Just because I'm planning a few days off, the kids have been nurturing some really juicy coughs over the last 72 hours.

Now that we're not allowed to give little children cold medicines anymore, I suppose the most certain way to chase off their illnesses is to cancel my vacation days. Sorry kid, tough it out.

I am tired. I mean, really tired. Perpetually not focusing on stuff. I don't know whether to attribute this to inadequate sleep, insufficient caffeine, or the fact that I really haven't had a vacation in over a year.

Maternity leave does not count.

Our trip to the mainland in June does not count. Two weeks in a minivan with two kids under the age of three for two family weddings isn't a march through Bataan, but it's not particularly restful either.

Since I returned to work in January 2006, I've endured nine months of morning sickness, an international move, a job change, surgical birth, and my daughter's "Two's". I got three months of maternity leave (six weeks to recover from surgery and six weeks to dread going back to work).

Next week I am supposed to get a few glorious Days Off. Monday morning I'm going in to the office to hand stuff over to my boss, who is at a conference this week but should be back this weekend. Tuesday and Wednesday are leave days. Thursday we get TurkeyFest off because the company is US-owned. Friday we're having the office fumigated, so everyone gets a day off.

That's four days where the kids are in day care and I plan not to be at work. I hardly know what to do with myself.

If my mother were here, we'd be cleaning out closets and moving furniture. Sorry Mom, I'm thinking one day on the housework, max. If the weather is good, beach and books will be involved. A really good haircut is in order too. We shall see.

Of course, the Ineffable One has a sense of humor, and I am also expecting this to come into play with my so-called plans for "vacation". It is because of this that I will not be attending my high school reunion. No, I won't tell you how many years.

And on that note, back to the steaming piles of housework that await. Tomorrow is trash and recycling day. Wish you were here, Mom.

Twitter is down, so I guess I have to blog for real, ha ha.

My husband, a.k.a. Captain Ketosis, keeps finding interesting things to do with low-carb ingredients. Tonight's invention by necessity was a mock Brandy Alexander, with melted low-carb ice cream. (The ice cream was melting, I don't know, I don't ask questions.) And if someone out there wants to point out what the actual carb count of cognac, do me a favor and DON'T tell me. It won't make me any happier or more sober.

Oyez, oyez, oyez: Take note of lawyers in Washington DC collectively doing something decent.

I'll let someone else remark on the ABA President's statement that "President Musharraf sought to justify his actions by citing the threat of terrorism. But shutting down a nation’s lawful institutions of justice will hurt, not help, the fight against terrorism."

Ahem, FISA, cough, cough. Patriot Act, herm, ahem, cough.

The bike is BAAAAACK!!! The cops called two weeks ago and said they'd found my bike in a church parking lot about five klicks from our house. I tried very hard to sound very cool, but inside was squealing with glee like a five-year-old at Disneyland.
When I got to the police impound lot, I was horrified to see how many remains of stolen bikes there were there. The island is not that freaking big, how many people have bikes? And how many thieving scumbags are on the loose?
So the cops had to keep my baby overnight to do their low-rent CSI routine. The culprits took the seat (whiskey tango foxtrot?) as well as my helmet, cargo box, and rain gear. Oh, and they siphoned out all the gas.
Next steps: Wait another two weeks for repair shops on Island Time. Shop delivers restored bike. Discover keys in bike sitting in driveway. Call up shop and ask them whether they realize that the bike had come their way because it had been stolen out of my driveway.
I have a new cargo box, helmet, and two kryptonite locks. Watch out, world.

Contents of my glass recycling bag, all carefully sorted and washed: one dozen baby food jars, a wine bottle, and a bottle of Jose Cuervo margarita mix.

Hey, the baby food jars outnumber everything else, so no Britney jokes.

OMG Cool New WebToy! The only drawback is that most of the people I owe beers to are probably not Twittering. The fact that I live on an island hundreds of miles away from them also makes redemption difficult.

But dude, on-line karma tracking. This is so much cooler than Blackberrying. And in terms of usefulness to the human race, an order of magnitude more worthwhile.

Ready Or Not: This morning, I hugged my girl and said "Happy Birthday Gigi! You're three years old today!"

She smiled and asked, "Whyyyy?"

Oh yeah. She's three all right.

What am I supposed to do now, with no baseball to watch?

Oh yeah. Blog. Read books. Visit friends on-line. Talk to spouse about contents of lunch bags and diapers. I have a cat somewhere around here too.

And gloat gloat gloat gloat GLOATY GLOATY GLOAT about the Red Sox. Whoo hoo!

Since I spent yesterday in town I didn't get to post: "Happy Thanksgiving, eh!"

I was joking with my co-worker from Vancouver that it should just be called Copycat Day.

For those who have not been tracking my Twittering, I repeat: Some jerk stole my motorbike. Bike, helmet, rain gear and cargo box all gone gone gone. I am furious.

I can hear my mother whooping with joy across four time zones. Don't rub it in.

