husband and he was just sleeping). 

Why don't we take the kitty in back for this?

"GOOD IDEA.  I MIGHT JUST PASS OUT."

Indeed.  As we grabbed the cat and started towards the door the owner asked if he could use our bathroom.  And as he stood up he actually ran into the wall. 

He went off to the bathroom and the rest of us went into surgery where it took several of us to remove a nasty toenail from an infected pad in an extraordinarily angry cat.  Normally I would have cleaned up the pad afterward, but I decided to let this one go after trimming the rest of the nails so we wouldn't all be back here next week for the other foot.  

The man was effusive in his thanks and praise - unwarranted, I felt, since he diagnosed the cat already and all I did was remove the nail and take a few teeth marks to my hand.  Apparently he spent about an hour up front, greeting the rest of our clients and chatting up the receptionist.  I hid in back. 

He finally left but called shortly later.  To thank us again.  And the next day he returned to the clinic specifically to visit with the cat that lives in the bathroom.  

I've known some drunks in my time.  But I have to say, he was a really nice ten-cat-owning drunk. 

I before g

Especially early in vet school, we weren't always taught by veterinarians.  One notable example of this was Parasitology. 

Our parasitology professor was a perfectly nice visiting lecturer who knew his internal creepy crawlies.  Unfortunately, he just didn't know much about clinical work and what we would be likely to see once we were done with school.  Our first hint should have been the day we turned to the page in the syllabus that described a parasite last seen in Asia 200 years ago.  Apparently it had a really fascinating life cycle, though. 

But we were taking a lot of classes and sometimes it was just survival and if we need to regurgitate that life cycle on an exam then so be it. Class over.  

And...then we got to clinical rotations. 

Like many of my classmates I had worked at small animal practices before school so I could certainly come up with details of roundworms and hookworms and tapeworms (and since the school is a referral hospital, it's not like we were seeing those often anyway).  But then there was the large animal ambulatory rotation.  Farm calls.  For production animals.

You know what?  They see parasites.

It was a particularly memorable, particularly loud farm call when Dr. S. discovered that not one of us knew the most common parasite in cattle.  It's Ostertagia ostertagi, I know now.  In fact I have never forgotten that, even though it's been more than 10 years since I've seen a cow up close.  The name is forever linked in my mind with other words.  Like, "STUPID!"  And, "RIDICULOUS!"  And, "WOULD ONE OF YOU LIKE TO TAKE THE TIME TO LOOK IT UP IN A BOOK?!  JESUS!!!"  The name of that parasite is so completely seared in my memory that I expect that if I suffer from dementia in my golden years I will one day look at Paul and start calling him Ostertagia ostertagi.   Cheers, Dr. S.  

Another class taught by a non-veterinarian was Immunology.  Of all the classes I took in vet school, immunology stands out.  I wanted to like it.  Fuck, I just wanted to understand it.  The professor was this wonderful, kind woman and we all wanted to do well for her because she just seemed so invested in our understanding of the subject.  But, while there were plenty of individual classes in other subjects that I might have found confusing, Immunology was the only course that I sat through, paying attention and taking notes, and came out with not a clue.  The entire course.  Crickets.  

It's incredibly complex and it just doesn't make any sense at all.  With all of the other systems, once you learn how they work you can predict how they're going to behave.  Acidotic?  Hyperventilation.  Functional thyroid tumor?  Your cat will weigh four pounds but it will be acting like a kitten.  Small clots forming in the blood vessels?  That's bad. 

But the immune system...well, it's just different.  It sees an invader and it responds.  Except when it doesn't.  Maybe you can feed your pet food item X.  Or maybe the immune system will decide it's had enough of that and you will bring your pet to me for an ear infection and then look at me like I'm insane when I tell you there's an underlying allergy.  Sometimes it may just decide to start attacking its own host body, who knows where.  The skin?  The claws?  It goes rogue, this immune system, and it is not likely to blather on insensibly - it would tell Katie Couric to stuff her questions and then probably give her hives and then make her fingernails fall out to boot.    

