The Real Happiness

I got the kids out the door by 7:40, including a goodbye to Unka Matt, who is off to Princeton soon.

I dropped them off at daycare at 7:53.

I took the sneaky back way into Seattle and arrived by 8:30. WIN!

In other news:
- I won a windbreaker in our cute little Code of Conduct Jeopardy contest. Woo.
- Box lunches for lunch tomorrow. I love box lunches.
- I am all blocked on my socks. Vexing.
- sil is going to PAX this weekend.
- Someone should say they will come over for movies, and I will bake lemon cake.
- I finished Black Sheep last night.

I just committed to the scariest part of the Houdini socks, and I am pretty sure it has All Gone Wrong.

The .... heelcup? is shallow, only an inch and a half or so, although I thought it would be closer to three inches. Which means it's everything is going on at the place where we keep traditional gussets, because it's wide. I am trying to pick up some extra stitches to make up for it, but it's all upgefucked, and I am trying to figure out how to rescue it without cutting off most of the heel and trying again or trying differently.

Wah!

"In Excelsis Deo" is an episode about a lot of things, but the end is a military funeral cut in with a boy's choir singing The Little Drummer Boy, which is about having nothing of substance to offer the baby Jesus, except the gift of service. I tear up every time.

You might think I wouldn't like a show that makes me cry, and kills off characters I love, and deals with at least a few of the problems in the world. I can't watch Battlestar Galactica because not only does one care about the characters, but the world is falling apart. In West Wing, bad things happen, but the general trend of the world is not chaos and entropy.

Oh, and I hadn't noticed how well subcaptioned it is. It really is. The characters are all super rapid-fire talkers, and captioning would be hard to read if every word was transcribed -- so instead the subcaptions are like Readers' Digest condensed books. Almost all of the meaning is maintained, but not the curlicues of language.

Kay is vested in controlling her world. We all want to control our environment, of course, but when you are only almost-four, there is not a lot you actually get to control.

She manages her stress about this by Flouncing. Directly she is thwarted, she crosses her arms, stamps her foot, and makes a noise that is phonologically represented as HRMPHHH. Then she stomps out of the vicinity of the thwarter.

Daddy and I are hard-pressed not to burst into laughter every single time she does this.

On the bright side, she has taken up "mergle-flergle" hugs -- big bear hugs from a little girl. Adorable.

I have finally retrieved her baby book. Um. Dear Pooka -- I love you, even though your baby book is empty.

I finished the trilogy I foolishly started on Wednesday -- marthawells's Fall of Ile-Rien books. I've read the trilogy a couple times before, and I never manage to be moderate in my consumption. This delayed my start of Companion to Wolves, but it's not like I'm on a deadline.

I also finally finished the Nikki Giovanni poetry collection, which I've been reading forever. I got stalled somewhere in the middle of the end notes (which are awesome. All poetry should come with end notes, but ESPECIALLY the political stuff). Now it's all done and I have exactly 50 stickynotes marking various poems -- my own version of a Nikki Giovanni collection as tailored to me. Unsurprisingly, there are more markers toward her later stuff. The 25th marker is on a poem called Space.

( below )

I have embarked on the next poetry book, Red Sky at Morning, a collection of socialist poetry by British poets. Would I make that up?

I recorded the closing ceremonies as iwas watching previously-recorded Olympics, but after my binge this weekend, I was pretty much done with Olympics for the night, so I have been folding laundry and watching West Wing, specifically Mr. Willis of Ohio, which is a tearjerker about the census. It is!

It's just as well weren't entertaining last night, as I ended up on a run up to Overlake Urgent Care. On Friday, he got his pre-k immunizations -- MMR, Varivax, DTP. Last night about 7:30, I noticed that his whole upper arm was red and hot. It was the arm that got two shots. I tossed some tylenol in him and we took his temp, which was about 99.4. So elevated, but not wildly so. as usual when he has a temperature, his skin was bumpy -- it's not hives, but it's not normal either.

