Shuga!

I sent Cole off to school today, although his throat is still a little sore. Both days that he stayed home, though, he was laughing and hollering by mid-morning -- except if I asked him how he was feeling, whereupon his voice would get scratchy, his eyelids would droop, and he'd struggle to say, "About the same." Uh-huh.

Nora slept in today and woke up happy, talking to herself quietly for a while. Then she called out, "Gunky!" which means she needs a tissue. I wiped her nose, lifted her out of bed to steal a quick hug -- she's not much of a snuggler -- and asked if she wanted breakfast.

"Shuga, shuga!" was her reply.

No, not cries for Sugar Frosted Flakes (remember when they called a spade a spade?), but for a song: Brown Girl in the Ring. You know the line, "...she looks like a sugar in a plum." That shuga. It's Nora's favorite song, with Holi-Holiday coming in a close second. She's become a huge Boney M fan since she discovered that I can play music for her while I'm on the computer. Disco all morning, and endless samba once Tim gets home. We're all stuck in various time warps, musically.

There's a typhoon on the horizon, category 4 and aimed at the middle of the island. We are on the leeward side, but Taiwan is not that wide, so we're bound to get some heavy winds and rain come Sunday. I'm stocking up on newspapers to jam into the window sills. The teacher on the 6th floor swears by them -- better than towels for sealing up the cracks that otherwise let the water flow right in. Some of the staff are going to Taipei for the weekend, so we'll probably be checking in on their places, too, once the storm hits. Last typhoon, we awoke at 4:00 a.m. to the sound of water dripping into the bathroom, found more leaks in other rooms, and spent a couple hours mopping up. Well, Tim mopped and I made scones (cranberry orange -- super), did some laundry, and went back to bed. Others were not so lucky, waking at their usual hour only to find themselves adrift in bedroom-sized puddles. Not pleasant, stepping out of bed and hearing a splash.

Well, as I expected, it's hard to pull myself away. You may disagree, having only stuck with me this far because of some OCD-type compulsion to finish what you start. (You know who you are.) I will spare you further pain and sign off for now. Next time I will touch more on what's going on outside our house. It's just so easy to get caught up in one's children and weather and household trivialities. It will get better, I promise.