I limped through the class and combined with some research I did years later I have enough limited understanding of the immune system to fake it.  I can at least interpret lab results.  Usually.  Plus I have the email address of a really smart colleague.  What else do I need?

Here's what I need:  I need to know what it is about the collective immune systems residing in my house that makes all of them vacate the premises as soon as Paul leaves for a conference.  I would assume that Paul is packing everyone's immunoglobulins in his suitcase but he just takes a carry on and I have to believe that they constitute more than 3 oz. of goo.  

Several days of sniffling, coughing, and whining later Paul is back and we, naturally, are all on the mend.  I suppose I should be grateful for the simple respiratory illness that befell the three of us.  Last time it was gastrointestinal. 

Tika speaks

Why. Does. It. Touch. Me.

Every Little Thing

The past few weeks have been filled with various annoyances.  Minor, all of them, but it's getting to the point that I wake up each morning wondering what fresh irritation awaits me. 

Our computer, which we suspected was close to its end, started doing various things that made me wish I'd been a little more proactive with backing up things like the pictures of the kids.  The touchpad stopped working although it worked fine with a mouse, but there were these menacing noises.  We decided to suck it up and replace the laptop (the really nice part about a lack of interest in technology is that the new computer is much faster than our limping one but is way behind what's available which equals pretty cheap).  The next day I started uploading pictures and videos to smugmug.

Which is when the mouse died.

Next day I went to replace the mouse.  What should have been a two minute errand turned into a nightmare as I had to pry multiple mice (mouses?) from Julia's grip.  They were in the shape of race cars.  Curse you, race car mouse creator.  She screamed all the way out of the store.  I continued on with the uploading.

Which is when the internet went out.

Two phone calls and several hours later, involving changing cords and resetting and plugging in and taking out and my extreme irritation at the insistence on following the script at all times ("Okay, I'm outside by the phone box now, what should I do?"............."Before you exit the house, are there any dogs or dangerous animals outside?"   I was so confused by that question I thought the guy must have known I was a vet and was about to ask my advice on something).  After all of that we did finally find the problem: it was with the phone company, it was widespread, and it was fixed the next day.

Paul helps organize a math and science fest for school kids and we take Max and Julia.  This year, Julia and I picked Max up from school and headed downtown.  The normal parking area of the convention center was closed so I was directed to proceed to the end of the street and turn right.  I went to the end of the street.  Where I ran into a funeral procession.  A procession so long that they had multiple police escorts.  Max's method of dealing with people in his way is to scream, "HOOONNNNKKK!!!  HOOONNNKKKK!!!" It's embarrassing when we're walking.  It's a nightmare when you're locked in the car with the kid.  

The several days of unseasonably cold weather forced us to have our furnace turned on and our swamp cooler shut down for the season.  We then followed that up with unseasonably warm weather (90s).  And no swamp cooler. 

And the last thing making me cranky: I scheduled an appointment with my doctor (three MONTHS ago) and it's next week.  My goal with this appointment is to get back on my migraine meds including a preventative since my reproductive life is complete.  My migraines are frequent - on the right side, no aura.  A migraine that moves or has an aura is a bad sign.  On Monday a migraine started.  On the left.  I knew I was in for three days of hell that I survived with ice and cold medicine to let me sleep at night.  Today the migraine moved to the right side, which is at least bearable. 

I imagine that next week will all be sunshiney happiness since Maxalt should be back in the house (minus the sputtering when I learn about the new copay).  I should warn you that the first 20 minutes after taking it make me a little funky - Paul claims I threatened him with a knife the first time I took it, although in truth I simply threatened him and the knife being in my hand was incidental.  I will try to put down sharp instruments before I post next.

Cold snap

Yesterday it was in the 80s.  Today, in the 50s. 

I am mostly unfazed by the colder temperatures.  Unusual this time of year, sure, but I thought it was pleasant.  The checker at the grocery store today mentioned the cold weather, and I thought...this is cold? 

