At least it's not a mysterious white powder

I process most of the payments by mail made to Toddler Bank. Today, in an envelope containing a perfectly normal check and payment notice, I also received seven curious slips of paper, each about two and a half inches wide, and a third of an inch tall. Dotted lines ring each one; they look like they've been cut along the dotted lines from a photocopied piece of paper. Each as a word or phrase on it. They read as follows:

Fever
Sucks thumb
Attends a daycare center five days a week
Four years old
Diarrhea
Recently swam in a local pond
Nausea and vomiting

It's almost like they're pieces from some peculiar medical diagnostic game. I have no idea what they're supposed to mean. One of my co-workers suggested that the envelope had been storing many of these, and the customer hadn't emptied it completely before putting the payment inside and mailing it.

So: what sort of purposes (nefarious and otherwise) can you imagine for slips of paper like these?

(no subject)

Bastards.

Something to say

I want to say more than this, more than just "bastards, which isn't enough to convey how I feel (isn't there enough pain and grief in the world enough earthquakes and pipeline explosions and volcanos to satisfy their lust for death why do they need to make more).

I feel angry and powerless, and I don't want simply to turn away, to say "not my problem". It's my problem. It's everyone's problem, if only just a little.

I keep thinking of this story, that I believe koogrr pointed me to a long time ago. Some images stay with you. This one stayed with me. After 9/11, a lot of people in many countries showed support for the US. But this one, in particular, I remember. Because these were people half a world away, who probably think of America as a place unimaginably wealthier than they are. Who should've thought, "Wow, what a tremendous and terrible loss. There's nothing we could do that would make a difference." But they did something anyway. And you know what?

It made a difference.

At least to me.

I want to make a difference. I want to write something stirringly eloquent for them. I want to dust off my decade-old terrible Spanish and say something that would help, if only a little. Something to let the people in Madrid know that they aren't alone, that a whole world full of good, decent people is with them, grieving for their loss, and condemning the terrorists that did this to them.

The Spanish equivalent of "I'm sorry" is "Lo siento. That literally means, "I feel it." I always liked that phrase better than "I'm sorry", beca use it captures that empathy. Lo siento is not 'Whoops, my bad' but 'I sorrow for your loss'. The latter is much more eloquent.

Lo siento.

For most of the the last two and a half years, I've worn red, white, and blue ponytail holders at the end of my braid. You know. I never used to think the American colors went very well together, but then I decided that a little patriotism goes with everything.

I think tomorrow, I'll wear red and yellow, instead.

I don't know that I can do anything useful.

But I can try.