Red White and Blue

Today was Red, White and Blue Day at camp. So Iain whipped out his extra special Charleston Library T-shirt (a gift) and off he went.

It was a hit. Most of the kids were dressed in either red, white or blue. Not Iain. No sir. He's got camp spirit to spare.

Today they made parfaits out of blueberries, strawberries and yogurt. They made stars on sticks (paper stars, painted, on popsicle sticks), and they had a parade where they all waved scarves. I guess they didn't have flags.

It's crazy hot. For the last 3 or 4 days it's been in the 90s, and although we're pretty comfy indoors and it's cool by evening (so we can walk), that's still hot. So Iain and I have decided that this weekend we're making ice cream and sorbet. Last summer I made wild blackberry ice cream, black tea ice cream, chocolate sorbet, and lemon verbena ice cream. Any votes for this year?

Yeah. Plain, Jane.

Above, the problem. Our house comes with this lovely, untouched, completely new yard.

Whaddya mean, new? You may ask.

Welll....it was a corner, right? And it had a sloping side yard instead of a back yard. Where there might have been a back yard there was, instead, a garage. So the previous owners built a retaining wall, fenced in the side yard, and created that wonder of green you see above.

BUT.

Charles observed today that the view from the kitchen window (or anywhere else back there) is kinda boring. The yard feels blank, and it would be nice to do something more appealing. So we're thinking Japanese, of course, since that's one of our favorite garden cultures. Something like this?

Karesansui garden at Tofuku-ji in Kyoto, thank you Wikipedia

What? Too serious? Not enough play space? How about this:

Above and below, examples from Bowdoin College's fantastic website on Japanese gardens. Both illustrate the use of trees in landscape.

As we walk around the neighborhood, we've observed a number of twisty, silver pine trees that would be a pleasure to look at and would retain their beauty in all the seasons. So now all we have to do is decide what we want. I'm for a quiet nook with a water feature, some seating, and a couple of these twisty trees for visual interest. Maybe one pine and an espaliered fruit tree. Charles is still thinking about it, but has a lot of ideas.

So stay tuned. Our blank, blindingly green side yard might just turn into something interesting one of these days. Not today, of course. Or tomorrow. But maybe next year. Or the one after that.

Naptime Talking

"I want a chicken salad bacon soup..."

"Iain want hold you. You're baby."

"It's him! I told you."

Iain is attempting "quiet time" (aka NAP) in the pack-n-play behind me. I'm ignoring him so he'll go to sleep. Ha. Anyway, he's talking to himself.

Penzey's Greek Dressing

You are so lovely. And so tasty. And so easy.
Can you convince Iain to GO TO BED????

The Library: A Hit

Even with the screaming hot sun, the 90 degree temps, and Iain's post-nap grumps, the wall fountain proved appealing.


He wasn't that interested in the crystal cave, but Grandma's Attic was so "awesome!" he kept coming back and back and back.


There's stuff to climb on, see?


And stuffed animals and books and you can hide in the corners.

We got about 20 books, walked all the way around the SL Arts festival (which I attended Friday night), got back in our car at our outstanding parking spot (good job, Dad), and headed for home with our loot.

Then it was ribs, asparagus, and The Tickle Truck. In fact, the Tickle Truck is still circling the house, stopping periodically to grab Iain and make him squeal.

Wacko Layout Issues

Sorry about the changes to the formatting here. Blogger has decided to get all Fancy Nancy and no longer supports our other version of the blog layout.

So I have to choose new colors, backgrounds, font sizes, all kinds of stuff-ola. And it's just too, too many choices to make. I've been playing around, trying things on for size, and am still chewing it all up. Feel free to opine.

Cluck!

I spent the morning with chickens. And a few interesting ladies. But mostly: chickens.

The Wasatch Community Gardens sponsors a tour of urban chicken coops, so my friend and colleague Kate organized a group of ladies (four women and two girls) to visit a few. We saw 7 coops on seven private properties, all on small (sometimes tiny) lots here in the city. And let me tell you: these were some spectacular gardens.

The coops were cool, even funny, but the amazing thing was the use people made of their yards. Herbs grew next to perennials and vegetables sat in raised beds atop vermiculture containers while chickens pecked at scraps and ate bugs and rested in the shade of apricot trees. Really.

