Welcome home, ita. The pictures were adorable.

Noah and Grace went to a birthday party at a Tae Kwon Do place. They both broke a wooden board (videos on facebook) which was fun for both of them.

Now we are watching hockey.

ita, try these?

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Having one of Those Days on Facebook -- someone I went to high school with is nominated for a Tony, and a grad school friend is at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, taking pictures with all the famous people!

Jessica, thanks for sharing those pictures! You all look lovely.

Also, HIRAM MCDANIELS FOR MAYOR!

I'm watching the Warriors game and typing up comments for the webdesigner on my brother's website. This is a way more protracted process than I expected. Why can't people just pull my desires out of my brain and put it on the page? Whyfor do I have to EXPLAIN things?

In other news, I made pasta carbonara for the family, and opened a hella good bottle of zinfandel. NOM.

Interns advisor has changed the parameters of her internship and her hours already completed aren't retroactive. And she can't afford to be unpaid as long as the new deadline will take. So now I've compounded my insomnia.

We took the kids to see a silent movie screening today: two Chaplin movies, a Buster Keaton movie called "Cops" and "A Trip to the Moon." Live accompaniment on a huge Wurlitzer. They complained bitterly all day that we were forcing them to watch movies that were silent. How boring was that? Of course they laughed all through the whole screening and thanked us profusely all the way home.

Kids. There you go.

Live music (or a good soundtrack) can add to silent movies so very much -- but since that source material is so good (we remember Chaplin and Keaton for a reason!) I'm not at all surprised the kids were won over.

I went out on the deck and thoroughly combed out my hair this morning, which removed a great deal of the spray-on color -- my comb and hands ended up stained purple-blue. (I've also learned that if you want to stop scratching your head, having your nails come away stained is a good reminder.)

At least they have enough sense to thank you after, Burrell?

Saw a dolphin while eating breakfast! (What it was doing in my pajamas, I'll never know.)

I dreamt I spent another semester in London, and it was the end of the semester, and I had to go through and pack everything in my room in an hour before the car came to take me to the airport. It was one of those stress-packing dreams where you are frantic and are never going to get everything done in time. Also, ita was my roommate, and Jilli was our housemother, and there was a killer whale trying to break out of a tank in the lobby of our student housing.

And on the way to the airport, the plane tickets had been replaced by ticket stubs from shows I'd been to in London by our criminal faculty advisor, and I was going to be stranded in Heathrow with 47 counterfeit pounds and a pile of luggage which included laundry baskets in which I'd desperately piled clothes while packing, a folding table and some backyard furniture.

It was not a restful dream.