Okay, taking up way too much space on the blog...

I put together the entire conversation here and there have been a few additions since the original post.

Again, comments, opinions, etc. welcome.

And again I say, places to get information would be considered an early birthday present! If my friend here and I can't have a conversation that gets into detail on the Bush administration and what exactly has transpired and our opinions on it, I'm still wanting to have the conversation.

Stef, I respect your "I don't talk politics" rule - I'm sure it's saved you a lot of stress and quite a few friendships. ;) What do you read, then, when it comes to politics? I mean, the left has its Americablog et al, what blogs & news sources do you read that are more right oriented?

I need your opinion...

The following is an email exchange between me and a man I've known for years now.


{moved to webpage because it's taking up waaaaay too much space on this blog page}

He's not responded to that last one yet. The more I read it, the more disappointed I am, really. Prior to this email exchange I'd run into him in Home Depot and discovered that he supported Bush et al, and expressing disbelief I said we'd have to sit down & talk about it. He told me then that there were things I didn't know; that I had to remember he still had friends 'in the business' and that I shouldn't believe the media. When I spoke with him on IM at some point after that, I mentioned that I'd just returned from my first march (I joined FSU, TCC & FAMU students marching on the Capitol demanding justice for Martin Lee Anderson, the kid who died in the Florida boot camp due to "complications from sickle cell trait.") His (very condescending) response started out with "have you completely strangled your common sense?" and progressed to basically saying that this kid got what he deserved, and that he supported the death penalty, etc. I got pretty upset and called him a barbarian, so to be fair perhaps in this email exchange he's still feeling offended by how emotionally I reacted to the IM conversation. (Part of his logic about the death penalty was this: I didn't have a problem killing somebody to keep them from hurting myself, my family, my close friends, or a bystander - so why should the passage of time matter? To this day, I still cannot understand how he could not see the difference between me shooting a man to keep him from killing my husband, or electrocuting a man after he's already killed my husband. To me, the first is defense/preemption - the second revenge. Am I nuts here?)

I used to respect this man, and I made allowances for his overbearing behaviour, his condescention, his faint sexism and misogynism in his speech - I said he was older, he was military, he was a lawyer... but I don't know what to say to this.

After J read this email exchange (I BCC'd him copies) he called me from his office and told me that he was so angry that he was actually sick to his stomach. He said that he couldn't believe anybody that would profess to be a friend who cared about me would speak to me that way.

While that had occurred to me, I frankly have had that happen so often with 'friends' that it's not usually the first thing that comes to mind in situations like this. What I still keep coming back to is this: HE DIDN'T ANSWER ANY OF MY QUESTIONS. I don't understand that. He had no response, no explanation, no reasoning for why anything I mentioned or asked about was wrong, was reasonable, was sucky but unavoidable, etc. - his entire response consisted of patting me on the head and saying that I wasn't capable of having a conversation about it. (Is that what you get out of it, too? Am I reading too much into what he said?)

So I'm asking the general public. Pass it on. To those of you that don't know either of us, what do you think? And do any of you know of any places where the questions I raised ARE addressed? Because I honestly would like answers.

That's it, I'm done.

Was looking back through the calendar - the kids have been sick almost constantly since we moved in here. We're spending $400+ a month on gas, and it suddenly occurs to me that I didn't have such a horrendous snoring problem before moving here either...

Definitely selling the house.

I should be reading more Orwell

If you've not read "Not Counting Niggers" a 1939 essay by George Orwell, you should.

And then come tell me what you think about its resonance in today's news.

Dilemma

Praise Allah, my children are asleep.

So do I take a nap too, or finish what I'm working on?

I have a headache. Perhaps I'll see how much sleep I can get.

Am I thirty already?

Yes, you dope, and you're going to be thirty-one this year.

I was checking my email just a second ago and, getting nothing, (not even spam, amazingly) remembered when I was working for the Department of Labor... I was practically running a mailing list out of my cubicle. It had started off as a Gaelic language list, and a few of us had gotten too chatty, so we created a side list for off-topic conversations. I had a lot of what I would call friends on that list... one of them sent me a stained glass shamrock that I gave to Uncle Patrick this year. What sort of scares me is that I don't remember any of their names. In fact, were I to read my emails back and forth to them, not only would I not remember them, I wouldn't remember saying the things I'd typed.

