Do the Yak

Two nights in a row with babysitters -- woo hoo! Friday wasn't even our idea -- Sarah and Becky insisted on participating in Fun Night, which is where every few weeks the after-school program keeps the kids from 6-9 pm. and they can watch a movie in their PJs, stuff themselves with pizza and ice cream etc. Good wholesome family fun. Of course Ben and I rae such losers that we wouldn't think of enough to do to fill three whole hours, so we went to dinner and then back home to watch a couple of episodes of "The Odd Couple" (he gave me the first two seasons on DVD for Hanukkah... YESSSSS!) and then went back for the kids. On Saturday we went to a party while by father and stepmother babysat. Once a year a wonderful couple (childless, probably in their late 50s) invites us to their holiday party with excellent South African food, beautiful decor, cosmopolitan and sophisticated guests... I always feel like we're trespassing in the Adult World, but it's great fun. D

Because it's snowing like a bastard. Which actually has nothing to do with Christmas since we almost never get a white Christmas in these parts, but what the hell, it made a good post title. Actually it's MORE unlikely than a white Christmas -- a white week before Christmas when winter hasn't even officially started, but we've already had one storm dumping four inches of slush which froze into Icy Driveway Hill From Hell, plus several sessions of freezing rain resulting in ice coating everything in sight, and now a winter storm that stared at noon and had aleady dumped about five inches of powder by the time I got off the packed and steamy train at 3:30 ( a train that miraculously left Porter Square on time). So here's my Snow Story Thus Far. My workplace had an early dismissal, which is fairly unusual. but so did Ben's, so he picked up the kids, whose school called oh about noon to announce their exciting plan: HEY LET'S CLOSE EARLY NOW INSTEAD OF DECIDING

I bet the bull does, too. Ooo mama, fondle my horns while your breasts assert themselves conically like twin Mt. Kiliminjaros.

For some reason, I've seen several funny blog posts lately that are written from a cat's point of view. The best is probably Finslippy 's highly aroused feline, just before the cat's nascent sex life is about to come to a screeching halt. There's also Blueloggy 's cat's nighttime ritual. As an owner of Milo, the very large and very vocal part Maine coon cat, this all sounds terribly familiar. If I were to record Milo's nighttime chatter, it would probably be something like: "Hi! Here I am! I love you, which you can tell by the high-volume purring! Mind if I make myself comfortable? Fine, whatever. Getting comfortable, as you know, requires me to stick my butt in your face, or at least in close proximity thereto. Yeah, well, same to you, buddy! Oop, you just tossed me off the bed. That's gonna cost you a 3 a.m. visitation, compliments of the house. OK, so now we're done with the button-ing )as in 'button the face'), we're ready t

Joy Unexpected , one of the blogs I read regularly, recently held a contest where entrants had to say one random thing about themselves. Here are some of my favorite entries (you can see all of them here ): I am addicted to Yahtzee. I have an unnatural fear of eucalyptus trees. The summer after my freshman year in college, I had a hairdresser die in the middle of my haircut. I am 35 but still have three baby teeth in my mouth. There are no adult teeth to take their place. I am supposed to use a child's toothbrush to brush them but seldom do. I married my ex-boyfriend's ex-wife's ex-husband. I hope that my son is gay so that his boyfriends will go shopping with me, and have me over for dinner. I have it all planned out. I've cut off three of the fingers on my right hand. In separate incidents. And by "cut off" I mean severed. All have been re-attached and are (relatively) functional. I've always wanted to be feisty. I'm working on that now. I enjoy eati

When kitsch becomes art I had this radio in 1975. It was bright blue. It didn't matter that it only got AM stations because, well, what was there on FM that could compete with Dale Dorman on "68-R-K-OOOOOO!" It had a special place in my heart because it was the only time I ever won something in a raffle -- at my eighth-grade graduation party in the town hall function room (good times!). I don't have it any more, but I and my friends laughed at the memory of how quintessentially '70s it was. Now it's in the Museum of Modern Art . Go figure. Hitching a ride The scene: Brighton, late 1986. I was sharing an apartment in a neighborhood notorious for being a student ghetto and also for having very little on-street parking, so this meant you grabbed the first spot you could find when you came home from work and you did NOT go out at night in your car, because by the time you got back, the nearest parking would be in the next county. Anyway, one Saturday my car was

