ION, Anderson Cooper apparently got roughed up by a crowd in Egypt.

He's blaming pro-Mubarak provocateurs: [link]

Thank you all for reminding me that I desperately need to make a haircut appointment. (Mani/pedi will wait until spring, when I'm willing to show my toes in public & my daughter is past the "needs a finger to suck on" phase.)

Things in Cairo are going really badly. Twitter is back up and the news is terrible. Apparent the regime has sent in armed "pro-Mubarak demonstrators" who are hired. Lots of violence. I was so hopeful until today.

It is going up to the fifties today! This is my one chance to dress for cuteness over warmth, possibly for months. So I went with the blue plaid cotton shirtdress, with brown tights and ankle boots. I might not even need a cardigan!

eta: I had already heard that the museum looting was being done by plainclothes soldiers and policemen, so I am sad but not surprised to hear that, flea.

It's cold here, for us. But that's not cold other places. I hope things in Egypt work out in the end. that's all I know on the subject right now, except how proud Richard Engel is to show off his Arabic to Rachel Maddow.

I've been watching Nicholas Kristof's twitter feed from Cairo this morning, and it's just awful.

It is -8 here. Windchill tonight expected to get down to -20.

We had a recording session scheduled this morning, the SO went out to see if the roads were passable. They are, but our wagon won't start and the van was returned to us by the intern 4000 miles over the oil change requirement. It has a slow leak, so it's low on oil.

So the recording client changed his flat tire, is headed out here now with oil, and will follow the SO in to town. I am super dubious, and so am not going in. I can track my vocals here at home later.

We're calling classes for tonight because it's so cold. The building where we teach is 50 degrees on a good day. There's no way it'll be even habitable today, plus I don't want to make the students walk all the way down the hill in this cold.

So. All that is to say, snow day!

I am baking banana muffins and contemplating nail polish colors.

The hospital where I had my hysterectomy had valets and it was a HUGE help, getting back into the car with all the stuff, in a wheelchair, in the winter.

DH had a snow day today, too. We'll be digging out my car later today. we'll see if there is school tomorrow, but if we do, I definitely don't want to be digging my car out at 6 am.

Insomnia fairy kicked my ass last night -- didn't get to sleep till about 5:30 am. OF. THE. SUCK. And I can't get my refill till the 7th. Oh, well, I suppose that's only 2-3 work days on crap sleep.

Apparent the regime has sent in armed "pro-Mubarak demonstrators" who are hired. Lots of violence. I was so hopeful until today.

Wow, they're hiring people? That's awful, but it makes sense, since we hadn't heard any reports of pro-regime civilians at all till this point.

I heard the NPR report from the woman (Soraya Sarhadi-Nelson?) who was in Tehrir Square, and she sounded quite upset and a bit frightened about the violence.

My sister just called me from a snowbank.

She got halfway through shoveling (due to drifts and stuff she's got several feet to get through) and got tired so she just sat down right where she stopped. She's in her boyfriend's ice fishing gear and with the height of the snow said it pretty much felt like she was in a homemade lazy-boy. Must have, cause we talked for like 15 minutes while she sat there.

Dog park was awesome. In addition to the dog people, there was a guy with a baby in a snuggy who was there because the dog park was the only place in the neighborhood that already had a well beaten path.

Apparent the regime has sent in armed "pro-Mubarak demonstrators" who are hired. Lots of violence. I was so hopeful until today.

Yeah, this a really bad development.