I'm glad you are feeling somewhat encouraged, Aims.

That saying of Julian of Norwich, "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well," - Its place in my mind alternates between a very good meditation and the thing that makes me wish I had a time machine so I could go back to the twelfth century and stuff a sock in the mouths of everyone in Norwich.

ETA or possibly fourteenth century. Whichever.

Oh, Lord, I just emailed that joke to my s-son.

Aims,

I am nodding and smiling and giving my computer screen a thumbs up.

Aims, I totally approve of your bother. And everything else that makes you feel good right now.

ImemeawesomeN: A mutual acquaintance pointed David Weinberger to a post I wrote a while ago, and Weinberger linked to it today and wrote about the issue in question. I'm once again amazed by the internet and never gonna wash the statistics page of my blog again.

Also, it seems like my mind is totally broken from years of certain genre of jokes and can't reply to *any* "how do you get (n) into (a vehicle)" question in an answer that isn't "the ashtray".

Aims, I'm glad your brother was able to give you a brighter perspective.

The road trip is down to about 360 more miles of road and then it is over. We should be home before 9pm. Sad. It has been a great trip. K and I haven't spent this much time together so there was always the chance that we would bump heads making all the driving awkward. But that hasn't been an issue, which has been a great relief.

Almost 8 days of traveling, over 3000 miles covered, 10 different cities visited, countless cities in our rear view mirror, 1 a's game, 2 hotel nights, 1 bottle of caramel vodka, 8 Australian hunks, 9 different Starbucks, 1 bottle of absinthe, 8 bottles of wine, and 2 tuckered ladies.

Almost 8 days of traveling, over 3000 miles covered, 10 different cities visited, countless cities in our rear view mirror, 1 a's game, 2 hotel nights, 1 bottle of caramel vodka, 8 Australian hunks, 9 different Starbucks, 1 bottle of absinthe, 8 bottles of wine, and 2 tuckered ladies.

This montage needs to be narrated by Morgan Freeman. Or Sean Connery.

Not Attenborough documenting the behaviour of the Wild Bitca outside her native habitat?

Aims, you and Joe and Em will be very much in my thoughts. I'm glad you were able to talk to your brother.

In other news, I divided my iris colonies today. I started with 7 rhizomes 3 years ago, and now I have 87 separate plants. It would have been more, but I lost most of two colonies to rot thanks to an unusually wet spring and soil that wasn't draining as well as it should have. The rhizomes have had a bleach water bath to kill off any mold, and now they're out on the patio so the places where I divided can scab over before replanting.

Anne,

that is incredibly impressive.

Not Attenborough documenting the behaviour of the Wild Bitca outside her native habitat?

We should have people audition. Because I just heard James Earl Jones say, "This is Buchmann" in my head and now I want him to narrate us.