Here's my markerboard of stuff  to do for work.

I did a little bit of this sort of thing yesterday, and in fact just accepted a new assignment this morning, but mostly I was domestic yesterday.

I went to the grocery and stocked up well enough that the boys were happy as they unpacked the meatitude and sweetitude, but not quite well enough, since I have to go back before church today and pick up dog food and dish soap.

I deadheaded the roses, such of the Sleeping Beauty thicket of roses that I could reach, and dried some rose petals. I baked cupcakes.

I also took a nap, and sat out on the porch for a bit reading.

But I was determined to get some needlework in yesterday. It is so long since I have managed to make anything, apart from some  very slowly progressing knitting, that I had moved "make something" up to the top of the priority list.

The number of projects I have planned, and have materials for, is enormous. It was very hard to choose. I went with this.

It is possible that you  remember that last summer I went through a little spell of lingerie-making. One of the things I made was a bra: Elan 510, a front-closure with a two-piece cup and a "balcony" fit.

The balcony style looks very pretty under a low neckline, but since I don't wear low necklines any more, I decided this time to go with what the bra-makers call "full coverage." In fact, I decided to go with a three-piece cup, which is the serious Brunhilde-type bra. RTW bras of this kind often have names referencing goddesses, so you know this is serious stuff.

I chose a German pattern, which means you get a piece of paper that looks like a road map for a large city whose planners weren't thinking clearly. Also it has words on it like "Vervielfatigungen" and "Schnittteil," not to mention "Unterbrustweite."

You have to track down your size among number like 80H and 90C, and trace off all the pieces.

This is really the most difficult part, though, because there are only six pieces, and they're all little.

However, this being a serious engineered type of bra, each piece has several layers -- lycra, stretch lace, power net, and tulle in various combinations -- and they go together in surprising ways. You therefore have to line up all the parts and sew three or five or six layers at a time, persuading nonmatching curved edges to match.

I'm not good enough with a sewing machine to manage this. So, although they say that an experienced bra maker can sew one up in an hour using an ordinary sewing machine, I just took my time with it and sewed by hand as I read a detective novel.

This is a pleasant thing to do on a Saturday afternoon.

Still, life is real and life is earnest, and so after dinner I did my homework. I'm taking a class in web design via distance learning at the college where I teach. Our first assignment was to make this website. Actually, ours is slightly different -- the alignment of the logo, for example, is different, and different stuff is italicized. Still, I found the website online when the logo turned out not to be in the student files and I needed to track it down, so you can go see it if you have a mind to.

Not much of a website. And I promise you that it is extremely boring to type all this out. Not only the words, but also all the little pointy brackets and backslashes and stuff.

We're working in Notepad, which is good for us, but I'm used to Dreamweaver,which does some of the really boring parts for you. Or CMSs like Xanga, which let you play with pictures and colors and stuff, whether you have any skills or not.

And of course we're still at the point at which the results as well as the process are pretty boring.

In knitting terms, it's like casting on and doing a bunch of rows of garter stitch when you want to learn to knit because you admire Estonian lace shawls.

I learned a couple of things, though, and I expect to learn lots more as I go along.

It no longer seems likely that I will actually get to the grocery before church, and #1 son is taking the car to work after that, so the grocery is going to have to wait, or to be on someone else's to-do list. I have more homework to do this afternoon, and a bit of recording and file sending, and 24 papers to grade, but I'm also planning to continue working on the bra. It could be my first finished object of 2009.

--brief interlude during which I went back to see last year's xanga entry, thinking it would be amusing if I had actually made that first bra on that day--

Last year, according to xanga, which ought to know, #1 daughter came up to visit me and told me to do the following things: buy a new computer, buy the software I needed, get a website and business cards, and take a class in web design.

I've now done, or am doing, all those things. I see also that I had a list for myself, which included the following things:

• I have to figure out how to have enough work, but not too much at the same time.
• I have to figure out how to invoice people and pay taxes.
• I have to figure out a new schedule that includes housekeeping, knitting, and dinners.

Essentially, I've done all the things my daughter told me to do, but almost none of the things I told myself to do.

It is a gorgeous Saturday, and I have nothing but a phone meeting, papers to grade, and homework for the class I'm taking, plus grocery shopping and housework to do.

