Rehearsing Retirement

I find myself unexpectedly on family medical leave for about the next three to four weeks.

No, no one here just gave birth. [Wiping brow in relief just at the thought.] This past Monday my wife fell and injured her knee. Finding the ER waiting room surprisingly empty (I guess you don't get a lot of gunshot wounds at Labor Day picnics), we got taken care of in pretty short order. We received mixed news:

• On the up side, the injury turned out to be a slight break, not as bad as the previous one, requiring an immobilizer but not a cast.
• Also on the up side, I got a lot of compliments on my improvised scrap wood and duct tape leg support-immobilizer attachment for the wheelchair.
• There was some bad news too: due to budget constraints, the hospital no longer validates parking for the lot across the street.

My wife isn't in any pain other than what would normally be associated with having me home 24 hours a day. Mostly she's just understandably frustrated about being immobilized.She'll be laid up for a few weeks and, until she can look after herself, needs someone with her. With the boys away at school and the cats saying they'd like to help but it's not in their cat-union contract, it looks like I'll be home for a while, playing the role of gentleman farmer.

There are adjustments to make and every day we're figuring out work-arounds to manage another one or two normal things. The overall pace of juggling house tasks is constant but not hectic. After several days of me sleeping on the sofa and my wife sleeping in the lounge chair - getting upstairs is not an option at the present time - we finally remembered yesterday that the sofa is the sleeper kind, so last night was actually spent in the relative comfort of a real bed.

The cats, much of whose daily routine revolves around our normal bedroom, are walking around very confused these days. The whole business of us relocating our lives to the living room was disorienting enough for them. Yesterday, when a bed magically appeared there, their bewildered stares moving back and forth over it nearly made everything we've been through so far worth the trouble. I can only imagine what they're thinking, since it's in the very spot that, every December, a tree that blooms cat toys mysteriously grows.

One good part of all this is that I'm getting to do some real cooking. Up until now I've made mostly fun, individual items when I felt like it - baking a pie, things like that - or making a batch of something or other to have for lunch that week. For the first time I'm having to plan out and make contiguous meals - a protein, starch and vegetable that are coordinated enough to seem like they're not the culinary equivalent of a ransom note with glued letters from eight different newspapers. It's fun and interesting and requires a lot of "ok, let's see what we've got in the house and what can I do with it," something the plan-every-step-beforehand cook I've always been never had to do. I'd always been a disciple of Ina Garten for the odds-and-ends stuff, but now that I need regular meal items on a daily basis I'm quickly coming to appreciate Tyler Florence. Great stuff, and not complicated for someone making it the first time. Yesterday alone I made two of his on the spur of the moment: roasted rosemary potatoes, and green beans with almonds and caramelized onions. At this rate I'll be going through his entire list of recipes before my leave is finished, kind of a K-mart version of "Julie and Julia." Other recipes are coming from wherever I can find them; an outstanding (and thankfully simple) baked salmon recipe came from the back of the salmon fillet package. I'm learning a lot, too, from my wife's directions.

In some ways the hardest part of all this is not having a day-structure provided for me. That kind of freedom is fine for people with discipline, but what about the rest of us? I'm hoping to keep up with what's going on at work through phone messages and e-mails. My goal is to keep them from realizing how well they function without me.

Unrelated Item 1: No Love Lost

Memo to self: Do NOT get Serena Williams angry.

Leader of the Pack

While the nation mourns the loss of Ted Kennedy, I hope the passing of another notable gets, well, noted.

It was an "awww" moment for me this morning when I learned of the passing of Ellie Greenwich. You probably know her name, you unquestionably know her work. If you've spent any time at all listening to the great hits in the years leading up to the British Invasion, probably 80% of the songs you've enjoyed were the work of about four or so songwriting teams. Ellie Greenwich and her husband Jeff Barry were one of them. It's not practical, and probably not even necessary, to list her hits here. Our lives touched once, sorta-kinda, in the most indirect way possible, and it was a small, strange experience I've always found oddly heartwarming.

