Good night, America, how are you? Don't you know me, I'm your native son, I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans...

I am so sad for New Orleans. I love the city; if there were only one American city I could spend vacations in, it’d be New Orleans. It’s mysterious and magical and sexy and welcoming, and I adore the place. I’ve been there several times and each time was a blast. The food is amazing, the houses are lovely to look at, the people are mostly incredibly engaging, and the music is beyond belief. It’s a city with the most incredible energy. Checking the news this morning and seeing the devastation wrought by Katrina hurt my heart. (And I hope my bloggie pals who live down South are all ok.) I am going to go figure out which organizations I am going to donate to now. Red Cross is always a good bet, but Joke has a list at his blog you may want to check, with contact info and all that good stuff.

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Today is Simon’s last day at his daycare. Next Wednesday he starts at preschool down the street. I wanted him to get accustomed to getting going in the mornings several days a week since next year he will be in kindergarten and the schools here are full-day, five-day-a-week kindergartens. It’s the end of an era, a bittersweet transition made slightly easier for me by the fact that Jude and then, soon, the new baby, will still go to the old daycare.

But Si wanted to mark the occasion somehow, so I baked cupcakes for his class. At ten o’clock last night. From a mix. I am so not together. Then this morning I dropped the boys off at daycare and swung by the grocery store to pick up two tubs of frosting – hey, they’re four, they don’t care about homemade frosting! I also got them two jars of sprinkles to decorate the cupcakes, and it turns out frosting and decorating and then eating the cupcakes will be one of the afternoon activities. Which made me happy because it meant I didn’t have to frost the cupcakes on the back tailgate of my car.

Si also asked me to get something to put on the cupcakes, so his friends had something to take home. He recently was at a party where he got a dinosaur ring in the icing on his cupcake. I couldn’t come up with rings on such short notice but I bought a little bag of plastic jungle animals for the kids in his class to divvy up. He seemed really happy with that. He only asked for them about six times, so I figured that while I thought it was sort of silly, he thought it was pretty darn important. I guess he wants his friends to remember him. Like I said – sort of bittersweet.

Then Dan and I decided we should get some little memento for his teacher, who is the director of the daycare and a wonderful, sweet woman who makes the experience there joyful and exciting and educational all at once. Miss Rebecca’s a gem and she loves Si, and he loves her. They really bonded big-time over the Frog and Toad books, so I bought a hardcover copy of Frog and Toad are Friends and Simon wants to sign it before we wrap it up and give it to her. I think she’ll like it; I know if it were me, I would treasure such a gift.

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While at Joseph-Beth (lovely store but man are they pricey!), I scored FiveStar hazelnut bars. Gina and I have tried all the other flavors but Whole Foods never seems to carry the hazelnut ones. We’ll report back and let you know what we think.