I'm here, I'm there...

Kathy Jo was wondering whether I'll be posting here and there.

Definitely, though maybe not as frequently (you know how sporadic the posts here have been lately with only one blog to manage.) I will keep this one to focus more on the mobile homeschooling and maybe some of my nastier bits since most people I know who don't homeschool wouldn't know what the heck I was talking about anyway and some of the kids' friends are reading and I must keep it G rated. I'm sure there will be some crossover as it's hard to separate one entirely from the other.

Thanks for your comments!

Cheers!

Where am I? What day is it?

How would you like to be the first to preview the new site?

Here's the link:

http://web.mac.com/marlynne/iWeb/Site/Welcome.html

Please let me know if you see any glitches (does the navigation menu say "Photos" and "Blog" like it's supposed to or "About Us" and "Blog"?) I'm unable to check this on a PC, so I don't know if you'll see it the same way I do. A couple of the photos are placeholders until we get out on the road, like, for example, the one at the top of the blog page. I don't have a mustache. Yet.

Come join us!

Blastoff!

Good morning! I'm going on about seven hours of sleep total for the past three days. Jorge, too has been up for days and we are hoping to catch some decent shut-eye on the Ft. Lauderdale to Los Angeles leg of the trip.

My brother and his family came over to my parents' house for dinner last night and there was a lively discussion of wills. "Do you have one?" Uh, no. If there would be any survivors of an air disaster, which is what I presume they're concerned about, the kids get it all. "Ah, but who would get the kids?" Interesting question. I have an idea about that. I didn't share it, because I knew I'd piss someone, probably everyone, off. Like the relative who loudly joked several times, "I want the house on the island!" You are so not getting my kids. Next, prompted by that morbid exchange, my father shares the file on the family plot in San Francisco ("Still plenty of room out there!") Sure, stick me out there, whatever, it's probably the only time I'll ever get out to the Bay Area, and spending eternity on a hillside in San Francisco's high-priced real estate is not a bad way to go. Then my mother whips out her camera and tries to take a picture of me. Get that thing out of my seven-hours-of-sleep-in-three-days face. I know what was going on in the back of her mind... Just use my dental records, okay?

Give us a few days to settle in, snap a few pictures for the new blog, and when it's all prettied up, I'll be back to post the address for Road SCHOLA and catch you up with what's been going on.

See you on the other side of the world!

1...

To all of you who drop in to read my (lately sporadic) blatherings, and all of you who leave comments, and all of you over on my sidebar, and all of you who are not yet on my sidebar, thank you. Sincerely. You have given me the support and encouragement I needed to make this move.

Now, please stow all personal belongings, be sure your seatbelts are securely fastened, and seatbacks and tables are in an upright position...

2...

All non-trip clothes have been washed, dried, and put away. The house is in fairly decent shape (although I encouraged, no, begged, Catsitter to call in a professional cleaning crew and bill me.) Tomorrow I will spend a little time in the morning rearranging some of the bookshelves (that wobbly one is top heavy with all the homeschool materials I have culled; I need to move everything to a lower shelf and stabilize it.)

I am now trying to cram 10 lbs. of shirts into a 5 lb. bag.

We need another suitcase.

The school celebrates its groundbreaking tomorrow, the last day of school for my girls. With a generous, anonymous gift, they finally caught up with the rising cost of materials and are on their way to constructing the new building. The kids were busy this week creating ceramic tiles to adorn the facade. Gracie and Elle's teachers, a darling husband and wife team who were a perfect fit for us this year, have announced their resignation. The new administrator, who I think will be an asset to the school in spite of the waves she is currently making, decided that they would not be a good fit with her more innovative approach, and has new teachers waiting in the wings. Before they could be let go, Mr. and Mrs. B bowed out gracefully. My final project for this evening, after I wander around a bit wondering how many more loose ends I possibly have time to wrap up, will be to write them a letter of recommendation.

It's 11:29 PM. The night is young.

3...

Okay, so I'm totally faking this countdown thing because Sprint, in their infinite wisdom and high efficiency, decided to make up for their abysmally slow performance on any number of service calls I've made to them in the past two years, and cancelled my DSL three days early.

A bit of a panic when I realized, while reading the part in More Charlotte Mason Education about the century books, I don't have a timeline packed! I don't have any general background on Greece packed! A quick trip to the print shop with my Kingfisher History Encyclopedia for a few color photocopies and I am feeling much better.

All work and no play...

