The women I see on FB who are connected through my sister back in Pennsylvania all have their maiden names as well as their married names, but that makes sense since these are people I known since before grade school. Many of them are grandmothers, so the tradition has staying power.

ION, we had some of the cutest kids from Newark volunteer today. It was a golf club, of all things. There were three boys I absolutely fell in love with. We didn't get a heck of a lot done, but it was such a pleasure to get to spend time with them. I am developing a serious bias against priveledge kids, what with the differences between attitudes between the inner city kids and the private school -pardon me- d-bags. Sure, some of the kids today were Sad Sallys, but so many were joyous and hard working (even the Sad Sallys), whereas the private school kids it's a warfare against cellphone use and actually getting them to work.

We put on a sprinkler at the end and told them to go for it. A couple of the boys were completely soaked by the end of it. One of them said "I'm so . . . happy" after being doused. A couple of the SS were just introverts that I caught on film creeping towards the camera until they were sticking out their tongue along with everyone else throwing out signs and mugging it up for the camera.

And it feels so close to one of my earlier majors at college, which was training me for, amongst other things, dealing with kids-at-risk.

It's nuts and probably bad for me but not unusual.

I did read somewhere when I was in high school that a) it was a normal abnormal thing for girls to hold it extra long and b) it could MOVE YOUR OVARIES. I had about half an hour worth of freakout and went back to minimising trips to the loo.

I have considered my nephritic tubules to be hyper-efficient, but I also know that hydration is one of the most effective things I can do to fight migraines, so I use the cue of wanting to moisturise my lips as a cue to drink something--as long as I'm not trying to one up my bladder.

I came home to find that I, along with about 10,000 other people in the area are having a power outage that probably won 't get fixed for several hours.

Yay?

We took the chicken to Noah's former day care provider because she (1) takes in broken strays of all stripes, hence her welcoming Noah when he was on oxygen (2) she has chickens of her own and therefore knows what to do for a chicken (3) she is kind.

She's also currently fostering a dog with Cushing's Disease that is incontinent and needs to wear diapers (she also has a dog with a torn ACL and another that has only one eye).

Lee, is it still hot because lack of AC would be a total oh-fucking-no for me.

Ugh. Sorry, Lee.

Oh dear, Lee. Here's hoping for power.

You can always sleep in the hammock if it's too hot inside.

OK, I need to know if Aimee and Joe know this couple on House Hunters -- they were looking in Ann Arbor and ended up in Ypsilanti, and they needed space for big parties and sword fighting and their inflatable shark. I want to say Dave and Sue?