We have nice solid health insurance (yay!), so I called the nurseline, and the nurse had me give him a full dose of benedryl and take him in to urgent care. He was happy and perky, and I was pretty sure it wasn't an allergic reaction (timing, and they really aren't hives). So I packed up our stuff and we zipped up to Overlake. He was still all perky during check-in and screening. And then the benedryl kicked in. He crawled into my lap and asked for a song, and fell asleep in the middle of it. I read and waited for the pediatrician.

The ped. was great. He came in and I woke Baz, who complained that he was sweaty. "Hello, Sweaty! I'm doctor Thaddeus". There was a reasonably thorough check of the inflammation, and Baz was pronounced fine. The doc gave me a list of the things that I should worry if I saw, and then we talked a little about how it was not surprising that shots designed to provoke immune response sometimes, you know, provoke immune response. I always feel a little apologetic when I go in for something that I am relatively sure is a false alarm, but the doc was very nice and agreed that the consequences of guessing wrong are pretty drastic. Baz went back to sleep. I ended up carrying him out and when I stood him up by the car, he was so drugged, he reeled into it. Poor little man.

Today he is hunky-dory. I need to check his arm again and make sure there are no signs of infection, but I think he is just pale and skinny and kind of reactive.

I explained to my mom that vaccination is my explanation of theodicy. It hurts, it makes our body unhappy, and as children, it is difficult to understand WHY we would do it. But it is a long-term win.

Well, my morning started out relaxing. Sil took the kids to skating lessons without me. I laid in bed reading (not Companion to Wolves yet). got up, showered and set to. First I excavated the main table. About that time, my wandering family came home. They had some donuts with them. Made lunch and did the dishes. Then I started sweet dough for caramel rolls. Baz saw the synchronized swimming start and paused it, rewound it, and came and found me. What a smart kid. He didn't even know how much I love it.

I spent half an hour cleaning the bathroom. Including bleaching the tub toys. Ick ick ICK! I am never ever buying squeaky toys for the tub again. (continues to be all skeeved out).

Ooh, rhythmic gymnastics!

No one's coming over tonight, so I have let the kids build a train in the middle of the floor.

Later tonight, more baking and unearthing the living room.

Yes, it's months away. None of this is in the realm of reason.
( boot desires )

I got out to watch The Dark Knight. Would all of you who posted insightful, spoiler-filled reviews please link in comments?
( my spoiler-filled reaction )
Knitting in the theater: I should in the future try to select mindless knitting which is not double-stranded. There are a couple places where I didn't pick up both strands of yarn. Still, it won't ravel, it'll just look a bit funny. All told, I got 2.5 inches done last night, so I think I am about an inch from starting the second toe. I am pleased that even though the movie was, you know, tense, my tensioning is almost perfect. Yay, knitting in the round. Now I just need to work on that little perl-tension problem. I am also really pleased by how well the Bearfoot responds to being knit two strands at once. I was afraid all the pretty colors would get muddied, but there is still enough distinction that it still looks all handpainted. The resulting fabric is dense and cushy without being rigid, and unlike knitting this yarn one-stranded, I may finish before winter. I am thinking about knitting up a swatch of my Silkie doubled to see how it looks.

silmarian and I are hosting one of our intermittent gaming nights this Saturday. We'd love to see you there!

Details
Saturday, August 23
Anytime after 6 PM
Snacks provided
Mostly board and card games
Two little kids, one cat
Address and contact information provided on request

We'd love to see you!

No, I haven't read any of them yet, but I went to pick up what was ready of my pull-list from Zanadu. I got 4 titles, so I suspect they didn't get them all, but I only gave them the list on Monday, so I doubt it's all internalized. One must pick up her own comics out of the folders in back. We are #68, just shy of sex-requiring-balance (I have strong opinions on such). This time, the cast of characters was:
Older guy I pegged as store-owner, or at least manager.
Hot alty-girl with tattoos.
Pimply boy genius.
Formerly surly older guy.