I know this, not because I have any of those old emails, but because when I Google myself, I find myself popping up on messageboards and having conversations that I have no recollection of. NONE. Usually I'll remember having been active on that board, and having conversations/arguments - but none of the topics will ring any bells.

My brain works almost entirely on association. Take the trip home from swimming at Maclay today - we stopped at the grocery store; J & M went in - C was asleep in the back seat, so he & I just hung out in the car. I was entering data on the really nifty gift J had gotten as a handmedown technology gift and given to me (he knew I'd love it - it's an iPaq) and was entering John's info, having been thinking of him earlier (because he's a sweetie and is watching my kids for me while I go to a psych appt.) I actually had his birthday and his & Robin's anniversary in my phone calendar, and so then started entering Robin's info next. When J got back in the car, out of the blue (to him) I asked if Robin had gotten the Dean of Students job yet. Actually, I'm not even sure if I said "Dean of Students", I might just have said "job" - I forget that people I'm talking to haven't been privy to my train of thought. Needless to say, it took him a few moments of WTF? to catch up to where I was. The point of this little vignette was to show that for outsiders, even if it SOUNDS like I just made a comment out of left field on Mars, I actually DID have a path that got me there.

And the point of mentioning that was to say that even when I read these old arguments, 9 times out of 10 they don't trigger that kind of memory reflex. I'm thinking it might be scorched earth - times of extreme emotional stress blank out parts of my brain. I'm wondering if I'll ever get those memories back, or if they're gone for good...

Did I have a point? I'm not sure. I was a basket case last night and again this afternoon/early evening - I'm guessing it's PMS, as it's getting towards the end of the month. Last night I'd asked Patrick for a humongous favor - to let me practice face painting on him. (J having a beard, that kinda made using him more difficult.) I'd talked to Moira's teacher Nancy and since I used to draw things on the kids' hands every day at the end of school, but hadn't done it in weeks, I wanted to do something kinda special before they left - she said it would be great if I came Thursday and I could do painting then. So I've been perusing face painting sites; getting ideas and tips and looking at step-by-step instructions, and was getting kind of excited about it... which might explain why when Patrick basically laughed incredulously and said hell no, I was more upset than one would assume. (That and I had run out of patience earlier with children, and was getting somewhat emotional - not a good mix, that.) I forget if it were he or J that said that it just didn't sound like something that would be any fun for them. I said well, then the next time either of you asks me for a favor, if it doesn't sound like something that I might remotely enjoy, then you can both fuck off.

Emotional much? Yeah. I put the kids to bed and then stayed in the back by myself. J later told me that he was proud of me for telling him that I just couldn't be around people right now, and taking myself off the bench, so to speak - several years ago I wouldn't have been able to do that. He's right - not that it made me feel enormously better at the time, mind you. J said that game night with P went well and that they had a lot of fun, which I was glad to hear, because god knows I wasn't in the mood. [Stef, btw, I'm talking about Dungeons and Dragons gaming, I forgot I'd never clarified that for you. Yes, we are übergeeks.]

For those of you interested in face painting, there are some adorable and fricking amazing ones here.

It's now 2:07am, and I can't believe I'm still futzing around with my webpage and half watching old West Wings with J. I guess I'll sleep when I'm dead.

Blech

Got a phone call from school; had to go pick up Moira because there was some kind of electrical problem - no power.

I'm watching the video of the White House Correspondents' Banquet. I must say, the conspiracy theorist that lives in my brain says "hrm, interesting that Bush has offered to redo the press area, which means they'll have to move out this summer for some period of time... wonder if Bush et al is looking forward to the press not being as close?"

In reading more about the new book "Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism" by Michelle Goldberg, I've become truly alarmed. Truly.

An excerpt:

A few days before Bush's second inauguration, The New York Times carried a story headlined "Warning from a Student of Democracy's Collapse" about Fritz Stern, a refugee from Nazi Germany, professor emeritus of history at Columbia, and scholar of fascism. It quoted a speech he had given in Germany that drew parallels between Nazism and the American religious right. "Some people recognized the moral perils of mixing religion and politics," he was quoted saying of prewar Germany, "but many more were seduced by it. It was the pseudo-religious transfiguration of politics that largely ensured [Hitler's] success, notably in Protestant areas."