One garden contained three areas. There was a beautifully landscaped deck and grass portion near the house, intended for relaxing and play. Then there was a large coop (probably 100sf) made of scraps of modernist iron fencing. So if you imagine sheets of iron with cutouts of various designs (fish, yin/yang, birds), then imaging a screened-in box with walls partly made of that stuff...well, it's hard to imagine. But it was splendid. Third, they'd transformed the roof of their home into a deck and raised-bed vegetable garden. You could look down on all their neighbors, too. I want to meet the people next door, who have an enormous FIG!

And get this: here's how they help their fig survive the winter: they built a box around it made of 2x4's. It's like a big open frame around the fig. I couldn't figure out why it was there, but then the owner explained that in winter he frames it in, fills it with straw, and the result is a cozy little box for the fig to stay warm(ish). Genius!

Of course, I forgot my camera. But I learned a ton about chickens and gardening and the community of urban farmers (which is a pretentious phrase but it's fun to see how much they could grow here).

In other news, we went to the grocery. On the radio was a live dance concert in LA. The DJ chanted "Yo, Yo, Yo!" and from the backseat Iain echoed: "Yo!YO!YO!!!" Then we all threw our hands in the air, as ordered.

Big Boy Bed

Check it out! The Moose has his own bed, and it's not a cage anymore. It's a Big Boy Bed (BBB) complete with Mommy's 33 year old pillow from Kampus Kiddies, her beloved kindergarten. Iain refuses to let silly things like pillows and blankets sully his pristine new BBB, but this morning we found him asleep with his IKEA crane and flatbed set (visible in the lower right cubby of his bookshelf above). So you can sleep with stuff, but only if it's wooden and contains magnets.

Below, the same child, playing Bucket Boy in a fabric box from IKEA. Was he driving? Hiding? Playing Peek-A-Boo? I don't know because these photos were taken while I was upstairs. Charles said, "There are some surprises on your camera..." and there they were. Cheeky little monkey, ain't he?

What I Found When I Uploaded to Shutterfly

Seriously. This is love, toddler style.

Sleep Disruption

Grass along the road at City Creek

We're having a weird week. Last Friday night, Iain did something he's never, ever, done before.

He slept in our bed.

From the time he was a little baby, this has been impossible. He DOES NOT WANT to be near us, nor will he tolerate the covers, nor does he appreciate the cuddly, parent-child bonding potential of co-sleeping. No way, no how.

Then, last Friday, he refused to go to sleep. Refused. And we finally offered him a spot in our bed. We knew (knew!) he wouldn't do it. But he lay down at the foot of the bed, on top of the covers, and went right to sleep.

I spent the night crammed against the upper right corner of the bed, no covers (he was atop them), listening to him snore and watching to ensure he didn't fall off the end onto his head. Charles spent the night crammed up against the left corner, so squished that he got up around 4 to take Advil for an aching back. Iain spread out across the bed, diagonal and spread-eagled, snoring like a freight train. Sn-O-R-ing.

Saturday night he wailed until 10:30pm. Sunday night he slept in our bed again. This time he decided to cuddle. So he attached himself to my head, then lay right up against me (on my covers), snoring and kneeing me in the throat. ALL NIGHT.

Last night he wailed until 10:15. Charles finally sat in the dark with him until he fell asleep.

The hills at the top of the City Creek walk (or at least as far up as we've gone)

So what's the deal? We know there are times when kids have a cognitive leap (like crawling and walking) and those times tend to coincide with sleep disruptions. So we were thinking maybe he was teething (no, says the ped.) or learning something new.

And it seems he was. This week, suddenly, his language skills made a leap forward. He's routinely speaking in sentences (like, "Where's the truck, Mommy?" and "What's that noise?"), and he's imaginative. What do I mean?

At dinner he said he had a job. What kind of job? Reading. What do you make? I asked. "I don't have any money!" he told me. Who does he work with? Kipper. What does Kipper do? Work on the yard. Who else works with them? Tiger.

Huh. We told him he should ask for a raise. Maybe double what he makes now.

And he sat through an entire original Babar book. With a plot. Then, at bedtime, he sat through the entire Lorax book.

He's thinking, y'all. Thinking hard. So I guess he's not sleeping much.

Cooking Class

This morning Iain helped me unpack a box. Inside, we found 2 plastic measuring cups. He's appropriated them, and has been carrying them around, measuring.

So I said, "Let's mix 3/4 of a cup of deliciousness with 200 ml of YUM! What does that make?"

And he said, "Chocolate!"