They took time to explain the process to me (Wednesdays after work are hard on comic stores), surly-guy remembered my name and addressed me, and it was all very much more pleasant. And when I tried to ask about a comic I had very little detail on, comic boy-genius actually identified it, even though I did not know the name or number, "Um, is Dan Slott doing something new with Skrulls?" "Yes, but it's just going to be a couple issues, not a full mini-series. It ties into the stuff he's doing with The Initiative." Thank you, boy-genius. :may have to start reading The Initiative, god. But Slott is the reason I liked She-Hulk.

So, yeah, better.

Now ask me if I've READ any comics in the last month. I have to find them, first. And the Sad Box(tm) needs sorting, and I suppose, if I'm reading them, I can't make sil do it every time. Although his system makes no sense to me. Oh, wait. I always sort them.

(and the three Steven Taylor fans out there get an earworm)
On Tuesday afternoon, I ordered some compensatory treats (and one essential) from Amazon -- I got a phone headset (essential), and a new copy of Imajica, and Companion to Wolves and Black Sheep. And at noon-thirty on Wednesday, my apartment manager signed for them. And that would be pretty impressive if that shipment had come out of Seattle. But it was actually out of Kentucky. I ordered at about 2 PM. By 8:30, robot minions (I assume) had assembled three books (including one that MUST be in the deep stacks) and a headset. Someone packaged it. By 8:30 EASTERN TIME, three and a half hours later, it was out the door. UPS got it at about 2 in the morning. At 3:30 in the morning, it had been sorted for departure. At 5 AM Pacific, it arrived in Seattle (which I suspect is actually the airport sorting facility, because the transit times are improbable otherwise), and was out the door again at 5:30. At 6 AM, it arrived at the Tukwila sorting facility. By 6:30, it was loaded on a truck for delivery. It arrived at my apartment office at 12:12, after the driver attempted to deliver it to our door. From this we can conclude:

1) Bar codes are, as the early pioneers promised us, THE BOMB.
2) $80 a year is a hell of a deal for Amazon Prime.
3) Online shopping is not really less of an instant gratification thing for me than trying to find time to shop in person.
4) Any second now, someone will bring me a float chair and liquid breakfast, because it's all so u/dys/topian.
5) Our ease of shipping blinds us to how big this country really is.
6) I am going to spend a non-zero part of my weekend reading hot wolfboy sex (I'm assuming. I could be wrong. But the Amazon reviewers seem sorta pearl-clutchy for it to be chaste pure dancing-with-wolves.) (It will have to be pretty hot to top Wen Spencer's hot wolfboy sex.)

In other news of the strange new world, I have a debit card that ties directly to my HSA, so when I have eligible expenses, such as doctor co-pays, I can just pay with the little debit card, and there is no dance of reimbursement. And if I try to use it to buy Mt. Dew and Ding-Dongs, it gets declined. Seems good.

On the other hand, getting Baz's birth certificate seems like it will be a pain, with notary public steps.

I fell alseep to the sound of rain last night, with my covers pulled up over my shoulders. I woke up to rain this morning, and a bit later, woke up again to Kay cuddling me, all her curls tickling my nose.

Soon after that, my day became less idyllic, as I had to blast Baz out of bed. Which was my own fault for letting him stay up watching the Olympics. Well, and bedtime was also complicated by my parents coming by to pick up my brother from the airport. I did some dishes, I folded some laundry.

I spent part of the evening in the kid's room, which is the only place I could be alone, talking on the phone to LT. I need to get Kay a better mattress. Then Baz wanted to clean his room, at least for a bit. More than he wanted to read a book, even. I need to figure out ways I can nurture this in him. He doesn't want to do it for long, but even 5 minutes is enough to make a difference. It only takes me about 30 minutes to do the dishes, even when they seem to cover all the counters. 5 minutes is enough to load the dishwasher. 5 minutes is enough to scrub the toilet, or pick up the laundry off the floor or clean a window or wipe a table or dust a piece of furniture. I never notice how much I do this incremental housecleaning until I am gone for a bit.

