Brynn is 7!

Here is my favorite photo from her birthday party on the beach tonight. That was, by the way, the actual color of the sunset tonight.

Brynn and her friend, our neighbor, Cinthya.

And shrimp guts become...

Don't get me wrong. I still hate shrimp guts. Especially the nasty pond scummy stuff that oozes out when you rip off their little beady-eyed heads. But it's kinda cool that those gross little guys become panko breaded shrimp tacos! Like magic! Except for the part about the magic.

Shrimp guts

Can I just say that I hate shrimp guts?

And I know, I know...complaining about the abundance of cheap, clean, fresh shrimp guts here is like complaining that my two karat diamond ring makes my fingers look short. Or something. Wait, no, I don't have a two karat diamond ring. But you get my drift.

Anyway...shrimp guts. This afternoon I beheaded, deshelled, deveined, and cleaned one kilo of shrimp (that's 2.2 pounds to you non-metric folks). The guy who sold them to me put all the big shrimp on top so I was quite annoyed when I got to the second layer of shrimp and found that they were all about the size of my pinky finger, including the heads and those beady black eyes.

Grr, ick, bleh.

I guess shrimp just aren't my thing. In fact, give me any other kitchen job. I'd be happy to take it.

The shrimp are finally all clean. And my fingers are wrinkly. Maybe this will be my last encounter with tiny, head-on shrimp. Ugh.

I should be doing dishes.

But I'm not.

I just read this delightful...no...brilliant? Yes, that's better. I just read this brilliant editorial in the Wall Street Journal. It was written by Dr. Jeffrey S. Flier, dean of Harvard Medical School. I generally disagree with much of what is written on the health care debate, either because I think it involves too much government or it is too polarizing or it doesn't have anything to do with actually improving our lifestyles and, therefore, our health.

This editorial was different.

While it still did not discuss the fact that the BIGGEST problem with health care is that we all sit on our butts (in my head I'm using a stronger word) drinking Cokes and stuffing our faces with Pringles, Dr. Flier did address the over-politicization (is that a word?) of the whole debate.

I really liked what he wrote and I learned from it. I think you might like it (and learn from it) too.

Health 'Reform' Gets a Failing Grade
By JEFFREY S. FLIER

As the dean of Harvard Medical School I am frequently asked to comment on the health-reform debate. I'd give it a failing grade.

Instead of forthrightly dealing with the fundamental problems, discussion is dominated by rival factions struggling to enact or defeat President Barack Obama's agenda. The rhetoric on both sides is exaggerated and often deceptive. Those of us for whom the central issue is health—not politics—have been left in the lurch. And as controversy heads toward a conclusion in Washington, it appears that the people who favor the legislation are engaged in collective denial.

Our health-care system suffers from problems of cost, access and quality, and needs major reform. Tax policy drives employment-based insurance; this begets overinsurance and drives costs upward while creating inequities for the unemployed and self-employed. A regulatory morass limits innovation. And deep flaws in Medicare and Medicaid drive spending without optimizing care.

Speeches and news reports can lead you to believe that proposed congressional legislation would tackle the problems of cost, access and quality. But that's not true. The various bills do deal with access by expanding Medicaid and mandating subsidized insurance at substantial cost—and thus addresses an important social goal. However, there are no provisions to substantively control the growth of costs or raise the quality of care. So the overall effort will fail to qualify as reform.

Worse, currently proposed federal legislation would undermine any potential for real innovation in insurance and the provision of care. It would do so by overregulating the health-care system in the service of special interests such as insurance companies, hospitals, professional organizations and pharmaceutical companies, rather than the patients who should be our primary concern.

In effect, while the legislation would enhance access to insurance, the trade-off would be an accelerated crisis of health-care costs and perpetuation of the current dysfunctional system—now with many more participants. This will make an eventual solution even more difficult. Ultimately, our capacity to innovate and develop new therapies would suffer most of all.