This was forwarded from a friend of mine by a one of her relatives. It's a bit late for Halloween , but I pass it on in the spirit of ecumenism: Being a Christian is like being a pumpkin. God lifts you up, takes you in, and washes all the dirt off of you. He opens you up, touches you deep inside and scoops out all the yucky stuff—including the seeds of doubt, hate, greed, etc. Then He carves you a new smiling face and puts His light inside you to shine for all the world to see. This was passed on to me from another pumpkin. Now it is your turn to pass it to a pumpkin. I liked this enough to send it to all the pumpkins in my patch. As long we we're on the topic of autumn, I've got to say that I've never enjoyed the fall foliage as much as I have this year. They (or I) don't call it Leafy Suburb for nothing. Even though I grew up here, I was far too unobservant and/or cynical to care how beautiful the maples get. In fact I always felt a well concealed contempt for adu

Roll 'em This is all I'll have to say about the 2007 Red Sox, I promise. A friend of a friend attended the "Rolling Rally" and took some excellent photos, which you can see here , here , here , here and here . O the horraw, the horraw... I'm sure I was almost asked to leave work the other day due to excessive muffled snorts of laughter when I saw this blog post concerning 1970s fashions. In the same spirit as my all-time favorite, the 1970s Weight Watchers recipes . I found a Weight Watchers cookbook from a slightly later era at my mother-in-law's house and I keep meaning to scan and post some of the more egregious items. Where are Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss when you need them? I feel unaccountably irritated when I see a shark biker. This is what I call those urban bicyclists who are simply unable to come to a complete stop and put one foot on the ground while waiting at a red light. No, they have to circle slowly in the vicinity of their corner becau

The Series Sox win Series in sweep. The Rockies never knew what hit them. Read all about it. A-Rod He opts out of his Yankees contract at $25 million per (and reportedly an offer of an extension at around $30 million per) because he apparently thinks he can get more money elsewhere. Or because his trusted agent Scott Boras has been huffing nitrous nonstop these past few weeks. Hard to say at this point. Oh yeah, and Boras announces it in the 8th inning of Game 4, pissing absolutely everybody off but getting maximum attention, which was always his plan despite his disingenuous apology afterwards. The rolling rally We walked to Mass. Ave. and Boylston and were rewarded by duck boats, confetti and our heroes backlit by a warm autumn sun. Paps was dancing on the Dropkick Murphys flatbed truck. I cheered wildly when I saw Jacoby Ellsbury, Theo Epstein, Terry Francona, John Henry, Kevin Youkilis, Tim Wakefield, Oil Can Boyd (whom I couldn't actually see, but his name card was on the ol

Last night's 2-1 victory obviously had a different than Game 1, but the end result was just as sweet. If they win two more games (a big if, of course), this time I'm going to the victory parade. Last time I was stuck in the Deep South and the extent of our celebration was Ben pouring beer on my head in our living room right after Mientkiewicz gloved the final out. Perusing boston.com's Red Sox section is such a pleasure, even the nerdy stuff like the 89 Photoshopped images (as of this morning) sent in by readers. I'll spare you the cheesier ones; the best are takeoffs on movie posters, beer, batteries and of course digs at the Yankees and Indians: Riverdance The Departed Energizer Gone Baby Gone The Usual Suspects Star Trek Escape From New York

I just found out on Maternally Challenged that today is "Blog for the MOTHERS Act Day" ( Senate bill 1375 -- the cutesy acronym stands for Mom’s Opportunity to Access Help, Education, Research, and Support for Postpartum Depression). I had no idea this bill existed until about 20 minutes ago, but I sure as hell hope it passes, because it will provide education, screening and treatment for a condition that's more common than one might think. Many people wind up getting political about issues that have affected them personally, and I'm no exception. I first mentioned my tale of woe here , and all I can say is thank God for on-call mental health professionals who prescribe powerful anti-anxiety medications to strangers sobbing on the phone at 6 a.m., because I honestly don't know what I would have done otherwise. Hindsight is always 20-20 but I sure wish that (1) I hadn't stopped taking Prozac when I got pregnant, (2) I knew at the time that it wasn't just

After last night's World Series game 1, all I can say is wow. Now that was just embarrassing, and for once I say that in reference to the Red Sox opponents -- in this case the Colorado Rockies, who had won 21 of their last 22 games and swept both of their playoff series. Let's see: after five innings the score was 13-1 (also the final score), and in that span the Sox left 10 on base, hit eight doubles and scored nine runs when there were two out. The Rockies starter, Jeff Francis, threw 103 pitches in four innings and gave up six earned runs and 10 hits. The next guy was in the game for two-thirds of an inning and gave up six hits, seven earned runs, a walk and a balk. And the next guy came in with the bases loaded, faced three batters... and walked all of them. See what I mean by embarrassing? Our starting pitcher was a little better -- Beckett struck out the side in the first and two more in the second. In our last four games we've outscored the opponents by a total of

