urp! Had a lovely birthday dinner for Tom at Coquette. We both had the 4 course tasting menu: rabbit rillette with some awesome sour cherry marmalade, eggplant tapenade, dark stone ground mustard and cornichon; a Top Chef cliche made real of scallops, pea puree, cherry balsamic, and braised fennel; flat iron steak with grits and a quite spicy ratatouille; and beneigts and chocolate pot de creme.

So tired from the weekend though; not ready for working tomorrow.

Nora, when I'm in Vermont this weekend, friday night we're going to Hen of the Wood, which is a restaurant that I think you and Tom would LOVE. (You didn't go there when you were in Vermont, did you?)

If you poke around that Web site, they show a sample menu, since it changes daily, based on what's in season and fresh. I promise to steal my menu and/or take notes so I can tell you all about it in great detail.

Something amazing with scallops, I hope. And cheese. Oh dear god, look on their web site at their cheese offerings. GUH.

t edit The only thing that makes me sad is that their chef's tasting menu is only Tuesday-Thursday, so we'll miss it.

Drew, it's very good to see your pixels. Much ~health and ~enoughwithisalready ma to you and Kristin.

Steph, how are you doing?

And thanks for everybody who responded. As for the moderating while considering current slacking question: the biggest part of handling the site is establishing it. It's writing the texts and starting a blog. It's takes few collective hours. After it, it's mostly maintaining stories from readers, so it's quite easy and takes about two collective hours per week.

Either way, at night I thought of a very good argument why I need these two. Since there will be a Facebook group (or whatever you crazy kids call it), and I'm staying away from this site like The Plague, someone will have to manage that.

Steph, how are you doing?

Oh, in a funk, really. The can't-get-motivated-to-do-anything kind, where nothing sounds remotely appealing, so I might as well go back to bed so I don't have to think about stuff.

I'd worry that my antidepressant wasn't working, but then I remember: 2 death in exactly 2 months (my uncle died on the 1-month anniversary of Tim's mom's death). So my brain feels like it's been smacked with a brick, and I'm okay with my mood for now. It seems like the only appropriate response in the short term.

Plus, I go to Vermont in 4 days! I will eat ALL THE CHEESE.

Ugh, I'm sorry to hear you feel so lousy, Steph, but yeah, two deaths is a lot of sadness to bear.

I'm glad that you're giving yourself and your antidepressant a break, Steph.

I will eat ALL THE CHEESE.

Now that sounds like a solid plan.

The can't-get-motivated-to-do-anything kind, where nothing sounds remotely appealing, so I might as well go back to bed so I don't have to think about stuff.

For very different reason, this sounds similar to my do-not-want-to-write-these-damn-seminars-at-all, if you'll switch "bed" for "internet". This year nearly slew me.

Continued ~ma for the PixDesigns. Geez. Hope there's better news on the horizon.

yeah for Drew drinking juice and typing! Good times :)

Thanks all. Right now I'm battling exhaustion (mostly emotional) but am feeling a bit better. We both had a good cry that was overdue and somewhat cathartic and then perked up as the day went on. There's no news--just more wait and see--but I have to believe that this is going to be all right in the end. It has to be.

I'm sitting up with him now to make sure he gets to sleep. They finally gave him some sleep meds tonight to try to allow him to get some quality sleep, and I'm so praying it works. I'm convinced that half the problem is sleep deprivation. He needs true rest to let his body and mind heal.

P.S. You know it's time to go home when you start taking pseudo horror shots of the ginormous, partially deflated parrot balloon, posting them on facebook, and adding captions like, "Ask not for whom the parrot caws, it caws for you!"

I swear the thing keeps advancing on me in a sinister fashion and staring at me.

Yeah. Probably time for bed. Drew is asleep and I should be.