Of course, a couple of years ago a woman from down the street made a point of running to our house to yell at me for allowing Max to walk from the car to our front door in jeans and a sweatshirt when it was 56 degrees.  He should be wearing a jacket, she screamed.  And it didn't occur to me until that moment that while I am from the midwest and hardly consider this cold weather, my children are truly desert rats.  Snow is an abstract concept for them. 

Last night, knowing it would be cool, I put Julia in long pjs for the first time this year.  She screamed while I was getting her dressed.  "SHORTS!" she kept yelling.  I finally calmed her down with some milk, but she was royally put out by her attire for the evening.

She obviously prefers minimal attire, as she insists that her babies all be naked. 

This morning I was more disturbed when she was dressed.  There is that dreaded moment when you look at your last baby and realize you don't have a baby anymore and today was that day for me. 

Meet my little girl, who carefully chose which trucks she wanted to take with us today. 

After we returned from the grocery store and I convinced Julia that I did NOT need her help putting the groceries away, she asked to go outside to play.  I grabbed my book and my girl and headed out the back door with the dogs. 

She lasted five minutes.

While the temperature itself wasn't so terrible, one strong wind and she buried herself into my legs and cried to go back into the house.  We came in and I folded laundry.  A short time later, I found her in the living room.

Apparently, she used her kitchen to whip up a batch of soup in the dishes I crocheted for her birthday and then she curled up on the couch with a good book (my book, I might add).  Which to me sounds like a totally pleasant way to spend a windy morning although I was not invited to this party and was, in fact, kicked out from the couch nest so that I could fetch her a hot toddy. 

Desert rats, indeed.

Plotting against us

Max said two things today that have us concerned about what exactly they are teaching in public school these days. 

1. "I come from the government."

2. "I trust NO ONE!"

I'm starting to believe the CIA is recruiting on the preschool campus.  On the plus side, at least he'll have decent health insurance if he works for the government. 

Prior to admitting to Playgroup Failure 2.0 I read a group message board discussion about how to handle the upcoming holiday.  The general consensus among those who chimed in was against, but while some were willing to risk the dangers of trick-or-treating they were, across the board, not planning on letting the kids keep the spoils.

And then there's me.  I love Halloween.  I motherfucking EMBRACE Halloween as it is the one time of year I allow Reese's peanut butter cups in the house (supposedly to hand out but we all know that's a sham, right?).  With that in mind, we went to our first Halloween event tonight (additional trick-or-treating next Friday and of course on Saturday). 

Costumes are important to me and I prefer to make ours.  This was the first year Max expressed an opinion on the matter and I'm pleased he went fairly easy on me, coming up with ideas for himself and his sister.  I picked up the major pieces and did a minimal amount of sewing and a bit more gluing. 

Max the Dog Catcher was willing to wear his hat this year, although Julia Dalmation refused to wear the hat with her ears attached.

Julia was pretty surly (molars. coming. in. slowly).  So we let Max get some revenge for the non-stop screamfest we've had lately.

I couldn't find a miniature rabies pole so we had to make do with the cat net from work (yes, we really do use that on cats...why do you think we take them in the "back?")*

We did find the net useful when we were trying to move Julia through the crowd. 

We let them keep the candy, minus the peanut better cups.

*Kidding.  It's for feral cats.  Particularly feral cats that escape the cage and are climbing the walls. 

Hedging

They told us in school that our best diagnostic tool was a good physical examination. 

The history, too, certainly, although in our case the history is routed through someone besides the patient.  Case in point: I once examined a dog whose owners were insistent that the cause of the lameness was in the foot.  I examined the foot carefully - foreign bodies are very common around here, but I didn't see any wounds or cysts and the dog seemed happy enough to let me bend her toes this way and that.  I worked my way up the leg and as I bent her knee the dog lunged for my face.  At this point I stopped the exam and explained to the owners that I was pretty sure the cause of the lameness was actually the knee and we were going to need at least a muzzle and maybe some sedation.  And they looked at me, having witnessed my recent exchange with the dog, and said, "We really think it's in the foot." 

