If its hot out the standby sounds really good. Otherwise: Go Mexican! Choose Mexican!

Definitely money order, Jesse! Or will your bank do the electronic bill pay to real people? Mine will, it just takes like, five days. Which is probably still slower than going and getting a money order.

Sara, how did the tzatziki go?

I just went to three different Staples to stock up on $0.01 pocket folders and $0.01 purrell bottles. You can only get 25 of each item (if you're a teacher) at any given store. Hence my visiting multiple stores.

Tzatziki is ...eh. Not as good as the TJ version, but maybe improving with age. We'll see.

The main impetus for dinner decisions tomorrow is my jesus birthday and I should do something, if only to placate mom, who will call and scold me for not treating myself.

I wrote a bunch of shit and deleted, but the bottom line is: love my parents. Can't believe how lucky I got in them, even with all our faults. Can't imagine a world without them and that scares the shit out of me and leaves me lonely in advance and what I hate about getting older.

Will someone please become my parents before I lose mine to time?!!

Oh, sarameg! Treat yourself indeed! I wish you were closer so we could treat you!

I vote treats for sarameg!

Timelies all,

Been ridonkulously busy lately with job, baby and house.

To briefly sum up:

Job still good, though some of the shine has worn off.

Baby is doing well, getting big and is probably more accurately called a toddler at this point. Where did the last 13 months go?

House is much better than old apartment, but expensive, a lot of work and every new article about the housing market makes me wish we could have held out another 6 months before buying, but it just wasn't possible without getting a bigger interim apartment and moving with a baby once was far more crazy than I ever want to deal with again. Trying to do it twice in one year would have probably killed GF and I, or at least made our brains explode. And Mattias needs his parents to have unexploded brains. (If for no other reason than to make them explode himself when he's a teenager.)

ION, if Hec's around, I was curious to hear his opinion on the Rich Harden trade, since he's the resident baseball guru and (I believe) A's fan.

t skip the rest of this post if you aren't interested in long, drawn-out baseball chatter

I'm kind of cautiously optimistic about it on the Cubs side of thing. The injury problems worry me, especially with the Cubs' ace just coming off the DL for shoulder strain and the years and years of agony we went through with Wood and Prior (which thankfully seems to be over for the former now that he's the closer and is San Diego's problem for the latter.)

I do think the A's got a really good deal on their end. I like both Gallagher and Murton a lot and will really miss having them on the team. Gallagher's got a bright future ahead of him, IMO and I've had a soft spot for Murton ever since my friend Q dubbed him "Weasley" because he looks like a member of that clan. He's a solid player that sadly got shuffled off to the bench after the Cubs paid Soriano way too much money to play his position. He does much better when he gets regular playing time, which I hope the A's will be able to give him.

Patterson has good speed and decent pop in his bat, but the Cubs trying to use him as an outfielder was a disaster.

I've got no opinion on the minor league catcher that got tacked onto the deal, other than I would likely have seen him play this Sunday if the Cubs hadn't traded him. (We're going up to visit my parents in Grand Rapids and seeing a game at the local minor league park while we're up there. The home team is the Tiger's A affiliate and they're playing the Cub's A-level affiliate.)

All that said, the Cubs did need some starting pitching after their number 3 starter imploded his way all the waydown to Rookie-ball and their veteran back-up plan got himself horribly shelled in his only start. The tail end of the rotation has been pretty much patched together since. So if Harden can stay healthy, he'll be a huge boost to the team.

t /long baseball chatter

I will adopt you, sara, but there is that pesky requirement of moving up here. kidding.

pssst sarameg, the only reason she wants to adopt you is the free babysitting.

ION, if Hec's around, I was curious to hear his opinion on the Rich Harden trade, since he's the resident baseball guru and (I believe) A's fan.

Most A's fans feel like the Cubs got the better part of the deal. Harden is quite simply the most dominating pitcher in baseball when he's healthy. I think he's better than Peavy or Webb. But he's rarely healthy (cf., Prior, Woods).

So, his health history is why we couldn't get more. I think the big shocker for A's fans is losing Gaudin as well. He's an excellent pitcher who can be a very good #3 starter, or a shut down middle relief guy. Gaudin's already better than Marquis.

It's tough to lose Harden when you're only a few games out, but realistically we've had too many injuries this year to make the playoffs.

Most A's fans would've been happy with the deal if we'd gotten Vitters. We need an impact bat and we didn't get that. Why get Gallagher when Gaudin is pretty much the same pitcher? (though Gallagher is a bit younger and has more upside) Also we need a shortstop prospect and a third baseman, so we didn't get that either.

Our top draft pick this year is a speedy second baseman whose defense might not keep him in the infield. If that sounds like Patterson then you can feel our shrug.

It's a gamble for the Cubs. Forget the regular season starts, if they can have a healthy Zambrano, Harden, Dempster rotation going into the post-season I'd bet my money on them.

One reason for Cubs fans to feel better about Harden's chances to stay healthy is that he scrapped his split-finger pitch. He only throws his super-plus fastball (which gets up to 98) and his changeup. But he can sink his changeup several different ways and it's just unhittable. It completely disappears.

One constant with the A's trades of the last year is nabbing top prospects who had fallen out of favor. We just got Wes Bankston, and Murton falls into that category. Ditto Ryan Sweeney (who we got for Swisher, and is playing very well for us.) I think they're big believers in talent which has been mishandled and their coaching and catching players before their break-out 27 year.

Also, good to see you Kal!