I finished the article on Wal-Mart at 9:30 last night, making a seventeen hour work day but meeting the deadline. I shot it over the the editor, who texted back, "How many words is that?" He had asked for 1500.

"1499," I responded. "I thought of adding one more to make it exactly 1500, but decided that would be showing off."

I really like the article, actually. I hope he runs it. I sent a copy to my mother, which isn't a thing I commonly do. I was able to argue convincingly that Wal-Mart has made some real changes in its behavior since 2005, the year when their CEO decided they should clean up their act. True, they label food "organic" when it isn't, mistreat their workers as much as they can get away with, and create a net loss in jobs whenever they move into a community. However, they have actually embraced sustainability, and they were one of the retailers to refuse to buy cotton harvested by slave labor in Uzbekistan. They give a lot to the community where I live, and employ a lot of our people, even if their jobs aren't always desirable.

So I was able to do what seems to me to be a very positive article, even though it does acknowledge that they had some PR problems at one time. I think I make it sound as though it wasn't their fault.

One of my goals for this year was to get my billable hours up to 50% of my total hours worked. So last night, at the end of that 17 hours, I calculated. I spent five hours following up on emails from clients and colleagues, doing routine blogging and checking of analytics, and joining in the discussions required for the class I'm taking. Then I dressed, had breakfast, and drove to class. Two hours of teaching; that's billable. I answered student questions --

One of my students, a girl recently arrived from China -- stayed after to tell me she thought I should read her paper first, because she was excited about it. I thought that was sweet.

-- and then drove back home, picked up #1 son and checks that came in the mail, and spent an hour doing errands, including the bank and drive-through lunch and a fruitless visit to the IRS. I took care of my husband's unemployments issues with bad grace, did two hours for my Thursday client (yes, I know it was Friday -- I got behind this week) and four and a half hours for the online magazine, with pizza delivery in the middle, and that was the end of the day.

So I had about three hours of things like driving, personal errands, and meals. I had 8.5 billable hours. That means that I had five and a half unbillable work hours to the 8.5 billable. So the ratio is good. The unbillable things I was doing included taking a class to improve my work-related skills, alerting clients to things needing their attention, accepting new assignments, solving clients' problems, following up on referrals, and thanking people who did good work or said kind things. Obviously, these are all worthwile.

So the day was too long, but apart from that, I think I'm doing what I should.

And if it weren't for some long days, I wouldn't be sending #2 son to the very expensive school he really wants to attend.

He told me yesterday, as we sat in Friday afternoon traffic outside the IRS building, that he was proud of me. That was sweet, too.

I do have lots of stuff to do today, but I also plan to have a nice hike, or some needlework, and to read a novel.

Here's my pantry. Someone had asked me about it, I think because I had  talked about #2 daughter not having one.

I don't really have anything to say about it. I got a case of granola bars from Amazon for $15 at one point and I buy tea from them by the case as well, so the disproportionate quantities of those items have an explanation. At least it's not Pop-Tarts.

Pop-Tarts are food-like things which became immensely popular at the turn of the century among IT guys because they can be eaten with one hand and don't leave crumbs on the keyboard. They have a frighteningly long shelf life, more calories and less protein than a doughnut, and no fiber at all.

Though CD told me last night that Pop-Tarts are the perfect disaster food.

She was telling me all the good things that Wal-Mart has done (including supplying Pop-Tarts to the victims of disasters), which is good, because I have to write 1500 highly positive words about them today. Also three articles on charity events. And a Squidoo lens or two for the stage hypnotist. I think that's about all.

 I've had two websites launched this week. 

I've been sending champagne truffles to clients whose websites launch, but one of the clients in this case is a freight brokerage, and very heavy on men. Do men like champagne truffles?

The ladies of the choirlet include some wild women, and one of them, when I shared this dilemma, suggested condoms. A box of condoms with the gift message "To celebrate your launch!"

We're doing a charity gig, the choirlet and I, and they have decided to sing "I Can Sing a Rainbow," "Shenandoah," "Daddy Sang Bass," and "Circle" by Harry Chapin.

I just do what I'm told.

These other photos are  proof that I'm actually feeding my kids. I need, today, to check on my husband's unemployment payments (he's had short hours the past couple of weeks), pick up a copy of our tax return, and make a payment on #1 son's tuition.