That old familiar sinking sensation I refer of course to the Red Sox, who as we speak are down two games to one in the ALCS against the Indians. Josh Beckett is a god, as he showed in Game 1 and in the ALDS (we demolished the Angels in three straight), but now the offense has vanished and the pitching is shaky. And for some reason Francona is having Wakefield start tonight rather than Beckett on three days' rest (which would also have him ready for a Game 7 on regular rest). Why is Wakefield starting? Why does Dice-K now suck? Why is Gagne even on this post-season roster? Why do we care? Why, why, why? Deep thoughts I've been reading Larry Sievers' blog on the NPR web site and it made me realize that the whole notion of predicting a life span "time limit" based on a certain diagnosis is questionable, because there is so much variation depending on each person's individual body chemistry and response to the many types of treatments (and new ones appearing all

As a former reporter, my name has been in the paper lots of times above the articles I wrote, but this may be the first time I've been at least partially the subject of an article, or in this case a graphic artist's layout. (OK, the second time, but I'll get back to that.) The graphic artist in question, Greg Williams, found my post on spam poetry a while back and e-mailed to ask if he could use it in a page design he was doing for the Tampa Tribune. I said sure, and here's the result . Greg also does Wikiworld , a feature on Wikipedia where he uses his talents to illustrate random entries in that vast online encyclopedia. The first time my name got into a paper that wasn't my employer was in a Dave Barry column, believe it or not. It had to do with an article I sent him (yes, I was identified as an "alert reader"!) about little flexible robots that engineers were designing to, um, use the basement entrance to explore one's colon from the inside and i

The Red Sox just got swept in Toronto. Their 14.5 game lead of late May over the Yankees is down to one and a half games. New York, of course, swept Baltimore and has won 12 of their last 14, including two out of three against the Sox last weekend. That series included a nasty 8-7 loss on Friday, courtesy of flameouts by Okajima and Papelbon, who between them gave up six runs in the 8th; a satisfying 10-1 stomping at Beckett's hands on Saturday; and an excellent game with the wrong outcome – a pitcher's duel on Sunday between Schilling and Clemens culminating in a 4-3 loss after Schill gave up a three-run homer to Jeter in the 8th. In the Toronto series they just plain sucked. The Sox scored all of four runs in the three games. Meanwhile, there was another horrific outing from Gagne, who was brought in on Tuesday to protect a 2-1 lead in the 8th but coughed up three runs, and another collapse by Papelbon, who likewise entered the 8th in Wednesday's game with a 2-1 lead and

This is the second week of our new morning routine – waiting for the bus with the kids, waving goodbye to them through the windows, driving through leafy suburbia to the train station, and taking a commuter train and then the subway to work. I really like it. I like not having the hassle of bucking the kids into the car, driving them to two different schools, trying to find parking, etc. And I really like not having to then drive another 30-40 minutes through rush hour traffic to get to work. Even though my commute doesn't really save any time over driving, the mental health benefits are huge. I don't have to be constantly alert for lights turning yellow, other drivers doing something stupid, or a sudden burst of annoying music or blah-blah on the radio. I can now sit on an extremely quiet train, sip coffee and read or listen to my iPod. The time passes quickly... it's almost soothing. This morning it was kind of chilly (low 40s) so I can see where waiting for the train wit

To me, this is the most haunting and horrible part of 9/11 -- the people above the floors where the planes hit, unable to escape , forced by heat and smoke into a desperate decision . None of them survived. Many of other images from that day – including the the planes hitting ( American 11 and, 17 minutes later, United 175 ) – still seem surreal, perhaps even more so six years later. I can't help looking again at these pictures , reading the timeline and pondering the statistics . I even found this video and watched it, though it's labeled "graphic" and I suspect a lot people would refuse to do so if given the chance, just as many Americans were outraged by the publication of this famous photo of an unidentified man falling – a photo that doesn't identify the subject or show any grisly details of injury or death. Why are people upset at seeing an image of a real person about to die (and die with some dignity resulting from their conscious decision, one might

