Thank you!

My favorite mug is one I bought with my employee discount at Starbucks probably 13 years ago. It's oversized and kind of conical, and has pictures of asparagus on it.

The mugs at the office are Crate & Barrel, and and are very nice. Also oversized, to the point where when the SAP trainer guy came over from the UK office, he used them as an example of how weirdly big everything is in NYC as opposed to London. (His exact words were something like "You all do know that this is a MASSIVE amount of coffee, right?????")

My brain has not wrapped itself properly around how few states there are on this coast. I've driven from mostly top to bottom in the Michigan longitude, and down from NY (actually originating in Montreal) to Florida, but I don't have the parallel experience for this side of the country, so I can't properly envision how few state lines there are. I've flown from LA to SF, so my brain keeps insisting it's right next door. Or upstairs, I guess.

Right now my favorite thing is that Dylan has a friend over and they are playing Lego Star Wars in the other room and I am lounging in bed with my iPad. Five year-old playdates are SO MUCH EASIER than toddlers, I can't even tell you. (Aeryn is at the park with her dad. HEAVEN.)

What does it say about me (or my neighborhood) that I can always tell the difference between gunfire and fireworks?

I usually have a pretty good idea, but the sound is a little different after bouncing off several brick buildings.

"You all do know that this is a MASSIVE amount of coffee, right?????")

And did he say this like it was a BAD thing????

My usual morning coffee mug is this. There are other favorites there, including the hand-thrown apple mug with iridescent glaze from Morning Star Gallery in Asheville. That one gets used for herb teas. I've had an upset stomach for a few days and switched to tea. This morning H babied me with an old favorite.

Our everyday dishes are a hodgepodge of different sets which colors coordinate. If we have more than four for dinner, we break out the china.

We were living in military housing in Germany when a lovely young man with a British accent knocked on the door and wanted to sell us some china. We had two children under two at that time, and utterly no need for china, but we didn't have tv, the kids were napping, and it was a boring Saturday afternoon, so we asked him in. He proceeded to extoll the virtues of Paragon, "on appointment to Her Majesty, the Queen!" he said, in an awed tone. "And it will certainly stand up to young children. Watch!" And he flung a dinner plate across the floor, where it landed with a clank and rattled around on its under-rim a bit before it settled. He made us a really decent price on eight full place settings plus serving pieces, and threw in six place settings of oversized quad-plate French flatware.

All of which we may have used maybe three dozen times, since. Still, we had an entertaining afternoon, the young man made a sale, and we haz china and silver flatware.

I like glass pints for hot beverages. Slip a cardboard coffee holder from Peets or wherever over it, and they are great for hot or iced liquids.

It's freezing on the Olympic Peninsula. I'm wearing two layers of long-sleeved/-panted clothes, socks & Birks, and a fleece vest and I'm still cold. I packed for summer, not winter. Thank god I threw in the long-sleeved corduroy shirt at the last minute.

Tho' it might have to do with sitting in one position for the last 6.5 hours catching up on Internet things. The sun has finally appeared, how about that. I could not believe the thunder, lightening, and rain the last couple of days here in Port Townsend.

My favorite mug right now is a oversized one I bought at TJ Maxx. It's the perfect size to fit the amount of coffee my French Press makes.

I need to get two of the trees in my backyard pruned like woah, so I spent part of my morning meeting the neighbor who lives behind me (one of the trees overhangs her property a lot, so they will need to go on her property too). She was very nice and talkative and told me some about the previous owners of my house.

I guess the people who owned it before the agent who flipped it and sold it to me, were a young family, and they were working on the house a lot, and doing good things, but then one day, after they had been there about 10 months, she looked out, and saw the husband jumping over the fence between the yards, chased by the police.

HER NAME IS RIO, FUCKOS!! AND SHE LIKES BI-RITE ICE CREAM.

Matilda got to meet her too.