The joys of Theobromine.... Ah choo!

How I hate being sick!!!  My nose is stuffed, my head feels like it's underwater and my brain hurts.  Other than that....

I threw in the towel this morning and actually stayed home.  I've been sick for 3 days and I dragged my sorry sinuses up and down 6000 feet on 2 of those days, ears alternately plugging and popping until last night it was so bad, I had vertigo trying to walk up my porch stairs and nearly fell on my face.  Not good.  When I woke this morning and considered descending from on high once again -- I was seriously afraid my head might explode!  So, I did what I rarely do and canceled the day.  My kids missed their classes and I felt lousy about that, but it was also pouring rain and frankly, the combination of searing sinus pain and potential hydroplaning might not have been the best parenting strategy either.

I'm attacking this cold a little differently though.  New research has indicated that the best cough suppressant around  -- 30% more effective than even codeine -- is dark chocolate!  Yup!  Theobromine, something dark chocolate apparently has in abundance, is the kicker.  Before long, no doubt, some greedy corporation will figure out a way to extract the theobromine and insert it into some nasty cough syrup and then slap a ridiculous price tag on the stuff.   Apparently though, just eating a square or so of dark chocolate works beautifully.  Today, I've decided to test the theory.  I don't know if it's some sort of placebo effect or if it really has true medicinal value -- but so far, it's working.  Each time I start to cough -- and I'm known for some seriously horrendous, rib cracking, coughing fits -- I nibble a square of my "medicine" and the coughing eases.  The effect tends to last about 4-5 hours.  It's early though and the jury's still out.  Once the post-cold cough sets in, we'll see.

I'm the perfect test subject for this because my colds follow a very predictably unpleasant course.  Generally, I'm sick with the actual cold (sore throat, congestion, general misery) for about a week and then it becomes a cough and I cough myself silly for upwards of a month, sometimes two.  It's ridiculous.  Every year I hear the same thing -- "You still coughing???"  "Um, yes..."  "You better go see a doctor about that!"  "Gee thanks, I'll get right on that."  Sarcastic, yes... but seriously, all the doctor ever says is rest, and that does nothing.  The only thing that ever touches my coughs is seriously narcotic-type cough medicine -- and my doctor is just not often willing to dispense that sort of thing.  I'm also not that willing to take it since it knocks me senseless and as I'm pretty much the sole source of child care, that just doesn't fly.

Dark chocolate squares though, don't knock me out and are basically fabulous.  If I walk away from this cold without my usual 40 days and nights of wracking cough -- I'll be a true believer!  Now I just have to find a way to hide my new medicine away from the grubby paws of my greedy kiddos!

Confused...

The final cast list for Peter Pan has come out and sadly, Charlotte didn't get cast as Liza.  They did make her an Ostrich dancer though and I'm sure she'll have fun with that.  It's not a speaking part, but several of her friends are doing that too and she'll enjoy it once the sting of not getting a lead wears off.

Gracie on the other hand -- hmmmm.... She didn't get Tootles or Braggs (roles she initially tried out for -- she even had a final callback for Tootles).  She didn't get twin (a role they called her back for).... but, she did apparently get something called "Mumbles" -- a lead lost boy.  Well, nobody has ever heard of Mumbles and we're at a loss.  I think they just made it up.  Flattering, that they wanted to use her as something, but confusing too.  It doesn't sound like a part with a lot of lines -- mumble, mumble.  Still, you never know.  If she's a lead lost boy, she may still get a lot of stage time.  It's hard to say.  She's confused... as am I, but it's certainly better than not getting anything.  She worked really hard and I think made a good impression.  They both love this group so much, they're happy to be in any part, but they did have their hopes up.   Oh well, time will tell.

Waiting... waiting.... waiting....

Today does feel a bit like a scene from Beckett's play.  A bit less cerebral... true, but still tedious.  The Final Cast list for the Peter Pan auditions will be posted for the kids today and hours, minutes, seconds are being counted.   They pass by excruciatingly slowly for my poor aspiring actresses.  Charlotte didn't get a final callback for Jane, but still has hopes for the part of Liza.  Grace did get a final callback for Tootles, one of the Lost Boys.  So we trekked down the mountain again last Sunday and she gave it her best shot.  She's having the hardest time today.  The appointed hour isn't even a sure thing.  The posting time on official documents says 5pm, but yesterday they were told 4pm.  Rumors are flying on the theater website and I'm trying to distract the waiting troops as best I can.  I'm sick today though and my energy is flagging.  They're losing themselves right now in an episode of Pinky & the Brain.  So, maybe the distraction will do them good.

A Challenge....

Someone linked to the poem below on one of my homeschool lists... so, I'm adding it here for general amusement.  I also think my sister Kate will get a kick out of it....

I can just see my International students at USC pulling their hair out over this one. Though, frankly I now spend every Monday listening to twelve 8-11 year olds mangle the pronunciation of characters from Greek mythology in my Percy Jackson class... feels like old times.


ENGLISH IS TOUGH STUFF
======================
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!
-- Author Unknown

Noah's Flood!

I guess sometimes life needs to be illustrated.

Yesterday, Charlotte got an audition arranged with L.A. Opera.  Early in November, she'll be trying for a part in their Community Production of Benjamin Britten's Noye's Fludde -- his adaptation of the traditional medieval mystery play on Noah and his Arc, which will be performed downtown in the L.A. Cathedral this coming March.  She's trying for one of the Sons' Wives or for one of the Gossips -- all girl soprano roles.  Terrific chance to show what she can do and we're all pretty amped about it.  Grace isn't old enough to audition for a lead, but she'll be in the ensemble, which with all the little animal parts should be a blast!  And, yes it was on our mind today as we left the house around 8am and drove downtown for choir/opera workshop at Colburn, since we'll be enjoying that lovely drive downtown quite a bit more often if she gets the part.  So, did we somehow channel Noah and maybe leave him behind at the dome while we were gone?  I got home about 8pm tonight and the street coming up the hill was covered with mud, rocks and debris anywhere there was an exposed hillside.  Giant puddles greeted me in my driveway as we pulled up to the dome.  Oddly, the sky was completely clear -- full stars, so the apparently torrential downpour that had dumped on the neighborhood had been over for at least some good amount of time.  Lest you think I exaggerate the comparison to Noah's little shower, the dog food bowl in the back yard was overflowing.... OVERFLOWING with water -- that thing is like 4 inches deep!!  What happened here today?

Here's some of the Opera for mood music while you ponder along with me....