The rain, it raineth on the just, and also on the unjust fella;

But mostly on the just because the unjust steals the just's umbrella!

-Ogden Nash

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The riches, they just keep a’coming:

Gina took me out for lunch on my birthday.
Sarah Louise gave me one of her cunningly wrapped gifts, including a little stripey notebook and The Left Hand of Darkness, which I wanted to own so I can finish it without worrying about having to return it to the library!
My best friend from college, who was also my maid-of-honor, sent me, per her usual much-appreciated extravagance, a box of fudge and a box of chocolate-covered Oreos.
The boys gave me perfume.
My in-laws gave me CASH.

This year’s birthday truly was a banner one.
Thank you, thank you!

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Oh my sweet babboo. (I suppose that's like Oh my giddy aunt!)
Look, mail from exotic places!
I DO love getting real mail!

Suse sent me the loveliest package full of glorious things, that was fun to open and elicited all sorts of ooohs and aaahhhhs from the audience (my boys).

There was lovely, knobby, silky soap, wrapped in blue paper and tied with string.

There was a bee-yoo-ti-ful intricately knitted flannel, which I can not possibly sully by using to wash. Blackbird and I were discussing what we could perhaps fashion these into: hats, or cell phone cases, in order to display them as they should be displayed, to be appreciated fully.

There was a little card, graced with a close-up photo of an echidna. Apparently Suse’s echidna wanders her backyard…

There was a little package labeled, “For three handsome young men.” I truly thought the boys might explode with excitement. The conductor happily joins Blackbird’s conductor, who is pleased as punch to have a reliable partner, so they can each have every other weekend off now. The engineers are happy to be helpful, keeping all the boys’ trains, including the Polar Express Segundo received for his birthday, in good nick.

There were two types of TimTams. And I just “slammed a TimTam.” And now I must move to Australia where I can get these easily. Suse, could you see your way clear to adopting me or something?

Thank you, my faraway friend. Your graham crackers are probably on a tramp steamer somewhere in the Atlantic.

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I finished The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place last night, lying on the couch, savoring a hunk of crusty Italian bread, a chunk of Gorgonzola, and a Bacardi-and-kosher-for-Passover Coke. Ah, Friday nights. Anyway, I enjoyed the book, but I enjoyed the reading of it more than I did the happenings in it. I mean, the characters were interesting – I liked Margaret Rose very much. I’ve always had a soft spot for Melville’s Bartleby, and this book made me continue to do so. I liked her uncles, and Jake Kaplan. I just felt, once again, that the ending didn’t match the rest of the book.

Maybe I expect too much from YA fiction?

Now I embark upon a sure winner, Laurie R. King’s next Mary Russell novel, Locked Rooms. I am happy to find she has another Kate Martinelli police novel, The Art of Detection, coming out in May - not that I have read Night Work, the third Kate Martinelli novel, yet but just so I know I have a King book in reserve.

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I have been perusing Blackbird's archives. I know that sounds stalker-ish but it's not. It's just entertaining. I found this test in one of her past posts (these are my results):

Dante's Inferno Test - You Have Been Judged

The wretched King Minos has decided your fate. His tail wraps around his body 7 times. The sweet light no longer strikes against your eyes. Your shade has been banished to... the Seventh Level of Hell!
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Guarded by the Minotaur, who snarls in fury, and encircled within the river Phlegethon, filled with boiling blood, is the Seventh Level of Hell. The violent, the assasins, the tyrants, and the war-mongers lament their pitiless mischiefs in the river, while centaurs armed with bows and arrows shoot those who try to escape their punishment. The stench here is overpowering. This level is also home to the wood of the suicides- stunted and gnarled trees with twisting branches and poisoned fruit. At the time of final judgement, their bodies will hang from their branches. In those branches the Harpies, foul birdlike creatures with human faces, make their nests. Beyond the wood is scorching sand where those who committed violence against God and nature are showered with flakes of fire that rain down against their naked bodies. Blasphemers and sodomites writhe in pain, their tongues more loosed to lamentation, and out of their eyes gushes forth their woe. Usurers, who followed neither nature nor art, also share company in the Seventh Level.


Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

Good God, I had no idea I was quite so evil. Now I know. And so do you.

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For your edification and amusement, some random photos.

Bug soap, from Easter. We made it last week. It squicks me out. Primo wanted to use a plastic turtle from our extensive collection of little chokeable plastic animals, instead of his spider. Whatever.


This? Is the BANE OF MY EXISTENCE right now.Have you ever dealt with a five-year-old who wishes to mail-order anything? Primo wants this kitchen appliance set we can order from the Betty Crocker catalog for 8 bucks and however many boxtops. He intends to use some of his own money from Easter and/or his piggy bank. He is obsessed. Possessed. Driving me nuts. I ordered it. I mailed the points. After three. straight.days of nagging on his part. I had to lay down the law and impose a moratorium on the words "Betty Crocker" being uttered at meals. I am still shocked that he didn't wake up in the middle of the night, pad into my bedroom, and question me about the order status. Do you remember when Calvin ordered the beanie off the back of the chocolate sugar bombs cereal box? That's what this is like, but ten times worse because it's happening to ME.

At the zoo. As if they don't know the place by heart. Because we've been there a thousand times.


Surrender, Bert!