...makes Mom and the kids bare their teeth at each other and get rather snarly.

To prevent that and to spice things up on our back-to-basics-primarily-math-and-Latin-with-some-good-lectures-and-great-books homeschooling and ex-pat jaunt, I have tucked the following supplements into our trunk:

-- Esopus Hodie Volume I

-- Esopus Hodie Volume II

-- Lingua Angelica

-- Latin Proverbs: Wisdom from Ancient to Modern Times

-- Grunt: Pigorian Chant from Snouto Domoinko de Silo

Sounds like tons of fun, doesn't it?!

Countdown

The passports arrived (one Friday, two Saturday), all boxes are unpacked and put away, Goodwill now owns three more bags of clothes and one box of books, the two-car garage now accommodates one Jeep, the new cabinet is polished and full of miscellany, and except for the one last small basket of items on the floor of the laundry room and the clothes that everyone has on their back (which they had better remain in for the next three days if they value their lives) everything is clean, folded, and stacked.

I am nearly ready to begin making my final clothing selections from among the seventy-two piles located strategically around the house. I will still have bedlinens to wash and replace for our catsitters, and I am thinking that since I'm on a laundry roll, I'll get them done now and let everybody sleep in my bed for the rest of the week.

Instead I am on the internet creatively avoiding my responsibilities.

You must understand though, with two kids at a sleep over last night and one in school (yeah, I'm indulgent, letting Gracie skip school today to spend one last night with her bestest friend in the whole wide world) the house is organized and clean for the first time since we moved in back in October and should remain so until approximately 2:30 PM when classes get out, so I'm going to enjoy it for a few more minutes.

Saturday night I spent out carousing with three of my girlfriends and last night three more from work came over. Who knew this misanthrope would become such a social butterfly? I had to edit the intro to Alex's baby shower because it occurred to me that, somehow or other, I really do have a few flesh and blood friends. That's all out of my system now though, and I'm ready to hop on the plane and go somewhere nobody knows me and I won't have to talk to anyone for awhile. Being popular is exhausting.

Most of you are not going to fully appreciate what I have to say next, but my rain dance has finally paid off. We had our first downpour a few days ago (that unfortunately evaporated rather quickly) and today we are enjoying a day long, soaking, steady rain. Our grass is no longer crunchy! And maybe, just maybe, the fire danger will be reduced from a red flag to a nice orangey shade flag.

I hope you all had a happy Mother's Day. The girls and I went to the beach for a bit while Jorge struggled to get the storage unit emptied, then I picked up Chinese food and settled in to watch Terry get ousted from the final two on Survivor (at least Aras was a better winner than what's-her-name would have been. Serves her right.) Everyone humored me and was quiet during the show which was about the best present they could have given me.

The strip club owner who lives across the street from us threw a party Sunday afternoon. Jorge thought this odd timing since our normally subdued and very private good neighbor last opened his doors for some quiet cheer Christmas night. No major holiday, no major televised sporting event... Then after watching the guests arrive it occurred to Jorge that it was a Mother's Day party, and our neighbor with the heart of gold had invited all of his mostly single female employees and their children over for a cookout and a swim. That warmed my heart.

Which of Henry VIII's wives are you?
this quiz was made by Lori Fury

Congratulations! You are Katherine Parr.

Katherine Parr spent nearly her whole life married to crotchety old men: Henry was the THIRD old fart she was forced to marry. Is it any wonder she turned to books and religion to occupy her time?

Katherine wasn't just smart, she was a tiny bit uppity, too: she almost got herself thrown in jail for arguing with His Royal Fatness about some theological issues. After Henry croaked, Katherine dropped the prim and proper act and married Thomas Seymour, a handsome, dashing pirate kind of guy who was also as dumb as a post.

Which goes to show you that even bookworms know how to get it on.

This unfortunate creature, the victim of a cat attack, was discovered by Sarabelle. Strangely, without one half of his body and without bleeding to death, the lizard survived for hours. When he began trying to scuttle about on his two remaining legs, Sarabelle determined to make him more comfortable and created these tiny contraptions to make travel a little easier.

Ch-ching!

Organizing the junk in our two-car garage in hopes that we might actually accommodate one small Jeep and therefore save that one extra monthly payment currently being misspent at the storage yard has been Jorge's priority for the past two weekends. This morning I pitched in and took care of the big bucket of loose change we've accumulated over the past year.

