Toot on, son

Have I mentioned that I’m tutoring a college student in Spanish? Oddly enough, I’m unabashedly teaching to the test. It’s an entirely mercenary venture. He pays me to teach the thing I most love to teach, with the goal of not learning any more than absolutely necessary.
And yet, if I don’t teach [...]

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Broadsided

In honor of my recent commenter, lifelong cousin, and consistent birthday-gift-giver, I must offer here a shout-out about Broadsided.  (Broadsided’s current issue features art by her husband, Gabe, and a couple of years ago, they featured her own work.)  But while Broadsided has chosen work by people I personally know, love, and admire, that’s not [...]

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Go outside, Chicagoans!

Chicagoans, if you’re reading this, I hope you’re near a window or outside on a fancy phone.  This is what Fall is supposed to be.  This is the kind of day that pays us back for enduring the winters up here.  The sun and the leaves won’t actually wash away the bad economy or H1N1 [...]

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Rain, rain, back again (and here to stay)

Apparently we’re due for about seven days straight of this October mess.   I’ve got a hot date tonight with a beautiful lady (if you haven’t seen her lately, by the way, she’s growing her hair out and it looks terrific!), so I’d rather not start the day with vaqueros empapados.  I think I’ll bike [...]

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Whew!

We have a new nephew, Ray, as of Saturday afternoon.  He came two weeks early, breaking the pattern set by his five overcooked siblings, but that was not the only surprise he had up his sleeve.  He also surprised everyone with a frightening and potentially life-threatening labor/delivery.  Thanks to some Providential timing/logistics for getting to [...]

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A fish story (chapter 1): Death and fishes

We discovered last night that Ella had died.  The beagle may or may not be a suspect.  Let the record reflect, however, that her breath has smelled fishy lately (literally), she was caught drinking out of the fishbowl this morning, and when Em moved the bowl she followed along, prancing, as if Em was holding [...]

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Catching up

I’ve missed more than half a week, and that after only 8 days.  But I’m not going to let it get me down.  There’s plenty to talk about, and I’ve got a few drafts.
One thing about Fridays is that they’re inevitably two different days in one.  Friday nights are weekend time, and Friday days are [...]

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Thank you, Miss Janice

Margo’s in Pre-K this year instead of ‘regular’ preschool, and she’s already growing up a lot.  Miss Janice, whom Margo pretty much actively feared at one time, appears to be a true teacher.  (And that’s not to say that Miss Donna isn’t, but her job description as the lady in charge of Creative Play doesn’t [...]

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Not quite micro enough

If you’re like me, you recently took a long break from posting and used Twitter to scratch the itch in the mean time, and you discovered that every so often you had something really great to say that turned out to be just a bit longer than 140 characters, and you caught yourself getting a [...]

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Lucas Enrique Anderson

Here’s something I forgot to tell everyone a coulpe of weeks ago: Rique’s adoption is finally final in the final jurisdiction that has any significance for him — the state of Illinois. With our type of international adoption, this processing by the state is optional; his citizenship was altered from “Guatemala” to “U.S.” [...]

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