Marxian Unicorns

Monday, December 03, 2012

I'm slapping this post together on Sunday evening. My baby daughter has been sick with a nasty stomach flu all weekend. (Read: Vomit. Wash. Repeat.) Monday is Mrs. Van Horn's first day of work and I'll be on my own. In case the vomiting continues past this lull or I eventually need to take Pumpkin to the doctor, I'm doing everything I can in advance.

Instead of using a small army of sitters as I did in Boston, I've got Pumpkin in daycare three days a week. The big downside to daycare, as I have already learned, is that you lose it if your child is sick. Normally, Monday is a daycare day. So, on top of being preoccupied with Pumpkin's illness since about noon Saturday and all day today, I may be out of commission for basically anything besides caring for the baby tomorrow. (I can make the lost day up, but this really throws a monkey wrench into my plans for the week, regardless of how the baby is tomorrow.)

In any event, I am in need of comic relief and it came from Realist Theorist via the comments to this weekend's post:

In an announcement Friday that seems better suited for a fairy tale, a North Korean state news agency reported that archaeologists recently reconfirmed the lair of a unicorn once ridden by an ancient Korean king.
Remember this sterling example of sharp workers' journalism the next time you hear the old canard that communism is somehow "scientific". It is doubtful that bringing it up to someone who would say such a thing would do any good, but it could be fun, in any event.

-- CAV

5 comments:

Mike said...

"Read: Vomit. Wash. Repeat." Change the colon to a period and you'll have some of my past reading assignments.

Steve D said...

My son first went into daycare when he was 1.5. Before that time, I had gone over five years without a single cold or any other type of illness. I thought I was invincible. I was getting far too smug and my hubris was punished. Once my son was in daycare, for the next couple of years I had a cold almost as often as not. However, now Matthew is 11 and things have settled - again the entire family has experienced a long period of wellness. I seem to be getting smug again.
Good luck.

Gus Van Horn said...

Mike,

Good one!

Steve,

Your experience seems like it will be an excellent predictor for mine, so far.

I wasn't just smug here: I figured Pumpkin had a viral illness that, being in my mid-forties, I'd probably already had. WRONG-O!

Feel quite free to chuckle at my expense, if you haven't already done so!

Gus

Anonymous said...

My bookkeeper is housing his daughter-in-law and granddaughter while his son is deployed to Afghanistan.

He refers to his granddaughter as "my little petri dish" much to his daughter-in-law's chagrin.

I guess challenging the immune system when one is young is a good thing. But not something we adults are programmed to enjoy.

c. andrew

Gus Van Horn said...

Ugh. That, and I miss that old "bullet-proof" feeling.