Subject to Change

In past years I’ve had some fun with the State of the Union address. I wasn’t so inspired this time. All I really wanted to hear was this:

Good evening, America.

Dick Cheney tells me that play time is over. He’s in charge from now on.

Thank you. Goodnight.

I’ve just spent the last of my insurance flex dollars for the year. And, I was really starting to worry that they might actually last until February.

Last year I set aside just a few hundred dollars, anticipating the co-pays for Cole’s wellness visits. Even with the extra trips to Urgent Care and prescriptions, we still had trouble using it all up. So, I decreased my contribution slightly this year. It’s already turned out to be a bad gamble.

But, I’m not complaining that my account is empty. I’m complaining that we’re all dog sick! The boy caught a wicked respiratory-ear-eye thing and passed it along. He and I are both on antibiotics now, mom probably will be shortly. I gave up trying to fight it myself when my ear suddenly jabbed me in the brain and then went numb for several hours. I was in a meeting at the time and almost blurted out, “I have an ear infection.”

The doctor gave me some big pills to take once a day for five days and a decongestant that I’m not supposed to take after 4pm if I want to sleep. Pretty sweet, huh?

Here’s something you may not know about flexible spending accounts: the money is yours. Your employer will tell you that you have to use the money, or it’s gone. There’s a flip-side to the law, though. If you use the money and are terminated or quit before the end of the year, the money is also gone. You don’t need to pay it back if you haven’t earned it yet. Apparently, the law is written so that you gamble on using all your benefits and your employer gambles that you won’t. I haven’t studied how this works, but I do know that two people close to me have confirmed it. 

It still amazes me when my ten month old eats broccoli, and just about everything else we put in front of him.

Tonight I made him a promise. I told my son that when he’s old enough we’ll both try rocky mountain oysters together for the first time. We’ll make an eating contest out of it.

I’m looking forward to it. Mom was not pleased.

We never should’ve nuked the Japanese. It really screwed them up.

Hillary Clinton says her previous eight years in the White House qualify her to be president.

Following that line of reasoning, doesn’t all the time Monica spent under the desk in the oval office make her the perfect running mate?

I know who cost the Packers the NFC championship game. It was the overconfident employees at Cousin’s Subs on Greenfield, in West Allis.

I ate lunch there and I heard them talking. They were so sure of a Packer victory that they were only concerned about which team from the AFC would be easier to beat.

Way to go, guys. You jinxed the team!

That’s my new favorite phrase to use with my son, “very clever, but wrong.” Now that he’s got walking pretty well mastered, he’s started focusing his attention on other things. He’s started experimenting with objects.

It started when we were at the DMV, actually. Cole noticed a small, round hole in the table and he tried to drop his snack, a round wagon wheel, in it. I had to admire the fact that he noticed how well his treat matched the shape of the hole, even though I needed to stop him from throwing away his food.

Since then, I’ve caught him a few times in the middle of doing something that made me want to laugh and scold at him at the same time. I want to make sure I encourage him to be curious, but safe.

Don’t play with your food, unless you’re on YouTube.

The Body Worlds 1 exhibit starts this weekend at the museum. I’ve already purchased our tickets.

Kelly and I saw this exhibit when it was in Chicago and we’re looking forward to seeing it again.

Clint has some photos of US Troops committing atrocities in Iraq.

The one of a soldier using an Iraqi child as body armor is particularly horrifying.

P.S. Don’t tell Mike Mathias about this! He’ll go ballistic, which is hard to do when you don’t believe in bullets.