Friday, October 13, 2006

Autumn in Seattle


Each morning the car is wrapped in dew. A cold fog sticks around until 11, but the sky is blue and it's mildly warm by noon (or 1 or 2). I packed away Elliot's shorts to avoid having another argument with him about why we don't wear shorts in cold weather (it did the trick, but he still manages to throw a fit every few weeks about something absurd like why he really needs a pet monkey or why can't he have chocolate cupcakes for breakfast). Leaves are turning orange and yellow. Our Halloween decorations are out: day of the dead skeleton, plastic spiders and ceramic pumpkins, a string of purple bat lights. Some of our more ambitious neighbors have spider webs and ghosts in their trees, gravestones in their front lawns.

Rats + Scabies
A few weeks ago I developed a twitch in my eye and a rash on the palms of my hands. I thought I had scabies and obsessed over the CDC site and any dermatological photo sites cataloging the most grotesque cases of parasitic skin diseases and other skin conditions. It turns out I'm a stress case (not a surprise) and have atopic eczema. I'm always under stress. Not sure why it happened now. Nothing new except that while insulating under the house we discovered RATS. We installed a fan in the bathroom and discovered we had no vent. Our skylight is leaking. Asher is teething and acting like a maniac. But Elliot started kindergarten last month and it's been one of the smoothest transitions I've ever seen him make.

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