Healing- and dealing-ma, please, for a little boy who I taught last year. (This year I'm teaching his year group, but not his class.) He is eight, and one of the most AWESOME kids, very kind and sunny and sensible and hardworking and just altogether great - one of those kids who gets on with everyone, and is always helpful and mature and fun and just fab. His little sister is six, and sounds to be cut from the same cloth.

At the weekend, out of the blue, their dad died. Today they are at school.

a bit of ma~~~ for my DH ( Matt) today he is doing third round interviews for a co. the first was 10am , then he has one at 4pm and the last one at 1pm tomorrow. Everything looks positive, we just want a little more positive energy. He'd like to be working again.

I have an author who will be visiting San Diego and LA next week and who may need to be able to pick up books in one of those cities (but hasn't told me which yet). Is there any Buffista in either of those cities willing to take delivery of the books and either let him pick them up at your home or meet you somewhere to hand them off? I'm pretty sure he'd give you an autographed copy, and I promise he's not an axe murderer (he just plays one on TV). Profile addy is good if you can help.

Hello. I'm having a belated birthday party on Sunday, March 1. If you're a Boston-Area Buffista, want to come and have not already been invited, it wasn't intentional. Honest! Send me an email and I'll forward the deets.

t edit Also let me know if you're on Facebook.

job ma~~ for my Dh , Matt , today please. He is supposed to hear today about the co he has been interviewing with .

Interview-ma for me in two hours? Most importantly, could it be interview-ma that this job be quite clear whether I want it or not (and of course, if I do want it that they want me). Since I already have a job, I want this interview to not make me all wishy-washy, but to be like "dude, these people are awesome!" or "nahh, they're crazy and I'd hate them and they'd hate me", and not some vast middle ground of "well, *maybe* I should work there".

So, um, clarity-ma, as well, I guess...:)

As Firefly fans are spread hither and yon on the thread, thought I'd post this here:

Help NASA name Node 3

NASA wants your opinion in naming the International Space Station’s Node 3 – a connecting module and its cupola – before the two segments travel to space and are installed on the orbiting laboratory. The name should reflect the spirit of exploration and cooperation embodied by the space station, and follow in the tradition set by Node 1- Unity- and Node 2- Harmony.

The choices are:
Earthrise
Legacy
Venture
SERENITY

So it looks like one more interview with this co. that makes 10th person he will have interviewed with . But actually, given what this co wants to do -- all these interviews make sense. we are cautiously hopeful. Matt will be interviewing around 2 ( board time) tomorrow.

Some ~ma for my dad tomorrow would be very welcome. He's been having severe problems with the circulation in his hands, which has led to things being very painful, having sores that won't heal, etc. He's going in for a procedure tomorrow that may help clear things up.

He seems very sanguine about it all, but given that he makes his living through his art, this is all very scary and worrisome.

Releasing most of the jobma~~~ except the smooth transition part. Matt got a formal offer from the place of a billion interviews and has accepted it.