There are few things available to humans that we don't also have available to animals.  There are specialists aplenty.  CT.  MRI.  Chemotherapy.  Orthopedic surgery.  Kidney transplants.  And, hey, we even have cloning.  Take THAT, MDs. 

But all of the neat diagnostic and treatment tools cost money and this is where I've had a few problems lately. 

Don't get me wrong - I love the tests and the specialists and I think there's some really amazing work being done in animal care. 

But.

I've seen a few patients lately where I feel like I've been, reasonably, called out by the owners.  In one, a cat with a history of breathing difficulties and some funky rads that were inconclusive decompensated overnight.  The cat was presented to me in full respiratory distress with gums a color I don't ever want to see again.  I started emergency care but managed to snap a quick Xray which showed a chest full of fluid (somewhat changing my prior emergency care).  I told the owner what I saw on the Xray, but that I didn't know where the fluid was coming from.  I didn't know what the prognosis was. 

But I did, sort of.  While I didn't know the exact cause of the fluid the prognosis, considering the cat's history, was officially: Shitty. 

And I went through the whole thing of I-don't-know-for-sure-maybe-it's-treatable and the owner sort of doubted it and I sort of doubted it but I felt uncomfortable recommending euthanasia if I didn't know for sure.  And she took her cat to the specialist who made the official cancer diagnosis and the cat died soon after. 

Another owner brought me her older cat.  The cat had been seen months earlier for vomiting.  Some basic tests were run and nothing really popped out.  In the meantime, the owner adopted a young cat that became almost immediately critically ill, so the older cat was sort of brushed aside as he was the more stable.  But then he got a lot worse and by the time I saw him the clinical signs reported by the owner were troubling.  Really, troubling, actually, and what I thought would be a half hour appointment turned into an hour and a half long discussion.  Eventually I did take an Xray where I saw the large abdominal mass.

And it starts again: I don't know where the mass is.  I can't tell for sure from the Xray.  I don't know if it can be removed.  So technically I don't know if it can be treated. 

At one point the owner looked at me and said, "I know you're trying to be clinical here, but I have a feeling you're not saying something."  

A cat with that history and with the type of vomiting she reported to me?  The prognosis was likely: Shitty. 

She's a nice lady and she loves her cat and she took her cat for the ultrasound and her cat got a terminal diagnosis. 

So here's the problem I'm having.  Am I doing good by getting people the information they need to make a decision at the end of their pet's life?  Am I doing bad by making people spend several hundred dollars to confirm what I already suspected? 

There's no answer to this, I know.  The tools are there and some people will use them and some people won't.  Sometimes it's a money issue and sometimes it's an emotional one and in the end all I can do is provide information and let people make their choices.

But sometimes I feel nostalgic for Herriot's days when his hands and his brain were his only tools. 

Hey! Unto you!

I am so irritated with the whole playgroup thing at this point, but my idea that no one would notice on facebook was wrong.  Gah.  I had to deactivate my account for a spell, although some people (and Jen, I am so looking at you right now) are only available to me through facebook and I feel so out of the loop.  I just don't get the twitter thing. 

ANYWAY.

Paul and I decided to get some local flavor last week.  Max, Julia, and I met Paul at work and we all walked downtown together for Tucson Meet Yourself.  TMY is a very, very, small equivalent of Taste of Chicago (Oh, Chicago, have I mentioned how much I miss you?).  It's rather adorable in size but the food is pretty tasty and it gets a little bigger each year.  Paul insists on calling the event "Tucson, Eat Yourself," but Max changed the name to "Hey Tucson! You! Meet Yourself!"  He might need to be more commanding in the future, since I ran into someone I knew a few blocks away who had no idea this was even happening. 

Taste of Chicago might have introduced me to Ethiopean food, but TMY has frybread.  If you have never experienced frybread, please visit and we will find you frybread, because you can't even imagine until you have tasted.

 

Max and Julia know frybread. 