Our grocery store has one of those coin counting machines. With the help of the manager and an audience of check out ladies excitedly estimating my payout, I dumped the money in. All foreign coins, junction box slugs, amusement park tokens, broken seashells, paperclips, and lint balls were magically separated, the digital read-out displayed a running total, the machine deducted an eight percent service charge and then spit out a receipt for $324.07. It was like a good day in Vegas.

Sara and I immediately stopped by the consignment shop where we had taken all the furniture the previous owner of our house had left behind. Since our last big payday there, we had another receivable balance of $24.00. The funky old, black wood, Asian and Deco-influenced cabinet with the middle section that would just fit our smallish, flat screen TV, and drawers to conceal DVDs and CDs, and three large doors to store linens and china behind that I'd spotted the last time we dropped off a few more lamps was priced at $340.00.

Sneaky

Sarabelle loves a little booklet she picked up on our visit to Williamsburg two years ago, titled Every Man His Own Doctor. It's a reprint of a colonial era book on medical tips, containing such helpful information as curing consumption with tinctures of tea and deer dung. After all this moving around, packing, unpacking, and repacking, she recently rediscovered it and began regaling us again with cures for what never ails us.

Yesterday afternoon, after a discussion about her interest in studying medicine (not to be a doctor she emphasized, just for fun), I casually read her a snippet from the Father of Medicine's Hippocratic Writings. One mention of "flatulence" and seconds later the book was ripped from my hands and Sarabelle disappeared into her room giggling, "This is the coolest book ever! Listen to this..."

She reemerged later as I was finishing up packing the trunk -- yes, it's now more than a suitcase-sized collection of reading material -- of books for our trip. "Mom? Can we bring this to New Zealand?"

"I don't know, honey, there are an awful lot of books in here already and not one bit of room for the coats I was supposed to squish in there..."

"Oh, pleeeeeeease, Mama?!"

"I'll see what I can do."

MISSING

Forced to negotiate with the terrorists and pay their ransom, I now sit and wait to see if they keep their end of the bargain.

The Passport Agency has held my children's passports captive for over two months. With a travel date less than two weeks away and no new passports and no old passports with Australian visas attached either, I'm a little antsy. One phone monkey, when questioned why the original birth certificates had to be sent in after they had been authenticated at the post office and these were only renewals, so the originals had already been handled years ago during the initial applications, argued with me that they were not technically "renewals." Children's passports are processed as new each time. Semantics. Whatever, Phone Monkey. How about you just return my entire package and I'll drive over to Miami and get them done in one day? Oh, right. I've got to submit my request in writing and that will add how much more time to this ridiculous procedure? And why couldn't you specify this up front instead of letting me know there was a problem after the passports were already due back? Repeated calls left me with nothing more than a standard "wait and see" response until Monday, when I finally had enough and demanded someone expedite the return of our documents, which, thank you, ma'am, we all know are not really "ours" but property of the US Gummint, except for those Australian visas, which are the property of the Australian Government, and do you really want an international incident on your hands?!

The magic word was "expedite."

Sure they could get those right out to me! It would only cost an additional $60 for each of the three applications! The Next Available Phone Monkey questioned my decision, "Are you sure you want to do that when there's a good chance you'll have them before you leave whether or not you pay to expedite the packages?" Well, since the computer still says no one has touched the applications yet and we are eleven days from traveling, and a "good chance" is highly unacceptable, that would be a "YES!" Why no one else in all my calls mentioned this speedy service before when I was obviously highly concerned about the timeline will never be satisfactorily explained, but that's to be expected, I suppose. I asked him, and seriously doubted, if they accepted American Express. "Don't leave home without it!" Funny Phone Monkey.

Though the arrangements were made Monday, the drop did not take place until today, and we are expecting they will be released, unharmed, Friday.

SURPRISE!!

Welcome to Alex's virtual baby shower!

Okay, it's not really a surprise, I mentioned to Alex I would be putting some links and book recommendations up for her on my blog, and to make sure she stops by to take a look, otherwise (ahem) she would probably never see them, and really, what else is there to shout out at the beginning of a party? "HELLO!"? "BABY SHOWER!"?

So, come on in, grab a cup of tea or coffee or a Bombay Sapphire martini and make yourself right at home...

First, introductions are in order:

Alex, let me introduce you to some of the wisest women I've had the pleasure to meet, and a few new friends too.

