three-day week

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For Sarah, that is. For me, it's been somewhat more.

On Monday, she had a sore throat and stayed home, but since I was committed to the pledge drive at WFCR, Cathy worked around her schedule to stay home and have a mother-and-daughter day. I learned the ropes to be a volunteer supervisor and supervised the 11-1 shift.

Tuesday was a normal sort of day, with the morning routine getting later and later. I'm trying to forestall those $500 energy bills by taking shorter showers and shaving afterward instead of during. I also close off the den and heat it with a space heater during the day. The thermostat's in here, so that effectively shuts off the heat in the rest of the house, except the basement, which is always warm because it's where the water heater is. I've contemplated moving operations downstairs, but haven't so far.

Wednesday, Sarah was home all day again for another teacher conference day. It went about like last Wednesday, with things going fairly well until I snap and yell at Sarah, then feel terrible about it. We had lunch at Friendly's, which took a fair-sized chunk out of the middle of the day, because our order was late. I spent much of the afternoon getting her pumpkin ready for its light, scooping and scraping to get the possibly flammable fiber debris out. I used one of our electric candles for it, and didn't want to take any chances. Sarah got into her lion costume after supper and Cathy took her over to go trick-or-treat with Traigh and company. She overcame her hesitation and covered much of two streets while I stayed in and handed candy out to the marauding bands of kids whose parents drive them over here from Springfield every year. We didn't get as many as I expected, probably because there weren't as many houses lit up on this end of the street.

Yesterday the morning delays resulted in our arriving at the bus stop as the bus pulled away. Actually, I met them halfway up the block and flashed my lights at the driver, who obligingly stopped for us. Then I did another shift at the pledge drive, back to my humble berth as an operator. It was a slow pledge day, at that.

This morning I tried to get Sarah moving. She was hoping that by watching TV really hard, her juice box, ice pack, snack, and folder for important papers would all assemble themselves in her backpack, which would then stand by the door for her. I nagged persistently to get each step accomplished, and we piled into the car. I scraped the windows perfunctorily, leaving stripes between the frost for me to see out of. We drove a few yards and Sarah announced that the folder wasn't in her pack. Wackiness ensued. After I dropped her off, kissed her and waved bye, I brought the car back and took my morning walk, with my headphones cozy and quiet in my pocket as usual. The birds were noticeably quiet in the 30-degree morning, so I mostly heard traffic and a train down by the river, and trees quietly applauding the breeze.

Soon the weekend will start. We're going out for sushi tonight.

( pictures behind the cut )

transistor, shmansistor

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From WFMU's Beware of the Blog:

Science has not yet abandoned the field of FM radio innovation: researchers at Berkeley have just created the world's smallest radio, made from a single carbon nanotube (meaning this little guy is only some few atoms wide).

Rather than rely on electrical current to receive the transmission of radio waves, the nano-receiver decodes the mechanical vibrations of this teensy tube in order to operate.

Man! I was always interested in tiny radios, from tiny transistor and IC models to the idea that they'd print them on paper. I once figured that they'd be so small, they'd just sit on top of a battery like a hat -- then they made the batteries smaller too.

There's more about it here. Thanks, as always, to the inquiring intellects at WFMU for finding more stuff in heaven and earth than dreamt of in my philosophy.
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