There are important lessons to be learned from recent experience with reform in Massachusetts. Here, insurance mandates similar to those proposed in the federal legislation succeeded in expanding coverage but—despite initial predictions—increased total spending.

A "Special Commission on the Health Care Payment System" recently declared that the Massachusetts health-care payment system must be changed over the next five years, most likely to one involving "capitated" payments instead of the traditional fee-for-service system. Capitation means that newly created organizations of physicians and other health-care providers will be given limited dollars per patient for all of their care, allowing for shared savings if spending is below the targets. Unfortunately, the details of this massive change—necessitated by skyrocketing costs and a desire to improve quality—are completely unspecified by the commission, although a new Massachusetts state bureaucracy clearly will be required.

Yet it's entirely unclear how such unspecified changes would impact physician practices and compensation, hospital organizations and their capacity to invest, and the ability of patients to receive the kind and quality of care they desire. Similar challenges would eventually confront the entire country on a more explosive scale if the current legislation becomes law.

Selling an uncertain and potentially unwelcome outcome such as this to the public would be a challenging task. It is easier to assert, confidently but disingenuously, that decreased costs and enhanced quality would result from the current legislation.

So the majority of our representatives may congratulate themselves on reducing the number of uninsured, while quietly understanding this can only be the first step of a multiyear process to more drastically change the organization and funding of health care in America. I have met many people for whom this strategy is conscious and explicit.

We should not be making public policy in such a crucial area by keeping the electorate ignorant of the actual road ahead.

Dr. Flier is dean of the Harvard Medical School.

Home forever.

Petunia enjoying the beach at sunset.

Sweet, protective, dominant, determined, gentle, aware, playful, kid-friendly...these are some of the words I would use to describe Petunia, one of the dogs who decided back in mid-September, to make our front porch her home. Ever since that time, I've been trying to find her a new home and today, I think I finally did! Petunia and her pal, Bubbles, were recently featured as the Pets of the Week in a local gringo paper and shortly after the paper came out, a man who was interested in adopting Petunia called to see if she was still available.

Heh heh. Still available? Sure...but watch out, people are beating down the door to adopt these two dogs!

I wish.

Anyway, we met for a few minutes at the vet's office so that he could spend a little time with Petunia. Then he took her on what we jokingly called their "first date" so that he could get to know her. Then, this weekend, he took her for a few days while Our Little Family left town to snorkel and sail.

And today, when I called him to let him know that I was back in town and he could drop Petunia off he said the precious words that I'd been waiting to hear..."I don't think there is a dog out there who fits me better than Petunia." Woohoo! His words sent chills through me and I knew Petunia was home. Over the past two days she seems to have adjusted well to his home out in the jungle and he said she "looks almost noble sitting out there on the porch" with her ears perked up surveying the untouched acres around her.

Although everything and everyone seemed to be against me getting this spirited dog adopted to a loving home (one member of our family may have even called her "the big rat who barks"), a loving home is what she found! Her new person didn't even hang up on me during my lecture about buying the highest quality dog food he can afford! How's that for a match made in heaven?

Bubbles, the other half of this doggy pair, is still hanging out looking for a home and is probably feeling a little lonely. With all of my might, I'm hoping her time will come soon. She, too, deserves a person to call her own.

Her favorite things

Brynn dressed up as a rock star for Halloween. Yes, it appears that maybe we left her zipper down. Oops.

Brynn has a new English teacher at school. English as in ESL, not as in grammar and spelling (unfortunate, I know).

Her new English teacher was quizzing the kids earlier this week, asking them about their favorite things. Here were Brynn's. I'm sure they were not the same as the rest of the kids in her class.

Favorite food: Linguine with Clam Sauce and Strawberry Rhubarb Pie. (I make a mean version of each, if I do say so myself.)
Favorite sport: Hockey and golf. Can't choose just one. (I KNEW I'd have a hockey player in the family, even if I couldn't manage to give birth to a boy!)
Favorite animal: What? I don't have a favorite animal! There are too many and I love them all! (She is, after all, planning to be a part-time animal rescuer.)

