Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

Ah-choo! I started getting the first hints of a cold Tuesday night, and by Friday I was working from home so I wouldn't have to get up all the time to go blow my nose and/or bother coworkers nearby with my flowings and blowings, sniffings and whiffings. Saturday was probably the worst of it, though, and I felt like doing nothing but sitting on the couch in a daze. And so we watched a couple of movies. What else do you do when you'd rather not have to move or think?

One of the movies we watched was "An Inconvenient Truth." It was Al Gore (picture this: this guy is talking with powerpoint slides on the TV screen and I turn to Wayne and say "Who's that?" hehehe) talking about why he's so obsessed about global warming. It reminded me about how strange it is when politicians use emotional events to try and turn things in their favor (to "rally up the troops" as Wayne said). He talked about warm oceans causing more weather catastrophes...like Hurricane Katrina. Well, Katrina's devastations had more to do with city structure than with global warming, but whatever. It was interesting, anyway, but I am not sure how effective politicians are at fixing what needs to be fixed, and I'm positive he presented a completely biased perspective on the topic. That's how you rally the troops after all...by exaggeration and emotional tugs....

Most of the rest of the week Wayne had late nights on campus, but at least he could join me and my sisters for dinner Tuesday to celebrate Suzie's birthday. I took a (belated) President's holiday to show my sisters around Santa Cruz -- the best beach we know of and the little fun downtown shops. And of course we tried to entice them to play games, but we just wore them out a little much for that. Suzie and Amy are in Seattle by now! Amy will fly back to Austin later this week, hopefully with enough time to help Suzie get settled in her new place.

Wayne's late nights consisted of playing racquetball with a friend one night, another class field trip to San Fran another night, and class another night. I did get to see him Friday too, when we had Chris and Alyssa over to play "scary" games. Not really "for" Dr. Seuss day, but on it. I'm sure Dr. Seuss liked games too. I wasn't feeling well enough to organize anything more...organized. [Plus there's the whole sweets fast thing and last year's non-sweets based Dr. Seuss party wasn't as fun as nerds-covered-cake. - wayne] There's always next year. Although this is a disturbing trend...last year I got the flu on the Seuss party day, and this year I have a cold...coincidence? Only time will tell!