Everybody, this is Alex. Alex is one of the few flesh and blood female friend I have that's not related to me. We met years ago at a baby shower -- oh, the irony -- for the wife of a mutual friend. A friend her parents' secretly, or not so secretly, planned on her marrying. Let's all be thankful that never happened. Really. Anyway, I arrived late and slinked into a chair at a table in the back of the room and was instantly intrigued by my tablemates, a bespectacled, raven-haired Amazon in overalls and the lanky, silent goateed guy sitting beside her. She had never been to such a girly affair before and was unfamiliar with shower protocol. She figured a party was a party and invited her boyfriend Forrest to come along for the festivities. We clicked. There is nothing so enjoyable as going to a baby shower out of sheer obligation for a person you could never be anything more than a barely tolerable acquaintance of, and sitting next to the one other person in the room, or entire town perhaps, that is as cynical, sarcastic, and irreverent as you. If we looked alike, she would be my evil twin.

Alex's power over men is legendary, at least around these parts. Physically she is as powerful as a man, and not afraid to make a show of force if need be, and when the mood suits she is a Siren. Forrest was not her boyfriend's name, it was Charles, but Alex thought it too elegant a name for him and renamed him Forrest, as in Gump. It was at least a year before we ever knew his real name. Under her Svengali-like control, she even taught him how to properly administer a bikini wax. Most impressive. For a few years she was a fixture at our house, cooking gigantic protein-based meals for the Atkins dieters among us, and swilling gin with the rest, entertaining the kids, and initiating deep, intelligent, and sometimes very provocative conversations. Jorge even hired her as an 'Expediter', a position he totally made up, because she was equally capable negotiating permitting processes and digging ditches. She eventually moved away, picked out a new girlfriend for Forrest, and had a few more boyfriends, some she could dominate and some she could not. When she called me out of the blue at work one day, I guessed what was coming. She was pregnant. I knew eventually it would happen. Her boyfriends were often evaluated for their potential genetic contributions, but she never wanted a husband. I was right about the baby part; that she had married the guy floored me. Apparently he is one of the good ones, and she is feeling happy and secure.

We are expecting her daughter around July 22.

Raised by hippie parents (I've still never met them in person, but always envision them like Dharma's parents on Dharma and Greg, only more blue-collar and much edgier), Alex grew up to appreciate a healthy, commonsense, fiercely independent, natural lifestyle and is planning to raise her daughter with these same sensibilities only with her slightly more radical attitude. She doesn't understand people plopping their kids into strollers as if to avoid physical contact; she was always carried or walking. There will be no bassinet-to-crib-to-toddler bed-to-full sized bed nonsense for her. She wants a home birth, in a pool, and plans to breastfeed. Dare I say it? I think she might even homeschool...

Since she lives far away now and greatly disdains wasteful consumerism and ridiculous, frou frou gender specific clothing, I decided this would be my gift to her. Alex is a voracious reader and would greatly enjoy your book recommendations. Equally at home reading Shakespeare as she is hunting wild boar, she would relish your suggestions for can't-miss classical literature as much as dystopic future nonfiction. Please also feel free to leave any birth stories and child-rearing tips, as well as your most indispensable advice. Have any suggestions for a first time homebirthing mother? Embarrassing moments as a new mom? Helpful links? Must-have products? Well-wishes? Please, share. And feel free to spread the love.

Every shower requires some sort of goofy game: As you comment, begin your post with a baby-related word, in alphabetical order following the previous comment. I'll start with A, the next reply would start with B, etc. Let's see if we can get all the way to Z. And the number of times the word "baby" is mentioned will equal the number of gray hairs Alex gets.

Thank you so much for coming!

We Don't Need No Education

"It looked like a...a... A facility!"

"Well, it is, hon. It's an educational facility."

"Looked more like a correctional facility."

"Yeah."

I was thinking that the last time I had set foot in a public school was, oh, about twenty years ago when my mother was still teaching, then I realized, duh! my two youngest attend public school. I set foot in one nearly every single day. But theirs is so small and cozy and informal. And cheery. And fun. This was nothing at all like that.

We took the open house tour at the local middle school yesterday. One other parent and her fifth grader attended from our little charter. We were treated to a sonorous lecture from a dean or principal or robot, and an exciting fashion show hosted by the eighth graders demonstrating the do's and don't's of the dress code. After a particularly skanky Don't Girl was dismissed for her way too revealing attire and the Do Girl praised for her modest apparel, the other mom, whose eyesight is much better than mine, leaned over and whispered, "Do Girl's shirt says, 'Lick Me'." A far too perky teacher enlightened us about the lunch lines and enthused, "You can eat cheeseburgers every day if you want to!"

