During our trip in Michigan, the subject of card games and the popularity of poker came up. Poker—very popular. Featured on TV shows, for cryin’ out loud.

I’ve never played. I downloaded DD Poker to see what this poker thing is all about.

Let’s just put it this way: I’m extremely glad I’m not an addictive personality, because if I were an addictive personality, I would be down at the local card club throwing away my children’s future. And this is someone who’s been to Vegas twice and has never gambled.

I play during off moments and down time. We’ve been having a lot of down time recently, because since we’ve come back we haven’t set up the TV, which means that we go to bed earlier. (Try it. A life without TiVo is not worth staying up for. Darin and I have never been so well-rested.) I play while cooking dinner. I play while I sit here talking to a friend.

I am thrilled when I get away with a massive bluff. I am crushed when I lose out on a round despite having great cards. I am on hold at the library for books on how to play Texas Hold ‘Em.

The only thing saving me from wondering whether I’ve totally lost my mind is knowing that periodically I get really, really, really into a topic—homeschooling, civic design, the process needed to pick up and move to Provence—before finally getting attracted to some other new and exciting idea and moving on. And I’ve been obsessed by games before (Civilization, Escape Velocity, World of Warcraft) and managed to walk away from them too.

Also: I’ve gotten much, much better at poker in the week or so I’ve been playing. I know I won’t continue improving at this rate, but seriously: I’m almost ready for the card clubs.

(Darin: I’m kidding. Seriously. Give me back the bankbook.)

We’re back from vacation (finally) and everyone appears to be in one piece (though it was touch-and-go there for a while). We had our last bit of flu funny business on the plane ride home from Chicago: Simon woke up from his nap as everyone was getting out of their seats at San Jose and said, “Mama, I’m sick.” I grabbed the air sick bag in a flash and held it in front of him, and he very neatly threw up three or four times into the bag. Someone from a few rows back passed a paper towel up to us so I could wipe him up before we left.

I wish whatever it is that everyone except me has would go away already. Especially before I get it.

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We went to Chicago, Traverse City, and East Lansing for two weeks. We spent a week in Traverse City, where there are plenty of kid-friendly (read: shallow) beaches around for them to splash in. We were there during Cherry Festival, which is the highlight of the summer tourist season, with plenty of celebrations and parades. We didn’t get out nearly as much as we planned, but that was okay: we were on vacation.

From there we went to a small town near East Lansing named Laingsburg, where we stayed with Darin’s Uncle Bob and Aunt Betty. They have a couple of acres out in the middle of nowhere, which means that a)it gets dark at night, and if it hadn’t been overcast the kids might have seen stars, and b)they have lightning bugs. Where we live in California mosquitoes are practically non-existent; sadly, so are fireflies. The kids had a blast running around in the dark, trying to catch fireflies.

One thing Michigan has plenty of: really great ice cream stores. Moomer’s in Traverse City: check it out. Unbelievably, I did not have Blue Moon ice cream while I was there, despite the popularity of said ice cream with some commenters on my site. (When I mentioned Blue Moon to Uncle Bob, a restauranteur and Michigan native, he said, “What’s that?” So Blue Moon ice cream is not known everywhere in the state.)

We went back to Chicago a few days before we had to leave, mostly because the second I knew what our vacation plans were I bought tickets for a taping of Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me, the NPR news quiz that Darin and I like to listen to every week. (When children allow.) Three comedians try to answer question about the week’s news, and it’s usually pretty funny when we listen to it on the radio.

It’s fucking hysterical in person.

If you’re going to be in Chicago on a Thursday night and you can get tickets early enough—each and every show sells out, apparently—go. Next time we’re going to Chicago we are definitely going again.

The three guests were Roy Blount, Jr., Paula Poundstone, and PJ O’Rourke. The panelists rotate every week, which meant Darin and I were each slightly disappointed in the lineup for different reasons: he was hoping for Mo Rocca, and I was hoping for Adam Felber, but the ones we got were pretty good. Poundstone is clearly a stand-up comedian: she talked the most and got off the best zingers. The show is edited for air, because of the pauses and pointless chatter (the celebrity guest they had, a rock journalist, was, shall we say, less than scintillating) and off-color comments. The hand gestures and double-takes the panelists gave don’t exactly translate to radio either. There was a running joke about a Brazilian postal truck that I hope made it to the recording, but we didn’t get to listen to it yesterday so I don’t know.

The taping took about two hours—after the show and the make-up parts, where they re-record a few bits, the panelists and hosts answer audience questions—so plan where you’re going to eat afterward! We ended up at Pizzeria Uno, which was good, but we would have liked to try one of the other restaurants Darin’s brother recommended to us.

Last Friday Sophia got sick all over the living room floor. Well, that was okay, because the carpeting was about to get ripped out (we’re finally getting our wood flooring).

Then Simon got sick—thankfully, he waited until we were having lunch in a restaurant and we left the mess for him to clean up. (Luckily I had a change of clothes in the car. Otherwise…oh dear.) Then they both got sick in flu-type ways. You know: get out the buckets and mops, it’s going to be a messy night.

Then Darin got sick. He got sick at night and spent all night in the bathroom in various stages of being ill. In fact, he’s pretty sure he lost 8 pounds in one night. (No, you don’t want to lose weight that way.) In the morning he said, “I think I need to go to the doctor.” He spent a couple of hours in the ER, with an IV. When he came home, he slept for hours. And hours.

Then Sophia threw up again today.

On my front, I didn’t get 3 hours consecutive sleep for the past week until last night. And then our server crashed. And now I seem to have lost my entire In Box. True, I had 280 too many messages in there. But now they’re gone. (Hope I don’t owe anyone mail.)

I’m calling this “the vacation from heck” because I’m well aware that things could get worse.

We’re going to need a week off just to recover.