This type of thing makes me cross, for some reason.

Like maybe Bunter or Jeeves should have taken care of this stuff because my mind is on higher things.

I also have homework to do for my online class. And a class to teach.

I brought in some roses for my computer, since I'm here a lot. These are Falstaff roses. I was afraid that New Dawn had killed all the other roses. It is still possible that New Dawn strangled Montezuma, but Falstaff is doing okay.

I'm enjoying my class, by the way. They're turning in their rewrite of the first essay today. So I'll also be grading papers.

Did I mention the other websites I'm working on? And I have software to review.

I may have breakfast first. It's not too much of a step from here to Pop-Tarts.

Yesterday I started by following up with the new websites about to be launched, and doing blog posts, and then hightailing it to class. After class, I zipped home to do the remaining blog posts and review websites and write ad copy, and along about 5:00 my time I had a message from my guy in New York saying wasn't I going to do his project today?

Because in his time zone, today was just about over.

So I did some apologizing and negotiating and then went out for a walk with Janalisa, feeling jumpy from the pressure of all the stuff I haven't yet done. Walking helps.

When we got back, I had just time to grab my music and head to bells and choir. Then I walked home and did the project for the guy in New York, and a redo of the ad copy. I had frozen waffles for dinner around 8:30.

The ad client looked at what I sent and came back with, "If only they had that kind of budget!" and wanted it cut from 500 words to four sentences.

So this morning I have twenty-four papers to grade, and I still haven't gotten to the IRS office or looked after my client who's switching hosting companies, whom I had planned to visit on Tuesday. I am not going to list the rest of the stuff that I haven't done. It seemed to me last week as though I had extra time. What happened?

"Didn't you understand what your summer teaching schedule would be like?" asked #2 son severely.

It's true that I have to leave the house at 10:00 and don't get back till 1:00, which is a large chunk of the day.

Do I sound panicky at all?

I have a few cool architectural shots for you from the Big City, but I'm not there any more.

Yesterday's meeting with The Computer Guy went well, as they always do, and I think we'll be able to do a good job for the chocolatier. The Art Teacher finished up our PA site, with just a few little tweaks needed, and the site that the KC designer and I were working on went live with some holes, errors, and missing links. Fortunately, The Computer Guy gave me a heads up on that last night, so I was able to get in and fix it.

I'm making that sound easy, but the truth is that I did the whole FTP bit with an instruction book on my lap, and then the site was full of php code, which I don't know, so it took me two hours to make the corrections.

I learned stuff, though, and the site is very cute. Wanna see it? Click here. We do not say "click here," we practitioners of the Dark Art, but I am getting a little nervous about my xanga, and fearful of having people follow links back here.

I'm entirely too relaxed here for someone whose colleagues and clients might read it. If someday this goes friends-lock and you want to see it, you don't hesitate to say so, okay?

Anyway, that was a bit exciting. I like my new class, too. We're going at a rapid clip, it being summer school, and I have some ESL students who may not be following everything, but that's the only warning signal so far.

My online class, the one I'm taking, started by giving us Intro to Photoshop instead of the right course, but everything got fixed after a bit and I got my first assignment. I was happy to find that it was all stuff I do all the time, and therefore very easy.

Today I'm going to the gym, then to the IRS to get a copy of my tax return for #2 son's school, then to class, and then I have three hours for the New York financier and urgent ad copy for the men's magazine, where the client said I was their "power hitter." It seemed a bit early to be saying that, since I've only done a couple of jobs for them, but I like to hear it.

I also got several assignments from the other online magazine I've been writing for, which I'll begin as soon as they pay me for the previous work. They go to press on Monday, so there's a bit of a race on.

  I have a lot on for today, with grading of papers as well, and bells and choir this evening.

It is because I am so busy that I was pleased yesterday to be interrupted by a phone call.

Odd sentence, eh? But this was from an entirely unexpected person. "I'm the cleaner?" she said. "CD told me you might need me."

CD and I were discussing work-family balance, and the subject of hiring a cleaner came up. It's cheaper to hire someone than to take time out of work to do it ourselves, because a) cleaners are cheaper by the hour than we are (even though they get a nice hourly wage -- the same as I do for teaching) and b) professional cleaners do it faster and better than we do.