I love it when my kids surprise me like this. I would have guessed her favorites would be Mac and Cheese, miniature golf, and Libbie. Just another reminder that she is her own person!

Oh, and she lost another tooth yesterday. That means she's missing five teeth right now. All at the same time.

So mad she could spit

Have you heard that expression before? "I'm so mad I could spit!" I think I've heard it before. I'm not making it up, right? I've never actually used it myself. Usually when I'm mad I want to sit down and have a calm discussion about what is making me angry. Just kidding. I want to punch someone. Or throw something. Or slam a door so hard it breaks the door frame (never done that before...never). Spitting doesn't normally come to mind.

Unfortunately, the same is not true of my children. I think it started a year or two ago when Brynn was so mad at Callie that she spit in her face. Or maybe she spit in Scott's face. I'm not sure. Now, when she's REALLY mad, she spits at the floor. Not always, but enough to make me wonder about her. She always has to come back and clean the spit up but, nonetheless, it is a disturbing habit. And Callie is starting to copy it. She spit on the floor just yesterday!

What in the world?

I have to say, there are many regrettable things that Scott and I do and say when we're mad (this is difficult to admit when one teaches classes on interpersonal communication although my testimony entertains my students to no end), but spitting is not among our ways of dealing with anger. The lack of spitting in her parental role models makes me wonder where Brynn learned it. Or is it just an innate response in some people who don't have the tools to deal with their anger more constructively? Is that why we have the expression "so mad I could spit?"

It is an expression, right? Right? Because if not, then there's something really wrong with my kids!

This made me smile...

so I thought I'd share it with you.

A CEO of a Fortune 500 company pulled into a service station to get gas. He went inside to pay and when he came out he noticed his wife engaged in a deep discussion with the service attendant. It turned out that she knew him. It fact back in high school before she met her eventual husband, she used to date him. The CEO got in the car and drove off and said, “I bet I know what you were thinking back there. I bet you were thinking you’re glad you married a Fortune 500 CEO and not a service attendant.” “No,” she said, “I was thinking if I’d married him, he’d be a fortune 500 CEO and you’d be a service attendant.”

I found it here, on the Deadly Viper Character Assassins blog. I think the target audience of the Deadly Viper blog is men, but I read it anyway. Such a rebel.

Going native

We might not really be going native but after last night, we're definitely tempted.

It was just so hard to say "no." A Monday night Broncos game, chicken wings, big screen televisions...the allure was overwhelming.

So we went.

And we sat and waited for the game to start. And waited. And waited. And waited.

Unfortunately, since the TV service here is Canadian, we had to wait for the Hockey Hall of Fame inductions to wrap up before the Canadian sports network that broadcasts Monday Night Football would switch over to the game. Don't get me wrong -- I appreciate Steve Yzerman as much as the next guy (or gal). But really? Where's the "walk off" music or whatever they call it at the Grammys and the Oscars? Someone cue up the orchestra, would you? Yzerman's speech went on and on and on. It seemed like he was related to every person in the audience and had to point each one out and mention what an important role each person had played in his hockey life.

And I guess he should be able to do that. He was, after all, being inducted into the hall of fame.

Brynn, with Steve Yzerman in the background, waits for the game to start.

But at the expense of a Monday Night Football game? While my kids are running around like wild women and my husband refuses to order food until he knows for sure that the game will actually be on?

So about fifteen minutes after kickoff, Steve finally wrapped up his speech and the network switched over to the football game. We'd already missed the Bronco's first score -- a field goal. We ordered food, we ate, we tried in vain to control our children and tried to watch the game at the same time.

Around halftime it was clear that we needed to go home. Callie was about to fall asleep at the table and Brynn was exhausted, too. We got the check, paid the bill, watched one last play and then headed for the car. Seconds after we left, the Broncos sacked Roethlisberger, caused a fumble, and picked up the ball and headed for the end zone. They scored twice last night and we missed them both.