Kid's a genius. A very tall genius.*


*A visit to the doctor today confirmed: in the 90th percentile ranges for head size and height, with only weight in the 50th range. He's a moose, as always.

Sunday Morning Stroll(ering)

Above, City Creek. Right in the middle of town, down the hill from the state capitol, a sweet, lovely, rushing, gushing, burbling brook runs down towards Temple Square. Along its sides run fire roads, biking paths, hiking trails and picnic spots.

Since Sunday was beautiful, warm, and unscheduled, we packed Iain into the car and set out for a wee stroll.


As you can see, the creek can be pretty wild. There are a lot of places to cross, and my sense is that you can get as adventurous as you like. We're restricted on that front because we can't take the stroller everywhere. Still, we can get a nice walk (uphill! Grr!) and enjoy the birdsong and breeze.


But who is that on the left? Could it be the elusive Dr. C? Why yes! His Tenure-ness joined us because he was flying out that afternoon for his fellowship in Munich. If you were about to spend six months eating beer and sausage, you'd want a walk first, too.

Here are the boys, awash in Utah sunshine, ready for their adventure. In the end, we walked for about 2 hours, then enjoyed a thoroughly sinful lunch of bacon, eggs, and hot, crispy waffles. Oh, and fruit. But that's healthy, so let's not talk about it.

Birthday Love

How did I miss this? Freddie shares her birthday with Charles. So when Charles was opening his presents (not trucks), Freddie was enjoying buckwheat pancakes (in her skivvies!) and discovering the joy of burnt sugar ice cream (above). Let's just take a moment to think about that: burnt sugar ice cream. Wow.

Graham joined in the celebration. I love his hipster glasses and the chill pose:


Malcolm, however, seems to disapprove a bit. He's not yet had his birthday, so perhaps that's the problem. All the attention, recently focused on Himself, shifted for a day to Freddie. That can't go over well when you're almost-three-months.

Happy 2nd Birthday, Freddie. I hope you had a nice day and Iain wishes for you to get at least one truck.

Play Twains???

Iain would like you to know that if you have any available time, he has a use for it. Idle hands are the Devil's playthings, after all.

In other news, we're having a company out to look at our cooktop. Of course, when they called they thought the problem was our oven. That's because I spent 15 minutes yelling at a computer: "No, not oven, STOVE!! OPERATOR! HELP!!!" We did not communicate well.

Once I spoke to a human, local, being, though, all was well. I told him that:

1. The left side of the cooktop (the grill side) does not light properly. The bottom burner lights all the way around, but the top only half.
   
2. On the left side, the flame intensity is less than half that of the right side. This is supposed to be an indoor grilling surface, so that won't do.
   
3. The only way to get the top of the left to light all the way 'round is to wave at it, blow on it, and say "Abracadabra!" while the bottom bit is already lit.
   
4. On the right (you didn't think the right was ok, did you? HA!), if you light either burner, then light the other, then turn the first one off, the turned-off burner goes pluff! and puts out little bursts of flame. Not cool. Not cool when the cooktop is on an island and Little Mr. Maw is sitting there watching Mommy cook.

We'll see what they say when they come out (Monday). Knowing that cooktops are relatively hard to fix and relatively cheap, I wonder whether they'll think it easier to just replace it.

Truck? Truck? Truck?

Today is Charles's birthday. He opened his presents during our post-snack snack after camp but before dinner. You follow?

Anyway, there were 7 gifts, all wrapped in white butcher paper (In other words, wrapped in the IKEA paper that threads into Iain's easel. Mommy's lazy and cheap.). With each gift, I asked Iain, "What do you think it is?"

And - every time - he said: "Truck!"

No, dude. Unfortunately, adults don't get 7 trucks for their birthdays. Not even someone as awesome as Daddy.

Reading

For his birthday, Iain received (among many other lovely gifts) a Sandra Boynton book called Birthday Monsters. He thinks it's really funny, and wants Charles to read it over and over and over and over.

Sometimes, he gets his way.


In case you're keeping track, so far today we've cleared these items off the list: dog food, fruit, diapers/wipes, buy shrubs for front bed, fix glasses. Still a lot to do, though. And now that I bought the shrubs, I have to dig some very large holes. Anyone want to help? Anyone? Hellloooo?