Today I am once again wrestling with our source-control product. It is making me crazy.

Yesterday, we made a momentous change -- we switched our comics pull list from Comic Book Ink (who we loved but were an inconvenient 30-mile round trip) to Zanadu Comics. Zanadu wins hands-down on location, being 2.5 blocks from where we work. So far, though, they do not win on cheeriness, friendliness, or flexibility. Also, I got a sort of weird look for being a GURL with a pull-list. When sil came in to sign off on the contract (which is less favorable than Comic Book Ink's), all the attention switched to him. Convincing the slightly surly minion that it was a joint pull list was hard. I am going to have to figure out when he works, and avoid him. The other times I've been in, there's either a girl, or a younger and slightly less-surly minion.

If they end up being unpleasant and dismissive on a regular basis, we have a backup plan, involving Golden Age Collectibles, which is in the Market, so technically not far but silghtly awkward to get to. And one of my co-worker's wives works there.

The whole experience was just... offputting, in a Comic Book Guy sort of way. We will see.

The pull-list, by the way, is a whole page long, and that's because the Comic Book Ink guys have a notation system disapproved of by the Zanadu guy, where if there's a notation "Avengers - Core", it means we want all the Avengers titles there are. If we write it all out, it may go to a page and a half. About half the comics are shared (X-men, Fables, She-Hulk, Thor, Echo), and a quarter are his (Witchblade, Bomb Queen, Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars, Star Trek), and a quarter are mine (every Iron Man title, including the ones from Vegas, Red Hulk, and a series of comics I liked which petered out (Samuri Detective, I'm looking at you)). And one for Baz, who has a pull for Scooby-Doo (I really hope he learns to read soon, because Scooby is a cast-iron bitch to read aloud), and sometimes gets Marvel Adventures.

Baz and I are watching the men's floor exercises. On hearing that the Spanish silver-medalist was 27, he opined that it was not possible he was that old.
Mommy: Why not?
Baz: Because he has hair. Daddy's hair has all fallen out.
Mommy: Not every man's hair falls out.
Baz: I hope mine never falls out!
Mommy: Um, yeah.

Also, we were talking with both the kids about how much muscle it takes to do rowing. Then they wanted to know who was stronger. To no one's surprise, it was Kay by a landslide. Daddy explained to Baz that the way to get stronger was to exercise, and then we taught both kids to do situps and pushups. String-bean boy is practicing assiduously, but wants to know why his sister is stronger than he is, even though she is smaller (at least it's not "even though she's a girl"). I explained that everyone's body is different, and some of us are stronger, and some of us are faster. Happily, he is in fact faster than she is.

Also, female gymnasts: traction alopecia or malnutrition? Because I find it hard to believe that your average 16 yo has hair that thin.

I have on a black travel-knit tee, and my favorite autumn-colored skirt (the same one you have, fairoriana), and the amber necklace, and the black boots. YAY fall clothes.

It is good to have this cheer, as I was out the door by 6:45 this morning, in hopes of being able to commute home with sil this afternoon.

Also because it would be good if I finished a draft of the multi-ldap instructions today.

Today, the kids and I went to church and whoever picked the hymns was in a traditional mood. Amazing Grace, Faith of Our Fathers, and Be Thou My Vision. Only it was mildly re-worded. (scowl) I am all happy to sing entirely new words to hymns I know, but mild alteration screws me up and ruffles me. In this hymnal, it is "Be Now My Vision". Instead of

Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art
Thou my best thought, by day or by night
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light

which I love passionately and the intimacy of thou-ing God and the complicated but beautiful construction of that second line, which comes out to "You are everything, and the world is nothing.", I got,

Be now my vision, O God of my heart;
Nothing surpasses the love You impart.
You my best thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Your presence my light.

