This morning's trivia fact...

Rowan Atkinson (Blackadder, Mr. Bean) was an electrical engineering student at Oxford. Once a geek....

This goes into the "things actors might have been if they hadn't been actors" category along with carpentry (Harrison Ford), law (John Cleese), and the Roman Catholic priesthood (Dan Aykroyd, who was expelled from an RC seminary).

Quote of the Day

"Face it: a nation that maintains a 72% approval rating on George W. Bush is a nation with a very loose grip on reality." Garrison Keillor

(no subject)

I was not functional today. I retreated into computer work. When everything became intolerable this evening, I decided to go out and examine the van. The van has had its engine light on for several days. This morning, though, the temperature guage showed high normal, and the heater wouldn't work. I had had to stop the car and let it cool down after going only a few blocks.

So this evening, I went outside and checked the coolant overflow chamber and the radiator. Dry, as far as I could see. I put most of a gallon of coolant and half a gallon of water into the radiator. Checked the oil -- it looked low. I drove to the corner gas station and put in most of a quart of oil. (I may have overfilled the oil -- I hope not.) By the time I finished, the van was showing normal responses to heat: the guage showed normal, the heater was working, and turning the heater on caused the temperature gauge to drop.

This evening, David's rash was really bothering him. I used a new combination bug repellent/sunscreen on him yesterday, and the poor kid appears to be having an allergic reaction. That and the usual fight about who was going to have to sleep on the top bunk(both David and Kevin hate it but also hate sleeping together), and I thought it would be another long evening. So I appealed to David's vanity -- he was *so* brave, and if he agreed to sleep on the top bunk he could stay up past his bedtime and have a soothing bath. It worked -- sort of: after Kevin was told that only kids brave enough to sleep on the top bunk could stay up and have a bath, he tried to volunteer for the top bunk. It ended with both of them taking a bath, both of them sleeping on the *bottom* bunk -- but not fighting about it -- and David reading a bedtime story to Kevin. I've decided I don't care what they do as long as they stay in their room after bedtime and I don't have to listen to them.

So, I may have felt completely non-functional, today, and the house may be falling down around me, but I did about fifty bucks paid work, I made meals for the kids, took them to swimming lessons, and I took care of the radiator in the van. I may feel like a dysfunctional depressive, but I at least I am a dysfunctional depressive with a full radiator : >

I worry that I am getting BORING, and posts like this one don't help...