So, we've apparently had a "hardware failure" of our "storage device,"

Fridge broke.

Cardboard box fell apart.

There are two hung over 19 year olds in Ellie's bedroom. I need to pack for our trip tomorrow. Is 10am late enough to let them sleep?

So, we've apparently had a "hardware failure" of our "storage device,"

Wheel fell off.

(that was an actual failure that happened on one of our storage devices. Every time we had to report it in official meetings, we'd get the giggles.)

Is 10am late enough to let them sleep?

Seriously? In a house with two small children, they're lucky they slept past 6. IMO.

Fridge broke.

Cardboard box fell apart.

I wish.

I have a terrible urge to hunt down the bacon chocolate. I tried to buy it today from Surfas, but they didn't have it. I may have to run out to Whole Foods, especially since I also want to see if they have lavender there (I found a lavender shortbread recipe that I need to make). Obsession is an ugly thing.

If you can't find any in the next few days and are still obsessed, let me know and I can send you some. My friend carries it at her shoe/chocolate store. I like it well enough but it's milk chocolate which I'm kind of eh on. If it was dark chocolate I'd need to have it every day.

My bike teammate made lavendar shortbread cookies for our fundraising bakesale this past weekend and they went over very well. I'm not crazy about lavendar in baked goods but those who like it loved the cookies.

I am looking for a place to buy/look at these hooded sweatshirts that I see all the city kids wearing here.

Maybe Torrid? I haven't been there in a while but it seems like the kind of thing they'd have.

Seriously? In a house with two small children, they're lucky they slept past 6. IMO.

This is my opinion as well.

Well, I haven't made any effort to keep Ellie quiet or anything. I just wondered if the parent in me was making me unusually unsympathetic.

(Joe got up at 3am to go pick them up. I never would have but he knows their parents. One of the four went off with some guy and didn't come home until 8am. Joe was not happy - not because she hooked up with a guy but because she went off with him, alone, in a strange city, while he sat in the car waiting for her while Ellie had a fever at home.)

ION, it's been five years since the invasion of Iraq. Why do people still call it a "war" instead of an "occupation"?

I'll take a guess, at least from my POV. I think of an "occupation" as relatively peaceful. The locals may or may not like it very much, but they live with it. I think of the post-WWII occupations of Germany and Japan.

If there's shootin', it's a "war." Or at the very least, not an "occupation."

2 hours of sleep interrupted by a wake-up call from a highly sugared child sounds about right in that case, Stephanie. Break out the Fruity Pebbles.