Avoiding Sickness and Furbies

It feels like getting sick this winter is inevitable. I don’t particularly want it, but it has been years since I was mowed flat by a flu variant and some part of my brain thinks I am due. My kids have been sick, some of them more than once. We’ve had coughs and fevers, sore throats and headaches, all in various combinations. The worst I have felt was the edges of a sore throat or a headache. I am glad, of course. I don’t really want to be sick. Yet since it feels inevitable I find myself staring at the calendar and marking the days when I really can’t be sick because there are things I would cry if I missed and which could not be rescheduled. The Orem Writes event last Wednesday was one of them as was last night’s Ballroom With a Twist concert. I’ve now entered one of the “okay to be sick” zones during which events can be rescheduled if I need to. If I’m going to be sick, I should do it now so that I can be done before LTUE in a week and a half. Of course sickness does not cooperate with attempts to schedule. And perhaps I’ll escape without getting sick at all. I would not complain.

In other news, my sister’s family came to spend the night. A furby came with them. It is a blue fuzzy furby with no off switch. The only way to get it to be quiet is to leave it alone in the dark for ten minutes. My five year old niece loves the thing. She talks to it in Furbish, which is the completely invented furby language. She also pretends to be a furby and was chattering away in Furbish, using it to ask for drinks of water. We waited until she asked in English before supplying them. As I listened to this child be obviously bilingual English/Furbish I thought what a sad missed opportunity furbies represent. Why on earth do the furbies not speak Spanish, or French, or any language that is actually spoken by human beings? I know that playing with a computerized fuzzy toy will not teach a child a full language, but it could be a very useful beginners tool. As it is, I will be very happy to bid farewell to the thing tomorrow.

And now I’m off to bed so that I can stay not-sick.

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