So this nice woman is going to come in once a month and clean my house for me, for the price of an hour's work on my part. A house that gets thoroughly cleaned only once a month doesn't sound like an enormous improvement, but I think that right now it's never getting thoroughly cleaned, so that sounds good to me.
 
She came over to see the place and checked to see whether I was fussy about anything. "Some people like me to use special products," she said, "or to make their beds."

Actually, I had made my bed, so I didn't have to accept the proposition that getting the beds made once a month would be helpful.

I waved around vaguely and assured her that I wasn't fussy about anything. I don't use toxic chemicals, myself, but I'm not planning to tell her how to do her job. It's the manufacture of the chemicals that I'm not happy about, and I'm not going to make any difference in her buying habits.

After a few months, I may have a chat with her about chlorine.

Now if I could get someone in to look after my paperwork once a month, I'd be set.

The Computer Guy paid me while I was there, in a slap-dash way -- writing out a check and handing it to me -- completely different from his usual style. Normally there's a check and copy of the invoice in an envelope waiting on the table where we meet, with his invoice for me tucked in as well. I asked for his invoice for me.

"What?" he said.
"Don't you have an invoice from you to me?"
"Huh?"

I paused and regrouped. I listed the items I thought I owed him for -- domain registrations for clients, stuff like that -- and he shook his head. "I haven't had time for any kind of paperwork." So it's not just me.

Here are some pictures from the zoo.  

Yesterday, Memorial Day, was mostly a day off for me. A client and designer had some conversations and files going back and forth, but I resolutely stayed out of it. I did an Amazon list, prepared and emailed my syllabus to the department secretary, sent some stuff to The Computer Guy for one of our websites, and assisted #2 daughter a little with her first forays into linkbuilding. Mostly, though, I read.

In particular, I read Set Phasers on Stun, a book that looks at horrible tech failures.

On one level, it's a collection of  excitingly-written vignettes in which people make simple mistakes and die excrutiating deaths, or cause others to do so, and as such is not a pleasant book.

On another level, it shows how an error in design can combine with human errors to screw things up. Designers, the book demonstrates, don't think about what happens when people use their creations in the situations in which these creations are actually used. There are stories of alarms going off in a room unavailable to the person who could actually solve the dangerous problem causing the alarm to go off -- if only he knew there was a problem.

Skilled machine operators making an error and a correction in under eight seconds, thus creating a new command the designers hadn't anticipated, one which caused radiation sickness and death in patients receiving treatment with a computerized machine. Lack of routine maintenance leading to the poisoning of 25,000 people.

Stuff like that.

Having gained a new awareness of the carnage that can result from simple communication errors, I moved on to a novel. Somewhere in there I also went for a walk and got drenched.

Today, I have a couple of different feelings warring with one another.

On the one hand, I have a distinct "first day of school" feeling. Last night I made my bed with fresh sheets, set out my clothes for today, stuff like that. I want to start off well with my summer class. I also have a couple of meetings and some routine work to do, and I'm looking forward to all those things.

On the other hand, I can't find a copy of my tax return, so I have to go the IRS office and get one. Plus, I went to start my online class -- the one I'm taking -- and found, first, that I've unaccountably been given access to beginning Photoshop instead of the Web Design course I'm supposed to be in, and second, that the course doesn't work with Vista.

 I'm hoping that I'll be moved back to the right class, since I don't own Photoshop, and that the Web Design course has been built to be compatible with Vista. If not, of course, I'll know that I'm taking the class from someone who dfoesn't understand usability and accessibility issues. In other words, someone who shouldn't be teaching the class at all.

So I've got the first day of school screw-ups as well as the first day of school excitement.

I begin the class I'm teaching by explaining what to do if someone comes in wanting to shoot us. I didn't do that so well last term -- I think I laughed a lot while reading it aloud to the students, in fact. I expect to do it better today.

That's one of the things I like best about teaching, actually: the fact that each term you can do better than the term before.

I think that I teach pretty well. The students who attend class and do the work see enormous improvements in their writing.

Summer term may be different, because we have ten hours a week for five weeks, and no days off to think or write or work on assignments. So it seems especially important that the students all fall into the category of those who attend and do the work.

