Mmmmm, strawberry cheesecake. And I'm in favor of mmmmm peace as well. Peace should be yummy, I assume. I mean, I'm dying to visit Damascus and Beirut and have hummus there, and I'm not even a hummus person.

Fay, that skirt looks WONDERFUL. I love the color.

As for the "in my prayers" expression: as a person who defines herself as mostly secular, I'm having troubles with that as well. Mostly at times like this I think it could have been easier, or more comforting, if I were brought up more religiously and could use praying. But I think that the times I think of my sister, or my friends, or the most pray-ey incident recently, when sirens caught me and my parents in a car in Be'er Sheva and all I could think/feel was "please God, not here, not now", especially for my sister's sake. And I'd like to believe that counts as well, although I'm sure it's mostly my survival instincts (I'm including emotional survival) "talking". Because "I'm taking you in account (wrong term?)" sounds too cold, but that's actually what I'm doing, from my hyper-rational perspective. I'm including something extra in (into?) my personal account.

That makes sense?

Heh.

Seems like sirens were heard in Jerusalem as well few minutes ago. By mistake.

I'm saying "seems like" because I NEVER HEARD ANY FREAKING SIRENS. I only know of it because they announced the "oops, it was a mistake, you can go back to routine" now. Oh, how nice of them, they keep repeating it.

F'ing situation. And I'm hungry.

F'ing situation.

Wrod.

Shir, I hate to sound like a dumb block of wood, and this is truly a question that reflects my ignorance, but when Israel warns the people in Gaza to get out, where can they go?

My DH adds this morning, with his sad voice, "the magazine this month has nothing on the Middle East. There is no arms control in the Middle East." (He's the managing editor for a non-profit that publishes something called Arms Control Today.)

ION, his alma matter is having a conference here in DC in which Jeffrey Eugenides is appearing and for once I'm sorely tempted to be a alum-spouse.

have even switched the AC off several times!

Those of us with below-freezing temperatures (and below-zero wind chills) are shaking our (frozen) fists in the general direction of Thailand. (Also in the general direction of Santa Ana, because NPR informed me this morning that Santa Ana hit 87 yesterday. My heart BLEEDS. Or it *would,* if it weren't FROZEN.)

(Can you tell I hate winter? It's a plague, I tell you what.)

Those of us with below-freezing temperatures (and below-zero wind chills) are shaking our (frozen) fists in the general direction of Thailand.

If it helps at all, the last two days in Melbourne were over 100F. (Tomorrow's promising a rather more reasonable mid-70s. It's been a remarkably mild summer so far overall.)

If it helps at all, the last two days in Melbourne were over 100F.

Well, you folks in that hemisphere are just messed up. I mean, your water doesn't even drain the right way....

the Wincest train

Oh dear. I mean, I've been staying away from the fandom since I'm (as usual) WAY behind on the viewing. But for obvious reasons I'm a little horrified at this phrase.

I'm just going to hide out in the corner here for a little bit. My DH just got home from a 32-hour flight back from B-dad, asked about my car, was in the middle of yelling at me (technically, *near* me) about the $1600 of brake work I'd just had done, when Mal piped up with "The big truck hit your car, Daddy!"

So I didn't get to manage the information flow, and things are a bit tense.

And I just found out that, while my job doesn't have the day off, Mal's daycare will be closed for the zombie apocalypse Inauguration.

Hey, is there anyone with large feet who would like these shoes for the cost of shipping. [link] I found them still in the box at the back of a closet. Danskos, size 41, never worn.

Ooh, me! Did you not like them?

'In my prayers' - in my heart?

Bless you Fay. I understand the stickiness of not wanting to say something we don't exactly mean...for lack of 'better words.'

At the same time, I've decided that 'prayer' is simply focused intention and all good thoughts, in whatever form, are sincerely appreciated.

I learned a lesson about the potential tyranny of terms during a very dark hour in my life when I would actually cringe at the sound of the word "god", or the implication of affiliation to any over-arching authority in our lives.

I was listening to Marianne Williamson at the behest of someone who was worried for me and whom I respected completely. I was confused as to why this friend would ask me to be open to someone spouting tranditional Christian terminology when she knew my resistance to such things.

As I was about to tsk and dismiss, MW said, "Ya know. You can reject anything by putting a label on it. But sooner or later, you have got to [which I have interpreted as 'have the opportunity to] fall to your knees and recognize that you are not alone." Since feeling completely alone in the Universe happened to be my pain of the moment, I really wanted to believe that. And I took 'fall to your knees', not as suplication, but as recognition of the potential benefit of a school of thought outside the one I had clung to so strongly it had steered me right into that dark hour.

In the end, I've transfered my agita to things that really deserve it, like man's inhumanity to man, and let my militant resistance to religious/spiritual terms mellow. It all seems relatively the same to me...similar flavor, different label...and what brings comfort, I support. What rejects peace, I resist.

Whoa! Where did that come from? Oy. I'm tempted to delete out of...nobody wants to hear my treatise on faith...but, hey, I believe it.

t please excuse my existential morning syndrome