Category Archives: Adventures at Home

In my Science Fiction class today, we were discussing whether revenge is ever justified. One girl in one of my (two) classes held the position that whereas revenge may be justifiable in some instances, it’s never the best idea since it doesn’t solve problems and since it seldom ever makes the perpetrator of the revenge actually feel better — her opinions stood out to me since they are pretty much my own and since they are pretty wise (I think). But her position was very marginal. Most kids in both classes were proponents of revenge (at least the more vocal kids were), some even going so far as to say that revenge would be preferable to discipline. How did we arrive there? Well, someone brought up how if a parent punished you by grounding you or something, it would have less of an effect than if the parent expressed sincere disappointment. Not everyone agreed with this point, though I liked it myself for the sake of discussion. But then one other girl pointed out that discipline is different from revenge, that the parents would be disciplining you, whereas revenge is more of an eye for an eye type of thing.

Then, a boy in the back of the room (who talks a lot) said that revenge made a lot more sense because then the person who was wronged can deliver the just punishment rather than some third party administering it. I retorted with an example of two toddlers on a playground: “let’s say Kim hits Steve; you’re saying it would be better to let Steve hit back rather than to have a parent scold Kim?” Talkative boy rescinded but claimed that since that examples was with toddlers it wasn’t fair. So I upped the ages: “so let’s say George here hits Corey. Instead of taking George down to the principal, I should just say, ‘okay, Corey, your turn; batter up’?” The number of kids who said yes was astonishing.

In other news, a year ago today I was in Ecuador, excitedly watching the city of Quito ousting the president of the country. Tonight, as I drive to a cooking class with my wife, I’m going to honk the “fuera Lucio” chant just for old times’ sake.

Well so, I’m not quite done with my rough draft of the Arkansas assignment, so I’m gonna have to post that one tomorrow. But I do have a quick story.

Being new to cycling, I tend to be a bit naive and hopeful. Today, when I was pedaling out of town, cruising fairly easily at 25 mph, I was thinking to myself, “Wow, I’ve really improved since Saturday.” Once I turned into the wind, however, I discovered why the upper 20s came so easily.

Later, I took a couple different turns, relying on my wonderful sense of direction to get me back to Madison. An hour later, as I was approaching a busy intersection, I thought, “Aha! That must be the edge of Fitchburg or something. Madison’s got to be straight ahead.” Turns out I was just entering Paoli, which is 12 miles southwest of Madison. Oops.

When I finally got home, I discovered further evidence of my innocent unpreparedness. Eileen was gone, the house was locked, and I had forgotten to take a key. Doh! Guess how I got in. Through the bathroom window. It was the hardest part of the whole workout, since I had to hoist myself up there and crawl through head-first. The window itself is about 7 feet off the ground, and the opening is about 12 X 18 inches.

Oh well.

I’m not sure if Eileen and I are getting sick or if the warmer night yesterday threw us off, but last night, we both slept horribly. Speaking for myself, I don’t think it was something I ate. For dinner I had pasta — pretty standard. Earlier in the evening, I snacked on a few chicken wings and an apple, and, uh, some brownies. Nothing out of the ordinary. I stayed up a little later than I planned, researching whether I could really get a free xbox 360 or mac mini through some website called freepay (it turns out I can, or rather I could if I had 8 friends), so I should have been plenty tired. But when I got into bed, the dreamworld evaded me. All I could think about was how shifty it would be to ask my students to sign up for freepay to help Mr. Storm get a free xbox.

Eventually, of course, I fell asleep, but it was a restless sleep. I woke up three or four times. Once, Eileen was up too, and she muttered something about how the dog kept getting up to go eat out of the garbage and then coming back and asking for help getting back on the bed. Eileen’s a professional sleeper, so I wasn’t sure if she was awake when she informed me of the above, but I think I responded by asking whether she had blocked the garbage can with the kitchen stool.

When morning arrived too early, I grabbed our little battery-powered alarm clock and held it to my chest. That way I can repeatedly click snooze as soon as the alarm sounds. A half an hour later, I fessed up to the fact that I wasn’t going to get up to bike in the basement for an hour. So I reset the alarm and went back to bed. I slept a little, but not enough to feel any better when the alarm went off again 45 minutes later. Tember thumped her tail a bit as I crawled over her and Eileen, but she didn’t bother to lift her head up — a subtle sign that she knew something was wrong.

When I got into the kitchen, I saw the damage she had done to the garbage. I was muttering to myself about how it didn’t make sense: she never got into the garbage in the middle of the night; she only did it when she was home alone for a long period of time and when she had too much energy to burn; yesterday, I had taken her to a nearby park to throw the ball for her. It simply didn’t make sense.

Then I saw the little carryout box in which I had gotten my chicken wings. I dug through the garbage, looking for remnants, but I couldn’t find any bones. Immediately, I thought back to a freshman English paper I had graded years ago by a student who told of how she had secretly given her dog some chicken bones. Her parents had told her not to, but she did it anyway. Two or three days later, her dog died, and she blamed herself.

The first internet article I found was pretty encouraging. It claimed that in most cases, the bones cause some constipation but otherwise pass through the system without harm. The next article I found was not as encouraging, however. It was a horror story about a dog who had died after eating chicken bones. I stopped my search. Emotional personal accounts: 2. Reasoned advice from a certified vet: 1.

When I called in, the vet assistant told me that if I wasn’t going to be home with her all day, it would be best to bring her in. I woke up Eileen and said, “I need you to do me a favor.” Tember ate chicken bones and might die! “Tember got into the garbage and ate some chicken bones, which aren’t good for dogs.”

Two x-rays and $140 later, she’s fine. If she passes a normal stool tomorrow morning, we’re totally clear. Tonight, Eileen commented that if we were to tell our Ecuadorian landlords that we just spent $140 on our dog after she ate chicken bones, they’d think we were crazy. She said this while spooning with Tember on the couch.

What can we say?

Eileen: Everybody’s going out to dinner tomorrow night. Do you know why?
Tim: Um, cuz it’s Valentine’s Day?
Eileen: There you go.

So, Eileen’s in Florida this week, volunteer coaching for the Lightweight Novices, which she refers to as Novi. Tember and I miss her, but it’s much easier to keep the kitchen clean. 🙂

I’ve been biking in our basement, watching bad science fiction movies in Spanish. Since the majority of a triathlon is cycling, I guess I better figure out how to do it. Bike, that is.

It’s the last week of classes at school; I’ve been grading papers like a friggin machine.

This morning, I talked to my mother-in-law, who is down in Florida, staying in some campground in their RV. She said something about how they’re in a town just south of the Georgia border, which is having some sort of Stephen Foster celebration. I might be getting this slightly wrong. In any case, the moral of the story is that retirement is wonderful.

I asked if there was a body of water nearby, and she said, “yeah, the Swanee River.” Apparently, there’s a huge carillon tower that plays Stephen Foster songs all day. “Just songs like Home Sweet Home and Way Down Upon the Swanee River. We’re kind of old folks, you know.”

I thought that was pretty funny.