I talked with my kids, The Computer Guy, and JB about this recently. They seemed to feel that social pressure was key. The possibility of being embarrassed in class is what makes you do the work.

This is true for me in my Tuesday class. I can't tell you how many times I've sat down with the homework an hour before class and raced through it in order to avoid the embarrassment of being seen not to have done it, even though I know that racing through it is not the way to benefit from it.

I don't care to embarrass people in front of the class, but perhaps I can structure things so that failing to show up for class creates peer pressure -- like doing things in pre-assigned pairs so that those who skip are letting their partners down.

The pictures here are the Africa exhibit at the KC zoo.

It's a one-mile walk, and it was very hot. There were, by the time we got there, a large number of people ignoring the signs, and lots of whining and screaming children.
 
Children do sometimes whine and scream. Why their parents allow them to do so in places clearly labeled "Quiet -- research area" I don't know, except that in some case the parents were themselves whining and screaming.

I'm a rule-following person, myself, but it didn't use to bother me if other people failed to follow the rules. I figured that was their problem, not mine. It may be a sign of my advancing age that I was bothered by people flagrantly failing to follow rules. I don't want to become one of those people who goes around correcting others' grammar and telling them about the rules they're breaking.

However, when we found the word "loose" being used instead of "lose" on a sign at the zoo, all of  us gathered around it with solemn frowns, wondering whom we ought to alert to the problem.
 
Not just me; the young ones, too.

Oh, well. Time to get ready for my big exciting day. Hope you have a day as big and as exciting as you want.

We arrived home safely last night, after church and a very pleasant brunch with the very pleasant designer and his wife. I offered him a deposit on the new site we're working on, but he declined. Apparently he could tell I am a tremendously trustworthy person.

When I got home, I found that I had missed a bunch of emails and had to get some work done, but otherwise it was a day of singing and reading in the back street all the way home, with that nice brunch in the middle.

Here's where we ate -- it's the popular after-church spot in the town where #2 daughter works as music minister. She's in a mainline protestant church, and the designer and his wife attend another mainline protestant church; therefore we had to have the joke about beating the Baptists to the restaurant. I don't know whether Baptist church services are actually longer or not, but you always hear this joke when going out to post-church brunch with mainline protestants.

The African Methodist Episcopal church actually does have longer services than anyone else, but you never hear people joking about beating the AMEs to the restaurant. I have no explanation for this.

I'm going to be showing you my pictures from the Big City for about a week, so it'll look as though I'm out of town on vacation now, even though I'm home. Today I'm showing #2 daughter's place, for the family. The rest of you are free to go, or to stay. As always.

This is the building where #2 daughter lives. She lives on the top floor. I don't have sufficient visual/spatial skill to tell you whether she has one of the windows visible here or not.

You have to have a key to get in, and then there's an elevator to take you up to the top. There's a gym on the ground floor. We planned to go every single day and never did.

#2 lives on the top floor, which is called floor 6, but the ground floor is counted separately, in the European fashion, so she's really on the 7th floor in American terms. This is not considered a tall building where she lives, but it would be quite tall where I live.

She has a view of the city from her window.

This isn't really her only window; she has one in the bathroom, too, with substantially the same view.

Both face east, so you get to see the sunrise.

I thought she lived downtown, but this is not so. She's  at the edge of town. Also, this city is not that big. It's one of the 50 largest in the U.S., and the metro area has 2 million people, but the city itself has only a few hundred thousand more people than our state capital, which I don't think of as very big. It's deceptive, I guess, because of the metro area. Or else it's a matter of definition, since the actual borders of the city hardly matter to the experience of living here.

It's divided into districts, this town, so you have the garment district and the library district and the power and light district and the river district.

I recently wrote an article about urban living in my own state, and found that it took some research to determine the boundaries and names of the various neighborhoods. #2's city has the districts labeled with signs, so you never have any doubt about where you are.

This is the inside of the apartment, or at least a little bit of it. You can see the kitchen at the left and the dining area at the right, and the desk where I worked last week.

There's a sleeping space, a walk-in closet, a laundry room, and a large bathroom. The ceilings are very high, since it used to be a warehouse, with all kinds of pipes and things.

