Ok, I lied...

... I did not write the update today. I spent my morning writing a lullaby based on the Fibonacci sequence. It's very soothing and restful. Just the thing for lulling a baby to sleep and edifying at the same time.


"Fibonacci Lullaby"

Oh, zero plus one is one,
One plus one is two,
One plus two is three,
And two plus three is five.

Now three plus five is eight of course
And five plus eight is thirteen,
And going back where it's begun,
Eight plus thirteen's twenty-one.

Thirteen plus twenty-one is thirty-four,
Twenty-one plus thirty-four is fifty-five.
Thir-ty-fourrr plus fif-ty-five
Makes a most magnificent eighty-nine.

Add fifty-five to eighty-nine
And you get one hundred forty-four.
That is the same as the square of twelve
Or two-to-the-seventh plus two-to-the-fourth!
(Yes, that is the same,
That is the same,
Two-to-the-seventh plus two-to-the-fourth!)

Eighty-nine plus one hundred forty-four
Is two-hundred thirty-three.
Fibonacci thir-ir-teen's a
Full reptend prime in base b!

Now one hundred forty-four plus two-thirty-three
Is three hundred seventy-seven!
And this is the product of two primes,
So I'm in number heaven!!!

So we take three hundred seventy-seven,
Add it to two-three three,
That gives us a win, six hundred ten,
To hang upon our number tree.

Three-seven-seven plus six hundred ten
Is nine-eighty-seven of course,
And six-ten plus nine hundred eighty-seven
Is a fifteen-ninety-seven tour de force.
(Yes, that is a tour-,
That is a tour-,
That's a numerical tour de force!)

{Librettist's Note: This next part really works better in Barbershop Quartet style-- maybe with a brass band behind you.}

Nine-hundred-eighty-seven
Plus fifteen-ninety-seven
Is two thousand five-eight-fourrrrrr--
And One-five-nine-seven
Plus two-five-eight-four
Is four-thousand-one-hundred-eighty-one
(-eighty-one!)
Forty-one-eighty-one, how we all adore!!!

Two thousand five hundred eighty-four
Plus four-thousand-one-hundred-eighty-one
Equals SIX-thousand-SEVEN-hundred-SIX-tyyyy-FIIIIIIVE,
(-sixxxxtyyyyyyfiiiiiiive...)
And THAT is the end,
THAT is the end,
That is the END of this number jive!

Quick update! With lots of exclamation points!!!

Hi there! Yes, I still live! I lived through the stressful stuff, and in fact had a great time at it all, and so did my son! Whee!!! I will blog about it all probably tomorrow morning, and catch everyone up who happened to be CLUTCHING their mouse with white knuckles, BREATH ABATED, to hear how the Valentine party crafts project OF DOOM turned out, how long does a major publishing corp take to pay up when one foolishly neglects to put said company's purchase order number on one's invoice, and just what the heck does a Developmental Pediatrician DO, anyway????

Answers to these questions and MANY, MANY MORE that no one ever asked are coming up tomorrow... same perky time, same perky channel!

"I Wanna Be Vaccinated:" A silly filk on the Autism Omnibus results

I'm a bit late in trumpeting the results of the Autism Omnibus hearings. This is truly a milestone result in the fight for public health, and a blow to those who would promote infectious diseases over social responsibility, using autism as the bogey-man for their misguided fearmongering over the safety of vaccines. Other bloggers on my blogroll have made SO much more intelligent commentary than I am capable of during this Time Of Melodramatic Overwhelmedness. So I wrote a silly filk instead! :D With all due apologies to the Ramones and to the scansion, to the tune of "I Wanna Be Sedated":

Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours ago--
I wanna be vaccinated!
Autism Omnibus dissed Cedillo-o-oh--
I wanna be vaccinated!
Just get me to the doctor, get me all my shots,
Hurry hurry hurry, I think I'm gonna plotz!
'Cause court just ruled them safe and I don't want measles spots,
Oh no no no no no!

Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours ago,
I wanna be vaccinated!
Get herd immunity up to nine-o-o-oh,
I wanna be vaccinated!
I'll get the MMR, I'll ask for it by name,
Hurry hurry hurry, it won't make me insane!
I don't need no chelation, vaccines don't hurt my brain!
Oh no no no no no!

Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours for me,
Then I'll be vaccinated!
Varicella, TDaP, and Heps A and B,
I wanna be vaccinated!
I won't be in a wheelchair, I don't want polio,
Now I know those jabs will not make me loco,
I don't want influenza added to my woes,
Oh no no no no no!

Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours ago,
I wanna be vaccinated!
Deer caught Wakefield fudging results, oh-oh-oh,
I wanna be vaccinated!
Somebody call the media, I'll get 'em on TV!
Hurry hurry hurry, I want you all to see!
Take THAT, David Kirby and Jenny McCarthy!
Ho ho ho ho ho ho!

Jab jab jab-jab ja-jab jab jab-jab, I wanna be vaccinated!
Jab jab jab-jab ja-jab jab jab-jab, I wanna be vaccinated!
Jab jab jab-jab ja-jab jab jab-jab, I wanna be vaccinated!
Jab jab jab-jab ja-jab jab jab-jab, I wanna be vaccinated!

Brains are funny and often ridiculous things...

Ok, I've realized that I've been accidentally taking a blog-break this past week, and it's because for the past two weeks I have been ultra-stressed, to the point of feeling needles and pins on my ultra-tense skin. My heart is racing for no apparent reason, and I'm a frazzled ball of raw nerve.

I'm not always good at recognizing the underlying causes of my emotional states. I'm usually pretty ok at addressing them once I recognize them, but jeez louise, it's often a major archaeological excavation to tease out the underlying cause from the cluster*&#$ of my overwhelmedness.

The thing that makes me teeter on the brink of insanity the fastest is when my son is in trouble. He's had what I'd like to euphemistically refer to as a Growth Week for the past... three weeks, I think. ;) He's been copying the behaviors of the more-autistic kids, been seeking comfort a lot more, and also being disobedient and disrespectful. No health issues that we can identify-- he often does stuff like that before he gets sick. Though recently we realized he's having subtle allergy symptoms (skin rash, watery itchy eyes) rather than the usual sneezing, and administering children's Claritin over the past few days has REALLY seemed to turn his mood around. He, like me, is a puzzle who has a hard time identifying the sources of his moods and discomforts. Parenting is detective work, and parenting a kid with Asperger's doubly so. Triply so if you also happen to be an Aspie yourself.

Anyway, the reason all this has caused my nerves to hit PANIC is that B's first appointment with a developmental pediatrician is coming up in ONE WEEK, and they sent us a HUGE SHEAF of paperwork to fill out, and I have been PARALYZED by all those forms. Absolutely petrified. Because they ask me all these questions about my child and what if I answer them wrong or address the wrong point as I tend to focus on inconsequentials and miss the big issues half the time and it's MY BABY'S WELFARE THAT IS AT STAKE HERE AND WHAT IF I SCREW UP HIS LIFE, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!!

And people ask me if I'm going to have more than one child. Pff! I would spontaneously combust if I had to worry about TWO!

The way I finally figured out what's wrong with me is that we got an appointment reminder phone call last night, and I had a panic attack so badly I just went into complete denial mode and didn't even tell my husband we got the call (Hi, honey! :)). He was seeing to the bathing of our child at the time and didn't hear the phone.

The other stupid thing is that while I've been avoiding the doctor paperwork, I've also been avoiding the contract paperwork for an art project I ALREADY DID, and ALL I HAVE TO DO is sign the contract, mail it, and get paid! BUT OMG LOOKING AT PAPERWORK MIGHT MEAN THE PEDIATRICIAN FORMS WILL EAT ME, ZOMGWTFBBQ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So all the past weeks I didn't talk about it even when my husband asked if there was anything he could do to help me. All last night I didn't talk about it. All this morning I didn't even talk about it, even though the subject of my signing forms and getting paid so we can pay our gas bill came up. But now I'm quietly sitting at home with a brand-new 1000-piece puzzle to soothe my nerves, and finally I can sort through my own head, and finally I can talk about it.