Which is not a huge change, technically, but it is just close enough for me to screw it up. And it's a song I know well enough to sing loudly. So then I muff the words, loudly.

Cheerfully, Kay volunteered to stay in church with me until children's sermon. Yay, my big kids!

Of course, the whole rest of the day was constant battle of wills with both of them, but the morning was good.

For dinner, sil made tasty dry-rubbed ribs, and I made corn-on-the-cob and green beans from the farmer's market. I blanched the beans, sauteed some bacon, took the bacon out of the fat, and tossed in some minced onion and cooked it. Then I sprinkled on some sugar, and poured in about as much vinegar as I had bacon fat. I cooked the sauce down a bit and added it to the beans. So far, I think I've eaten the better part of a pound of farm-fresh green beans by myself, and truth be told, I am done eating for a bit. Oof.

Last night we had a heck of a thunderstorm. Like at 4 AM, there was a filling-rattling crack, and the streetlights went out. The storm was RIGHT OVERHEAD, flashBANG flashBANG. I ended up with both kids quaking on my lap while sil ran around and unplugged things. We talked about how you can tell where the storm is by the delay between flash and bang is, but I could feel Baz shaking. It's a bit startling as a way to wake up.

This afternoon I passed out at naptime. I hadn't gotten to sleep until after 1, and the thunderstorm at 4... I was sleepy.

I knew I had something to flail about. Book reviews!
( Interweave Knits Fall 2008 )

( Hell & Earth, possible mild philisophical spoiler )

Skating this morning was awesome. Kay is making huge leaps in her comfort on the skates. At one point, there was a backwards-skating game where when one person fell down, the whole rest of the group had to fall. Contrary to our expectations, Coach Mick "counted" Kay, by far the youngest skater today. The look of super-intense concentration on her face as she fought every step to skate backwards and not fall down was amazing. I am very proud of her. Baz got "picked on" by the senior kid in class. He coached Baz a on gliding and bending his knees and loosening up his legs without getting too floppy through the body.

Kay and I went grocery shopping while Baz and daddy did free skating. We met up and stopped by the farmer's market on the way home. Cherries, corn, nectarines, green beans, beets, tomatoes, and one peach for Kay. Tonight's dinner was corn-on-the-cob, frittata-thing, and fruit. Yum.

GamerGirl stopped by to hang out in our AC for a while, and we had a nice gossip. And sil is going to PAX this year, yay!

And now I am watching the Olympics I have recorded, specifically the women's beach volleyball. It's beautifully simple. Also it features very attractive tall women in bikinis. I am sort of cheering for Belgium, just because they are so plucky.

When it gets a bit cooler, I'm going to make sil his long-delayed birthday apple crisp.

Baz and his playdough creation
Originally uploaded by wiredknitter

I guess it's one at a time. But if you have two kids, you put up one picture of each, by gum.

Her desk looks just like mommy's
Originally uploaded by wiredknitter

My first post from Flickr's automated service. Now to figure out how to make it do more than one at a time.

I never knew my mother likes butterscotch milkshakes. Learn something every day, I guess.

Sil bought a pnieapple. I think soon I will learn to cut a pineapple.

But you'd think I'd already know not to read email I get at 5 on a Friday afternoon.

Right at 7:30, Baz came and crawled in bed with me. He put his arms around my neck and told me that he was happy to be home because that meant he got to snuggle with me. I saved the men's gymnastics to watch with him (and Kay, if she wants).

It's not that they won't make me crazy again. They will, but it's nice to remember how sweet it is to wake up to a hug.

Kay, on the other hand, wants little to do with me right now. She is so fiercely independent, and I infringed on her liberty last night by putting her to bed.

Editing documents and the Olympics are two great tastes that go great together.

