I’ve been really thwarted by a clogged toilet in our bathroom. Everyday I’ve been nibbling at plunging it. Tonight I got super serious about it and gave it my full plunging focus. Symone was chattering at me via FaceTime from her room about some secret Santa social problem – she seemed totally oblivious to my lack of attention and the odd sucking sounds coming from my end of the conversation. Right about the time she said, “…so what should I do?” I looked down to inspect the results of plunge round number 4 and was kind of horrified to see something black float up. I told Symone that something horrifying was happening in the toilet and she signed off abruptly with, “I’m out!”.

On the way to school this morning Emmett asked, “What does ‘manga dad’ mean?”

“I can think of a lot of loose interpretations for that label, but why don’t you use it in the sentence you heard it in and we can maybe figure it out”

“Manga dad, manga dad, we wish you a merry Christmas.”

We have emerged from the depths of sickness. We woke up this morning feeling sore and changed. It’s odd sometimes how an illness can feel like a really uncomfortable vision quest. We watched a documentary on Ayahuasca – I can say with a cursory mental inventory we had many of the same experiences:

• Vomiting and Diarrhea shared as a group
• A headache so profound that the pain became something else – a gateway to the multiverse
• Coughing that morphed into animal communications.
• Confrontational dreams filled with unknowable symbolism
• Sweat rolling off our bodies in the patterns of mystical mandalas.
• A sense of taking a long journey
• A lot of laundry to do

A cascade of flu has hit the house. Symone yesterday. Noble went down last night – his room is now tarped. Kaety and I joined him shortly after 1am. We are better aims so no tarps are necessary.

At 4 am Noble was crying through the house looking for his barfed on stuffies. I found him in the laundry room trying to get them out of the washing machine. I put them in the dryer and he and I curled up in a pile a clean laundry and shivered together while they dried.

We are sick!

We were laying in our VRBO master bed made from six old-growth trees and trying to sleep in. Various early morning request were floated and fulfilled including one from Noble asking for a damp wash cloth. That kind of request from a three-year old should raise some red flags- but I cared more about getting back to bed than figuring out the mystery.

Later we were in the bathroom getting ready and talking about what we needed to do to leave. I remembered the washcloth, “Oh, hey, we need to be on the lookout for a damp washcloth somewhere in the house – Noble asked me for it this morning”.

Kaety paused washing her hair in the shower, “Oh god! Seriously?”

At that moment I looked down and noticed a washcloth right on the edge of the sink where I was brushing my teeth, “oh! I found it”. When I picked it up a large turd rolled out and landed on my bare feet.

Awesome.

Symone and I were sitting in the hot tub last night out in the snow. She was talking over a wide range of topics – one of them was her reluctance to get get married.

“Why is that honey?”

“I’m freaked out that the ring will get stuck on my finger and I won’t be able to get it off”

“There are all sorts of symbols you can use, a ring is just a popular traditional choice”

“I still like the ring…but I’d like to put it somewhere else. I think a nose ring would be cool!”

“Umm…that may not be the greatest symbol of partnership”

Then we talked about symbols and meanings – as well as how annoying it is to run out of hair conditioner.