Which makes me think that we won't bother trying that again.

Oh, right, and then there's the terrible case of the runs that Scott and I have today.

How is it that we can eat Mexican street food from any vendor in town, but when we go into a gringo sports bar, we get sick?

While waiting for the game to start, we did see a little taco stand across the river from the sports bar. It appeard to have a great veiw of the tv. The picture might be a little small, but I think next time we'll settle for that. Smaller bill and no intestinal disruption.

Sounds good to me.

Day at the beach.

My nose is a little toasty. I should have re-applied sunscreen when I was thinking about it. Grrr.

All of my sunscreen must have rubbed off on the back of my camera! Here are some photos from our day at the beach today.

Brynn is obviously well on the road to recovery from Dengue, although she did sleep all afternoon. We'll probably do a half day of school tomorrow so that she can sleep tomorrow afternoon, too.


Checking out the waves.


Jumping the waves!


Do you sometimes wonder how kids end up with sand in EVERY crevice of their bodies?


One of Callie's many rocks. Her school bag never has school work in it, but always has a new collection of rocks, leaves, sticks, and flowers. Every day.


Libbie and her best friend.


Waiting for lunch -- shrimp empanadas and tacos. Yum!


Back to the beach for sunset, just Callie and me since Brynn was still napping. Oh, and we had three dogs with us, too. Libbie, Petunia, and Bubbles (the latter two, I still maintain are NOT my dogs, they just live on the front porch).


Hurricane Rick caused some serious changes at our beach. Among them is this huge hill of sand that separates the beach into a higher level and a lower level. The sand is slowly coming back, but in the meantime, the girls love to slide down the sand in between the levels.


Callie running with the pack.


I don't remember what she was laughing at here, but she was seriously happy. Unfortunately, a second before this photo, I was taking photos of the sunset and had the shutter speed set way too fast to get a shot of Callie. This image was really dark, but I did my best to clean it up and bring her back.


Crazy beautiful sunset, eh? I've got to make a goal to see it a few times a week. Usually I'm in the kitchen making dinner, but that seems like serious misuse of my time when I could be enjoying this:

This kid can pout.

Parenting any kid is a challenge, but it seems that Callie presents challenges that are beyond the scope of what most parents deal with on a daily basis. If you don't believe me, ask her grandparents. They frequently look at me wide-eyed and sigh at Callie's displays of emotion. In fact, if it weren't for her grandparents, I might think of Callie as...normal!

What I have learned about Callie over the past few years is that she is extra passionate. Extra protective...of herself. More likely than most kids to display contentment one second and utter dismay the next, followed quickly by uncontrollable giggles. She is unpredictable and spends her days in the extremes of her emotions. As even-keeled as Brynn tends to be, Callie is the polar opposite. I am praying for her husband already...he will have to be a VERY laid-back guy.

One thing that Callie seems to have perfected through all of these emotional fluctuations is her pout. This kid can POUT! I noticed it today as I was editing a new batch of photos. I saw a few pouty shots that reminded me of some I'd taken before. And so, just for fun, I thought I'd share with you a few of the pouts I've caught on camera in the past few months. These only go back about six months...imagine how many I'd find if I went through ALL of my photos of her. Yikes.

A true, honest to goodness pout:

A ready-to-break-into-giggles pout:

An I'm-tired-take-me-home pout:

A get-the-camera-out-of-my-face pout:

An I'm-not-getting-my-way pout:

An I'm-scared-that-my-flip-flops-are-lost-forever pout:

A very hot and sweaty pout:

The good news is that for every pouty shot I've got, I have about fifty exuberantly happy shots of her which tells me that, at least when the camera is out, she spends more time laughing than she does sulking. On some days, that photo evidence is strong encouragement!

Swarmed...and more Dengue in the family.

