Job security

My new area of supervision at work got a surprise visit from the health inspector today.

Our score? 99/100.

Very nice.

Plus, that means that my madd supervision skillz must be working.

Thank you

I suppose that you already know that my fair city got hit pretty hard by strong storms last night. Warehouses were destroyed, homes were destroyed, even a mall sustained major damage. My family spent hours glued to the radar pictures on the television, seeing ourselves in the direct path of a tornado for a few minutes (fortunately for us, it veered east, and we were out of its path). Friends of mine saw tornadoes. Friends of mine lost neighbors.

In my house, we had a panicking dog and a panicking boy. My sweet son has a rather irrational fear of weather, particularly hurricanes and tornadoes. Fortunately, we've been able to talk him down from his hurricane fear (it helps that we live very, very far from saltwater), but any serious threat of tornadoes is a guarantee that he'll be at best, fearful, at worst, a complete wreck.

Last night he veered closer to the "complete wreck" side of the scale. There were tears. There was a ten-minute-long episode of such fear that I could barely be near him. He planted himself in the laundry room (the safest room in the house for such events) and assumed the "duck and cover" position. Keep in mind that there was no tornado heading even remotely toward our house at that point. I finally convinced him to watch Hannah Montana in my bedroom, demonstrating that the trek from my bed to my closet (the other, more comfortable "safe room" in the house) took only seconds.

Because a second line of storms was forecast to come through the area around 10 p.m., we dragged the futon mattress downstairs so the kids could sleep in our room. I think it gave him peace of mind, and he slept well (except when the second front came through, with astonishing force).

But the title of this post is "Thank you" and there's a reason.

Some people may think I'm a bit odd, in that my usual online routine includes checking weather.com. I almost always know what the day's weather is predicted to be. And this storm system? Was no surprise. As early as Sunday afternoon, I knew that Tuesday was going to be an interesting day. There was a "Special Weather Statement" posted, warning that conditions would be ripe for such storms. By Monday, the forecast had been narrowed down to the point that the predicted storms were projected to arrive between 1 and 9 p.m.

The first raindrop hit my neighborhood at 4 p.m. Just as predicted. The worst was over before 11 p.m.

Even though I whined (and wined) about missing American Idol and House, our local weather forecasters kept us informed, alerting folks when the funnel clouds began forming, figuring out the path these storms would follow, and telling people to take cover.

They were exactly on target. And for that, I'd like to buy all the weather forecasters a Coke. They all deserve a nice day off.

In lieu of a real post

Here's a meme (or something like it) that I shamelessly lifted from Hola, Isabel. And, without further ado, six lies and two truths about me:

1. I modeled nude, for money, during my second pregnancy. I earned about $200. For sleeping.

2. Even though I've lived out of the country and traveled pretty extensively during my childhood, I haven't left the United States since a year before I got married.

3. I've never voted for a winning candidate, whether in a major or local election. Turns out, I'm just not in the mainstream. Period.

4. Until I started dating the man who later became my husband, I was a rabid college football fan, and even missed dinner in the college refectory if a game went into overtime.

5. I dye my hair so frequently that I honestly have no idea what my natural color is. Or if I have any grey hairs.

6. I'm unreasonably afraid of tornadoes.

7. I won't eat organ meat. Of any kind. It's gross.

8. I've tried, but never succeeded, at giving blood. One time I was denied because I was under the required weight (110 lbs.) and once because I still had the sniffles. As a result, I force my husband (definitely more than 110 lbs.) to give blood since I never can.

So, if you think you know the truth, comment. I'm missing the comments. Please?

Science fair

I just finished my portion of Susie's science fair project.

Let that sink in for a moment.

See, these science fair projects are serious business. Last year, Susie and two friends teamed up to do a pretty good experiment (the effects of different liquids on tooth enamel), and they took third place. I'm convinced that they would have taken first if I had been more proactive and helped them more with the graphic design of the project.

This year, Susie has a new partner and a new topic. The two girls chose nutrition as their topic (at my suggestion...after all, I have good resources at work), and their experiment was good: for one week, they ate a typical diet and kept a food diary. For week two, they first planned a "balanced" diet based on the recommendations at www.mypyramid.gov (good stuff there, by the way), then kept a food diary again. The food diary was input (mostly by them, but also by me) into www.my-calorie-counter.com, a good-enough site that calculates calories, fiber, fat, and the like.

My portion of the project involved taking that data and feeding it into an Excel spreadsheet, then creating a zillion graphs depicting the recommended calories, fat grams, etc., comparing them to the actual calories, etc., consumed, then overlaying the percentage above or below the RDA the girls consumed.

I learned something that I didn't tell the girls. True, it's not a scientific sample, but the results played out as I expected. Susie, as a middle-class white kid with post-graduate-school-educated parents, had a pretty darn good diet in her "control" week. Her nutritional intake was very similar in weeks one and two. Her partner, on the other hand, is economically disadvantaged, African American, and has a less-than-stable family situation. I don't know her mother's educational attainment, but I suspect it's minimal based on the contact I've had with her. And this girl's diet? Is a mess. It's almost a textbook diet for how to get heart disease, an epidemic health problem in the lower income African American community. Her sodium intake is generally 2-3 times the recommended daily limit. Her sugar intake is high. Her saturated fat is high. Her fiber consumption is about half of what it should be.

But what's most disturbing about her results is that her intake of "bad" stuff (fat, saturated fat, sodium, sugar) was markedly WORSE during the Food Pyramid week. I'm not sure why. Perhaps her mother was not able to provide a balanced diet that adhered to the eating plan the girls had designed. I know her mother did not understand the plan, because she called me last Sunday evening, after I'd dropped the child off at home, asking me, "What is this mess she just handed me?" The "mess" was her daughter's food chart. I went over the project with her, explaining the experiment and what they were trying to accomplish. I explained portioning and what foods needed to be consumed in what quantities. The family does not have a computer, so I couldn't direct her to a website.

I talked to the girls today about their results as I was creating the charts. I was gentle when I told Susie's friend about the issues in her diet. I explained that she needed to look at product nutritional labels when she and her mom went to the grocery store. And I beat my favorite dead horse. Lunchables? Are the worst thing in the world that kids can eat. Except maybe rat poison.

The girls did a great job writing up their findings. And I'm about to head to the office to print all these beautiful charts (in color), as well as some pages from the food pyramid site. They'll put the whole thing together and (hopefully) win a prize next week.

I hope they learned something. And make changes accordingly. As they wrote in their report, "It's hard not to eat too much salt and sugar."

Mom, don't read this

Okay, if you're easily grossed out, stop reading.

Somehow the conversation between Craig and me comes to prostate health. Let's blame the television. I blame it for everything else.

And he asks how old he's supposed to be before he needs to get that checked out. I tell him. And then he asks if it's possible for the doctor (she's a woman) to maybe wear a cute outfit (boots? leather?) before she checks him out for such ailments.

And then he keeps it up. "Will she maybe wear a wig? Will she get into a character? Will she get a costume? Will she spank me first? Could she pull my hair a little?"

As I write this, he's still talking. "She can't just go at this willy-nilly; it's an event!"

Am I wrong to document his sickness to the internets? Because, in his words, "If it's wrong, I don't wanna be right."

I hope to God that my doctor doesn't read this blog.