First-Day Jitters

My older daughter starts first grade Monday. I can tell that this is going to be a traumatic and upsetting experience. As for my daughter, I think she, also, is a little nervous.

El Flaco, the Back Story: Part 1

I recently added a page entitled "The Story of El Flaco." I described a tough guy in Mexico long ago (19th century, I guess) and the barest outline of a plot. I was just clowning around and being facetious.

But something about El Flaco captured my imagination, and now I'm taking him seriously. Accordingly, I have now added the first part of his "back story," in the form of a new page entitled "El Flaco, the Back Story, Part 1: Learning to Be Strong." Feel free to look at it if you're curious.

The Story of El Flaco

I've added a page that tells the story of El Flaco (or so much of it as I have been able to come up with so far). The "pages" are separate from the "posts." (You are now reading a post.) The pages are marked by links on the right side of the screen.

Eye Boogers

I took my six-year-old daughter to an ophthalmologist recently, because we suspected she might need glasses. During his examination, the doctor thought he saw signs of a minor infection of her eyelids. He asked me, "Have you noticed an unusual amount of matter--goop--in her eyes lately when she wakes up in the morning?" I told him I hadn't, but the truth is I'm not very observant at that time of the morning, since she gets up pretty early. He turned to my daughter.

"When you wake up in the morning, do you have lots of matter, you know, stuff, in your eyes?"

She seemed to ponder the question for a few seconds. Then she looked up brightly. "Do you mean eye boogers?" she asked.

He and his assistant laughed. I felt vaguely embarrassed that I hadn't taught her a more genteel way to refer to the substance in question, but I couldn't really remember the subject having ever come up.

They confirmed that eye boogers was what they were talking about, and the conversation proceeded from there.

Here is an illustration from Gray's Anatomy, which I have altered slightly to bring it up to date on the subject of eye boogers: