Rough but enjoyable Easter. We got to bed later than usual Saturday evening due to Easter eve high spirits. At 5:50 a.m., Michael came in and announced that Max (3) had vomited. I got up and dealt with that (without swearing once, proof that there's extra grace in the air on the greatest feast day). Michael and Jack couldn't get back to sleep after that, and they were soon joined by Meg, so we decided to let the kids start searching at 6:25 a.m., then stayed up for Mass, Easter brunch with my parents and brother's family, clean-up, and Easter egg hunt. After that: coma nap. At 4:00, I went to my parents for Easter dinner, an Easter egg hunt, and the Masters. All in all, a pretty good day in light of its rough start.
That changes today: Spring madness hits. Jack (10) has his first baseball practice tonight. Michael's (8) baseball practices start in a few weeks. Abbie (12) has her first soccer game this weekend. Meg (6) starts soccer in a few weeks. Alex (13) has spring marching band and tennis.I plan on logging in a lot of podcast time. If anyone has any podcasts or free audio books they recommend, please post them below or email me.
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The May issue of The Atlantic arrived Friday. It's not a very good issue, too much foreign-affairs stuff. Still, there's some good material, like this little piece of information that should make your day complete:
Sword swallowers rip their innards most when swallowing curved blades, when taking in multiple blades at once, or when distracted by audience members (or, in one case, by an unruly macaw). Yet they have an amazingly low rate of mortal injury: The medical literature lists not a single fatality.
There's also this empirical confirmation of what everybody already suspected:
An out-of-town driver stopped by a police officer in any given area has a 51 percent chance of getting slapped with a fine, versus 30 percent for a local, and the average fine for an out-of-towner is $5 higher. Local police are 10 percent more likely to fine out-of-town drivers and 20 percent more likely to fine out-of-staters, while state troopers ticket out-of-state drivers at a rate 28 percent higher than in-staters.
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Ten nutrition myths, according to one source (the source is hardly the final word on this subject, but it's an interesting list).
10. Eating carbohydrates makes you fat.
9. Drink eight, 8-oz. glasses of water per day.
8. Brown grain products are whole grain products.
7. Eating eggs will raise your cholesterol.
6. All alcohol is bad for you.
5. Vitamin supplements are necessary for everyone.
4. Consuming extra protein is necessary to build muscle mass.
3. Eating fiber causes problems if you have irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
2. Eating immediately after a workout will improve recovery.
1. Type 2 diabetes can be prevented by eating foods low on the glycemic index.
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Here's a piece of information, just in case your day was going well:
Nearly eradicated in the United States 50 years ago, resistant strains of "super" bedbugs are infesting mattresses at an alarming rate. In what's being touted as the biggest mystery in entomology, all 50 states are reporting outbreaks of the blood-sucking nocturnal critters.
