Controversial, polymath

Dear Olympic commentators and everyone else in America. It's Beijing, with a hard /j/ sound, as in "jerk." Not Bei-zhing with a fluid Francophonic /zh/ sound, as in je suis un pédant. I realize you want to sound worldly and sophisticated, but not all languages are the same. The 'j' represented in Pinyin is a straight, American-sounding /j/ sound.

A linguistic nitpick. Not a patch on the time John Tesh hosted the Olympics and kept using the word "histrionic" to mean "historic."

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I went in to work today to make up for yesterday's snow day. I put up a few charts and boards and materials, and I created a PowerPoint slide show that has all my kids' names zooming in and out; I figure I'll let it play during conferences, unless it gets annoying.

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Yesterday at the school dinner, the Head's secretary couldn't get over that I'm 37 and not the age that I appear, perhaps 22. She kept asking if I followed rejuvenating regimens. "What vitamins do you take?" she asked.

I said, "Uh, vodka has vitamins, right?"

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My father's health is deteriorating at an exponential rate. He doesn't have control of his bowel functions and can't walk more than ten feet without getting dizzy and tired. I went by after work and helped him around the house, made him some sparse meals, and washed his soiled clothes and sheets. My mother is looking into a rehabilitation center for him --- not a nursing home, but a place where a doctor and a physical therapist strive to get his health up to where he can function at home again.

Part of me feels guilty that I can't take care of him, but he really does need professional help at this point. Like I say, he can't even walk. The hospital's run several tests on him and his doctor says there's nothing organically wrong with him. But clearly, something's not working: he's not getting nutrition from food, or his meds are messing him up (he's currently taking an appetite stimulant, two antidepressants, an antipsychotic, a bladder control med, and antibiotics the size of rifle bullets). Dare we hope that he can get checked into a place that can nurse him back to health and return him, perhaps a bit worse for wear but able to perform the basic tasks of daily survival?

Anyway, I was supposed to meet my realtor tomorrow to sign a lease on that new place, but instead I'm going to the rehabilitation center. If I lose my place in line to lease the house, c'est la vie.