To Do List

• AP US History syllabus
• Regular US History syllabus
• Plant blue pots in front of house (succulents?)
• Move chair to back of house! (Seriously! Get it done!)
• Get umbrella for back of house before you burn to a crisp, genius.
• Plant blueberries
• Plant front shrubs (buy first)
• Cut back trees in front
• Bake for KP (when she gets back Saturday)
• Clean bathtub and soak (read: burn) bath toys (in bleach at the very least, possibly something stronger)
• Clean up doggie poo
• Order pics for AF
• Buy and install a proper mailbox
• Fix glasses
• Buy dog food
• Register cars
• Get new driver's license
• Get new license plates
• Doctor's appt. for Iain (just a meet-and-greet)
• Break down boxes
• Rearrange garage so Jeep can be parked inside
• Laundry
  
• Whack self in head for letting this list get so out of control
  

Waking Up

Weather

How crazy is the lightning tonight? Well....

On the approach to Salt Lake, the flight attendants on Charles' flight announced that "we have two of the best pilots in the fleet up here, so don't worry!"

Worry.

Charles said it was like riding a bucking bronco. Ouch.

But he's here, safe and sound, and we're happy to have him back.

Walkies

They have turkeys at the zoo. Mmm...turkey tastes good.

Tonight, Iain and I took Boris for a walk. Here's what we saw:

1. We're walking along and I realize that maybe I didn't remember to bring a poop bag. Frankly, Boris rarely poops on walks. But he's 117 lbs. of love. That means that if tonight's the night, we're going to be in trouble with the neighbors.

At the next corner, two ladies stood with their dog. It wasn't a bus stop, so I was a little confused about why they were just hanging out. But maybe they would have an extra poop bag! So I walked toward them.

"Do you have a grocery bag?" Oh. "I was going to ask you the same thing. But maybe there's one in the stroller." I checked, and miracle of miracles there was, indeed, a single Target bag in there. I handed it over. "I called my husband and he'll be here any minute, then we can give you one back." I wasn't worried about it (live on the edge!), but here he came, up the street.

Riding a tricycle. Yes. A three-wheeled bike. With an American flag streaming behind him. And he was 80 or I'm the Duchess of Cornwall. So he made a U-ey (!! Is that legal?), said, "You're a beautiful girl" and handed me a plastic baggie. He was wearing a US Army Retired baseball cap. He had a chin curtain. It was awesome.

2. We're walking back home and we're encountering a lot of kids. Tons and tons of kids. It's true what Lawrence says about Utah. There are a lot of kids here.

Anyway, most of them were tame, but we saw two who the FBI should really keep an eye on. They were probably brother and sister, about 8 and 10 or so. They'd strapped together two skateboards, then tied on a tire using string. Brother was sitting in the tire, preparing to launch himself down the (steep) driveway. For fun, you know? Sister was helping/preparing to watch her brother self-destruct.

We live in Mayberry, y'all.

Bonus!

I love the fact that when you buy a new house you get a new garden. You never know what's in it, especially (as in our case) when the last owners weren't gardeners. This rose, for instance, is a leftover from 2 owners ago. Ignored by the side of the porch, unpruned (grr!), it produced this beautiful flower today. Yay!

Iain didn't give a hoot. He's too focused on camp. Camp! This morning I took him over there (awesome lunch in tow: 2 strawberries, a juice box, a plastic spoon, two mini-pitas, a Babybel cheese, a handful of cherry tomatoes, banana chips, a very small yogurt cup, and half a banana) and when he saw the playroom he let go of my hand, ran over to the toys, and never even looked back at me.

Also, for those obsessed with the lunchboxes: The company is called Vandor, and you can go to their website and look at "Tin" items, then "Totes" to find the ones I bought. The small tote is Iain's lunchbox, and the mini tote is his extra special container. The link above is to the small tote page. In Louisville, they are sold at Regalo, while in LA you can get them at Giftapolis on Atlantic Ave. in Long Beach (and about a million other places). Happy Shopping!

Ben Eats!

Do I have time for this?

We experienced Island Time on our honeymoon years ago. Most recently I'm experiencing Travel Time. I found this while delayed at the airport, and found that, indeed, I had time for it. Enjoy.

Too Smart By Half

First thing in the morning, I go in to check on Iain. He's up, I'm up, we're both smiling.

So I say, "How about we get up, brush our teeth, have some brekkie, and then play!" He looks at me funny. "We all have to brush our teeth, dude. It's part of life. Let's go do it and then have brekkie and play!" I like repetition as a parenting tool.