It's a nice quiet street in an English village, this puzzle. I like puzzles of English villages and English country farmhouses with nice gardens out in front. I have come to realize I'm literally reconstructing my shattered mental abilities when I do those.

And this afternoon I go to my son's class Valentine's Day party and do a crafts project with the kids (the impending nature of which is likewise not helping my nerves). But all is in readiness. I've had a nice walk, a healthy breakfast. Now all I have to do is sip my coffee, and work my puzzle until it's time to go.

And maybe, with Wonderful Husband's help, I'll finally attack that damn paperwork.

If I had no ethics...

Great news, everybody!!! In response to the economic downturn, I have decided to jump on the alternative health bandwagon and market an Echinacea ointment, to be applied topically to impart ALL the health benefits of ingested Echinacea* to your skin, your first, best line of immunodefense!!!

I'm going to call it...

ECHINO-DERM!!!!!


Pure marketing genius.




_________
* buggering little

No energy? Try eating.

Losing weight and exercising more is hard. I kind of hate it at the moment.

Again, I would like to seriously hat-tip those folks who have done the awesome work required to lose lots of weight. I am a weenie, needing to drop a scant 24 lbs., some of which I have already shed. But the discipline required is a freakin' PAIN!!! 'Cause not only do you have to monitor yourself to see that you don't eat too much, you also have to monitor yourself to make sure you're eating enough.

So, I started eating less junk. Great! And I started eating smaller portions. Wonderful! And I started exercising more-- two or three miles on the track instead of one. Super! Only now I find myself with NO energy AT ALL. Tired all the time. Weak. Irritable. Angry at the world.

WELLLLLLLL.... I haven't been keeping a proper food diary lately. And, come to discover, I've been STARVING MYSELF. Not good!!! :P So, I need to maintain around 1300 cal/day, and I've slipped down below 1000 cal/day, so, yeah, I THINK I've discovered the source of the "no energy" problem. Like, LITERALLY no energy! Not enough calories to run my life. Dumbass!

This, in turn, makes me feel truly terrible for the chronically hungry. How hard it would be to live your life, to work all day, and to care for children, while having not enough to eat. This world is not fair, and humans need to help each other if we want it to be a better place for all. It makes me wish that all those folks in the EEC who are trying to ban genetically engineered crops would live and work for one month under starvation conditions and see how they like it.

Ok, enough ranting for one day. I hope all is going well for you and yours!

Of chilis and children

I love love love my little son so much! Yesterday he didn't want to go to the rec center per usual; he wanted to go to the little market and buy produce. :D He picked out some stuff, and we COOKED IT!!! How idyllic is that!!! (Idyllic... wrong word. Pastoral? Er... anyway) He picked out a huge jalapeno pepper with which to spice up our aloo gobi, then picked out all the potatoes while I picked out the tomatoes. I am normally quite the big fat chicken about cooking with fresh hot peppers, preferring the certainty of my 1/2 tsp dose of red cayenne powder. Still, there's nothing like the fresh green flavor of a fresh pepper to liven up a dish, and I knew it wouldn't be very hot since it was so big, so I decided to try it!

My suspicions proved correct when Wonderful Son picked it up and TOOK A BITE OUT OF THE END, ZOMG!!!!!!! I watched him intently, asking, "How is it???" He looked thoughtful, then announced, "Good." WHEW! (It was, of course, spicier toward the stem end, a good chunk of which I excised before cooking).

The dish was delish, and a lovely afternoon was had by all! As mild as that pepper was (for a jalapeno) though, I STILL managed to give my fingertips pepper-burns during prep. I suppose gloves are what the pros use? Or perhaps a larger dose of Deal With It? Anyone with hot pepper experience, please weigh in!

