Post from Nate in Saudi Arabia

I realized something the other day as I compiled my list of country visits over the past 7 years - I should have been taking pictures of places and people during my travels. Water under the bridge I s'pose, but now I actually have a camera I take with e(iPhone is his name), so I guess it isn't too late to start. Now you get to play, Match The Picture To The Quote Below:

It seems I book every flight these days through...........

And I'm always in need of.........

Sometimes people ask me if I color my beard.......

Ah, a few minutes to rest my barkin' dogs..........

First of all - completely off topic - Did you know the Campbell's soup stock ROSE yesterday and today? On the new Black Monday - people started buying up Campbell's Soup stock. Why? because we will all only be eating soup in a very short time. On to bigger and better things. Last Wednesday my sister gave birth to her first daughter. Ella Sophie Bell. Every Wednesday I have a "hitting lesson" with Ammon Spencer. I put that in quotation marks because it is not a lesson. I warm up and then boss him around by saying "now let's hit forehand cross court" or, "now let's play a few points with only you serving". I have had this "lesson" every Wednesday since before I was in Pride & Prejudice. That is why I was in a bit of a bind when my sister had her baby. In order for me to go visit her baby AND still have my lesson, I would have to leave work a bit early and even then I would not have a lot of time at the hospital. I have priorities. I tried to move the lesson back but Ammon is a busy man. (How he is busy I do not know as he has only been back from his mission about 3 months). So I visited the new little one- who was absolutely adorable. I even got to change her first mecomium diaper. I am sure she feels a special bonding with me now and I will be her favorite aunt. I glanced at the time and KNEW I had to skedaddle. By the time I raced home, changed into my very cute, AND hip, (not because I have big hips) tennis clothes, and raced to the courts. I only had about 20 minutes of the lesson left. Right off I said "Ammon, lets just nail the balls today." He knew I was serious when I started blasting the balls at him. ( I'm sure there were scorch marks on the court). When you are hitting the balls as hard as you can, there is not a lot of control or leeway. You just wait for your partner to hit one not so hard and then you can place it wide and make him/her run. Naturally, I was the one to hit the ball with a little less "sauce" on it, so the next ball Ammon hit he sent really wide to my forehand. Having comfortably spent the past few minutes not moving from the center line I was taken aback. The thought suddenly whipped through my head "I will not let this young whipper snapper out hit me." I jumped up a bit in preparation to go wide and when I came down, my foot wasn't ready. It rolled like pizza dough. Only it sounded like rice crispies. Now, this experience is not new to me as many of you know. I have rolled my ankles many, many times in my tennis playing days. I have the protocol down flat. As well as the pros there at Gold's Gym. Within a few minutes, we had ice on my ankle and had it elevated. I was like that for about 20 minutes and then decided I was ready to pack up and go home. I even tried to gingerly walk on it, knowing that it was just torn tendons. That didn't go over too well. Later that night this is how my ankle looked

Very long story short - the following Saturday I broke down and went to Urgent Care. Sure enough, I broke my ankle.
I'll be seing a specialist today.
So, I have laid my dream aside of becoming the female Nadal, and I have decided to replace Sarah Palin. It is a smooth transisition, seeing as how I look just like her. McCain will be happy because I actually know about foreign issues.
I'm pretty confident I can make it on looks alone though.

Shingles

well, it's official. Cully has shingles. What are shingles, you ask? well, if you have had chicken pox, then you also have the ability to have shingles. Here is a concise description of this lovely condition: http://www.shinglesinfo.com/what-is-shingles.html?WT.srch=1&WT.mc_id=SH03Y.

Now, why it is called shingles I do not know. It doesn't look like shingles to me. However, my definition of shingles comes from my father who was in the Airforce. There is a lovely snack called SOS or "s***-on-a-shingle" that they served in the airforce, that we actually ate growing up and which I quite liked. It is creamed, chipped beef on a piece of whole wheat toast. The whole wheat toast being the "shingle". Anyhoo, what Cully has looks nothing like that. Here is the fun part. Saturday is when Cully first started complaining about this rash. I had my brother-in-law take a look at it and he said "hmmm, exzema." so I didn't do anything. However, by Sunday the rash was developing blisters. Monday was a holiday and a perfect day for re-painting kitchens, which is what I did, so it wasn't until Tuesday that I actually looked up on the internet, while at work, and realized "whoa! Cully could have an infectious disease!" So I called my husband and told him he needed to take Cully to the dermatologist. Then I called the High School. Here's an intereseting snippet: the High School nurse is only there once a week! That is not very useful when you have a son that might be harboring an infectious disease.
I kindly told the secretary that I believed my son might have an infectious rash and could she please send him home. I'm not exactly sure how that played out but I imagine it went something like this:
Secretary: (using the school intercom system) "Cully Seifert report to the office immediately. Do not touch anyone or anything, do not pass GO, do not collect $200."

I have no explanation for why I don't think through things sometimes but this was one of those times.

Anyway, after Cully was diagnosed with Shingles and given some medicine to take (this only eleviates the symptoms, there is no cure), the doctor told him to go back to school! Yes, you read correctly. Even though Shingles is contagious to anyone that has not yet had the chicken pox. You can imagine my astonishment. Here is the best part though. Cully had an orthodontist appointment yesterday, that same day, right after school got out. Imagine the Secretary's pleasure when I called her later that day and asked her to send a note to my son that he needed to hurry home right after school for a doctor's appointment. Here is how that conversation played out:

Secretary: "Isn't that the son that you said has an infectious rash?
Me: "yes"
Secretary: "the one you took out of school this morning?"
Me: "yes, but he went back to school. Can you please send him the message?"
Secretary" (pregnant pause) "So what is it that you think he has?"
Me: "Shingles. Thank you for your help. Remember, tell him he needs to RUSH home as his appointment is at 2:30"
Secretary: "UH-HUH, OK"

Cully later told me that he was embarassed in class. Apparently, as soon as his teacher got the noter from the office, he asked Cully to sit separately, away from the rest of the class until the bell rang.

Good Times.

Thanks to his Mom.