Notes, almost football free

Meet Tag*.


*As in "Tag! You're now taking care of me."

Tag showed up about a month ago, a small calico with a wounded nose and a good nature. I've been feeding her since. She's a clean cat who helps keep the rat population around our house down. We know this because each rat she catches ends up on our doorstep.

We decided to be responsible and get Tag fixed the other day, only to find out that she'd already been defertilized. This would have been a bigger shock if it hadn't been the second time in my life I'd tried to fix a cat only to discover someone already did.

I don't get the mentality. "There, you're spayed. Now go away and starve to death."


Sam gets haircut, trip to emergency room
Sam's first hair trim wasn't a dramatic, milestone event I think it is for most kids.


This is because Sam doesn't have a lot of hair to begin with. A trip to the barber would've been a waste of money.

The strands he does have, however, were growing long and girly looking, so Mom provided the cutting. She did a good job. He's back to looking manly and ready to shoot something.

Two hours after I put Sam to bed on Saturday, he woke up crying and coughing. And coughing. Then his coughs turned into these ugly sounding things, like his internal organs were fighting with each other.

I got him out of bed. He kept coughing, and wheezing in between.

So figuring it was time for people to start freaking out, I called Meredith. Soon we were driving to the hospital.

Everything was OK. Sam was doing much better before we got to Cooks Children, and a quick examination revealed -- the croup.

Croup makes them bark like a seal and their throat passages swell, making it difficult to breath. The best treatment is to bring the infant out into the cold night air, which we had done by bringing him to the hospital.

He's been a bit stuffy since, but basically fine. The main thing I got out of the experience was the feeling I had sitting in the emergency room -- I felt just like I did when Sam was born, a mental deer-in-the-headlights-of-reality feeling that I had no idea what I was doing. I'm guessing that's never going to go completely away.

Tragedy on the gridiron
The Dallas Cowboys will always be the pro team I care about the most, even if I flirt with other teams from time to time.

Still, I don't have an ET-Elliot kind of connection with them. I don't think I ever could so long as Jerry Jones is the owner.

So it was with this detachment that I was able to laugh at the media mood on Monday morning.

To turn on the radio was to listen to people talk as if they were attending the tragic funeral of a best friend.

"Man ... I just don't know ... how could it ... how could they ... man."

(Personally, I think it's because everyone on that team feels drained by Jerry Jones' 24-hour Funtime Circus.)

Let's hope Romo's pinkie heals soon. It's all that stands between us and mass suicide.