The Bandit Of Love, or, ZOMG MemeTagged!!!

JLK has stolen a meme from Facebook called "Stupid Mouth Shut" and has tagged me with the contagion of a thousand random iTunes songs!!! ...Ok, twenty-two. Random songs, that is. I am prone to hyperbole this morning.


RULES:
a) Put your MP3 player, iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc. on shuffle
b) For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
c) YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS
d) Tag at least 5 people
e) Everyone tagged has to do the same thing (no they don't, actually)
f) Have Fun! (Step f is not required)


1. IF SOMEONE SAYS 'ARE YOU OKAY' YOU SAY?
"Blue Christmas" covered by the Del McCoury Band (ROFLOL, I'm so sad :D)

2. HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
"Leave You Far Behind" by Lunatic Calm (I wanna take you on a roller coaster, I wanna take you right over the line!)

3. WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
"To Whom It May Concern" by Duran Duran

4. HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
"The World Has Turned And Left Me Here" by Weezer (ROFLOL!!! See? SO SAD!!! :D)

5. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
"Electric Barbarella" by Duran Duran (omgLOL-- yes, of course, how could I not have seen it before? I want to have/be a sexdroid!!!)

6. WHAT'S YOUR MOTTO?
"Never Did No Wanderin'" by The Folksmen (ROFLOL-- My mama was the cold North Wind, my daddy was the son....of a railroad man from west of Hell, where the trains don't even run!)

7. WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
"Walking On Broken Glass" by Annie Lennox (So true. ;D)

8. WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
"Surf Wax America" by Weezer (I can GUARANTEE this one is untrue, LOL!)

9. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
"Little Birdie" by The Stanley Brothers (Especially when they're on my roof making their damned woodland creature racket!)

10. WHAT IS 2 + 2?
"Yellow Cab" by M.I.A. (an evasive answer if ever I've heard one!)

11. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
"Tangled" by Jackie Allen (Hee! My husband is my best friend, so that would be tangled IN THE SHEETS, BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... HAHA... HA... hoo.)

12. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
"Groove Is In The Heart" by Dee-Lite (Oh YEAH BABY!!! :D)

13. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
"Relaxation Spa Treatment" by Dan the Automator (...LOL!)

14. WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
"Dark Angel" by Laurie Anderson ( :) :) :))

15. WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING? (For the record, it was "Love Song For A Vampire" by Annie Lennox, why yes we ARE big huge geeks, why do you ask?)
"Suckerpin" by Modeselektor (ROFLOL!!!)

16. WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
"I Want To Hold Your Hand" covered by Al Green (Hey, works for me!)

17. WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
"Sinners And Their Repentances" by Bob Mould (ROFLOL!!!)

18. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR?
"Kiss Me" by Robbie Williams (LOL! "She gave me laughter and hope and a sock in the eye")

19. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
"Born On a Sunday" by The Art Of Noise (That's right-- my greatest secret is that I'm really Claude Debussy! Suck it, Tchaikovsky!!!)

20. WHAT DO YOU WANT RIGHT NOW?
"Acc-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive" by Johnny Mercer (Oooh, and I AM! :D)

21. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
"Cotton Needs Pickin'" by Ry Cooder (...um...)

22. WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
"The Bandit of Love/Cheatin' Waltz" by the Chieftains with Carlene Carter (Aaaaaand I did. :))


So, anyone else want to play? Right now, I'm thinking of:

1. PalMD, to get his mind off his back pain
2. Cyberlizard
3. BabbleOn
4. EvolvedRational, 'cause I reeeeeeally want to know what she keeps on her hard drive! :D
5. My Fair Scientist, who I'm just now getting to know! :)
6. Plants Are the Strangest People
7. Podblack Cat

As always, everyone please feel welcome to play or not, as you like! If you do play and are not on this list, do please leave me a note in the comments so I can come read your results! :)

KIDPARTY!!!

