The kids and I went to the Human Society's shelter for a field trip this morning. Good information and it was nicely presented to young children what kind of work goes into keeping a dog or cat. We petted kitties. Kids asked for both a dog and a cat. We also got to see a rat and a rabbit. Then we made a donation and went to the farmer's market and the comic book store.

The day can't just be half over. We're off to the gym.

Transitioning to summer programs can be tricky. It's scary for them, just like starting a new school.

I know we've enjoyed some British obits of wicked aristocrats here before. (That would make a fun collection, I think.) And so:

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The death of Simon Raven, at the age of 73 after suffering a stroke, is proof that the devil looks after his own. He ought, by rights, to have died of shame at 30, or of drink at 50.

Instead, he survived to produce 25 novels, including Alms For Oblivion (1959-76), a 10-volume saga of English upper-class life, numerous screenplays, eight volumes of essays and memoirs, including Shadows On The Grass (1981) - "the filthiest book on cricket ever written," according to EW Swanton - and The First Born Of Egypt sequence (1984-92), which contains requests such as "Darling mummy, please may I be circumcised?" and "Please, sir, may I bugger you, sir?"

How to explain this total one-off character, who combined elements of Flashman, Waugh's Captain Grimes and the Earl of Rochester (though, unlike Rochester, he died an unrepentant pagan)?

The story of Simon's early life reads like a Victorian cautionary tale gone wrong. He is the golden youth whose high promise is betrayed by his base appetites, so that one door after another is closed to him....

He later claimed to have been "deftly and very agreeably" seduced by the games master at Cordwalles preparatory school, near Camberley, but acquired his Luciferian reputation as a scholarship boy at Charterhouse school, before he was expelled in 1945 for serial homosexuality....

After national service in the Parachute Regiment, during which he was sent as an officer cadet to Bangalore and commissioned, Simon arrived, in 1948, to read English at King's College, Cambridge, where he immediately felt at home. "Nobody minded what you did in bed, or what you said about God, a very civilised attitude then," he said.

He modelled himself on Rhett Butler and the suave cads George Sanders used to play. But there was also a streak of recklessness in him that reminded Noel (later Lord) Annan, then assistant tutor, of Guy Burgess as an undergraduate - "they were both scamps who by their example liberated their more timid contemporaries"...

After three jolly years with the King's Own Shropshire Light Infantry (KSLI) in Germany and Kenya, where he set up a brothel for his men, he was sent home to be training officer at Shrewsbury.

Alas, officers in the KSLI were expected to represent the regiment at local race meetings - a prescription to go bankrupt, which, within a year, Simon did...

He wrote anything and everything: novels, essays, memoirs and reviews; film scripts, radio plays, television plays and television series, including the 26-episode The Pallisers (1974). And if Alms For Oblivion, his bleak history of the class of '45, remains his finest achievement, some of his pithiest work was done during the 1960s for the Spectator, in whose pages he mocked traditional moralists and trendy egalitarians alike.

Simon had no taste for possessions. In Deal, he had a succession of digs, his only requirement being a landlady who would cook him breakfast and, if required, high tea. His considerable earnings went on food, drink, travel, gambling and sex - he said that one of the unsung advantages of belonging to the Reform Club was the presence opposite of a massage parlour where you got "a good housemaid's wank".

Cat catches bat out of the air

Cool video. With added slo-mo. Amazing (but you gotta feel sorry for the bat).

I have the 3rd off as well. I also have the 2nd off via a vacation day.

Here's the Telegraph's obit of Simon Raven: [link]

Raven the cad attained his finest hour when his wife sent the telegram: "Wife and baby starving send money soonest." He replied: "Sorry no money suggest eat baby".

I have the 3rd off as well, but I do have to work at the bookstore on the 4th. A big portion of the office staff has Monday off as well (makeup for not getting Presidents Day off due to busy season here), but I'll be here that day. Cafeteria's closed, so I'll have to remember to either bring in my own lunch or head out for takeout.

Here's the Telegraph's obit of Simon Raven: [link]

Seriously caddish but amusing. His son, Adam, did survive him.

I have the 3rd off ... I'm celebrating by getting my hair done. The 4th (and 5th) I plan to spend hiding out from heat and crowds (both expected to be plentiful, if not overwhelming).

I hope he starts to get who is the boss of him soon.

This.

I have the 3rd off as well, and also expect to leave early tomorrow. Woo!

I've got the 3rd off, and am working the 2nd from home. The 2nd is boyfriend's birthday, too.