My brother and I were commiserating about the Vick thing and saying that at the very least, since our antipathy for the Eagles goes way back, we don't have to hate a whole new team. We're bracing for the day they come up against the Vikings and we have to...no, I can't even say it. Maybe I'll just hope for an earthquake.

Jesse, they do not melt! It is awesome. they get soft and people say you have to test them all again, because some lose their ability to re-zip, but the big ones especially seem to do ok even more than once! I am terribly excited.

I can't talk to any more of the neighbors about it. I have written a note and am leaving it with the info pack under doors. I can only do so much shame and ass-feeling. I am full up.

Swimming for us was lessons at the local hotel pool (first at the Hotel Rossi then at the HoJo's) which both of our parents supported. Dad had grown up going to public schools big enough to have their own pools, so he knew how to swim as a kid even though he grew up on a farm. Mom was another farm kid, but went to Catholic schools without a pool so she never learned how, at least not until she was in her early '40s and we belonged to the Y. She still doesn't swim well (she can barely stitch together three front strokes with her face in the water before she comes up sputtering), but the fact that she can put her face in the water is a huge thing for her.

It was a special event for us to go to a place with natural swimming water (not a pool), either Lake Michigan on occasional summer drives to the city, a family vacation up to Minnesota or Michigan, or a weekend visit to the Braidwood Country Club, where some of my stepmother's family belonged. (A Pakistani friend of mine in high school had to be smuggled into the Braidwood club in the trunk of his friend's car due to the color of his skin. Mom didn't belong there for that reason.)

We've discussed the civet-poop coffee around here a bunch of times, but as far as I recall, never from the perspective of OMGSOCUTE!!!1!

My mom used to love telling how she learned how to swim in General Patton's pool. She would jump in and there was always someone there to get her out and work on teaching her how to swim.

Sophia, I saw this and thought of you putting together your bookshelves this weekend!

Brenda, did Nicole reach you?

No shame, msbelle. Shit happens. (Which I realize is easy for me to say, but still true.)

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, lose your nuts.

That's been my motto for years.

Yup, we just connected.

well sure Jesse, but it's hard to be the deliver of the news and not as an outsider messenger, but as the only one they know affected at this point. People start freaking out about their home values and equity. heavy shit man.

I am actually making decent progress today which is good. Still have no real plan for clearing out stuff. I think as I open up bags for treatment I need to clear out at least 1/3 of each.