Sun looks a lot like her father. That’s really an understatement–she looks EXACTLY like her father. The shape of her face, her eyes, her dimples, her hair color, even her eyelashes. And everyone tells me so. LIKE I DON’T KNOW!

The other day CS and I attended a funeral, and the widow turned to me and said, “Your little girl is beautiful! But you know she looks just like her father.” To which I replied, “Oh, yes, I know, but she has my nose.” To which she replied, “No, she even has his nose.” Hrumpf.

So I’ve given Sun a good hard look. And this is what I see that is mine: her nose (even though at least one widow disagrees with me on this one), her fingertips (but not the rest of her fingers or hands) and every other, yes, not all, of her toes. And I got the even numbered ones, so that means only the second and fourth toes on each foot. And the fourth ones are borderline.

We went to the pediatrician today and were told that the results of Sun’s EEG were good. But. (Why is there always a “but”?) But, because of her rather large hemangioma, there is the slightest concern that she could have an internal hemangioma that could be causing the shaking she experienced. (And the doc mentioned something about her calcium levels being high–may need to call back to see what that’s about.)

Sooo, out of an abundance of caution, they have scheduled an MRI for her next Thursday. I hate that they’ll need to sedate Sun, but the hubs reassures me that (a) the MRI is being done at Children’s Hospital and they deal with, well, children, all the time and know how to properly sedate her, and (b) if anything irregular occurs, we’ll be at Children’s Hospital, the best place for a child in stress to be. He’s right, and I truly think this is all precautionary. But (see–again with a “but”), I won’t deny that I am the least wee bit concerned.

Let’s just hope she doesn’t poop all over the inside of the MRI machine. It seems Sun’s defense mechanism is to poop all over medical professionals (symbolic, don’t ya think?).

CS and I joined another couple and we took our kids to see Celebration in the Oaks recently. We walked through the Cajun Night Before Christmas and then went to the Christmas carols laser show. I’d always skipped these two things in the past but allowed my friends to guide us as though we were tourists.

At the laser show, a silly light show danced to classic Christmas carols. Then this one song started to play that just grabbed me. I immediately loved it. I started to think how it could be that I’d never heard this song before. It had that quickly become my favorite Christmas song. Last year, my favorite Christmas song was “We Need a Little Christmas,” and I still love that song, but that was so last year!

The wife of the couple we were with turned to me and said, “Isn’t this the best Christmas song ever?” I was stunned that she was thinking what I was thinking. I responded, “I’ve never heard it before, but I really like it. Who sings it?” She said, “I’ve never heard it either, but I love it. I don’t know who sings it either.”

We continued on our walking tour of Celebration in the Oaks. And that song stayed in my head. Days passed, still there. So the hubs downloaded it for me and I listen to it on my iPod every day. And I catch the hubs listening to it, too. Damn song is contagious.

So what song is it? It’s “I Want a Hippopotamus For Christmas” by Gayla Peevey. It’s from 1953. It’s been around since before I was born. You can go to YouTube and listen to it here. But be careful! You just might fall in love with it too and need to hear it every day!

I wrote this long post about how things did improve for me today (other than the glitch of my work computer not working for a spell). Then my laptop decided to eat the post.

Here’s the best part of that post: I do not like my handwriting. My g’s look like my brother’s, and I know that is weird to even think about. Further weird is that I am one of those people who’s loops have to connect. The “a” at the end of my name? Drives me crazy. I am always going back and making it closed. And I know a psychoanalyst would have a field day with my handwriting, but the really weird part is that I never did this “closed loop” thing until I saw some crime show about handwriting analysis and they talked about people who close those loops and people who don’t. I can’t remember, though, whether the closed folks were the serial killers or the open folks were. . . .

I am told to write when I feel depressed–to journal the things that are weighing on me. The idea is that by writing them down, I can put them to rest at least long enough for me to get a night’s worth of rest. Since I cannot sleep, I will blog.

Today was not an easy day, although things ended on a much better note than they started. Tomorrow is looking to be rough as well. And Thursday, Sun will accompany me to her second funeral. Seriously, too many deaths this year. This time, a friend’s father. He has been ill, but last we knew he was doing well. He was very well loved and his funeral will be a difficult one (but, then, whose funeral isn’t?).

It isn’t the holidays or my upcoming birthday or money or concern about my job or my marriage or even impending house-guests that is causing the depression this time. After a day of careful reflection, I really don’t know what exactly is bothering me anymore. But that is how my depression is–it starts with something concrete and then blossoms into a general malaise. It permeates my thoughts, my emotions, my physical being.

It’s possible that I can turn the corner on this depression without any real effort. It could turn out that being really busy at work tomorrow is all I will have needed to distract my mind from its funk and then the fog will have lifted. Or not.

I found out today that the in-laws are coming in from Ohio to stay with us during Christmas. They are staying 7 days. On my sofa. I get along with my in-laws, but I have a limit of patience with house-guests, and that limit is four days. So I am bracing for those three extra days.

The in-laws are from New Orleans but have lived in Ohio some 15+ years. They swear they’ll never move back. Here’s my response to that:

Times are not good here. The city is crumbling into ashes. It has been buried under a lava flood of taxes and frauds and maladministrations so that it has become only a study for archaeologists. Its condition is so bad that when I write about it, as I intend to do soon, nobody will believe I am telling the truth. But it is better to live here in sackcloth and ashes, than to own the whole state of Ohio.

This was written about New Orleans by Lafcadio Hearn, a nineteenth century author who lived in and wrote about New Orleans for about a decade, to a friend (H.E. Krehbiel) back in Cincinnati in 1880.

Now I have a whole lot more to do in a lot less time. Did I mention their 20 year old daughter is coming too? She’ll be on our over-sized chair/sleeper in the den along with her parents.