Every calendar's days are numbered.

I talked to J yesterday, the pregnancy is going well, she and Matt have begun to choose baby names and they've sort of settled on two names, Salamander if it's a boy or Salamandra if it's a girl. I whole heartedly approve their spirit.

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Aidric has officially turned two, though unofficially he's been two for about three months now. I wish I could photograph his little face as he faces me down, saying no and looking at me with that defiant look in his eyes, and then the sheepish look he gets as I stare back at him very sternly until he looks away and comes in for the hug. You know that hug that says, 'thanks mom, I was just checking that you're still in charge.' And so on that note we prepare for potty training. Whos idea was this anyway?

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I've never been more grateful for my DVR. It allows me to watch my shows without having to sit through the ever increasing number of political ads. I am sure that many of you will be wanting to go out and get your own TiVo or something similar as the ads ramp up over the next few months. I have some advice for you though, watch or record some news programs too or you'll miss things. The other day I was watching actual TV and I was shocked to hear that Vampira, Bobby Fischer and Heath Ledger had died....so sad...Vampira....shocked....

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Gotta drive through L.A. tomorrow on my way to San Diego. It's about an hour drive through the L.A. basin, more if there's traffic and I can't drive 85 all the way through. As you crest the hill coming over the Santa Monica mountains and you see the brown air below you, you want to hold your breath until you get to the other side. You can implemant all sorts of industrial air quality standards but the only way to silence the damage of millions of cars on the road everyday is to keep millions of cars OFF the roads every day. On the bright side, global warming caused by all of those cars may one day cause sea levels to rise so high that the L.A. basin will be a nice large lake. On the down side, I'll have to drive AROUND L.A. to get to San Diego and that'll just take longer.

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Barack and Hillary debating in L.A. tonight. That's all there is on the local channels today. I gotta go now and see what's been recorded on my DVR. More later.

The News at 6

So the holidays are over, aren't they? There is a very sad helium balloon drifting about three inches from the floor in the dinning room, tiredly proclaiming 'Happy New Year'. All it's good for now is scaring the holy hell out of me when I wander the house in the middle of the night.

Aidric is still enjoying his Christmas booty and we have his B-day coming up to add to the madness. Thank you to all for the noise and chaos, you'll get yours.

The ultimate sign of a new year begun is the jam packed parking lot at the gym. As I cruise for a spot every morning I curse (to myself, because Aidy repeats things quite clearly now) every darned new years resolver and content myself with the knowledge that in a matter of weeks the parking lot will once again be empty.

On Christmas morning we discovered that Aidric really is my son. He opened his packages meticulously. He removed every scrap of paper and tape from the box he was unwrapping before he even considered opening the box. Unlike me though, he didn't care about the contents of the box, so much as he enjoyed just playing with box. Ah well, can'[t have everything.



This is a nice photo of a pod of Orcas off the coast seen during a whale watching tour.



Sorry that's all I've got for you now. Happy New Year to all.