So, my son got his Very First Ever actual INVITATION to a birthday party! So exciting!! This was his first party that wasn't for a family member or one of the kids of my friends, whom he has grown up around. It was the eighth birthday of one of the boys in his CBIP class, and THE WHOLE CLASS was invited-- so I was resting up, expecting to be assisting at a birthday party with NINE KIDS WITH AUTISM!!! o.O !!!

But, much to my surprise, we were the only ones from the class who showed up. There were lots of kids there-- T comes from a big family, so there were loads of cousins, and a great time was had by all!-- yet I was disappointed. I felt it was my MORAL DUTY to help with the kid-wrangling, and to bring B to celebrate with his friend! It never even occurred to me that other parents of special needs kids wouldn't all rally to the birthday party cause, or not be just as excited as I was to have our kids included in the festivities. That made me wistful... for the five seconds I got to think my own thoughts before being catapulted into the kids' activities, LOL!

The party was at a FAMILY FUN-PLEX!!!!! (-plex, -plex, -plex!)

I am an alien to these things, having shunned them all my life, so I have to describe. :) This was a kind of self-enclosed entertainment arcology with a bowling alley, performing anthropomorphic audioanimatronic animals, a skating rink, an arcade, lazertag, and little-kid area with playground equipment and the balls you jump in and an inflatable bouncy-thing that you jump in. Jeez Louise! I was overstimulated within thirty seconds. But, oddly enough, I grew ACCLIMATED to the freakish noise and fun level (over 9000!!!!)... and was okay within about ten minutes! I actually enjoyed myself! I was expecting to just kind of cope and put on a smiley face for the sake of the kids, but it was actually a pretty great time!

The party didn't try to do too much, which was also a great decision. Clearly, T's parents are no strangers to the concept of kid parties! There were chips and dip for the early part, then the animal-performers got turned on and the kids OF COURSE all got on stage with them, and then they scattered to play on the games and jump in the inflatable jumpy-thing. That latter was the big hit of the party, lemme tell you! The most popular game was the shooting-hoops thingy where you get around 8 basketballs and try to make baskets-- but B and another kid just took a basketball each and dribbled them around on the floor, which was cool too. (I snagged one myself-- and OMG basketball-bouncing is very soothing to overloaded senses!!! Who knew?) Then they had pizza, then played a little more, then the cake was lit, "Happy Birthday" was sung, cake was cut and eaten with ice cream. After the sugar input, the kids scattered again for more jumping, and then the ROLLERSKATING started! :D :D :D Neither T nor B had ever been on skates before but were both game to try. A little girl was determined to lead B around the rink, and she gamely stuck with him, too! It was absolutely, hilariously adorable!

I was SO PROUD of B-- before the party, we had had a little chat about being a good guest, and by golly, he was great!

Here's why I was worried. B is like unto iron filings when confronted with the magnetism of CAKE. But he did well around it! He only asked maybe three times, "Is it time for cake yet?" and even then he only asked me and not the party hosts.

UNTIL.............

Until T's two-year-old cousin leaned over and put his FACE in the cake. Sure enough, B followed suit! Face in cake. Unlike the 2-y-o, who only got a little lick of icing, the freakin' amateur, B is a PROFESSIONAL cake-marauder and got a BIG OL' mouthful! Fortunately, the evidence of child depredation was only on the edge, so the cake was fine for serving, and DOUBLY-fortunately, T's family thought it was HILARIOUS. Whew! They wouldn't even let me clean B off until they had taken pictures, LOL!!!

Being the mom of One Kid, I never understood how anyone can handle more than one. Two would surely crack me like an egg. But seeing these families, all with multiple kids, really made me understand-- when you've got a bunch of 'em, you're just more RELAXED about stuff! I always feel like I have to watch B constantly, make sure he doesn't do something dangerous, run off, or piss off other people, make sure he uses nice manners, etc. Whereas these kids were allowed to run relatively amok-- and yet the world didn't end, everything was ok, everyone had fun. It was an amazingly relaxed time, because I was around an amazingly relaxed bunch of adults! I was really, truly grateful for that.