Let me start by saying I rarely watch TV anymore. I remember the first black and white we had–probably not my parents’ first one, but the first one I remember. It was a floor model, on four legs, and there was a circular plastic hard film through which you could see what station the TV was on. I couldn’t leave it alone. It was just so much fun to poke, until I broke it and my mum got mad at me.
We got our first colour TV in the 70s. It was amazeballs. You couldn’t tear me away from it.
But one of the things most etched into my mind from back then was cuddling up to my dad on the chesterfield while we watched either “Bewitched” or “M*A*S*H.” We both loved “M*A*S*H”–never missed an episode. All I can really remember about “Bewitched” as it relates to my dad is saying “Soool Saks!” every time we saw the screenwriter’s name in the credits. No idea why we did it. I’ve never been able to forget good ol’ Sol Saks. Even though I had no idea what he looked like until I Googled him five minutes ago.
I cuddled up with my dad on the couch right up until the week he died. Ah, but we laughed a lot. That’s the most important memory of all.
It’s been a long day. My companion for the day was Alex–he didn’t go to school. His cough was bad enough this morning that I decided to wait and see if sitting up would help. It did, but then he slept most of the morning.
He lazed around for most of the rest of the day, only really getting up to build some Lego with my best friend, John.
He’s sleeping again now–the worry isn’t over.
I look forward to going back to this not being the only thing on my mind.
Inch is one of those words that, if I look at it too long, it stops making sense.
Inches are the only thing that make sense to me when I’m measuring height. Of course, if I don’t want to do math, feet are important too.
I just realized why my 12 times tables were so important in school. Are they still? In countries other than the U.S., that is.
I’d rather measure snow in inches–four inches sounds much better than ten centimetres.
Inches are about as far away I am from going to bed after a very busy day.
Inch is the prompt word for today, brought to us by John Holton. Thanks, John! Here’s the link to his “inch” post. Drop by and say hi to him, if you haven’t already!
He finally slept last night, and now that he’s off the IV antibiotics, they decided to release Alex from the hospital. He’s still coughing, but hopefully that’ll go away by the time the oral antibiotics are done this time.
Of course, as soon as he sat on the couch at home he fell asleep. I hope his nap doesn’t mean he’ll be up half the night.
In other news, he has an appointment with his cardiologist tomorrow. I’ll schedule the post requesting the prompt words for the rest of the month tomorrow afternoon when I think I’ll be home. In case I’m not, I’ll be counting on you to read the rules! Watch out for that at 1pm EST.
“Can I get you anything at all? A piece of toast? Coffee? Tea?”
Offers to me from nurses in the emergency room and while I sat in Alex’s room in the hospital.
To all the nurses out there who take care of patients and their families, thank you.
Here are the general rules to follow for Just Jot it January:
1. Just Jot It January starts January 1st, but it’s never too late to join in! Here, we run on the honour system; the “jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post, it can even be a grocery list) counts as a “Jot.” If it makes it to your blog that day, great! If it waits a week to get from a sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. I’ll post the daily prompts at 2am my time (GMT -5), every day except for Saturday’s Stream of Consciousness (SoCS) prompt–you’ll find that one on Friday morning at 9:30am. That daily post (i.e. this one) will be where you leave your link for others to find in the comment section. There will be a prompt for every day except Wednesday, when the prompt is simply my One-Liner Wednesday.
2a. Since today is Wednesday, I challenge you to make your JusJoJan post a one-liner. If you don’t care to, or if you’ve already written your post, no problem. Remember, with One-Liner Wednesday you can write anything – it’s only a prompt to write one line, not necessarily to keep to the same theme as mine. The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:
(i) Make it one sentence.
(ii) Make it either funny or inspirational.
(iii) Use our unique tag #1linerWeds.
(iv) Enjoy yourself!
(v) Use our One-Liner Wednesday badge.
#1linerWeds badge by Cheryl, at dreamingreality646941880.wordpress.com/
3. As long as your blog is on WordPress, you’ll be able to link via pingback. To execute a pingback, just copy the URL from the daily prompt post, and paste it anywhere in your post. Check to make sure your link shows up where you want it to, and go back occasionally to see other bloggers’ entries – the more you visit others, the more they’ll visit you! If you’re participating from another blogging host, just drop a link into the comment section. Note: The newest pingbacks and comments will appear at the top.
4. Tag your post JusJoJan and/or #JusJoJan.
5. Write anything! Any length will do! It can even be a photo or a drawing – you’re going to title it, right? There’s your jot!
6. The prompts are here both to remind you and to inspire you to write. However, you don’t have to use the prompt word of theday. You can link any kind of jot back here. Note: If it’s 18+ content, please say so in a comment with your link or close to your pingback.
7. If you’d like to, use the JusJoJan badge so that others can find your post more easily.
He’s still in hospital. He had two hours of sleep last night and one more hour when I arrived at the hospital this morning at 4:00am, because I made him lay down.
He’s still on his feet.