Right.

This on the same day the paper ran a frontpage story on Gracie's other public school option. Of course I had a brief case of educational envy second guessing my homeschool plan and even momentarily considered covering another base by signing her up there too -- because as the statistics show, aside from their phenomenal SAT scores, 99% of students go on to a four year college, the remaining 1% attend a two year college -- until I got to the last line, a quote from a satisfied parent, "Everything at Pine View is geared toward going to college, and every kid aspires to go on to college. In that kind of atmosphere nobody considers not going, and looking back at the education he's received, the experience is superior to what he would have received in public schools in England."

Well then that's not for us, is it?

On the way out of the drab, dark brown brick institution, Gracie nudged me and pointed out a large inspirational sign planted in a dusty, dry courtyard, "NEVER NEVER QUIT!"

"Mom? That's a double negative, isn't it?"

High five, honey.

Portable Schoolhouse - Resources

MATH
Saxon Algebra 1 (S)
Saxon 7/6 (G)
Silver Burdett Ginn (L)

LATIN
Henle I (S,G)
Latin Proverbs: Wisdom from Ancient to Modern Times (S,G)
Esopus Hodie (S,G)

WRITING
Classical Composition (S,G)

GRAMMAR
Harvey's Elementary (S,G)
First Language Lessons (L)

LECTURES
TTC - Great Minds of the Western Literary Tradition (DVD)
TTC - Iliad of Homer (DVD)
TTC - Odyssey of Homer (DVD)
TTC - Tools of Thinking (MP4)

READING
Archimedes and the Door to Science
Bulfinch's Mythology
Famous Men of Greece (Download)
Hippocratic Writings
Iliad
Modern Rhymes About Ancient Times: Greece
Norton Anthology of Classical Literature
Odyssey
Plutarch's Lives (Download)
The Best Things in Life
The Histories (Download)
The Librarian Who Measured the Earth
The Portable Greek Reader
The Republic (Download)

Portable Schoolhouse - Scope and Sequence

SUBJECTS
TTC Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition Lectures
Additional Materials Used
-- Additional Audio Lectures
* Excerpts from Anthologies

-------

LOGIC
TTC Tools of Thinking:
-- What Are "Tools of Thinking"?
-- Which Tools of Thinking Are Basic?
-- Platonic Intuition, Memory, and Reason
-- Intuition, Memory, and Reason - Problems
-- Sense Experience - A More Modern Take
-- Observation and Immediate Inferences
-- Further Immediate Inferences
-- Categorical Syllogisms
-- Ancient Logic in Modern Dress
-- Systematic Doubt and Rational Certainty
-- The Limits of Sense Experience
-- Inferences Demand Relevant Evidence
-- Proper Inferences Avoid Equivocation
-- Induction Is Slippery But Unavoidable
-- The Scientific Revolution
-- Hypotheses and Experiments - A First Look
-- How Empirical is Modern Empiricism?
-- Hypotheses and Experiments - A Closer Look
-- "Normal Science" at Mid-Century
-- Modern Logic - Truth Tables
-- Modern Logic - Sentential Arguments
-- Modern Logic - Predicate Arguments
-- Postmodern and New-Age Problems
-- Rational Empiricism in the 21st Century

CREATION
Theogony*

MYTHOLOGY
Bulfinch's Mythology:
Prometheus and Pandora
Apollo and Daphne-Pyramus and Thisbe-Cephalus and Procris
Juno and her Rivals, Io and Callisto-Diana and Actaeon-Latona and the Rustics
Phaeton
Midas-Baucis and Philemon
Proserpine-Glaucus and Scylla
Pygmalion-Dryope-Venus and Adonis-Apollo and Hyacinthus
Ceyx and Halcyone
Vertumnus and Pomona-Iphis and Anaxarete
Cupid and Psyche
Cadmus-The Myrmidons
Nisus and Scylla-Echo and Narcissus-Clytie-Hero and Leander
Minerva and Arachne-Niobe
The Graeae and Gorgons-Perseus and Medusa-Atlas-Andromeda
Pegasus and Chimaera-Centaurs
The Golden Fleece-Medea
Meleager and Atalanta
Hercules-Hebe and Ganymede
Theseus and Daedalus-Castor and Pollux
Bacchus and Ariadne
The Rural Deities-Dryads-Rhoecus-Water Deities-Camenae-Winds
Achelous and Hercules-Admetus and Alcestis-Antigone-Penelope
Orpheus and Eurydice-Aristaeus-Amphion-Linus-Thamyris-Marsyas-Melanpus-Musaeus
Arion-Ibycus-Simonides-Sappho
Endymion-Orion-Aurora and Tithonus-Acis and Galatea
The Trojan War
The Fall of Troy-Return of the Greeks-Orestes and Electra
Adventures of Ulysses-The Lotus Eaters-The Cyclopes-Circe-Sirens-Scylla and Charybdis-Calypso

