Cerebrate Good Times

Last night I dreamed I was the Secretary of Education for the United States. I don't remember being aware of who was the president, although I did wonder what happened to Betsy DeVos and figured I could hardly do a worse job. I needed to mail something and figured I could use this special ring I had to avoid having to put a stamp on it. But I don't know how it was supposed to work. Later I dreamed that I was supposed to teach a college class on abnormal psychology. And, much like the dreams in which I am a student, I was woefully unprepared. I thought it was in this big amphitheater, but there was already a professor in there, who directed me to the far side of the room, where a small hallway included a room that would fit about 6 desks. I was actually relieved that there weren't more students. For some reason my boss and a coworker were there to support me, and then there were a few students. We got started and I thought I'd kill some time by learning their names and...

This morning was rough. The kids had spring break last week, so we were all back on an earlier schedule. And when I went downstairs to wake up the kids for school, I could hear a noise. I thought it was a toy that had been left on, but as I turned the lights on I noticed several things, First, my feet were wet. Why were my feet wet? Also, the noise was water dripping on something on the floor. I looked up and noticed huge paint bubbles on the ceiling, with water dripping down in several places. Naturally, I panicked. I've heard too many horror stories about flooded basements and mold and huge cleanup jobs. I shut off the water and got the kids up and off to school while waiting for plumbers to open for the day. I called someone, who came and told me I needed to get in touch with my homeowner's insurance and a disaster restoration company. I called the insurance company, and they were not particularly helpful, But I initiated the claim and called the restoration company the ...

Okay, I think I feel a little more comfortable now discussing the vague "health issues" stuff from a previous post. Last fall I had a colonoscopy and my doctor kind of led me to believe I was teetering on the edge of having cancer. A few months later I had another appointment in preparation for a follow-up scoping, and he explained things a little more. Apparently I had something called dysplasia, which is the beginning of cells mutating into cancer. There's high-grade dysplasia, and low-grade dysplasia. For months I was convinced I had the high-grade kind, thinking it was just a matter of time. But he finally explained that it was "indefinite" dysplasia, so I guess it wasn't totally confirmed that the mutations were going on. His philosophy is to treat everything that has the potential to be cancer as seriously as possible, which makes sense. But in retrospect I felt a little misled. He had me try some more intense treatments intended to reduce the infl...

I am not a traveler. I have never flown anywhere just for leisure. I generally prefer to stay home, and with children there are logistic and financial implications to traveling as well. And until my current job I never had to travel for work either. But in the last two years I have taken a few trips, and it's been interesting to gain some perspective on what it may be like for those who do it more often. Last week I was in Fort Worth for a convention. Our employees all had rooms at a hotel by the convention center. I ended up on a flight that came in at midnight with a few coworkers. We were picked up at the airport, but the hotel had overbooked and had to find us rooms elsewhere. The other hotel had a problem finding our reservation, so we ended up getting to our rooms about 1 a.m. So instead of this: We ended up in this. It's a hotel built in 1907, with old-timey style. It was kind of a fun place. But I was only there for a few hours. The next morning the...