It's all too quiet. I need to be asleep, but I'm feeling this urge to go out and be with a group of people. I want to be in one of the places where there is dancing in the streets and whoops and hollers from every building. kombu did take noisemakers out on the porch, but the neighbors didn't join in (and I must admit, I didn't either. It was the crowd ( Read more... )

I just called my health insurance company. The card has a local number and a toll free number. It wouldn't make any cost difference to me. I actually found myself pondering, "Would I rather stick the health insurance company with the added cost of paying for my use of their toll free number, or would I rather prevent the phone company from getting ( Read more... )

I have a super full August and September in front of me, work-wise. So Friday before I left my office I made a detailed to-do list for this week . . . and then didn't touch my computer all weekend. I didn't really decide to do it ahead of time, but it just kept not appealing, and I liked the feeling of spending a weekend in the kitchen, the garden ( Read more... )

As Robin said, "Everyone should get an ego trip for their birthday." Along with a splendidly relaxing, tasty and fun day that involved foot rubs, pancakes, brownies, friends taking Nadia for most of the morning, a custom-made shirt with knotweed on it (awesome!), and fireworks without having to drive anywhere, a post of mine on Rooflines (the ( Read more... )

I ended last week all strung out. I'd just gotten myself into a really anxious state about various work projects and impending deadlines and whether I'd taken on too much and being overtired from a couple bad sleep nights and having trouble focusing... And I found myself Thursday night making half-serious comments about bailing on Old Songs. If I ( Read more... )

I don't have time for a full recounting, but here's a few notes:

--Nadia turned two this week, is very proud of it, and enjoyed herself mightily.
--For a toddler birthday party, all you *really* need is a massive room full of balloons.
--For you doubters out there, a helium mylar balloon can in fact be retrieved from a cathedral ceiling by means of ( Read more... )

...because I'm relieved to have just sent off some revisions I thought might forced me to be working on a Friday night...

--sidewalk chalk is a Good Thing, and I am extremely pleased that my daughter, partners, and sister-in-law (and me a little) decorated a large portion of our block last night. (Nadia kept running to the next sidewalk square and ( Read more... )

I haven't been posting much in a while due to a spate of when-it-rains-it-pours work. Specifically a combination of projects I couldn't turn down for money reasons and projects I couldn't turn down for content reasons. Until I hit the point this week where I did actually turn something down I would have really wanted to do. Add in a suddenly ( Read more... )

I went outside Thursday to shovel, not realizing how warm it was, and found that our sidewalk didn't need it. But I've been craving exercise, and so on a whim I went down to clear the annoying, slippery sidewalk in front of the empty house two doors down. It was compacted and heavy and so somewhat slow going, but satisfying ( Read more... )

I'm sitting outside the Ultraviolet cafe, where there is a group of new mothers gathered inside with babies that all look under four months old. Two kids just passed on the street, a girl maybe 10 and a boy maybe 7 ( Read more... )