Yesterday I went to the beach and did some labyrinth construction and walking. It was a good day.

Homework

I would really like to goof off this evening, but I have a stack of online papers to grade. Now, that just doesn’t sound right, because of course online assignments don’t really come in stacks. My son suggests that I have a boatload of papers, but to me both “boatload” and “stack” imply that the papers are taking up physical space. They are not. They are taking up electronic space. I need to start measuring “stacks” of papers not in inches, but in bytes.

Or as my husband suggests: “byteloads” of papers.

The Most Important News of the Decade, Perhaps a Generation


Local news reports a new state-of-the-art high school will open.

National news reports that President Bush will be building new nuclear warheads.

Environmental news reports that a California Condor egg has hatched in Mexico.

Entertainment news reports that Donny Osmond is releasing new music.


A good news day? I guess that all depends on how you look at it.


The thing I find most disturbing about this, is that “Donny Osmond” did not get picked up as an unknown/misspelled word by the spell check. That means that someone thought he was important enough to enter into the spelling dictionary.

We live in scary times.

Last night I dreamt about another handbag.


With matching shoes.

Cookies

There are many wonderful things about living with other people, but tonight, halfway through a package of cookies, I realized one of the best reasons to live with other people. I opened this package of cookies yesterday, and they are now half gone. Now, it’s possible that I ate half a package of cookies. If I lived alone, it would be certain that I had eaten all of them—short of housebreaking cookie eaters. But, since I live with other people, maybe, just maybe, the people I live with ate some of them too.

I prefer to think that I did not eat half a package of cookies.

See, if you live with other people—they automatically must have eaten at least some of them.

Right?

Zelda

My favorite handbag was handmade in San Francisco of a brown and turquoise vintage velvet Moroccan print. It has little feet on the bottom—I am a pushover for handbags with little feet. The company from which I purchased the bag uses women’s names in place of stock numbers, and this handbag’s “name” is Zelda. Of course, any bag that costs as much as this one did deserves its own name.

Now, I am not in the habit of naming my accessories, but the name Zelda has stuck. Maybe this also explains how Zelda has gained a personality somewhere between a pet and an invisible friend. We all refer to “her” by name; “she” gets “her” own seat in restaurants, and comes with me everywhere. “She’s” a smart dresser too, and has accessories of “her” own; a lovely ribbon rose is tied to “her” strap. “She” also gets way more compliments than I do.

Hey, can you be jealous of a handbag?

Mobile Phones

I haven’t been able to find my cell phone for two days. It hasn’t mattered because my son’s been home sick from school, but he went today, so I had to find it.

I finally resorted to using my mobile home phone to call my cell phone. It was in the pocket of some pants I wore two days ago.

Then I lost my home phone.

I think things were simpler in the days when the phone was connected to the wall. If you had told me ten years ago that I would lose the phone—I’d have thought you were crazy.