It's not surprising that Stern is alarmed. Reading his forty-five-year-old book "The Politics of Cultural Despair: A Study in the Rise of the Germanic Ideology," I shivered at its contemporary resonance. "The ideologists of the conservative revolution superimposed a vision of national redemption upon their dissatisfaction with liberal culture and with the loss of authoritative faith," he wrote in the introduction. "They posed as the true champions of nationalism, and berated the socialists for their internationalism, and the liberals for their pacifism and their indifference to national greatness."

Fascism isn't imminent in America. But its language and aesthetics are distressingly common among Christian nationalists. History professor Roger Griffin described the "mobilizing vision" of fascist movements as "the national community rising Phoenix-like after a period of encroaching decadence which all but destroyed it" (his italics). The Ten Commandments has become a potent symbol of this dreamed-for resurrection on the American right.

True, our homegrown quasi-fascists often appear so absurd as to seem harmless. Take, for example, American Veterans in Domestic Defense, the organization that took the Ten Commandments on tour. The group says it exists to "neutralize the destructiveness" of America's "domestic enemies," which include "biased liberal, socialist news media," "the ACLU," and "the conspiracy of an immoral film industry." To do this, it aims to recruit former military men. "AVIDD reminds all American Veterans that you took an oath to defend the United States against all enemies, 'both foreign and domestic,'" its Web site says. "In your military capacity, you were called upon to defend the United States against foreign enemies. AVIDD now calls upon you to continue to fulfill your oath and help us defend this nation on the political front, against equally dangerous domestic enemies."

According to Jim Cabaniss, the seventy-two-year-old Korean War veteran who founded AVIDD, the group now has thirty-three chapters across the country. It's entirely likely that some of these chapters just represent one or two men, and as of 2005, AVIDD didn't seem large enough to be much of a danger to anyone.

Still, it's worth noting that thousands of Americans nationwide have flocked to rallies at which military men don uniforms and pledge to seize the reins of power in America on behalf of Christianity. In many places, local religious leaders and politicians lend their support to AVIDD's cause. And at least some of the people at these rallies speak with seething resentment about the tyranny of Jews over America's Christian majority.

"People who call themselves Jews represent maybe 2 or 3 percent of our people," Cabaniss told me after a January 2005 rally in Austin. "Christians represent a huge percent, and we don't believe that a small percentage should destroy the values of the larger percentage."

I asked Cabaniss, a thin, white-haired man who wore a suit with a red, white, and blue tie and a U.S. Army baseball cap, whether he was saying that American Jews have too much power. "It appears that way," he replied. "They're a driving force behind trying to take everything to do with Christianity out of our system. That's the part that makes us very upset."

Ed Hamilton, who'd come to the rally from San Antonio, interjected, "There are very wealthy Jews in high places, and they have significant control over a lot of financial matters and some political matters. They have disproportionate amount of influence in our financial structure."

And more:

Roy Moore and Rick Scarborough are Baptists, D. James Kennedy is a fundamentalist Presbyterian, and John Eidsmoe is a Lutheran. All of them, however, have been shaped by dominion theology, which asserts that, in preparation for the second coming of Christ, godly men have the responsibility to take over every aspect of society.

Dominion theology comes out of Christian Reconstructionism, a fundamentalist creed that was propagated by the late Rousas John (R. J.) Rushdoony and his son-in-law, Gary North. Born in New York City in 1916 to Armenian immigrants who had recently fled the genocide in Turkey, Rushdoony was educated at the University of California at Berkeley and spent over eight years as a Presbyterian missionary to Native Americans in Nevada. He was a prolific writer, churning out dense tomes advocating the abolition of public schools and social services and the replacement of civil law with biblical law. White-bearded and wizardly, Rushdoony had the look of an Old Testament patriarch and the harsh vision to match -- he called for the death penalty for gay people, blasphemers, and unchaste women, among other sinners. Democracy, he wrote, is a heresy and "the great love of the failures and cowards of life."

Reconstructionism is a postmillennial theology, meaning its followers believe Jesus won't return until after Christians establish a thousand year reign on earth. While other Christians wait for the messiah, Reconstructionists want to build the kingdom themselves. Most American evangelicals, on the other hand, are premillennialists. They believe (with some variations) that at the time of Christ's return, Christians will be gathered up to heaven, missing the tribulations endured by unbelievers. In the past, this belief led to a certain apathy -- why worry if the world is about to end and you'll be safe from the carnage?