Total sleep since Sunday (01/13) morning: four hours. It is now Tuesday, 9:40pm.
Hoping he’ll come home tomorrow. It’s boring enough here to allow him to doze off.
Thanks to all who commented on my last post. I appreciate the good thoughts and prayers, more than you know.
I was fourteen years old and bored with everything, not least of all, traveling with my mother. I do have pictures somewhere … I don’t think I’m in any of them because what bored teeny-bopper wants to have their picture taken with their mom? What I do remember about the trip:
My very first croissant. And boy, was I in love.
My first bidet. No, I didn’t try it, because ewww!! (I was fourteen.)
Stairs.
Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower through the window of a tour bus.
The prompt word, “Paris,” for today’s post is brought to you by Kelli! Thanks, Kelli! To find her “Paris” post, click here. And say hi while you’re there!
I love to explore, to discover the undiscovered. Whether it’s downtown Kingston, Ontario
or downtown Tokyo
I live to find out what’s around the next corner when I’m out and about, traveling. Unless, of course, I’ve been on a plane for thirteen hours and can’t find my hotel.
I suppose I’ve been lucky so far to not turn any corners that led to worse things than being hopelessly lost, alone, in the dark, in a country where any modicum of Japanese I possessed had fled my brain cells and been replaced by the need for sleep.
But lately, I’ve been coming across things that I’d rather stay undiscovered. For instance, I didn’t really want to know that my laptop couldn’t be fixed by Best Buy. Even if I’d wanted them to try, they couldn’t ship it to the place where they get them fixed, because the hinge won’t let us close it. And they wouldn’t ship it in the open position, even in a square box. So I’m now on my brand new laptop that’s smaller and less-fancy, and has a power button right beside the delete button.
I was on the verge of bringing it back–can you imagine working on something for an hour just to turn off the computer by accident?–when I realized I could change what the button does in the settings. Now I can safely press it and nothing happens unless I hold it down for a few seconds. Because I seriously don’t want to discover the alternative.
And then there’s Alex, who came home from his dad’s today sick again. I’ll try to get him an appointment with his doctor tomorrow, but I fear we’re going to end up back at the emergency again. Maybe even tonight. I just hope it’s not a new bout of pneumonia. He has a cardiologist appointment next week, too. And though I know it’s better to know sooner rather than later how soon he’ll need heart surgery again, I’m not looking forward to knowing.
On that miserable note, if you want to read a happier story, click the link under “can’t find my hotel” above. It’s a good one.
The prompt word, “undiscovered,” for today’s post is brought to you by Teresa! Thanks, Teresa! To find her “undiscovered” post, click here.
At the risk of sounding like I’m moaning–I never do that, do it?–Alex was home for the day again, still coughing even though it’s been almost two weeks since he came out of hospital with pneumonia.
I assumed they were going to give him his flu shot at school, like they always have, but they’ve stopped doing it. Now I have no idea whether he should get it or if we should wait until he’s completely better.
In all, it was one of those days where you wish you had a parenting owner’s manual. You know those days, right?
Should I send him to school or shouldn’t I? Should I cut him some slack because he might be misbehaving because he’s sick? Or is he pushing my buttons because he got out of going to school and now he’s seeing how much further he can go?
Ugh. Yeah, it was one of those days.
But now he’s at his dad’s, finally. First time since the first week of November. I’m feeling the exhaustion–it’s hitting me like a tonne of bricks. I think I might go to bed. And stay there until Sunday.
Have a good one, my friends.
The prompt “flew/flu/flue,” for today’s post is brought to you by M. Oniker! Thanks, M! To find her latest post, click here.
I’m going out on a bit of a limb with today’s prompt in that I’m stretching to use it.
It was brought to mind by a comment on Facebook concerning my misstep and my broken laptop of the last time I was carrying something precious and I did the same thing. What actually happened, both last night and that last time was I thought I was on the last step but I still had two to go. So when I took that last step, I realized I’d stepped out too far, thinking I was stepping onto the floor. I could have caught the edge of the bottom stair, but I made the conscious decision in that split second to try to take both. Catching the edge of the last stair would have caused me to fall, but I might have saved the laptop. As it was, I decided to save myself instead. All in that split second.
The brain’s ability to make such decisions in that much time is even more astounding than my mad Paint skillz.
I know you’re still wondering what all this has to do with a sunrise. I’m getting there.
The last time this happened to me, I was carrying this guy.
Except at the time, he was only a couple of months old. That time, again I had the presence of mind to make a decision: fall and save what I was holding, or save myself.
I ended up in the emergency room, he didn’t even wake up.
But he did live to see another sunrise.
The prompt word, “sunrise,” for today’s post is brought to you by Toortsie! Thanks, Toortsie! To find her “sunrise” post, click here.
This post is part of Just Jot it January and Stream of Consciousness Saturday! If you’d like to take part or read the posts by the other participants, click the following link: https://lindaghill.com/2019/01/18/the-friday-reminder-for-socs-jusjojan-2019-daily-prompt-jan-19th/
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