Insurance says they'll probably take about three weeks to cough up.

Here's what I love about the travelers' support biz: the constant exposure to the extraordinary capacity of your fellow human beings to astound and delight with STOOOOOPID questions. Today's feature: "I need more pages in my [nationality] passport. Do I actually have to send them the passport for the Embassy to put extra pages in it?"

Um, yeah. Seriously, in post-9/11, encoded-with-your-freakin'-DNA, GPS-linked passport controls, they'll just send you a little insert you can staple in at home.

Actually, Scotty will just beam the new pages in while you sleep.

If that doesn't work, just nick some copier paper out of the machine at work, and use some rubber cement to glue that to the outside cover. Just don't inhale too many of the fumes.

I have said before that I tend to refrain from politics on the blog. This is in part due to my desire to maintain anonymity. But every now and then I come across something worth commenting on, as most of my regular readers are in the USA. So here goes:

I am one of the lucky ones. I have a white-collar job with a big employer in a reasonably modern industry. I had at least ten years under my belt when I got pregnant the first time, and I decided that I wanted a year off. It was unpaid, but I needed the sabbatical more than I needed the paycheck, at least for twelve months. I got to nurse my daughter for about a year. Closing in on three years old, she is happy and healthy and a blessing on two feet.

When I got pregnant the second time around, I knew I wouldn't be able to take off another year. I also knew that I wanted to breastfeed the second baby for as long as possible. I have enough seniority that I have my own office with a door I can close; I also have that rarest of all commodities: a supportive, family-friendly boss. I don't know how I could have coped with having two kids under the age of three if I had been told I had to pump in the bathroom (would you want to feed your kids in the WC, even if it was reasonably clean?), or if they'd said, "Hey, you want to keep nursing after your twelve weeks of unpaid leave, just stay home."

So I went back to work, closed my door twice a day when possible, and kept the Mommy Juice flowing. My son is now ten months old, happy and healthy and a blessing on four scooting little appendages. He still nurses twice a day when we can manage it, though if he keeps testing his teeth on me I might have to reconsider.

But Thank The Maker, I had the choice and I have the choice. Millions of other women are not as fortunate. This is for them. Read more about it here. Don't think of it as politics. Think of it as investing in the future.

You know deep in your soul that you are getting old when you get excited about the fact that you can buy your anti-nausea Drug of Choice over the counter in your adoptive homeland.

Okay, seriously. Ten years ago, when I lived Down Under, I found that you could get Tylenol with Codeine over the counter - you had to ask for it, but you didn't need a scrip. I bought a pack for my big brother, who had TMJ and accompanying epic headaches. In my first and only brush with flouting Customs regs, I slapped a form on the box Declaring that I was sending "non-prescription cold relief" across international boundaries. Got away with it, too. (Statute of limitations, anyone?)

The fact that I even have a favorite anti-nausea medication is enough to, well, make me sick. Fortunately, I can now self-medicate this condition at whim.

It's official! The Boy has a new nickname: Chipper. As in, "you've kept us up howling like a lunatic for the last two hours, you refuse to accept any kind of soothing for your teething pain, and you just passed out for five minutes and woke up chattering and smiling.
"So why are you so $*&!ing Chipper?"

My little girl was sitting across the table, picking at the buttered noodles that I had chopped up for her dinner. "Tummyache food" I called it. She wanted yogurt, she wanted chocolate, she wanted all kinds of stuff that I wasn't going to give her after the day's events. Between her and her baby brother, in the last twelve hours, I had been puked on, punched, kicked, pulled on, headbutted, clung to, drunk from, kept awake, garroted, smacked, and cried on. I was and am physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. So I wasn't in the mood for debate on meal choices.

Gigi: "Mommy?"

Me : "Yes, sweetheart?"

Gigi: "I'm your best friend."

Gut bombs all weekend. The Boy came home with something Friday, and he and I spent lots of time sick on Saturday. I will spare you details; let it suffice to say that my gastrointestinal tract conducted some really vigorous seasonal cleaning.
Sunday we appeared to be in the clear.
This morning, at somewhere around four o'clock, my daughter came down the hall, climbed into bed with me, and puked. She is soooo ready for college.
So far my husband has avoided the worst of it. He had a bit of a tummyache and felt a little woozy, but a nap and a few doses of Pepto-Bismol seem to have him sorted out.
I don't know what my husband's stomach is made of, but I suspect that if you sold it to North Korea, an international politico-military crisis would ensue.

Happy New Year! Party like it's 5799.

Cognitive Dissonance: Twice in two nights now I have heard Jim Lehrer use the expression "the straight skinny." It borders on the surreal. I would just as soon expect my father to drink malt liquor from from the bottle, or my grandmother to describe something as "the shiznit".
If he does it a third time, I'm calling the station.

Just realized something: I have been blogging, either solo or part of a team, for over five years now. Two thoughts: I am getting old fast; and hee hee hee hee I ain't been caught yet. Militant anonymity has its advantages.