Since the 1970s, though, in tandem with the rise of the religious right, premillennialism has been politicized. A crucial figure in this process was the seminal evangelical writer Francis Schaeffer, an American who founded L'Abri, a Christian community in the Swiss Alps where religious intellectuals gathered to talk and study. As early as the 1960s, Schaeffer was reading Rushdoony and holding seminars on his work. Schaeffer went on to write a series of highly influential books elucidating the idea of the Christian worldview. A Christian Manifesto, published in 1981, described modern history as a contest between the Christian worldview and the materialist one, saying, "These two world views stand as totals in complete antithesis to each other in content and also in their natural results -- including sociological and government results, and specifically including law."

Schaeffer was not a theocrat, but he drew on Reconstructionist ideas of America as an originally Christian nation. In "A Christian Manifesto," he warned against wrapping Christianity in the American flag, but added, "None of this, however, changes the fact that the United States was founded upon a Christian consensus, nor that we today should bring Judeo-Christian principles into play in regard to government." Schaeffer was one of the first evangelical leaders to get deeply involved in the fight against abortion, and he advocated civil disobedience and the possible use of force to stop it. "It is time we consciously realize that when any office commands what is contrary to God's Law it abrogates its authority," he wrote.

Tim LaHaye, who is most famous for putting a Tom Clancy gloss on premillennialist theology in the Left Behind thrillers that he co-writes with Jerry Jenkins, was heavily influenced by Schaeffer, to whom he dedicated his book "The Battle for the Mind." That book married Schaeffer's theories to a conspiratorial view of history and politics, arguing, "Most people today do not realize what humanism really is and how it is destroying our culture, families, country -- and, one day, the entire world. Most of the evils in the world today can be traced to humanism, which has taken over our government, the UN, education, TV, and most of the other influential things of life.

"We must remove all humanists from public office and replace them with pro-moral political leaders," LaHaye wrote.

As premillennialists grew to embrace the goal of dominion, they made alliances with Reconstructionists. In 1984, Jay Grimstead, a disciple of Francis Schaeffer, brought important pre- and post-millennialists together to form the Coalition on Revival (COR) in order to lay a blueprint for taking over American life. Tim LaHaye was an original member of COR's steering committee, along with Rushdoony, North, creationist Duane Gish, D. James Kennedy, and the Reverend Donald Wildmon of the influential American Family Association.

Between 1984 and 1986, COR developed seventeen "worldview" documents, which elucidate the "Christian" position on most aspects of life. Just as political Islam is often called Islamism to differentiate the fascist political doctrine from the faith, the ideology laid out in these papers could be called Christianism. The documents outline a complete political program, with a "biblically correct" position on issues like taxes (God favors a flat rate), public schools (generally frowned upon), and the media and the arts ("We deny that any pornography and other blasphemy are permissible as art or 'free speech'").

In a 1988 letter to supporters, Grimstead announced the completion of a high school curriculum "using the COR Worldview Documents as textbooks." Since then, there's been a proliferation of schools, books, and seminars devoted to inculcating the correct Christian worldview in students and activists. Charles Colson accepts one hundred people annually into his yearlong "worldview training" courses, which include meetings in Washington, D.C., online seminars, "mentoring," and several hours of homework each week. "The program will be heavily weighted towards how to think," Colson's Web site says. It's intended for those who work in churches, media, law, government, and education, and who can thus teach others to think the same way.

Those who don't have a year to spare can attend one of more than a dozen Worldview Weekend conferences held every year in churches nationwide. Popular speakers include the revisionist Christian nationalist historian David Barton, David Limbaugh (Rush's born-again brother), and evangelical former sitcom star Kirk Cameron. In 2003, Tom DeLay was a featured speaker at a Worldview Weekend at Rick Scarborough's former church in Pearland, Texas. He told the crowd, "Only Christianity offers a comprehensive worldview that covers all areas of life and thought, every aspect of creation. Only Christianity offers a way to live in response to the realities that we find in this world. Only Christianity."

