Posts in: Journal

Foot in mouth about Hand, Foot and Mouth

At the end of last week my wife and I were congratulating ourselves for missing a Hand, Foot and Mouth outbreak at our daycare. But, by Saturday morning it was clear something was off about the kiddo and a rocky weekend was underway. By Saturday afternoon, blisters were visible. By Sunday he had broken out and he had a fever. Luckily he kept eating, drinking enough to not get dehydrated and children’s Tylenol and Motrin do their thing fairly well.

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Climate insomnia & amnesia

The heat wave here in DC, nothing like the heat dome effects of the Southwest and Northwest, has actually broken. So I did not have a hot, sleepless night. Merely a sleepless one. Still, our early and exceptional heat wave coupled with news about the western heat waves and correspondence with a friend in my childhood home turf about a heat wave in Upstate New York brought my insomniac attention to the issue of overnight temperatures.

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Near miss

The Mid-Atlantic region and DC were always known for stormy summers, and even catching the tail of hurricanes now and again. But yesterday, and last night especially, was intense. The Tornado Warning alerts caught us off guard. I had to check to see if was meant for us. I found I lived inside territory covered by those red boxes and ultimately under that storm track. Tornado Warned storm left rotation track right through the middle of Washington, D.

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Counting blessings, being counted

I filled out a random Census survey on behalf of my family about my child’s health over the past year. I am once again reminded as to how immensely lucky my family is, and saddened by all the challenges out there (the vast majority that I, so far, could respond “no” to). Still, certain questions made it clear that we were deeply affected this year, and maybe the kiddo’s parents are worse for wear.

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Senator Mike Gravel passed away.

I had lunch with him in 2007 at McCormick & Schmick’s on K Street. I heard out his bizzaro communications strategy for his quixotic presidential run (and I was in the mix as a veteran of such a campaign), and took a pass.

I liked the guy.


The pandemic is “ending,” on a slew of bittersweet notes for me.

(And of course, it isn’t really over yet for so many around the world, including small children here.)


After a long year, I'm seeing the cracks

“I’m breaking a little," (or words very close to that) was a sentiment shared with me recently. Me too. Throughout the peak of the pandemic, my anxiety was managed just fine. Now, with things getting back to “normal”, I can feel it slipping out of control. Make sense? 😕 — Dan Cederholm (@simplebits) June 21, 2021 …And not just us. (Not to say that this other person’s experience is about anxiety, but both what I infer or imagine about theirs and what Dan Cederholm shared resonates with me.

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