Balloon Morning

For a week now Avocado has been angling for a rapping balloon: a mylar balloon with a sound chip that, when poked, raps about how it's your birthday and so on. Tomorrow is A's 13th birthday (but she won't be in school and anyway it's her buddy Gabe's bar mitzvah and all the fuss will be about him) and on your birthday you are suffered to bring a balloon to school so that everyone will know that it's your birthday and make a fuss. Throughout the day your friends, already in on the birthday event--give you more balloons, so that by day's end you're carrying a veritable bouquet of long-stemmed balloons. I think this is kind of adorable--but of course the kid didn't explain all this to me until 11pm last night.

I'm a sucker. At 7:15 this morning I drove off to Safeway. Did not get her the rapping balloon (at $15? No way) but got her a nice big happy birthday balloon so she can advertise her imminent maturity.

Still All About He

Apparently aides to the former president were dismayed by Obama's inaugural address; felt it was ungracious and unnecessarily dismissive of Bush's accomplishments.

Um, guys? Since Obama was hired to undo as many of Bush's "accomplishments" as possible, dismissing them would be the least of what he might have done in that speech. As Rahm Emmmanuel put it, “If they didn’t know that was the judgment of people, then their subscription to the newspapers were canceled over the last three years."

If I'm So Busy, Why Ain't I Rich?

• This morning I went off to pick up the balloon for Avocado. She received three other balloons, plus various pelf from her friends at school, and is All Full of Joy.
• Went off to buy birthday presents for the burgeoning Woman.
• Spent three hours at the SF Library trying to find out a basket of divers things: where the Castelle di Arechi is, relative to the Duomo in Salerno; when paper making began in Europe (and when paper trickled down to the rank n' file); any more information on the Salernitan medical school. The SF Library was not as useful as I might have hoped.
• Got home to find that UPS had attempted to deliver one of Avocado's birthday presents. Made many phone calls to arrange to pick said present up later in the evening.
• Went off to pick up Avocado's new contacts, feed klages's kitty, pick up bread and dinner food.
• As was driving home, Spouse called up to let me know that UPS had redelivered the package.
• Went through complex series of phone calls with Avocado, because after she gets home she's getting dressed and going to a friend's dance in Hillsborough, but getting her home is something of a pain in the butt.
• While A is at the dance, must wrap her presents.
• Tomorrow morning, off to my writing workshop, which means if Avocado sleeps in I won't see her until late in the evening, as she's got her friend's bar mitzvah to go to.
I intend to spend Sunday more quietly, if at all possible.

In the midst of all this Sarcasm Girl has gone off to spend the weekend with a bunch of friends (including, it appears, a beau!). The dog is becoming the fixed star of normal life around here, and how sad is that?