Speaking to outsiders, most Christian nationalists say they're simply responding to anti-Christian persecution. They say that secularism is itself a religion, one unfairly imposed on them. They say they're the victims in the culture wars. But Christian nationalist ideologues don't want equality, they want dominance. In his book "The Changing of the Guard: Biblical Principles for Political Action," George Grant, former executive director of D. James Kennedy's Coral Ridge Ministries, wrote:

"Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ -- to have dominion in civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness.
But it is dominion we are after. Not just a voice.
It is dominion we are after. Not just influence.
It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time.
It is dominion we are after.
World conquest. That's what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish. We must win the world with the power of the Gospel. And we must never settle for anything less...
Thus, Christian politics has as its primary intent the conquest of the land -- of men, families, institutions, bureaucracies, courts, and governments for the Kingdom of Christ."

Whatever happened to "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone"? or "Love thy neighbor as yourself?"

I'm in the middle of changing medication so my mental resilience is less than normal - and it's not very good normally anyway.

After an interesting exchange with my mother today, I've had enough. What do YOU think?

4:54:36 PM mom: can i have a couple of hours on sunday night?
4:55:10 PM mom: just 8th grade - shouldn't be too bad
4:55:27 PM cearashoffstall: I don't know if J has something planned for Sunday, you'll have to ask him
4:56:55 PM mom: don't have his im addr4ess
4:57:00 PM mom: what is it
4:57:38 PM cearashoffstall: he's not online at the moment, but you can call him at his office I would guess
4:59:38 PM mom: let me get this straight
5:00:40 PM mom: i need to ask your husband if it's okay for you to come over to help me with the proof reading, is that it?
5:01:26 PM cearashoffstall: it's Mother's Day and I heard him talking with the kids and making plans, so yes, you need to ask MY PARTNER if he has something planned so I don't plan something without asking him because THAT WOULD BE RUDE.

she dropped it at that point.

Moira is currently having a meltdown because she wants a diaper and I'm not giving her one. *sigh* I guess this is the equivalent of struggles other parents have with bottles or pacifiers, both of which we avoided.

Pathetic

I've lost track of how many times in the last week I've thought "Ooh, I should make a blog entry about that so as not to forget/see what people think/because it's nifty" and by the time I'm near my computer I am so tired that whatever it is has long since escaped my head....


J picked up Patrick on the way home yesterday - I took him home around 1am and promptly got caught in the high wind - hail - constant lightning - blinding rain trying to get home. I made it half a block before I said the hell with this and turned around to wait it out at his apartment. Considering I'd already been so tired I was falling asleep while driving, this wasn't helping. Fortunately I only had to wait half an hour. Not long enough to watch the Crossing Jordan P TiVoed for me, dangit.

J & I have both lost our keys, so let me know if you come across them.

C is entirely too awake. I'm going to try for more sleep.

Oh, I heard Mamaw & Papaw are coming down soon! That should be fun. Maybe we'll get in a skip-bo game. *grin*

Uber-geek

I Am A: Chaotic Good Elf Bard Ranger


Alignment:
Chaotic Good characters are independent types with a strong belief in the value of goodness. They have little use for governments and other forces of order, and will generally do their own things, without heed to such groups.


Race:
Elves are the eldest of all races, although they are generally a bit smaller than humans. They are generally well-cultured, artistic, easy-going, and because of their long lives, unconcerned with day-to-day activities that other races frequently concern themselves with. Elves are, effectively, immortal, although they can be killed. After a thousand years or so, they simply pass on to the next plane of existance.


Primary Class:
Bards are the entertainers. They sing, dance, and play instruments to make other people happy, and, frequently, make money. They also tend to dabble in magic a bit.


Secondary Class:
Rangers are the defenders of nature and the elements. They are in tune with the Earth, and work to keep it safe and healthy.


Deity:
Hanali Cenanil is the Chaotic Good elven goddess of love, beauty, and art. She is also known as the Heart of Gold and Lady Goldheart. Her followers delight in creation and youth, and work to spread happiness, love, and beauty. Their preferred weapon is the dagger.


Find out What D&D Character Are You?, courtesy ofNeppyMan (e-mail)




J was a Chaotic Good Elf Monk Druid. We're well matched. {grin} P was a Lawful Good Half-orc Ranger Fighter. (yes, he's interesting like that.)

I want cowboy leg!

I laughed so hard I cried and my stomach hurt - tell me what you think, y'all.