He says, "How 'bout clean diaper?"

Oh. Right.

Happy Loving Day!

History = change over time. And though history will often break your heart, there's no better basis for optimism. We can, and do, become better people - individually and as a nation.
Read all about it.

More Soccer Awesomeness

Optus Secret Training Camp from Paranoid US on Vimeo.

Dude, better than Thomas Paine. Check out that goalie.

Inventory

Currently in our house:

• Bananas
• Nectarines
• Mangoes
• Lemons
• Pears (3 kinds)
• Kiwi
• Oranges
• Blueberries
• Strawberries
• Grapes
• Cherries
• Apples

This is why we call him The Maw.

In other news, I'm getting the baking itch again. Who wants to place a bet on whether my latest creation will be a solid hockey puck of wasted effort?? Do I hear 10 bucks?

Leave Your Message at the Beep

Iain just picked up my phone and said, "Hi, it's Charles. We're going over to boxes! Ok, bye."

And then he said, "It's me, Charles. We're going airport. See minutes!"

Little pitchers, right?

UPDATE: And then he said, "S'me, Charles." held out the phone to me and said, "Wanna say hi?"

Lunchbox!

On the right, the lunchbox I got Iain 2 weeks ago. It's small, it's Dr. Seuss, and it has an easy clasp for him to open.

BUT WAIT. What's that cute li'l thing next door? Could it be?


Yes. Yes, it is a tiny lunchbox to go inside Iain's regular lunchbox. Charles saw it yesterday and the rest is history ("Sweet!"). See how tiny it is? With a little hinged lid and a little handle? OMG.


I packed it with Club crackers, craisins, and cheddar bunnies. So it's a multi-functional, eye-poppingly cute, environmentally-friendly addition to Iain's Camp Bag of Doom (I cannot tell you all the stuff he has to take to camp. Thank goodness 899 sent him an LL Bean tote this year.)

In other news, I still have photos from the zoo. No, really. Here's Iain playing on the swinging bridge:


And here is a penguin. I've just brightened your whole day, admit it.

World Cup + Thomas Paine's "The Crisis" = Awesome

I couldn't get this properly sized for our template, but if you click on it you can watch it bigger, or in HD, or whatever floats your boat. Just savor the Valley Forge recruiting language used to stir up our soccer glands. What, you don't have a soccer gland? Sad. That's just sad.

Memories...

Ah, AP exams. I woke in the middle of the night, remembering one of my favorite of the amusing things students wrote.

[We're speaking here of things they wrote on purpose. That is, they took the wonderful adolescent sense of humor and inserted it into the exam, for example by writing that America won the Revolution because we're "Sweet!" Say it in a surfer voice for full effect. We loved these exams, because they lightened our mood and made the day bearable. Thank you, funny students.]

On one of my exams, and apparently many, many others, the student stopped halfway through and wrote, "Imma let you finish, but this is the best test of all time...of all time!" then resumed writing.

If you don't get the reference, see here. The Urban Dictionary also explains.

Bits of Louisville

Above, on the 25th floor, enjoying the view, and below, with Pat. She's a fellow UCLA alum and an all-round good chum with whom I passed several happy hours gossiping this morning.

Aren't our badges the coolest? Yes, the height of hip. And I was shameless, too. I wore mine on the street, in the gym, pretty much all the time. Because I'm a geek and I don't care who knows it.

[EDIT: When I looked at the photo with Pat more closely, all I could think was: Wow, my head is really like a pumpkin.]

Kiss Noise!

This is a thank-you note to my roomie for the last week. Heather#2, aka Annapolis Heather.

One of my major anxieties about the reading in Louisville was that my poor, benighted roommate would have to put up with my snoring, sleep talking, tendency to go on and on (and on and on and on), ridiculously extreme opinions pronounced as The Last Word, and shameless habit of eating the last chocolate.

But lucky me.

I got Heather, who seemed impervious to my many faults. And who looks like a kewpie doll but talks like a sailor (sometimes) (when it's appropriate) (they deserved it!).

Here's to you, Heather. You were a great roommate. I hope you got to sleep in this morning. No, I'm not bitter about getting up at 4am. Not bitter at all.

It's over now. I'm home safe, I kissed Iain, we watched a front-end-loader pick up some garbage on the street and we pinched off the spent violets. Iain ate (of course), and I drank water and Charles is catching up on work. It's nice to be back.


