I am eating pan roasted skinny asparagus, greek yogurt with strawberries and honey (gotta eat up the super ripe ones!) and drinking a halfway decent rueda verdejo on my deck. I can pretend I'm at a bar in Spain. Well, except for the fetching the cats off the railing. And my yogurt making me bleed. And the washer running downstairs. And...well, fine. It's pleasant anyway.

How did your yogurt make you bleed?

Either the foil seal or the plastic edge cut pretty deep into my thumbpad. Doesn't hurt, but bled all over the place before I noticed.

Overheard at the bar: “It’s our enemy’s birthday—we have to go.”

Teppy, was it you who said "My gender is Batman"?

Hee! It was actually another friend of mine, but I can totally envision Teppy saying it, too.

I got to sleep in and have a lazy morning for the first time in forever. Then I took CJ to a birthday party and wandered around on my way home. I continued my quest for Templeton Rye (still no luck) but found some wonderful Blackberry Whiskey. Then I wandered around a couple of other store and found an end table with drawers (been looking for something to replace my glass end table for a while).

Now that I'm home and have switched out furniture, I have given myself a manicure - white with colorful dots. Silly but fun.

I have the house to myself for at least another hour. Time to be lazy again. I have no clue what/if the kids have plans for tomorrow. I'm trying not to be too invested in wanting something special, but it is tough.

For the first time in weeks, I am pretty much on top of my laundry--most of it is done, and all of the clean stuff has been put away.

I also walked up to the local organic food store and bought an ear of fresh corn, along with some other stuff. SO GOOD. I suspect I am going to be doing that a lot as long as the season lasts.

Suzi, I don't know if you're checking the scores but the A's are up 3-0 in the 8th, and McCarthy was dominant with 10Ks and no walks.

Oh man. So I just talked to Taylor. She's applied for a Henrietta Lacks scholarship (was nominated.) She didn't get it, BUT she read the 'rejection' letter to me and frankly, they practically fell all over themselves apologizing for it. They're setting her up with a couple of mentors, providing her with another summer job, enrolling her in workshops in communication, presentation, college applications, etc. And a college counselor. Provided her with a thorough critique of her application and interview, which emphasized that it was all really good, the competition was just stiff, but also gave her pointers. It was 5 pages long. Best scholarship rejection ever.

And then her dad and mom informed me I am one of Taylor's Moms, and Happy Mother's Day. There was a lot more.

God, this girl. Her parents are awesome advocates, but will be the first to tell you that they are hampered by their own lackings (understanding Charles is hard sometimes for me. It is part diction, part a brain injury, but he's a sharp guy and an awesome dad and her mom's precarious health means she's in and out of the hospital and was pretty absent due to that until 2008 or so) but frankly, they aren't lacking anything. They love their daughter. They will jump out on a limb to find people who can help her where they can't. I was one of the first outside family they did this with. Her dad took a crazy leap to ask the chick he saw reading on the balcony all the time (he thought I was a teacher or journalist(?) because my car had Gilman School stickers on it from the previous owner) to work with his daughter over the summer to learn her lines for theater camp. Crazy leap. And one I am so grateful for.

I always wondered if Ursula would resent me for all the mom-firsts I ended up having with her daughter, but I don't wonder any more. She thanked me for being a mom to Taylor. Guh.

I took Matilda to her school's annual fundraising Fun Fest, meaning to stop in for a short while before bringing her back so she and Hec could see the Aardman pirate movie, but the facepainting booth looked so overloaded and hapless that I ended up spending the entire day painting face after face after face, until the paint applicating wands disintegrated and I was reduced to fingerpainting monkeys and dragons on kids' faces because there was nothing left but black, olive green and fingertips.

I feel so utterly, thoroughly fried. But the universe just this minute instantaneously rewarded me for the exhausting good-deed-doing, in the form of a call from Polter-Cow, who just cornered Greg Rucka before his Writers With Drinks event. Greg remembers me! Fondly! And P-C delivered verbatim the snark I asked him to pass along, which caused him to bark with laughter. In short: P-C, and long-lost college friends: both awesomecakes with awesomesauce on top.