Long division may be hazardous to your health

...at least if you're trying to stir-fry dinner at the same time.


Especially using bacon grease, which, FYI, gets extremely hot.


And then when your fourth-grader asks you to talk him through his long division, and you turn away to do so, and then you turn back and foolishly drop a bunch of meat into the pan without thinking, bacon grease makes neat little splatter-mark burns on your arm.


I took a picture to demonstrate, but then I decided a) friends don't post gross pictures of their wounds, and, anyway, b) it didn't look as bad in the picture as it felt in real life, so it wouldn't evoke an appropriate amount of pity.


What may evoke pity is pointing out that I took Ada to her 11:15 appointment at the dreary eye clinic last week, and we waited 87 minutes before seeing the (resident) doctor.  That's 87 minutes of looking at orange linoleum and scraggly potted plants, playing tic-tac-toe, and watching generations of patients get called before us.


At 12:42 we were called in, having missed the time any normal person would eat lunch, and got to see the resident for a whopping 11 minutes.


Even though I specifically asked last time if I should make the appointment time closer to 1:00, when the real more experienced doctor arrives, I was told that Noooooo, we only need to see the resident.


It took him 11 minutes to decide we needed to see the real doctor.


(Actually, I suspect he intended to have us see the real doctor all along, which is why our appointment time was ignored.)


Although it was now 12:53, I informed him that we would be leaving to eat lunch and we would come back when we were done.


We didn't hurry.


Back in the clinic, we waited another 15 minutes, after which we spent 15 more minutes with the experienced doctor, who determined right away that Ada's lump has disappeared and no formal treatment is necessary.


I was profoundly grateful that I was with Ada and not Lizzy, or--heaven forbid--Caleb.

Ada and I had a nice time at the Mellow Mushroom and indulged in gigantic chocolate cookies for dessert.

I figured we earned it.  In fact, I'm pretty sure the clinic should pay us instead of the other way around.