I got a little ahead of myself yesterday in discussing the first day of school without recounting the previous week, when I took vacation time but didn't actually go anywhere -- a first in my adult life. We were thinking of gong to Jersey, but Ben's father and stepmother visited us over the first weekend to see the new house, so it seemed redundant to follow them back down to their place and risk driving back on Labor Day weekend. So we just hung out. Fortunately the weather cooperated -- it was sunny all week (and in fact, all month). We didn't sit at home the whole time, though. One day we went to Horseneck Beach, which was fabulous. The water was warm enough to swim in for extended periods, which is why I opted for a beach south of the Cape rather than Crane Beach in Ipswich -- nice dunes but freezing water and it costs and arm and a leg to park. Anyway, the water was great, with little waves just the right size, quality sand for castles, and a snack bar so we could mun

Memmmm-'ries... like the corners of my school... when we started kindergarten... in the leafy 'burbs... That's my lame segue into saying that Becky started kindergarten today and Sarah started second grade, both at the same school I attended. A lot has changed, of course -- buildings have been renovated and repurposed, and all the teachers I had are probably dead of old age or pretty close to it. There is now a preschool and an after-school program, ID cards for the teachers and bus passes for the kids, fences around the playgrounds, no more seesaws (fractured cervical vertebrae, anyone?), and even air conditioning in some places. And of course everything has shrunk. But every so often I see something specific that's exactly the same, like a concrete bench or a climbing structure that's survived on one of the playgrounds. Then there are times that seeing something recalls a memory of a specific incident. For example, seeing the strip of classrooms next to the parkin

Today is Becky's last day of preschool. We're picking her up in an hour or so, and I don't know what to expect. Gales of tears wouldn't surprise me, but on the other hand she understands this is her last day and seems genuinely excited about kindergarten, so we'll see. Except for Monday, this is also the last week I'll be driving to work every day. I'm going in for a commuter rail pass even though it will probably take a few more minutes and saves little if any money, because it will certainly mean less wear and tear on the car, and less aggravation from fighting traffic, when instead I'll be sitting in a beautifully appointed railway car, listening to mind-improving podcasts or meditation tapes or Spanish lessons. Or maybe just sitting next to a fat business guy hollering on his cell phone and dripping melted snow all over me as I try unsuccessfully not to slump against the greasy window while my eyes keep drooping shut because I forgot the travel mug o

#1: An informed, cogent explanation about why invading Iraq would be a bad idea ... by Dick Cheney in 1998. Seriously. #2: The brood sow is still at it. Welcome, Duggar child #17 -- another soldier for Christ. But see, there's a problem -- they have ten boys but only seven girls. "We would certainly be open to having more children," said proud papa Jim Bob. "The girls want to catch up with the boys now." Fortunately everything runs smooth as silk thanks to a household schedule and remembering the JOY rule (Jesus first, Others second and Yourself last). No comment. but I really can't wait until the complete biography by Kitty Kelly comes out in a few years after she finishes interviewing the grown kids . I can't even imagine how they will look back on their childhoods. #3: It never ceases to amaze me that some of the most analytical and best-educated people in the world also carry around a broken set of mental machinery when it comes to thinking about

Sarah just turned seven years old. She's grown so fast -- seems like just yesterday she was saying her first sentence ("Bye-bye, da bird!") and now she's a beautiful girl who loves playing Sudoku and Set , swimming, reading Junie B. Jones books, wearing headbands, and anything princess-related. She and I are looking forward with excitement and some nervousness to starting second grade in our new town, riding a school bus and making new friends. We recently heard that a widow down the road sold her house to a family with several girls, so hopefully there will be nearby playmates for both Sarah and Becky. But I am NOT projecting my social anxiety onto them, no sirree. Becky is also looking forward to kindergarten, though I fear it will be more of a wrench for her because she will be in preschool right up until a week or so before school starts. So the transition from her old school and friends to an entirely new experience will be more sudden. I just hope she has less s

GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS The bad news: we had two sets of tickets to two different Red Sox games this summer. The bad news: we (I) lost them in the move. The good news: my friend D. gave me her other standing-room ticket to a recent game. The bad news: it rained all afternoon and was still raining when we got to Fenway , but we wanted to see where we would have been watching from, so we went in anyway. The good news: the tickets were for the third-base pavilion, way up high and under a light structure -- a fabulous view plus a nearby new and clean restroom and concession stand that wasn't mobbed by 33,000 fellow fans. Plus during the rain delay, they showed Red Sox compilation clips (I would not call them "music videos") on the big screen accompanied by each song from the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper," as this summer is the 40 th anniversary of the album's release. Unexpectedly excellent sound quality, and the orchestral crescendo at the end of "A Day in th