Years ago, my wife and I belonged to a group of sign language students who, in the spare time we seemed to have in those days, used to get together at our house to work out signed renditions of various popular songs. (I'll put our "Chipmunk's Christmas Song" next to anyone's.) At one point we were working on "Leader of the Pack'" and, as often happened before Al Gore invented the Internet, had a disagreement over one part of the lyrics we were listening to. (Ok, we all agreed on the lyrics except for one of us who had an absurd interpretation of one line that I would even now be embarrassed to say.) I knew that Ellie Greenwich worked out of New York, and thought if I could look up her office address, we could drop her a "note" (a primal form of written communication that existed before e-mails that younger readers can ask their grandparents about) and settle the lyric question. What I found in the NY telephone book was a phone number with no address listed, which I took to mean Ms. Greenwich worked out of a home office. (One of the advantages of working in a profession that doesn't involve large industrial machines, I suppose.) I'll say a lot of things to a lot of different people, but even in those days there was no way I was going to call a famous songwriter at home and ask her about a lyric she'd written 30 years before. Another much bolder member of our group made the call and got to speak to her. Explaining our dilemma, my friend asked what the line after "One day my dad said 'Find someone new' " was. Pausing a moment to think, singing through the lyrics and, most of all, exhibiting enormous kindness, she responded that it was, "I had to tell my Jimmy we're through." My friend thanked her profusely and reported back to us.

I've sometimes wondered what Ms. Greenwich thought of that strange phone call, in the unlikely event she thought of it at all; when you've got her list of accomplishments, things like that probably don't stand out. For those of us on the other end of the phone, however - older now certainly, and perhaps a little wiser - it was a memory, and a happy one at that.

Bam!

A good bit of the early part of this week was spent in some pain due to an earache. It's a recurring thing I've more or less adjusted to but, unlike the ones before, this one didn't go away after a day. After three days of acetamitaphin (I don't think there are any extra "ita's" in there, but I could be wrong) and some homeopathic (Latin for "expensive and doesn't work very well") stuff I got at the drugstore, I was getting desperate.

Enter the Internet. According to, well, I don't know who but it was on the Internet so it must be true, a good treatment for some of the more common forms of earaches is to apply the liquid from a garlic clove to the inner ear. (My wife had suggested warm olive oil and, after reading the garlic suggestion, I though about just pouring some Italian dressing down my ear canal, but couldn't find any in the house.) Not experienced in this type of remedy but desperate for some relief, I got out the garlic press and gave it a try. I made two discoveries:

1. If you're ever given a choice between putting either garlic in your ear, or the fires of hell, go with the fires. It will burn less.
2. I woke up the next morning, and every morning since, free of ear pain. (I hate it when stuff that hurts so much works.)

Just thought I'd share...


Here Comes Treble

An entry or two ago I wrote about the tattoo my son James got. Now my son Jacob has joined the club. His is a g-clef, about 4 inches or so in height, on his right shoulder blade. I don't have a picture yet, but will post one when it's available.

I mentioned this to a (non-tattooed) friend today, and she told me of an interesting question she'd once been asked: if a law were passed saying you HAD to get a tattoo, what would you get and where? I'm still considering the question, and would welcome anyone who cares to sharing their answer. Could be wonderfully revealing.

A Dash of Catch-Up

A warm welcome to new reader MrsSchlereth, who raised the question of whether my son's tattoo was his own design. It's not. In fact, it's currently a popular tattoo design with some minor variations here and there. (Not that I knew this when he first talked to us about getting it. I thought it was the name of a band I never heard of, which would be true of any music group formed after about 1964, the year my musical tastes went into suspended animation.)

It's been a bad couple of weeks for electronics here. First, the hard drive on my desktop computer blew out. Ok, says I wistfully, I've got a laptop and fairly recent backups of everything except the 500 songs on my ipod, and since the songs are already loaded on the ipod, no big deal. A couple of days later, I turned on my ipod and found the screen was cracked from the inside which, if you are familiar with ipods, you know means they're pretty much destroyed. (It is with no small irony that I remembered feeling terribly smug and smart about not spending $15 to buy a protective plastic case that, while probably worth about fifty cents, would have saved me from having to spend $150 on another damn ipod.)

Ok, says I, a bit less wistfully, I still have the music cd's I got the songs from the first time, and that nice set of backups of my other files, so it's just a question of loading them onto the laptop. And by laptop, I mean the computer that, a couple of days after the ipod debacle, happened to be near where some idiot (ok, it was me, but don't tell anyone) set down a cup of coffee. The coffee did what coffee always does when placed in the general proximity of electronic equipment, creating what computer service people genteelly call a "liquid spill." Twenty four hours, one can of compressed air, and a whole lot of guilt-ridden prayer later, the laptop was able to function completely again. Well, almost completely; the letter that comes after "y" doesn't work. This wouldn't be a big deal, except my normal isp is veri[letter after y]on.