"I've gotten like thirty bites in the last two minutes! Something weird is going on." That's what Scott said as he re-applied mosquito repellent for about the fifth time today. I ignored him...well, not completely, I guess...I put on some more repellent, too (it was only my third application of the day). But I didn't really acknowledge what he was saying until a while later when I left my post in the kitchen to find the source of the click-click-click noise over on the couch. I turned the corner to see Callie totally immersed in some PBSkids.org game, Scott reading a book, and a SWARM of disease-ridden mosquitoes hovering over the lamp next to my two beloved family members.

Seriously. A swarm. And we hear nobody's ever had a problem with mosquitoes in this house before. Hmmm...apparently something is different this year. Maybe that's why at least 75% of the people I know in this town have had Dengue in the last month.

So I start swatting away at the swarm. I've learned that the easiest way to kill mosquitoes is to wait for them to get near a wall and then smack 'em. So that's what I did. Until the palm of my hand was red. Then I grabbed our new fly swatter and kept smacking away. Scott smacked with me until the wall above the lamp resembled a swath of fly paper in the Deep South. Nasty, nasty, nasty. I'm not sure whether we should clean the wall or leave it as evidence of the mosquito problems here. Maybe take a picture and then clean it? Then maybe post the photo on the wall.

Even with the killing field on the wall, the swarm still clouded the air above the lamp. I left Scott to his smacking and returned to the kitchen to finish making dinner. And guess where else there was a swarm of mosquitoes? Yes, my friends, in the kitchen. So I abandoned our chicken tacos and went back to smacking. And jumping, because some of them were pretty high up. And smacking. And jumping. Lemme tell you, my two inch vertical REALLY helped me reach all of those mosquitoes.

Once we'd killed most of the swarm, Scott moved Callie upstairs and blasted the previously-swarmed part of the family room with Raid to get any lingering pests. He also sprayed the bathroom since that dark, damp, warm spot seems to be a popular mosquito hangout. Let's just be clear: I am not a fan of pesticides. Not in any form. But, you know, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to protect yourself and your family, right?

Not that pesticides have helped...

Brynn has Dengue. She started to show signs late Sunday night and by Monday morning she was in full Dengue mode with a 102 degree fever. By Monday afternoon, it was up to 103.9 and settled around there until Thursday morning. She woke up feeling okay on Thursday and was more active than she probably should have been, but the inevitable relapse happened today and her fever went back up to the high 103s. Tonight, though, it has dropped and I think she'll feel pretty good this weekend. She's down to 99.1 at the moment. Typically, the worst of Dengue lasts for three or four days, then you feel okay for a day, then on day five or six it comes back with a vengance and then goes away. If her fever is high tomorrow, I will be surprised and worried and I will take her to the hospital. The NICE hospital, not the nasty one where I had to go.

The presence of mosquitoes and their Dengue in this house is extremely frustrating to me. I really thought that by this time in the season, we'd be out of Dengue mode. I haven't heard of many people coming down with it lately, but I knew in my gut that Brynn had it when I felt her forehead Monday morning.

Here's the challenge, though. How does one get rid of mosquitoes from a house with no walls? Well...the upstairs has no walls. It is open to the street on three sides with rattan-ish shades for privacy. But we don't seem to have a problem with mosquitoes upstairs. Downstairs we do have walls but no screen on the big french doors that we MUST keep open at all times in order to keep the house reasonably cool. And downstairs is where we always find mosquitoes.

Here's my solution: I'm planning to create a hanging screen kind of like this ingenious little number for that big french door opening. The problem is finding the materials here. Grrr. I have the screening material but the fabric store is out of velcro (what?!) and I can't find magnets here to save my stinkin' life. I need magnets to sew into the opening of the screen so that it will shut behind us when we come in and out. I might have to order those online and have our next visitor bring them down to us. (Our next visitor is pregnant so I'm extra anxious about getting rid of the mosquitoes.)

Here's my guess, though...by the time I finish making this screen, the mosquitoes will all be dead and Dengue just a distant memory. On the bright side, there's always next spring!