And the good news for the day: not a torn cornea. Massive weird allergic reaction.

I hate unresolved issues

It's one of the reasons I'm such a basket case, I think - I keep hoping for resolutions in everyday life. However, I figured with West Wing coming to a close, they'd tie up all the loose ends. Next Sunday is the last one. Last. *sniff* And there seems to be WAY too many loose ends to tie up all in one hour.

Anyway, today was a rollercoaster mood day.

And now I've torn my cornea. What a banner weekend.

random babbling

Well, J & P are going out of town tonight to a conference in Jax... I hope the boys have fun on the road trip. Thank goodness I'm feeling better; between the antibiotics and the inhaler I'm doing much better than I was a few days ago.

I've got my web page back up! The home page and my page are pretty well done (well, my page will be updated regularly, maybe) and now I've got M & C & the calendar & the family tree page to work on. Wheeee!

Study: US mothers deserve $134,121 in salary

May 3, 5:07 AM (ET)

By Ellen Wulfhorst

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A full-time stay-at-home mother would earn $134,121 a year if paid for all her work, an amount similar to a top U.S. ad executive, a marketing director or a judge, according to a study released on Wednesday.

A mother who works outside the home would earn an extra $85,876 annually on top of her actual wages for the work she does at home, according to the study by Waltham, Massachusetts-based compensation experts Salary.com.

To reach the projected pay figures, the survey calculated the earning power of the 10 jobs respondents said most closely comprise a mother's role -- housekeeper, day-care teacher, cook, computer operator, laundry machine operator, janitor, facilities manager, van driver, chief executive and psychologist.

"You can't put a dollar value on it. It's worth a lot more," said Kristen Krauss, 35, as she hurriedly packed her four children, all aged under 8, into a minivan in New York while searching frantically for her keys. "Just look at me."

Employed mothers reported spending on average 44 hours a week at their outside job and 49.8 hours at their home job, while the stay-at-home mother worked 91.6 hours a week, it showed.

An estimated 5.6 million women in the United States are stay-at-home mothers with children under age 15, according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data.

NOT 'JUST A MOM'

"It's good to acknowledge the job that's being done, and that it's not that these women are settling for 'just a mom,"' said Bill Coleman, senior vice president of compensation at Salary.com. "They are actually doing an awful lot."

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, some 26 million women with children under age 18 work in the nation's paid labor force.

Both employed and stay-at-home mothers said the lowest-paying job of housekeeper was their most common role, with employed mothers working 7.2 hours a week as housekeeper and stay-at-home mothers working 22.1 hours in that role.

"Every husband I've ever spoken to said, 'I'm keeping my job. You keep yours.' It's a tough one," said Gillian Forrest, 39, a stay-at-home mother of 22-month-old Alex in New York. "I don't know if you could put a dollar amount on it but it would be nice to get something."

To compile its study, Salary.com surveyed about 400 mothers online over the last two months.

Salary.com offers a Web site (http://www.mom.salary.com) where mothers can calculate what they could be paid, based on how many children they have, where they live and other factors. The site will produce a printable document that looks like a paycheck, Coleman said.

"It's obviously not negotiable," he said.

On average, the mother who works outside the house earns a base pay of $62,798 for a 40-hour at-home work week and $23,078 in overtime; a stay-at-home mother earned a base pay of $45,697 and $88,424 in overtime, it said.

In a Salary.com study conducted last year, stay-at-home mothers earned $131,471. The potential earnings of mothers who work outside the home was not calculated in the previous study.

(LIFE-WORK, Editing by Eric Walsh; Reuters Messaging: ellen.wulfhorst.reuters.com@reuters.net)

hahahahahahahahahahaha

So it's 8:30am - kids are still asleep, thank god - I'm in the kitchen blowing my nose & coughing while I drink some orange juice. I hear something that sounds like Moira starting to cry/freak out, so I hightail it back to the bedroom only to look in and see her still totally asleep. I check Christian - nope, he's out too. So is Stravinsky. Okay, maybe one of the kids was whimpering in their sleep... I sit down on the bed to start sorting laundry and I sort-of yawn in the process -

the noise was me. My bronchial tubes made sort of a screaming high pitched sound when I breathed in.

TIRED OF BEING SICK! Going back to bed.