But now that I have my work emergency done, I think I will go to bed and save the men's gymnastics to watch with Baz. I have to go move him out of my bed. Wow, is it good to have the kids home.

I talked to Baz last night. I always wonder if they sound so mature on the phone because I mentally regress them while they're gone, or if they do just experience huge leaps in elocution and sentence complexity once in a while. Earlier in the week when I talked to Kay, it took me three sentences to realize that she was not her brother. It will be good to have them home. I have a kid-shaped hole in my life. Which is nice for a while. But then I get to missing all the funny, crazy-making stuff they do.

Mom says she's sending a CD of pictures home with them, so expect a photo-essay.

In other trivia, I finished the toes for my socks. There's still a lot of sock to go, but much of it is sort of mindless now. It's a really pretty color called Winter Sky -- mostly dark blue, dark purple, and navy, with little runs of teal.

Tonight after I get the kids in bed, I need to work on the housework I've been putting off, and go back to real life, but at least I can do so while watching the Olympics.

Victory of Eagles is a pretty awesome book. I like how Temeraire has progressed as a character. Also, it's a sort of beautiful exploration of military tactics. Yum!

Last night, sil and I watched the Opening Ceremonies. Holy WOW, China. Good work. Tonight LT and I are watching the primetime coverage.

Tomorrow, I get to start Hell & Earth, at least a bit. Tomorrow, I go pick up the kids. Yay! I've missed them.

1) Movie tonight with LT. Or maybe Olympics, if we can figure it out.
2) Going to the MN state fair!
3) Baz starting kindergarten.
4) Reading my new Elizabeth Bear book
5) Birthday/fall!

So much regaling, so little time. Which is why you got these little shreds of data on what I was doing.
( my trip to CA )

I had a productive day yesterday (sometimes rage-inducing, but productive), then I went out to dinner with some rockin' people. After that, we went to a piano bar, and were That Group. Whee!

Today was moderately productive, but more on an interpersonal work front than anything. Still, that's a big part of the reason I come down here. Tonight, dinner and bar-crawling! I really REALLY hope sil is remembering to dvr the opening ceremonies for me.

This does sort of simplify my dithering about the baby quilt for Blueberry.

I took out the bits and pieces for Kay's baby quilt (shutup). Um. I think before I embark, I will make sure she likes the idea. sigh. Slackermommy is anxious.

I watched tv and cast on for my next pair of socks. ( knitting )

Today, I have had a couple ad hoc meetings. I had lunch with a different constellation of email guys. I think at two I will give up on my ineffectual stakeout and go bother the (new, embittered) UI/Java guy to tell me more about the new features. Then at three I meet with the CDP guy. Where, I do not know. There are only 200 people here, how hard can it be? sigh. Then at 4 I return to my stakeout, until it is time to go have dinner. Woo!

When your flight leaves at 7:15, you wake up before breakfast. sil dropped me off at the airport, checkin was smooth as usual with Virgin America, and I got an outlet. Which was good, as the flight ran a bit late.

The flight down was bumpy, but not crowded, thankfully. I mostly worked, as I was all grr arg about work. I needn't have bothered for today, but at least I got it done. Getting the car was a PITA. I am developing preferences about car rental companies. Finally, an hour after I wanted to, I arrived. I grabbed lunch with a couple of My Guys. Pizza. Then off to meetings from 1-5:30. Very productive meetings, but my brain was crawling out my ear by the time I got done. More the rest of the week.

Came back to my hotel room and had a shower and talked to LT for a bit, and then had a nice long nap. I got up and hunted down some breakfast food. The rest of this evening is mellow and relaxing. Started Victory of Eagles. Did some work. Watching tv. I have an exciting week planned, and a day of mellowness before that seems in order.

Random note 1: I FAILED at TSA by changing my mind at the last minute and not checking my bag. It cost me my mousse and my toothpaste, but miraculously, not my lube or my perfume.

Random note 2: I forget.

