Calendar Year, Day 239. School Year, Day 1. And I'm Still Awake!

As for the last part, I've been up since three-thirty this morning and just really not chosen to take a nap before work today. That's actually a mite ironic considering the lesson I read today in Dale Carnegie's book How to Stop Worrying and Start Living regarding the relationship between fatigue and boredom. "We rarely get tired when we are doing something exciting and interesting." And today is certainly that ... after coming off the paper route which I started about ten minutes earlier than I usually do!

I was catching up on some news online (when everybody else is asleep or not around, that's a good idea), ate a lighter breakfast, measured my blood sugar at 97 (normal is between 80 and 120) and I get to see another doctor for a checkup next Tuesday, an event for which I honest want my wife Martha with me for (1) I find doctors and physicians and nurses intimidating to start with because they act so all-knowing and (2) I don't want to be talked into another medication that I really don't need. I want to be off some! No cure for diabetes ... pah!

August  27 ... oh yes, here in Minot that's when our public schools begin! And Martha surprised the kids this morning by telling them that just for today (since her regular work schedule is from seven to four) she would be going to school with me to drop them off! Sarah smiled big, but Jeffrey seemed indifferent. The kids washed up, the kids changed, the kids used deodorant -- chemically, Secret and its like for women are not really "strong enough for a man, but made for a woman", they're just packaged differently.

They ate breakfast and lolled around more than they're going to tomorrow. Yes, they'll still wake up at six-thirty to see Martha off to work, but after that they are going to back to bed and I'm waking them at a quarter to eight to get ready for school, where they have to be by eight-thirty. (I REALLY need to check my wording where I type this, which thank God automatically saves my text every few minutes and doesn't rely on me remembering to.) And starting tomorrow, I get to make sure they're there. And I can do this.

Beegu, Beegu, Beegu (not to be confused with a Minion from the Despicable Me film franchise) ... in truth, when I was with Sarah and Jeffrey in Minot Public Library's children's section last week I checked this one out myself. Beegu by Alexis Deacon (ISBN 0374306672) is an alien that looks like a three-eyed yellow rabbit; the ship she's in crashes on Earth and she wanders about until she comes to a school playground where she starts to have fun with the kids there, then the teacher throws her out but she is picked up by her parents, and ... well, let her speak for herself!

Beegu told her parents all about life on Earth. How Earth creatures were mostly big and unfriendly, but there were some small ones who seemed hopeful. Beegu would always remember the small ones.

She hoped -- and I hope -- they will remember me too.

David