*Title is a reference to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the movie. Heather and I agreed on many things. Among our points of connection was the knowledge that the movie is great fun, though perhaps not superior to the TV show. In the movie, Buffy's self-involved mother seems totally unaware of the vampire menace, and goes off to be shallow. Rather than kiss her daughter goodbye, she merely says, "Kiss noise!" I find this amusing.

2 Things

1. Just now, I texted my new bestie, Ernie. I texted "We're going to the pool." My phone fills in the words based on words you text often and what it thinks you might be trying to say. For "pool" it first suggested "pookie" then "Poo." Nice.

2. So we go to dinner. And we're having a great time talking about Oona O'Neil and Carole Matthau, and whatnot with a guy from the Bronx. Awesome. And then his roommate comes to sit with us. Name? Jamie. Profession? Teacher. Where? NCSSM. That would be the North Carolina School for Science and Math. I went to the SC version of that school, I say. "Me, too" he says. OMFG.

Charles and I both went to GSSM. It's a tiny school, with about 55 people in each graduating class. And it's a very specialized, geeky sort of place. So I've never, ever, everever run into another alum. And here's this fella: a history major, a history teacher, a fellow govie. Wow. AND ADORABLE! We had a great chat about various peeps (like the history teacher who inspired tons of govies to major or minor in history, no matter their science talents and obsessions), we traded cards, we bonded.

Aww. And tomorrow's the last day of grading! I'm getting a little ecstatic about that. Today I read an essay that explained about the Purtain's "abstinence farming." I think s/he meant "subsistence."

Wow. Just...Wow.

Poor, poor "purtains." No one loves them. No one understands them. No one.

We started on the second phase of our work, and it's much, much more depressing than the first bit. I have an enduring tender spot for the Puritans, who were a people both strange and complex. To see them transformed into nasty, foolish, Roger-Williams-baiting jerks makes me sadsadsad.

In other news, the sun is out, the sky is blue, and a nice breeze is blowing. Of course, it smells like the paper mill, but why quibble when otherwise things are so nice? Two more days of Puritan abuse and then we'll be done with the work and I'll fly home to see Iain's new puzzle.

[EDIT UPDATE: Apparently, other folks are getting "puritian." I like that one, but it sounds spooky. Imagine the scene: a young woman, walking down a dark alley. Suddenly, she encounters a Puritian in a black cape! Within moments she's the mother of 8.5 children, all named Dorcas. The End.]

Hot Time in the Old City

Proof that grown-ups do have fun! Here's The Mom out for a beer with Angela (my tablemate) the other night. We went to Cumberland Brewery, which I presume the Divine Mrs. C. will know. It was warm.

Whew! Hump Day Tomorrow

Today was Day 3, so that makes tomorrow hump day for the Week of Grading. We've pretty much got the process down pat, so naturally things are changing tomorrow. It'll be a new challenge, with new materials and new standards.

But that's ok. I'm enjoying the company more than anything. The hotel and convention center are packed with history teachers and they're (almost) all charming and friendly. Plus, they ply us with coffee every 20 minutes or so.

Still, I'm looking forward to heading home. I called, and Iain was failing to eat his sandwich. I asked him, "are you going to eat your good supper?" "NO!" Awwww... so cute.

So Many Sara(h)s

MEMO:

TO: LINUS

FROM: US

DATE: Today

RE: Sarah

Linus, get your act together. That girl is a keeper.

Smooches!

-Angela, Fiona, Heather and Ernie

Thanks Uncle!

Blurry cam caught the moment:

Up With the Sun

Up, showered, dressed, and ready to go learn to interpret ancient runes. But first, brekkie!

In other news, what do you get when you throw 350 teachers into a room, hand them all beer, and invite them to get to know one another? A lot of noise!

I realized last night that teachers all know how to introduce themselves, all consider being silent a rule violation, and all spend their time meeting new people. So when you tell them to socialize - they do it.

Also, it turns out that no matter how old you get, the appeal of whispering after the lights go out is still strong. With this new insight, I'm thinking of founding some summer camps for Ladies of a Certain Age.

Helllloooo Louisville!

Houston, we have landed. Hotel checked in, badge acquired, cute little backpack swag obtained (complete with ETS blankie in case I get my feelings hurt and need a lovie)...

It's hot and humid, but apparently SLC is cool and breezy. But I'm not bitter. Not at all.