Sil and I went out to dinner last night for his birthday. I was dressed up and everything. Then we came home and behaved in the manner of dressed up adults whose children are two counties away. ;)

Tonight is movie night with LT, and tomorrow morning early, I am off to Sunnyvale and parts SFO. I will be there through Monday morning.

Whee!

( long )

( knitting content )

On our way to Gilbert & Sullivan last week, we were listening to the NPR quiz show that is not Wait, Wait. Yes, I could go look it up. Don't have my browser up right now. Anyway, they were playing a variant of Balderdash using the word "scrump", and I was no fun because I identified and defined the term. Mom decided that this was A Sign, and with all three of her children home at the same time, we were going to have a familial FreeRice episode after church this Sunday, and finally make it to level 60.

Other plans for this weekend include skating lessons, sermon from my brother, and most of all, 60th birthday party for my dad, now including chainsaw carving, cheesecake, and frolic.

Then we abandon the kids there and go home in kid-free splendor.

You know you are doing it right when you call a colleague and the first thing out of their mouth is an apology for not giving you that which you demanded.
"Hi, Wired. I saw your email. Can I call you right back?"

PHEAR ME, co-workers! I will get that tech spec from you! The alternative is grim for you, in which I use my imagination to compose the documentation and then you must rewrite the product to reflect the docs. YAR."

....now on to the next victimcolleauge.

Would you pay $3000 for a larger-than-life-size art installation unique to you and your environment and family?

Would you pay $3000 for an 11-foot tall chainsaw carving of a bagpiper?

Hm.

Mom has laid out a fleece. If the chainsaw artist from Vashion Island, who only takes commissions which interest him, can come down on Saturday for dad's 60th birthday, AND if he charges a bit less than 3k, that will be a sign that it is meant to be.

My mom is a big believer in fleeces. It's how she was reconciled to sil and I getting married in such a tearing hurry. The fleece in that instance was finding a wedding dress THAT DAY that cost under $500 and fit my freakish Barbie-like dimensions. $135. Booyah. But it's a funny superstitious/gambling/augury thing for such a straightlaced pastor, no matter how biblical the origin story. It never fails to tickle me, and I find myself hoping that the artiste of two-stroke engines is available.

36 And Gideon said unto God, If thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as thou hast said,
37 Behold, I will put a fleece of wool in the floor; and if the dew be on the fleece only, and it be dry upon all the earth beside, then shall I know that thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as thou hast said.
38 And it was so: for he rose up early on the morrow, and thrust the fleece together, and wringed the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of water.
39 And Gideon said unto God, Let not thine anger be hot against me, and I will speak but this once: let me prove, I pray thee, but this once with the fleece; let it now be dry only upon the fleece, and upon all the ground let there be dew.
40 And God did so that night: for it was dry upon the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground.

In other Mineral news, the post office was burgled. It is a headscratcher.

I got home and sil had dinner all plated and ready for me. He and I watched liberal propoganda, and then he went to get milk, and then I settled down to listen to LT install her new TV. We watched Remember the Titans. I tend to think of events that took place only 5 years before I was born as "recent", but the early 70's really was the better part of four decades ago. Huh. Also, the only football I love more than standing at the sidelines of a team that I care about is football-as-performed-for-camera. It captures what I wish/remember capturing -- the glorious moment when all the blocks work and your guy comes sailing down the edge of the field like a Greek god, clutching the ball.

Then we watched the season finale of Deadliest Catch. This was punctuated by her saying "I can see water drops!" ;) I think the Olympics will be lovely.

sil and I went to bed, and even though we were both exhausted, we were also silly. I like being silly with him.

He took me out for lunch today, and sillied me right out of my sulks.

Of course, nothing is unmixed. The shooting gloves gave me no end of grief and I finally ended up ripping back both fingers I had knitted. Her fingers are smaller than mine, but bigger than a 5-year old's.

( below the cut )