Birthday! Ray’s birthday was on Sunday. We took her to Ocean Adventures in Denver, which had many fish. And other stuff, like otters and tigers. Ray and I went over almost the whole thing twice; Lee petered out after the first time through. Birthday presents. The computer Lee’s setting up for Ray isn’t ready yet, […]

Kids. Brenna’s over for an early mini-birthday party. For some reason, they both run into Ray’s room, and then Brenna comes out. “Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid of the monsters in your room. Shut the door.” Ray shuts the door. Brenna runs around the living room pretending to be a pony. She knocks on

Ramble. Well, not that anyone else is really going to care, but I’m proud of something I’ve figured out recently. Took me ten years to do it. There’s this story by the sci-fi writer Greg Egan called “The Caress” that I read in one of the Year’s Best Science Fiction collections edited by Gardner Dozois.

Whew. During the last hour or so of actually moving everything back into the house, I ran out of juice. What do you have when you’re out of juice? Spit — meanness, stubbornness, pride, anger, that kind of thing. A couple of days ago, I figured out I was still running on pure spit. Very

Back. We have moved. Everything that was going to make it made it. Still tired.

Move. We’re moving today. The phone number should remain the same, but you won’t be able to reach us until some time tomorrow. I won’t be able to access e-mail from home until we get set up in a couple of weeks, so I won’t be online until Monday. Later 🙂

Hot chocolate. Now this, I have to try: Mayan Hot Chocolate 2 cups boiling water 1 chile pepper, cut in half, seeds removed (with gloves) 5 cups light cream or whole or nonfat milk 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise 1 to 2 cinnamon sticks 8 ounces bittersweet chocolate or 3 tablets Mexican chocolate, cut into

Question of the Day. Sigh. The question of this morning was, “Where’s the best place to get new men’s size eight, low-top Chuck Taylor converse shoes in black (but with the regular soles)?” With shipping and including Ebay, the answer still seems to be at any local Famous Footwear outlet, for thirty bucks. Everyone that

Questions. Dang it. The internet gods wiped this out last night.* So… I had so much fun messing with the Chinese Dictionary question that I decided to write down a dozen or so other no-so-personally-pressing questions and see what I could find on the net. Yesterday’s question: What’s Yom Kippur? It’s the Jewish Day of

How does a Chinese dictionary work? You know, I’ve wondered about this for years. I still don’t know. But here are some notes from my online meandering in search of the answer: On-line Chinese Tools contains a number of interesting links, including “Get a Chinese Name.” Ray’s is Kong Rui su, “Sharp Revive.” Lee’s is