Iliad
The Iliad (Fagles)
TTC Iliad of Homer:
-- Intro to Homeric Epic
-- The Homeric Question
-- Glory, Honor, and the Wrath of Achilles
-- Within the Walls of Troy
-- The Embassy to Achilles
-- The Paradox of Glory
-- The Role of the Gods
-- The Longest Day
-- The Death of Patroklos
-- Achilles Returns to Battle
-- Achilles and Hektor
-- Enemies' Tears - Achilles and Priam

Odyssey
The Odyssey (Fagles)
TTC Odyssey of Homer:
-- Heroes' Homecomings
-- Guests and Hosts
-- A Goddess and a Princess
-- Odysseus Among the Phaiakians
-- Odysseus Tells His Own Story
-- From Persephone's Land to the Island of Helios
-- The Goddess, the Swineherd, and the Beggar
-- Reunion and Return
-- Odysseus and Penelope
-- Recognitions and Revenge
-- Reunions and Resolution
-- The Trojan War and the Archaeologists

AESOP
Esopus Hodie

Sappho and Pindar*

Aeschylus
Agamemnon*
Libation Bearers*
Eumenides*

Sophocles
Oedipus at Colonus*
Antigone*
Ajax*

Euripides
The Trojan Women*
Hippolytus*
Medea*
The Bacchae*

Herodotus
The Histories

Thucydides
History of the Peloponnesian War*

Aristophanes
Birds
Clouds
Frogs
Lysistrata

Plato
Ion
Symposium
Georgias
Euthyphro
Apology
Crito
Phaedo
The Republic

Menander and Hellenistic Literature

Plutarch (Lecture 21: VI, VII, VIII)
Famous Men of Greece and Plutarch's Lives:
Lycurgus
Solon
Pisistratus
Militades
Leonides
Themistocles
Aristides
Cimon
Pericles
Alcibiades
Lysander
Socrates
The Best Things In Life (Kreeft)
Xenophon
Epaminondas and Pelopidas
Philip of Macedonia
Alexander (The Great)
Demosthenes
Aristotle, Zeno, Diogenes, and Apelles
Ethics*
Metaphysics*
Ptolemy
Pyrrhus
Cleomenes

HIPPOCRATES
Hippocratic Writings
The Oath
On Airs, Waters, Places

EUCLID
Elements of Geometry (Book 1)*

ARCHIMEDES
Archimedes and the Door to Science

ERATOSTHENES
The Librarian Who Measured the Earth

THE FALL OF GREECE

Why, yes, Becky...

...I am taking a few more books!

Somehow, during all the errands Sarabelle and I ran today, we ended up at Books-A-Million. Big surprise there, huh? It occurred to me that we needed a guide book for New Zealand -- not that the other five don't count -- one that has quality hotel listings. The other editions we already own are mostly backpacker types, which are fine for your general sightseeing information and traveling on the cheap, but I'd like to spend a few days, especially the first couple, shaking off jet lag in comfort, somewhere with enough room to stretch out and not touch another person. One can get a little cranky when one must contort oneself into a semi-restful position on a fold-down tray attached to the seat in front of you. For 12 hours. Miraculously, this dinky little outlet had a Fodor's 2006. Cool.

And while I was there, I could not resist picking up The Omnivore's Dilemma and The Long Emergency, two books guaranteed to chase away any misgivings I may have about our little adventure. It's the Post-Apocalyptic Freak in me.

I should probably tuck in my copy of The Elements of Style since rereading it yesterday and today (in between compulsively organizing my bookshelves, of which about 66% is done) was much like a slap in the face, or at least a stern talking to, from Mr. Strunk and Mr. White. All I can say is, I am so, so sorry for all my vulgar misuse of the Elementary Rules of Usage. I'll work on it, okay?

Climbing Parnassus should definitely come along for the ride as I can certainly find inspiration and well worded gems every time I open it up.

And my Franklin: Writings because he's just always so much fun to read.

And that's all.

For now.