Now that I'm back in my own house, the product of thirty years of adult life, it seems to me that I have a lot of stuff. I don't usually feel that way, though my husband always complains about it.

Anyway, it's a nice apartment, very compact and convenient. It's near her work, she can walk to a coffee house or the library, and she could wave to friends in other city lofts out her window, though I never saw her doing so.

I could happily live in her apartment, if there were a balcony. Maybe when we retire, my husband and I will go live near #2 in a loft with a balcony full of plants, and wave to her from our window.

The thing about #2 daughter's living situation that made me a bit jealous was her grocery store.

You want gefilte fish, ready-made sushi, truffles, pastries, Greek yogurt, or thirty-nine brands of BBQ sauce?  Here you go.

When we went there, we actually bought toilet paper, tea, and bananas. I felt that we were missing an opportunity.

#2 daughter actually does her weekly shopping in the little town where she goes to church, where the prices are lower on staples. This is her local grocery for when she needs something mid-week.

Or, presumably, when she has a hankering for gefilte fish.

Her apartment is not designed for someone who cooks at home. She has one tiny food cupboard and no pantry. There's a full-sized refrigerator, so she can have plenty of meats and dairy products and produce, and she keeps her baking supplies in the freezer, but her actual cupboard space is sufficient for a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, a small container of oatmeal, and a can of soup. Rice, pasta, beans, lentils, tomato sauce, dried fruit, cereal, bread, crackers, cans of tuna or salmon -- these things would have to go in the laundry room.

I was very happy, when I came home, to see that #2 son had cleaned up the house. He got bored, he explained, since he had to work and therefore didn't come with the other menfolks up for the weekend.

It's still the weekend, though. My IT guys astonished me by taking today off.

Seriously. One of them was wanting to discuss analytics and linkbuilding on Friday and I said I had stuff already on deadline but I'd watch for him (on my buddy list, that is, as we normally use AIM to communicate) on Monday.

"Memorial Day?" he typed. I took a moment to recover from the suggestion that I wouldn't be available on Memorial Day. This guy was emailing me last night around 9:00. Why should he care about Memorial Day.

Then it struck me -- The Computer Guy had set our meeting for Tuesday of this week, when our normal day is Monday.

And that explains, also, why classes begin tomorrow instead of today, something we'd been discussing in a mystified way just the previous day.

So now you know. IT guys take Memorial Day off, as well as Super Bowl Sunday, the only other day so far when all my IT guys have been offline.

While I have to do my syllabus for the summer and the grocery shopping and maybe also clean my bedroom, I am otherwise planning to take the day off.

Here, to finish up my report on #2 daughter's living situation, is her knitting. Lovely, isn't it?

Okay -- I just had a file arrive from a designer. What's up with that? I thought it had been settled that IT guys take Momeorial Day off! Ah -- he's not in the U.S., but in Moldavia, which frankly sounds fake to me. I must improve my knowledge of geography -- ah, I've looked it up and that name is associated with a medieval principality. Now it is Moldova, which sounds worse. It is in the Balkans, which is why it sounds like one of those fictional states that figure in detective novels from the turn of the 20th century. Except that now I'm thinking those imaginary Balkan principalities might have been real, and I only thought they were fictional.

No matter. As an American information worker, I am entitled to take the day off. I hope you are, too. Have a good time!

Oh man, the client, in NY, just responded to the design. I'm going to get away from the computer before I get sucked into this.

 
We went to the zoo yesterday. We started with breakfast in a nice restaurant where they played "Rhapsody in Blue" and had a good enough copywriter that we were reading bits of the menu aloud to one another.

#2 daughter drove us past the building where she works -- it's a nice building, too -- and thence to the zoo. Along the way, we admired the architecture and held critical discussions of hip-hop and R&B.

I told my husband we could quit worrying about #2 daughter now. She has a good job that she likes, with good prospects. She has a cool apartment and a reliable car which she maintains properly. She's financially responsible. She's dating a couple of nice young men, with nothing very serious going on for us to be concerned about. She has outside interests and is involved in a couple of worthwhile causes.

I'm not sure I convinced him. He was muttering about vacuum cleaners. But I sort of think we can cross "Bring up #2 daughter off our list."