Harumph.

And Now For Something Completely Different

Canoodling (I love that word) around You-Tube a few days ago, I came across a Monty Python clip in which they performed Eric Idle's brilliant song, "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life." I've heard it countless times, but for some reason a portion of the lyrics really jumped out at me this time and have continued to rebound in my head. Not quite haunting me, but something close. I won't think about why.

"For life can be absurd, and death's the final word.
Always face the curtain with a bow.

"Forget about your sin, give the audience a grin.
Enjoy it. It's your last chance anyhow."


Let Me Say This About That

I watched the Frost-Nixon movie dvd a couple of days ago. What a great pleasure to watch a well-made movie that relies on cerebral, grown-up concepts instead of visceral reactions to loud noises and visual stimulation. Frank Langella as Nixon was astonishing. And the irony of putting a dvd into a player to watch a movie about Nixon and having it start off with an FBI warning: priceless.

Living the Dream

Having reluctantly abandoned my life-long ambition of having someone walk up to me on the street in NYC and ask how to get to Carnegie Hall, before it's too late I wanted to set down in writing a couple of things I still want to accomplish before they're singing "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" at a memorial service for me:

• Every day in NYC I see those double-decker sight-seeing buses filled with camera-carrying tourists. And every time I do, it's impossible not to think about how much fun it would be to moon them. ("Hey, I got your sights, right here!")
  
• Have you ever watched those morning shows where grown men and women get up at heaven-only-knows what time so they can stand behind Matt or Meredith or whomever and wave a "Hi Mom" sign on television for three seconds? (Heaven help me, I once saw the Today Show's Ann Curry do a remote from Antarctica and there were people behind her doing this. IN FRIGGING ANTARCTICA!) How cool would it be to hold up a sign like that and, when the camera's on, let a flap fall open that says something deeply crude and grossly obscene? Just wondering...
  

Wanted to Mention

I don't care whether that camping picture with the squirrel is real or not. It's the funniest thing I've seen in a long time.

Coexist

So now it turns out there's some kind of federal law against elected officials taking money in exchange for political favors. Who knew?




On a more important note, every generation hopes the next generation goes even further. Or farther. Whatever - I'm too tired right now to reach for the dictionary. In my family, for example, my generation has been the first to have the opportunity to go to college. Continuing in that spirit, today my son James became the first in our family history to get a tattoo, a series of letters and religious symbols that, taken together, spell out "coexist." It's a pleasing message and, I suppose, not surprising given the diversity of religions, nationalities, races, sanity levels, etc. that my kids have had the advantage of knowing all their lives, at home as much as on the outside.

For some reason my kids' friends are surprised that my wife and I are ok with this. In my mind, as long as the tattoo is selected and placed such that it passes the "job interview" test, it shouldn't be a problem. It's not something I'd elect to do for myself - for some reason I'm just not comfortable doing anything that includes getting a reversed graphic image in blood on a large bandage - but I'm sure I've done a thing or two my kids wouldn't want to get near either. All I've ever really asked of my children is to be good people, respect themselves and others, and support their parents in grand style after retirement. (That would be the parents' retirement, not the kids'.) That's not too much to expect, is it?


Unrelated Item: Paradigm Shift Into Overdrive

For as long as anyone could remember, car salesmen were understood to be bottom-feeding, silver-tongued people-hating swindlers. A tough economy somehow has turned them into sympathetic characters. I'm not sure I can go along with that; I'll have to ok it with the manager.

Taking The Fourth

One of the problems with not posting often is that when posts do finally get written, they tend to be a bit on the long side. You've been warned. And at least this one has pictures. Color ones, even.

I love the Fourth of July. It is a wonderful opportunity to pause and remember the courageous men and women who bravely sacrificed so that future generations could live in a nation in which a qualified person of any race or belief system (except Libertarians) can be elected to the highest office in the land (and by this I mean First Lady); where, if you want your cheeseburger, fries and shake supersized it shall be so; and where a pathological self-mutilating pedophile who, if he couldn't sing and dance and were like the rest of us, would have been given a sequined straight-jacket and put in a padded hyperbaric chamber a long time ago, can become a candidate for sainthood.

