Apologies for the dearth of posts. Keeping blogs going when having to use a borrowed computer is difficult. So, I have been concentrating mainly on 100th Lamb. Even that has been a challenge. (Yes, my computer is still in the shop, going on almost two months, but I don't complain; the mother board, it turns out, was fried by an unnoticed power surge that, at any rate, should not have fried it -- the power adaptor should have been fried, too, but was not. The fine print exempted it from warranty coverage, but the local shop is trying to persuade the national shop to fix it for free, so I am waiting patiently. Waiting is better than having to pay hundreds of dollars for repair.)I am still finishing my latest book (almost done), A Believer in Waiting's First Encounters with God (BIW), which continues where Blest Atheist leaves off. From time to time, I have been pecking away (well, until my computer died) at Raising God's Rainbow Makers (RGRM). By the time my computer comes back, I should have a BIW off for publication; the final edition is almost done, following feedback from ten readers of the pre-publication manuscript. My grand plan is to be all done this week. I will then be able to concentrate on RGRM, sharing some of those promised pre-publication pieces. In the interim, here is a short piece, which I may include, about Doah.
Most people's children learn from Sesame Street. Doah learned from Leave It To Beaver. That created some moments of havoc in the Mahlou household. Take, for example, the following event.
Doah, one early evening, clutched his stomach and started screaming in pain. When I tried to touch him, he would push my hands away and say, "hothpital, hothpital." He had no fever. He had no odd coloration or behavior or any other indication of illness other than the pain.
Since I don't generally try to cover up pain for myself or my children, preferring to root out the cause instead, I was forced to take Doah to the emergency room of the local hospital although I had little to go on except the unexplained pain, about which he continued to wail. The doctor, too, was baffled.
Trying to determine the cause of the pain, the doctor ran Doah through a series of tests. They took x-rays. They took blood. Doah continued to cry. None of the tests showed anything, but later I learned that the cost was nearly $1000 for all of them.
The doctor finally shook his head in consternation and said, "Look, we have no idea what is wrong here. There are no real symptoms that we can use for diagnosis. There are no signs of infection or injury. I just don't know. Admitting him for observation is probably not going to give us anything more than you can get at home. I would suggest that you give him something for the pain and observe him. If he develops any kind of symptoms, bring him back."
I agreed, and Doah and I walked out. As soon as we were outside, Doah stopped crying. He looked up at me with a wide smile. In a bright voice, he asked, "We get ice cream now?"
"Ice cream? What are you talking about?" I asked.
Doah explained, "Beaver get sick. Beaver go hothpital. Beaver get ice cream."
That ice cream cost me $1,002.59. I decided to ban the Leave It To Beaver Show!