The KC zoo is good at interpretive exhibits. They're not the largest or most well-populated zoo I've ever been to, but it's fun to go to Australia and to Africa, with the buildings and cultural artifacts and such to add to the illusion.

I was not able to persuade the family that it would be fun to ride on the little train. In a way, they're right. There you are, cooped up with a bunch of strangers with no control over how long you linger with any particular animal, in a little train for heaven's sake. I like them anyway.

We got to see the elephant show. My husband's country has lots of elephants. They're used for work animals on the farms. He believes that if yousay to elephants, "Big ears, small eyes," they'll be angry and stampede. The trainer kept talking about the elephants' big ears, so my husband was feeling a bit nervous that he might incautiously remark on their small eyes and it would be the end of us.

It was nice to be out among plants and things, too, though I kept having the experience of breathing deeply because I'd just caught the scent of honeysuckle -- and just then, stepping into range of the smell of the tigers or something. Then of course I'd have a great lungful of tiger.

There was a woman at one point who said. "Eeeeew! Don't you just love the smell of fecal matter!" but I think she was wrong on that. It's a clean and well-managed zoo and they take good care of their animals. It's just that some animals are smelly. It's part of their communication.

We got to the zoo at 9:30 and walked all around it, finishing up at 1:30 with a sea lion show.

The kids and I wanted to sit down to watch, but my husband liked the idea of standing at the rail to watch, so that's what we did.

The show was good, both fun and educational, a fitting cap to our visit.

We headed on to the Narnia exhibit at Union Station. It was essentially a very good interactive museum exhibit. I don't know whether it travels, but if you have the chance to see it, you should. There were lots of props and costumes from the films.

I really like the decorative arts of the Edwardian period, so I particularly enjoyed seeing the way the designers had used textiles and metal work, but all of us enjoyed it very much. 

We had a 4:00 lunch at the diner made famous by the Judy Garland movie about the Harvey Girls, strolled across The Link, wandered around Crown Center a bit, and headed back to daughter #2's apartment.

Frankly, my husband and I were tired by then. We waited for the kids to get the car and fetch us at the entrance to the parking garage, commiserating with one another about how old we were.

We had been planning to go on to a movie after that, but even the kids were tired, so we stayed in. I read, my husband watched DVDs, #1 son played guitar, and #2 daughter got all the photos into the computer, so I have pictures for you today.

#2 daughter went out to a party later on, in spite of her daddy's lecture on staying out too late. He also lectured her on cleaning her bathroom, locking her door, and various other things. He briefly lectured #1 son about not falling out of the window, but by then -- having also lectured us all on not getting eaten by the wild animals at the zoo -- he was running out of steam a bit and couldn't really get into it properly. Usually his lectures have a great deal of verve to them, with many imaginative details.

Today we're going to #2 daughter's church to sing, and then I'm going to meet one of the designers I've been working with, who lives in this city, and then we'll head home.

It's been a very fun visit.

#1 son and his dad arrived last night. We're going to the zoo today. I'm looking forward to it.

Yesterday settled down to routine. I worked all day -- added a new website for an old client to my calendar, worked with the design for a new site, wrote a draft of that highly technical article, conferred with the chocolatier, stuff like that.

I cleaned the kitchen and made dinner, #2 daughter came home from work, we ate and talked about boys. Then we watched a movie and knitted. She'll probably be glad to have her apartment back, but we're pretty good roommates.

There was a rock concert right outside the window. We got to hear it all. The menfolks called just as the movie ended. They had made it to within a couple of blocks and then gotten lost. #2 daughter went and found them and brought them back.

It was good to see them.

I've checked my mail, but that's it: no work today. The zoo!

I've got ..a new assignment to do today. It involves highly technical stuff. It sounds simple, so far, but that's so often an indication that I don't understand it fully...

Last night M Bassoon and La Russe came over for dinner and Scrabble. We made pasta with chicken, tomatoes, mushroom, and wine sauce. Also flourless chocolate cake. Bread, watermelon, wine. It was nice.

We played Scrabble in teams. M Bassoon was refusing to play, largely on the grounds that #2 daughter always wins. This is true. She's the kind of player who puts down the word "mug" and gets 36 points for it: a strategist. M Bassoon and I are both the kinds of players who use words like "gorse" and "veer" because they're cool words. We won.