By far, my favorite part of the Fourth of July celebration is our tradition of fireworks shows. For years, Macy's has put on a huge, world-class show in New York City that somehow manages to outdo the previous year's display. Normally I shy away from attending in person, remembering some years back when it took me two hours to get home from seeing them at a state park I live about ten minutes from. Feeling brave this year, we decided to try another location.

This year we tried Weehawken, a nearby city along the Hudson River with a great view of the New York City skyline. (The skyline is always kind of a mixed thing for me. I alternate between marveling, like everyone else, at its majestic beauty, and thinking, as a seasoned and occasionally jaded New Yorker, that it's too much packed into too small a space, but that's a post for another day.) We found a spot right by the bust of Alexander Hamilton and settled in. With a long wait between our arrival and the start of the fireworks, I spent a good bit of time looking into Mr. Hamilton's eyes and thinking, as many Americans surely would, "You frigging dummy."

Hamilton was,, of course, one of this nation's founding fathers. He served as the first Secretary of the Treasury, co-wrote The Federalist Papers, and did a whole lot of other things I'm never going to do. But the reason the statue was there at all was that the place we were standing is where Hamilton, along with Aaron Burr, the former vice-president, engaged in a "duel," a somewhat extreme case of "I'll see you in the schoolyard after 3:00" and, in the process, threw away his life and everything he'd ever accomplished. (Remember, this was before airplanes, when vice-presidents wanting to shoot things were limited to doing it from the ground.) What at the time may well have seemed a rite of being a gentleman is more easily understood today to be the supreme act of childishness. And when, like Hamilton, you can't hit the broad side of a barn from the inside to begin with, it's a particularly bad idea. (On the other hand, it did earn him a really cool statue.)

In a fitting, if unintended, tribute to this, a woman standing near us for the fireworks thought another woman was speaking too loud (she was) and responded by, of course, yelling at her. A third woman joined in, siding with the loud talker. None of this involved a lot of English, but it was kind of fun to witness. Unfortunately, it settled down before I was able to get out the pistols and clear out ten paces worth of open space.

Back to the fireworks. Here are some pictures I'd love to say I took, but the fact is that except for the Alexander Hamilton bust and the Dueling Grounds plaque, they're the work of my son Jacob. I think they provide a little bit of a feeling of what it was to see this year's fireworks show. The photos are mostly self-explanatory. There are just a couple of things I'd like to offer comment on:

• In the next-to-last photo, you'll see the top of the Empire State Building just to the right of the fireworks burst,. lit up red-white-and-blue for the occasion. (They've got a pretty impressive collection of lights up there and illuminate the building in different colors for a wide range of special occasions.)
• The last photo shows something that didn't get widely reported, a fire that broke out on one of the barges near the end of the display. A few fireworks on board were ignited, but damage was minimal and no injuries were reported.

Gratuitous Political Commentary

Item 1: I've Heard the Word "Minnesotans" More in the Last Week Than I Have in my Entire Life Preceeding That

You've got to admire Norm Coleman. After the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled earlier this week that he lost the election and had no more legal avenues left to continue contesting it, the former senator decided to concede. How gracious of him. Al Franken has now been sworn in as the new junior senator. Franken is ready for the challenge. He's prepared to work hard, he understands the issues and, doggone it, people like him.

Item 2: From Parts of Alaska You Can Actually See Political Obscurity

Sarah Palin is resigning as governor of Alaska (nickname: the "Oh Yeah, I Forgot That's a State" state). Her own words, from her Facebook page:

"How sad that Washington and the media will never understand; it's about country. And though it's honorable for countless others to leave their positions for a higher calling and without finishing a term, of course we know by now, for some reason a different standard applies for the decisions I make."

Those are not the words of a president. Memo to the governor: the first rule of being in a hole is to stop digging. Also, in this case, to stop pouting.

And, not for nothing, as we say here in the hood, but when I think of politicians who have left their positions without finishing their term, I'm remembering some who sneaked out the back door in disgrace, some who were led out in handcuffs, and some who, sad to say, were carried out on a gurney. I'm drawing a blank on any who left to pursue a higher calling. Maybe someone can help me here.

