My grandfather worked in a die factory and apparently got stocks as part of employment that he probably forgot about after one of his strokes, if not long before (no one knew about them.) They were in a safe deposit box we did know about. Anyway, given the factory had long since gone away, we figured they weren't worth much. We were surprised to learn that they were worth nearly $20K. The factory had been bought out by one of the manufacturing giants and the buyouts or whatever were still good.

Except for your brother, right?

That was LAST week. I should have stayed in Alabama!

(and it still is great news.)

I'm so happy to hear about your brother's defense and your great trip, sara.

I can't complain about this week except I had another sleepless night last night--and unlike most of the other sleepless ones I was actually trying to sleep--tossing and turning in every possible sleeping spot in my apartment. Didn't get to sleep until about 7am?

Junk Foods That I Think Have Crack In Them: Jack in the Box Taco's

ION: Today my brother sent 27 new photos of my niece, Amelia! Adorable baby picspam has killed me ded. Will post link to share the love and squee worthy baby-ness. (Today's is his 30th birthday and it feels like he sent ME the gift!)

Theo

Breaking news -- Mukasey has finally announced that he's appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the U.S. Attorney firings. Another Cheney/Bush bird coming home to roost....

According to actual wording of the appointment, Mukasey did not appoint a 'real' special prosecutor. Special prosecutor's have additional powers and independence that need to be specifically invoked upon their appointment, and this appointment does not have that language.

So I am unsure if the birds have found the roost yet...

I need to radically rewrite the overview I wrote, which is a stream of consciousness diatribe I can only call Clinton-esque in its unnecessary length and self serving tone.

Possible response: Ha, ha, yes! Now that you mention it, Funk Master George Clinton does tend to go on when he gets a good riff going, and of course like all musical gods he does have a bit of an ego. I know that must be who you mean, because to even suggest anyone else would be so spectacularly inappropriate and unprofessional, right?

Happy New Year to the Jewistas! (that term cracks me up, but not one I think I can use anywhere else.)

OMG! I was supposed to be off today, but my boss asked me to come in because of a deadline. So I arrive at work only to find out some guy in a backhoe has severed our underground network, phone and internet lines. So we can access our local drive and that's it! I find one doc to work on, and spend the rest of the day trying to find some menial tasks to do. But was I sent home? Did my boss give me comments on my deadline driven work to date? All of one. Such a wasted day. Moral of the story: People should not be allowed to operate heavy machinery before 8AM on a Monday.

I can vacuum and mop in 1 hour. Imperfectly, but it is better now.

One of the cool things about getting to see the nephews was seeing how much they really adore each other. T positively lights up when he sees his brother. He will sometimes crawl over and lie against D, resting his head and hugging him, even in the midst of frantic play. D is fiercely protective, and can charm T out of most (but not all) snits just by making faces and noises at him, or otherwise distracting him. He's good at it, too. This isn't to say he doesn't lose patience with him, but he's very gently despite his ire. He's also T's champion. If you dare try to imply that T doesn't understand something, D will tell you CLEARLY that this is not the case. The thing is, he isn't half wrong.

T still isn't walking. He can, he just won't without prodding. There may be a physical issue (when he first started crawling, it was gimpy. He did it on one leg bent and the other straight. Now he uses both. Pede didn't think anything of it, but PJ is concerned.) But D can get him to walk by exaggeratedly walking. T loves to copy his big brother.

I'm pretty sure one of the reasons T so took to me despite last having seen me at 4 months was seeing how D was so happy to see me, and totally at ease with me. (I do think my mom was the teeniest tiny particle of taken aback that T was wary of her at first, and turned to me for reassurance- she saw him only a couple months ago. OTOH, she told me it was really neat to see how much they both clearly like me.)

Hey Seattle people! Anyone know the Skylark Cafe? Turns out I went to high school with the owner.

In other high school/facebook news, this one guy I totally assumed was gay...apparently isn't. Huh. Then I don't know why we never hooked up!

I bought funky vintage glasses at Value Village today. Clio is inspecting them:

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