After James was born, people told me “well, now you’re going to get sick a lot more.” I thought I knew what they meant.
Sure, he was going to be exposed to sniffly kids, none of whom had a tested immune system, and so would be passing along every cold bug. But that was no big deal: A few extra colds I could handle, those that I actually caught, anyway.
But there was something I’d forgotten: That’s not the only source of germs kids bring home.
James has now entered a licking phase — I’m sure the baby books will call it an “oral something something something period” — but really, it’s a licking phase. And you can never catch him pre-lick, only post-lick, once he’s gotten a good swath of the Hesperia Star’s glass front door covered or the handle of the grocery store shopping cart spit-shined.
And here’s the thing: Jenn and I have not been licking windows and shopping cart handles for several decades now. That’s thousands of generations of evolution for window and shopping cart germs to come up with new ways to circumvent the human immune system.
Anyway, that’s the story of my weekend. How was yours?
Transfers cost district $919,974, Alleged scratch-off bandit gets busted and other stories.
So the 10-day vacation is over. I had several days at home with James, which was great, (mostly) cleared out the TiVo, did some laundry, played World of Warcraft, had Thanksgiving at the in-laws’ and we ended the week taking James to Disneyland for the first time. A good time was had by all.
Tomorrow’s Election Day. You may not have heard.
Living in the city I cover is normally a good thing: It spurs me on to work harder, exposes me to stories that might not otherwise appear on my radar and makes me more accountable to my readers, whom I can run into at the store, in restaurants or even when picking up a prescription at the pharmacy.
But it makes Election Day a little strange. As a result of my job I am, I think, one of the more educated voters around, but I also have had personal dealings with nearly all the candidates, and while I keep my personal feelings off the page — in 2004, representatives of two rival city council candidates both tried to have me fired, since I was clearly in the tank for the other guy — it confuses things when going into the polling booth.
I should vote for the best candidate, certainly, but what if he’s a complete jerk? Should that make a difference? I will be dealing with him (or her) for four or more years, after all. How about how good of a quote someone is? Or how time-consuming it is to interview them?
In the end, though, it almost doesn’t matter: Every year, Jenn and I go to lunch — this year, we’re going to go to breakfast, to try and beat at least some of the crowds at the polling station — and go through the sample ballot, and she quizzes me about each of the candidates, going beyond what I’ve written about them previously, to the sort of stuff I mention above.
And then she goes and cancels out most of my votes anyway.
I don’t normally plug individual posts on James’ blog, but this time I had to, since this is my new favorite picture of him. (For the non-geeks out there, he’s the bald-headed Lex Luthor to his cousin Kaleb’s Superman.)
See all of Jenn’s pictures of their 2008 visit to the pumpkin patch here. (And look how much has changed in a year.)
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