Loved the article in today's Globe abut the death-sensing cat . He lives in a nursing home and jumps on the beds of patients who are about to pop their clogs -- not those with a simple case of the dwindles (which would be pretty much all of them) or just starting to circle the drain. "Oscar makes regular 'inspection' rounds of the unit, sauntering in and out of patient rooms -- as if checking on the condition of the occupants. But he never joins them for a snooze. Until. "He only shows great interest in individuals when they are about to die," said Dosa. "Sounds like a pretty scary cat -- I'm surprised people don't hold up crucifixes when it enters a room," Dodman said jokingly, referring to the belief that a Christian cross will deter vampires. It's touching and morbidly funny at the same time. The staff love it because they know when Oscar jumps on a bed, it's time to call the relatives toute de suite to say goodbye. Images courte

Just recently I wrote about the fear of losing Sarah's most precious possession. I guess it's the way these things work -- a few days later we were visiting G. in her assisted-living place, Sarah opened her little bag and burst into tears when she found it empty. No collection of hair bands but more importantly, no Peeper. Because it was Family Day, we'd had to park on a busy street a few minutes' walk from the place because their parking lot was full. So while Ben tried to comfort Sarah, I immediately retraced out steps to the car, on the off-chance that she had actually left the stuff there . I hadn't gotten far when I saw a blue hair band lying on the sidewalk. And then a pink elastic. And then another. It was like Hansel following the breadcrumbs. Obviously her bag had come open as she trotted along, and it was only half an hour ago, so Peeper HAD to be here somewhere. I forced myself to walk slowly and swing my gaze from left to right so as not to miss any bit

The kids seem to be enjoying our new house, and they certainly love the ol' swimming hole we can walk to. They can splash around for hours in there. I love the water too, but now I'm a boring grownup and I don't seem to want to splash around for hours but would rather take a dip and then go lie on the beach. We had a real nice time there two weekends ago with a family from our previous town who have two kids roughly Sarah and Becky's age. We met them at school through the kids, obviously, which is apparently the only way to make new adult friends once you're a parent, but that's OK. The only drawback to the new place from the kids' standpoint is that it's bigger and has higher ceilings, which means it's echoey and hard to locate the source of a sound or make yourself heard at the other end of the house even at top volume. So when we're all at home with the adults are puttering somewhere and the kids playing, quite often the kids, especially Bec

Bumper stickers seen on an SUV on a highway adjacent to our leafy (i.e., white, prosperous, liberal) suburb: " Your marriage doesn't need a DIVORCE, it needs JESUS " [caps not mine] and " The Supreme Court opens with a prayer – why can't schools?" It was a bit unreal, seeing 1) those political sentiments prominently in our notoriously liberal area, 2) seeing them just as I passed the gigantic Mormon temple in Belmont and of course thought of Mitt Romney, and 3) noticing that the driver of the SUV was an African-American woman, a species also rarely sighted in these parts, unfortunately. Reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw when I lived in Somerville, traditionally a blue-collar suburb of Boston so you might expect more conservative sentiments, but still... " I'll forgive Jane Fonda when the Jews forgive Hitler ." This was in the mid-1990s, a good 20 years after the Vietnam War ended, but some people find it difficult to move on, I guess. Aroun

OK, so maybe I read too many "mommy blogs" but only the funny ones, including Finslippy, who is usually funny but last week almost made me cry right there in my office because her post could just as easily have been about Sarah and Peeper, or Becky and Blanket Bear who once upon a time was pink but is now grayish and worn with love. I've had to re-sew his "ties" (the ribbon around his neck) several times because they tend to come loose with all the fondling and once the whole ribbon came off and Becky burst into tears, which made me leap into action with needle and thread and sew that sucker on so tight it's not coming off again ever. Likewise, the satiny heart on his front has needed restitching from time to time. Once we left Blanket Bear in a Toys R Us in the Deep South but fortunately realized it after only a few minutes had passed, so we burned rubber turning around and dashed back into the store to check the floor in every aisle. No luck. I was terrif

Yes, I am still alive, and happily ensconced in the Leafy Suburb, surrounded by only a few unpacked boxes but still feeling very transitional. I'm an old hand at moving and settling in to new places, but maybe this time there's more self-induced pressure to feel blissfully at home because this is, after all, our Forever House, and a wonderful house it is. But I'm not quite there yet, maybe just because not enough time has passed or because our pictures, rugs and some other things are still in boxes, or because this is the nicest house I've ever lived in and I feel guilty about getting fingerprints on Our Nice New Whatever while thousands of people in Darfur and such places do not have wall-to-wall bedroom carpeting and sparkling water-efficient new toilets and recessed lighting and a view of trees, trees everywhere. I find myself focusing on the few things that are still lacking, like grass instead of the rocks, weeds and random nails and other construction scraps still