Lest I be misunderstood, let me make it clear that on a personal level, I have only the highest respect for Sarah Palin. Parenting is hard under the best of circumstances, and on the home front she's dealt pretty well, even admirably, with some very tough situations. And there are undoubtedly positions of leadership she's suited for. It's just that at this point, from stunningly poor campaign interviews to clumsy debate performance to pouty personal Facebood entries, I'm thinking Leader of the Free World is not one of them.

Item 3: Full-Court Press

I'm not too worried about Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court. Clarence Thomas got confirmed, for goodness sake. How hard can it be?

Passing Thoughts

As we begin to see the onslaught of "All Michael, All The Time" programming, a few quickly-written thoughts before running out the door to get my cholesterol checked. (Following that, the rest of the morning will be spent eating all the things I avoided before the test so no one at the lab would know.)

Vacation Progress Report

Pretty productive week so far. A couple of things from the "do these or see your life as worthless" list mentioned in the previous post had to be put off, but for valid reasons. (I misplaced the charger for the tool I need to work on the magic case and am waiting for the new one I ordered, and yesterday was my sons' birthday and my wife, as is her custom every year, made them each their choice of yummy cake, so making the cupcakes as I'd first intended would have has us sitting here with more cake than any civilized family of four should ever have.) Other projects, of course, take their place seamlessly. Got some bank business tended to, survived both a colonoscopy and a dentist visit, finished what I hope is the final draft of the article I'd mentioned previously, got some weeds pulled, even put a converter box on the old black and white tv here in my office. (Be warned: if you're putting a converter box on an old tv, there's about $18 worth of parts you'll need in addition to the converter box itself. The upside is, it's so easy even I was able to figure it out.) It's been so productive one of the only things I haven't gotten around to doing this week is having a vacation. But it is on the list.

Not Meant to Seem Cynical, Just Honest

I'm haven't been what you'd consider a fan of either Farrah Fawcett or Michael Jackson over the years, but it seems impossible not to offer at least some brief thoughts on their passings yesterday.

For all she accomplished as a real actress - and she accomplished much - anyone who was aware of their surroundings in 1976 undoubtedly still remembers the famous Farrah swimsuit poster. Putting the show business stuff aside and seeing a human element in all of this, that moment-frozen-in-time image of a bright, attractive woman with a great smile makes her death, and the time-passes-and-we're all-mortal reminders that go with it, all the more poignant. By now it's probably fair to say everyone's life has been touched by cancer, and in that context Farrah impressed me greatly these past months. That thought would be incomplete without also mentioning Ryan O'neal, to whom I hadn't given a lot of thought before, and what a mensch he's been through the whole difficult process. I don't expect this to matter, except in some small cosmic way and probably not even that, but they both have my respect.

When I heard the first reports saying Michael Jackson had died, it was impossible for me not to think about the reports of Andy Kaufman's passing some years back. Hoping this doesn't read like a crude and inappropriate joke, because it is the absolute truth, Andy Kaufman was dead for two weeks before I believed it. If you remember the man's aggressively creative comic genius, you'll also remember it would not have been entirely out of character for him to release a story like that as an elaborate prank, a grand media nose-tweak.

In Michael Jackson's case, I was skeptical at first but within a few hours the reports did convince me. It goes without saying, of course, that the sudden death of a 50 year old guy, any 50 year old guy, is sad and a bit disturbing. And as a creative artist, Jackson really was amazing - it's not supposed to be possible for a human being to move like that. It's hard not let the personal wierdnesses - and that's the kindest way I can say it - cloud the view, especially since these were choices he made himself. I've heard moving, eloquent statements from members of his family, musicians he worked with, friends, etc. (I've been tuning in and out of the news, so I seem to have missed any endearing memories poured out by the kids and parents involved in the pedophilia accusations, including the one he settled out of court with. You would have thought that a $22 million settlement would have at least gotten the child to say something lovely now. People are just so ungrateful.)

As we prepare to endure several weeks of repetition of the same clips, stories, quotes, reports and, of course, rememberances (first from those who knew him, from those familiar with those who knew him, then - in the third and (hopefully) final wave, from those who went to nursery school with someone related to someone who knew him), I offer the following encouragement: it eventually settled down with Elvis, and it will eventually settle down with St. Michael.

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch...

Back again, hopefully more regularly from now on. Yeah, yeah, I know I've said that before.

