Today was Opal's school Valentine's party, so she had a snack in the afternoon, and they let her eat a piece of chocolate, and yet, when I picked her up, she said she was STARVING and why were we going to the LIBRARY anyway? "Because you wanted to get another Tiger Moth book and the recording of the next book in the Young Wizards series." "Oh. I guess. But I am yearning to eat my ...

Opal and Jason were discussing their first computers. "Mine was grey," said Jason. "Mine is green," said Opal, "and it came with games already on it! I didn't even have to go get them!" "What kind of games?" "Well, there's this one with numbers? And you put the numbers in? And then you press the equal sign and it tells you the answer!" That would of course be the calculator. I ...

Arnold succeeded in becoming less peaky and Ned sprung him from the hospital today. This went faster than anything else on this hospital visit, and unimaginably faster than the last time we did it, when we waited long enough that people kept coming around to see if they could have the bed for somebody else yet, with varying degrees of sensitivity.

The going-to-the-hospital ...

Usually, I hate January. I live in the northern hemisphere, it's cold and dark (yes, even in sunny California). Plus my mother died in January (yes, that was more than 20 years ago. Look, I've loosened up about Mother's Day, but January I'm never going to forgive. It doesn't care.) This year, January seems to be spilling over into February.

The good news; hey, that bronchitis? ...

Our friend Christine has new poison dart frogs. They are shiny, and blue, and improbable; as an adult observed, they look rather like their fingers aren't even properly finished. Opal observed them closely, and then said "One moved!" "That's how you know they're real," I answered. She contemplated their container. "Well, that one is, anyway." We admired her skepticism. She watched ...

Opal: "I'm really tired." Me: "Good, then get ready for bed spit-spot." Opal, winsomely: "Sometimes when I'm really tired I don't have to brush my teeth." Me: "Those are times when you didn't just eat a dried apricot." Opal: "What difference does a dried apricot make?" Me: "They're yummy, but they stick to your teeth something terrible." Opal: "What?" Me: "The dried apricots." ...

Opal and I read some Maira Kalman, about Max, the dog poet, and she wrote this poem

I saw Miss Cat
Walking on Miss Catshair
Walking on Mr. Cat's feet
And I'll bet you who you're betted in
Little bed of twine

(Yes, there are three people here, Miss Cat, Miss Catshair, and Mr. Cat. I was taking dictation, and I checked.)

Read to and by Opal recently: I ...

It is raining here. Sometimes hailing. There was what the locals called a tornado warning, while all the midwestern transplants scoffed and called it a watch. The weather is, all told, nasty. This complicates school, since Opal needs a rain coat, and rain boots, and shoes. Normally the only thing she takes to school is her lunch, so she just carries it, but there's a high risk in ...

• Me: It's Autumn.
• Opal: I thought it was fall....
• Me: Some people in the U.S. call it that.
• Opal: Well, I call it butter side up. (Turns toast to be sideways) Butter side sideways. (Turns toast to be butter side facing away from her) Butter side forwards!

Over the last few days I've been moving into the new house with Opal. Opal has, so far, found this mostly fun as she's gotten to choose a number of things: her room (pink walls, second factor being the flowers on the light ...

Here's some decent instructions for tethering your iphone

Hopefully, they'll get around to supporting it officially ...

A snippet from one of the conversations: Headmistress: We do positive discipline
Elizabeth: Bingo
Other parent: What do you mean by that?
Headmistress: We have a ...

Metric video competition page is here and the invitation video is below. ...

DirContext ctx = new InitialDirContext(env);
// create attribute objects
ctx.bind(name, object, attributes);

Unfortunately, this results in a Java serialized object like the ...