1. What the world eats . This is an amazing set of photos, not for the visual qualities of the photos themselves -- the composition, lighting, etc. is almost identical for all -- but for the information they offer when taken as a set. You notice the quantity of food per person, of course, but also the shocking ratio of fresh produce to packaged crap for the Americans and western Europeans. It's suddenly easy to see why Americans are overweight -- overabundance and taste buds deformed by industrial food manufacturing. 2. Still creepy after all these years... and now it's the hair and the cachexia , not the mascara: Yep, that's Tammy Faye Bakker, ex-wife of the disgraced televangelist, gay icon and 65-pound end-stage cancer patient . 3. A recent favorite: Passive-aggressive notes from roommates, neighbors, coworkers and strangers . In my own experience (or actually that of two good friends of mine in college), the best was a note from their roommate that had nothing passive

We have T-minus seven days. All systems go. Pre-launch checklist items completed: grouting on slate tile in entryway and screened porch bedroom carpeting fully functional appliances (fridge churning out ice cubes; toilets duly tested by family members) home sound system (thanks, Ben!) grounds purged of Dunkin Donuts cups, cigarette butts and miscellaneous cement chunks So it looks like a real house that you could live in and stuff. Actually more like a extra large hotel suite, because it lacks those personal touches of furniture, artwork, newspapers affixed to the counter with maple syrup, Legos and Polly Pockets underfoot, etc. A bit more grouting here and there, install shower enclosures, put urethane on the stairs and we're DONE. As we prepare for the move, I have acquired two new loves: Craigslist and The Container Store . With the help of Craigslist, I sold the dining set, slightly rusted Paddy O'Forniture and futon couch, with ads still pending for a couple of other thi

I keep meaning to talk up GoodReads .com, which you may have noticed on the right-hand side of this page. It's a place where you list the books you're reading, the ones you plan to read, the ones you've loved in the past, etc. Of course being a web thing, there are ample opportunities for discussion and social networking, but I'm not bothering so much with that. It's like this blog -- I'm doing it more for record-keeping, to look back on in amazement and probably embarrassment in future years, rather than expecting a lot of people to read or comment on it now. It does have one practical use, which is that if I'm ever in a library and my mind goes blank, I can log on and figure out what books I've been meaning to read. For years I carried around a paper list of books and movies I'd heard of and intended to get, so I didn't have to wander aimlessly among New Releases when I found myself in a bookstore or video store. I don't need to do this any

Recently I bought several new summer shirts from Kohls.com (best prices anywhere!). One of them was sitting in our bedroom for several days and the kids kept begging me to wear it, so today I did. You have to use the zoom feature on that link to get the full effect, but it's worth it. I think. This shirt, it has a name: Spotty Dot. Its subtle yet eye-straining pointillist pattern evokes responses such as Becky's "Wow! Your shirt is so... obstacle course-y!" I reckon this is the closest I will come to evoking raw emotional reactions (swoons of desire AS IF, choked laughter, etc.) with just my clothing, which for me aims to provide camoflage and protection from the elements, nothing more. Why embarrass yourself with your own clothes when quasi-celebrities do such a good job of it themselves, and blow through a lot more money doing so? I'm thinking specifically of Caprice and Hofit Golan . I've never heard of either of them, but I do so love their outfits.

Because those damn soldiers are drinkin' up all our tax dollahs and consortin' wiv loose wimmin!

First I have to apologize in advance (mostly to myself) for what may be some infrequent posting in the next month, since as is often the case with us, several time-consuming events are converging: (a) the school year ending for two kids, meaning tons of family-teacher picnics and concerts and whatnot; (b) enrolling both kids in a new school; (c) packing up a house we've lived in for two years; and (d) moving into a swell new house on -- yes, it's official -- June 19, 2007. Plus coping with Ben's mother, although this has actually gotten a lot less time-consuming since moved into assisted living. We spend more time visiting her than when she lived in New Jersey, but less time worrying about her and (in Ben's case) spending hours on the phone with caregivers. On that front, everything is going quite well. Everyone who has called or visited G. has commented on how much happier and engaged she seems than when she was home alone. They have lots of activities and her being a