So what's been going on? The spring term of the course I was teaching is finished - anonymous student survey gave an instructor rating of 6.57 out of 7 and a course evaluation of 5.71 out of 7 (yea, me!). The summer course was canceled due to low enrollment - one of the hazards of retail education (as opposed to years spent teaching college students with guns to their heads taking a required course), but normal for this time of year - and I'm looking forward to the fall term. In the meantime, I've been tutoring a student who, I suppose, would have taken the summer course were it available. Because of time limitations - it's a prep course for an exam which will be offered in its current form for the last time at the end of June - the sessions have been pretty concentrated, covering what was 20 hours of classroom material in about a week and a half of after-work meetings. A pleasant experience - the student and I have gotten along well, she's worked hard and I love doing this stuff. Just a tiring and, for writing purposes, a time-consuming one.

And now I'm off for a few days. Considering the schedule for next week includes a colonoscopy (I picked up the gatorade-from-hell from the pharmacy yesterday), a dentist visit, and a checkup at my doctor's office, how much I'm looking forward to it says something about the current state of my tight-woundedness. A few other projects I wistfully hope to fit in include trying out a couple of cupcake icing recipes (Nigella's cupcake recipe worked great; the royal icing she used with it didn't appeal to us over here); finishing writing an article I hope to get published somewhere (faithful reader and all-around terrific person Oldhousegal will remember giving me some much-appreciated editing suggestions a couple of hundred years ago - yes, I finally hope to finish it); and finishing building a new case for my magic items. We'll see how many of those things actually got done by the end of the week. Pray for me.

No, Really, it is a Speaker

Since the last post I have gotten to fly to another state for a show, and learned an important lesson: if ever you're feeling in need of attention, put a wireless PA speaker in your carry-on bag. You'll get to meet lots of nice people from the TSA. Just be sure to allow extra time at the airport. (I did notice that they were so focused on the speaker, they didn't examine the battery-pack unit for the lapel mic. Tsk, tsk.)

The Sixteenth Minute

We're seeing a barrage of entertainment news: Jon and Kate, Rob and Kristen, Heidi's and Spencer's contentious interview with Al Roker, etc. etc. The nature of celebrity makes for a great study of the human thought process, and there are great debates to be had on things like the definition and importance of celebrity, its role in our culture, etc. Here's one thing I'd always thought there was no debate on: "celebrity" should, at some point, involve someone you've heard of. Who in the world ARE these people?

Hey, Cookie...

The radio is on as I write this, and as part of a news report about a product recall of packaged cookie dough I've just learned there are more than 40 groups on Facebook for people who love raw cookie dough. Who knew? I suspect a good number of folks who feel a need to be a member of one of those groups enjoy their cookie dough while watching entertainment news.

Go West, Young Man

The-bimbette-formerly-known-as-Miss-California has been back in the news again. Let's put aside for a moment our inexplicable penchant for putting a microphone in the face of some woman whose ambition is to be Miss Someplace-or-Other and being shocked - shocked! - when she says something less than insightful. Past entries have already made clear my disdain for beauty pageant perpetrators, so I won't repeat that here. Still, this latest episode is even more fun than usual because of her total, unabashed insistence that every aspect of this has been someone else's fault.

I'm reminded of a friend who served in the Marine Corps and was awarded their "Good Conduct" medal. He explained that, within the ranks, it's sometimes referred to as the "never-been-caught" medal. The real mystery about these beauty pageants is not why it seems as if some mis-guided contestant gets exposed - literally and figuratively - every year. It is by what public-relations miracle doesn't it happen to more of them?

Maybe it's a good thing there are people who think these contestants represent the feminine ideal. It means less competition for the women really worth sharing your life with for those who know better.

I Got You, Babe

One celebrity news item that did catch my interest this week was Cher's public statement concerning her daughter's sex-change operation. The matter of having to issue a public statement about something so private in the first place notwithstanding, I loved what she wrote. A stage persona is just that; in the clutch, Cher has once again shown herself to be the epitome of grace and dignity. If you've not seen it already:

"Chaz is embarking on a difficult journey, but one that I will support. I respect the courage it takes to go through this transition in the glare of public scrutiny and although I may not understand I will strive to be understanding. The one thing that will never change is my abiding love for my child."

"Although I may not understand I will strive to be understanding." Take that, Miss California.

Obligatory Cute Cat Picture

This is from this morning. Just a quick cel-phone picture, but I thought it was worth sharing. They do grow, don't they.