Donna and I are both certified respite care providers, so we answered a call last week to attend a guy with Down syndrome in the local hospital. We each ended up doing a few 18 hour shifts until the agency found a third person to help out and give us a chance to sleep. No problem, until the day after the guy was discharged. I began feeling not so well. I don't believe I have pneumonia, which is what he was in for, but I've got typical symptoms of a respiratory condition. I had a flu shot, so odds are in my favor that it isn't that.

I really need to be healthy (not contagious) by Saturday evening in order to attend a friend's 40th anniversary in sobriety. She's a few years older than me, but she got sober a few years earlier. I'm also expecting to reach 40 years sober, but I'll be 70 if it happens. Anyway, a meeting like that should bring folks out. Hopefully it will be a large crowd. We don't celebrate as a matter of ego--it's to show newcommers that AA works, but a lively crowd is always more fun than a small one.

The test planting I did last month has revealed that many of my seeds are viable. Hopefully I can keep these things alive, without them getting too large for another six weeks or so.


A few years ago I read "Predictably Irrational" by behavioral economist--Dan Ariely. I'm usually interested in things psychological/behavioral and this book was particularly interesting because the field is somewhat new. There were no courses in it offered at my Alma mater when I was in graduate school (circa late 90s). Dan is offering a six-week course online, so naturally, I couldn't resist signing up.

https://class.coursera.org/behavioralecon-001/class/index

It's free!

We still have snow on the ground which is quite a contrast to last year when most of March was warm. Trees had leaves, crocuses were out, and the apple trees had blossoms, which turned out to be a really bad thing. On 31 March the overnight temp fell to 19F and much growth was killed. Cold long winters are natural around here.....depressing....