We followed that up with Thai, Chinese, Swedish...can't even remember.  It was all good.  We would have Polish food, but apparently the people running that booth were trying to recruit and Paul didn't whip out his half-Polish card (ironic, because he loves Polish food, I loathe it, but I've got the wonky last name with all of the consonents smushed together). 

I tried to get a decent picture of the stormtroopers together.  Where one isn't hitting the other, I mean.

After we met Tucson and ate ourselves, we started walking towards home, slowly, in hopes of keeping the kids in good spirits to catch a parade. 

The major parade in Tucson actually occurs in February.  Since that parade celebrates rodeos we don't so much go to that one.  There are parades for the obvious holidays but in 100+ degree weather we are uninclined to sit outside.  Anywhere. 

So, a parade on an October evening sounded perfect. 

The kids held out and we had a great time.  The Tucson Pride Parade.

All parades should have fire engines.

And drag queens. 

It was a great parade and the kids loved it.  The rest of the pictures are too dark but all of the fun and dancing was followed by a red ribbon representing those lost to AIDS that made me weep. 

Tucson, we have met you.

Outcome

I'm not sure what decided it. 

It may have been a recent transplant to Tucson who contacted me through the mom's group.  Her son is also on the spectrum and she wanted to know about resources.  I spent a long time responding, giving her names of people and therapists and schools and programs.  Information that I've collected over the past few years.  And....not even a thank you back?  That's weird, right?  I mean, just a 'thanks for your time' note would have been enough. 

There was also this slight mess involving a playdate with a waitlist.  I had to cancel a few days before since we were sick, so I went through the proper procedure: contact first person on the waitlist, confirm they can take the spot, and then change the RSVP online.  Not really rocket science.  Unless no one gets back to you and you end up spending the better part of a day trying to get hold of people who ignore you and then they end up being bumped into the playdate by someone else and then you have to try to contact the next person.  Ugh.  I think I was on the fourth person when I just gave up and changed my RSVP and decided they could figure it out themselves. 

But in the end I think it was something else.  A couple of weeks ago Max had several days off school.  On one of those days I packed up snacks and children and drove an hour away to some orchards.  We picked apples and pears and then we went to some fields nearby where we picked a ton of vegetables.  We had a great time. 

That afternoon I decided to use some of our fresh veggies in dinner.  I did something that day.  Something that I realized I could never admit to anyone else in the playgroup.  See, several months ago I admitted in mom's group company that I let Max play in our yard.  Alone.  Which apparently makes me a shitty mother.  Anyway, on that particular afternoon when I was prepping dinner Max wanted him to help.  So I pulled a step stool up to the counter, handed him some bell peppers, a cutting board, and a knife.  As I watched him I considered the reaction of the other moms - a FOUR year old! a KNIFE!  I did not hand him a butcher knife and ask him to mince the peppers.  I gave him our smallest paring knife and had him rough chop the veggies. 

He was so proud of himself and we talked about those delicious (if slightly large) peppers all that night.  Yes, he could have cut himself.  But sometimes?  He's going to cut himself.  Or he's going to trip out in the yard and I'm not right there and he'll have to pick himself up and either get on with things or come find me if he needs help.  And he's going to need to figure that out for himself.  

I think that was the moment that I decided.  I don't need any help thinking I'm completely screwing up my children - I can play that mindgame all by myself, thank you very much.  And if I can't even be honest with people because I fear the reaction I'll get, then it seems these women aren't really friends.  People I can be friendly to, sure.  But not friends. 

I officially quit the playgroup. 

I haven't totally decided how to handle facebook yet.  I intended to unfriend once I quit, but after a discussion with one of my sisters who temporarily deactivated her facebook account, I'm not sure.  My sister said she was contacted by several people almost immediately with various accusations of unfriending.  It may not be worth the headache.  Everyone involved is hidden or blocked (have I mentioned that I love Boulder?  Because between that advice and facebook lite, I love Boulder).  That decision is shelved for another day.  

On the same shelf where I keep the nunchucks that I let Max and Julia use to sort out their differences.