Pleasant travels, o_a.

Yay on the house news, Barb.

I have to get my hair cut and go to the office to do some work. Then I have to go to Best Buy and get an outdoor security camera. Ah, teens. Maybe more on that later.

And I am compelled to catch up on about 700 posts in Natter that I just can't seem to skip. Y'all are funny.

Omnis, safe travels. I will talk to ND about Sunday, but I can't do too late. Monday starts at 6am every week for me. Alas! We will figure something out.

The talk in Natter right now is about the horrific 8.8 earthquake in Chile and tsunami evacuations in Hawaii, Laga. Terrifying.

Dunno how you parents do it.

Can only speak for myself, but when my babies were babies, their cries were the way they communicated a need to me, so I pretty quickly learned how to interpret different cries and could guess when my kid was hungry or tired or uncomfortable or in pain. Pain really was the worst as it was hardest to placate and conveyed the most anxiety.

I realize I was blessed to have pretty happy babies most of the time. Still, Franny didn't like to be in cars in bad traffic and the like, and I can still remember driving to Perkins house once with ita and having poor Franny wailing in the back as we crawled down Fairfax.

Safe travels, omnis.

My baby has a theory of mind!

Oh, that is way too cool.

I talked to my two year old niece on the phone this morning. She has a vomiting bug, the poor little thing. "I have a poorly tummy, Auntie Nay!" she said, in a tone that communicated a truly exceptional amount of pride. Her mother is significantly less impressed.

We've spent the day doing preliminary house-buying research, driving through the suburbs around Derby, where one of my two proposed PhD universities is based. I'm somewhat depressed, as every suburb we can afford is apparently located on a hellmouth. I wouldn't mind so much, except that the supervisors and research group at Derby are fab, and it's my preference of the two. The other uni, Leeds, is of course a beautiful town with gorgeous, more-or-less affordable houses in lovely places. Because my lifelong search for irony just hasn't been fulfilled enough yet.

We did get a fantastic pub lunch in the Derbyshire countryside, though. Beef and Guinness pie! Profiteroles! Not so good for the diet, but yum.

Have landed. Early! Waiting for gate. Ear plugs + noise cancelling headphones = sleep on a plane. Could still hear baby, but it helped a ton. The vibrations seemed to freak her out the most.

Pix, can't do too late myself. I have to be in Irvine by 8:45. Oy. 405 on Monday rush hour.

Ugh. Slept most of the day, still hurt, and got another job rejection. Also saw that the place where I had a phone interview has invited a bunch of people for campus interviews, and I am not one of them, but I kind of didn't expect to be, because I did horribly at that phone interview. I seem to be doing better than average at getting interviews, but then worse than average at getting a second interview once I've had the first.

Hi. I forgot what I'd meant to be saying.

Aw, Leeds! Leeds is a lovely city! Sorry it doesn't have the academic stuff you want, though.

Oh, Hil, damn it. Wishing you much job-ma.

Sneaky!Ryan slays me.

Civil Unrest Update: so far, so good! Tentative yay!

yay for safe Fay!

Sneaky!Ryan slays me.

And you'll never see it coming! If you're easily taken in by the "Look! Over there!" school of deception.