San Francisco, Here We Come!

Claire gets her first plane trip on Wednesday night--we're going to see my brother, his wife, and their new daughter Sadie for a long weekend. I'm excited to meet Sadie--she's too adorable in her pictures. I'm also interested to see how Claire reacts to air travel. Hopefully it will be as uneventful as it is for both Marc and I. This is also our first real vacation since Claire was born over a year ago, so hopefully we get rejuvenated with it.

On the ear infection front, Claire is clear for now, after a round of the 4th antibiotic (this time 3 shots for 3 days). If the infection comes back, we go to see the ENT guy, probably for tubes. Ah, well.

That's the news from here.

Homeowner Timesuck

When you sign the thousand forms for buying a home, why isn't there one that tells you that you are signing over a fourth of your time to the home, too? My friend Oliver is having this realization, too. There's so many around our house that I don't even know where to begin. The key, though, is that nothing's wrong with the house, or the yard, it's just that we're always striving to make it better. So we have a few dead patches of lawn. And we need a new shed. And I haven't mowed in 2 weeks. And we still have one room full of boxes from the move (three years ago). And our gardens need some serious weeding. But hey, it could be a lot worse, I'm sure.

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My dog Frazil had a little scare on Saturday. I took both the dogs to the dog park before taking them to be groomed, and Frazil had some serious breathing problems. I got some help from the other dog owners there, but ended up taking her straight to the vet at Petsmart, who told me she had heatstroke. She's fine now, but apparently has had a few too many dog treats and needs to lose about 1/3 her body weight. I didn't think her weight was that bad, to be honest, but now I'm worried something else is wrong with her (other than an overzealous human who gives her a treat every time I leave the house). The hardest part is that Nilas also has to go on a crash diet, because it's not fair to treat one dog and not the other. I swear this is a precursor to what it would be like to have 2 kids who will fight over different bedtimes.

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My friend Papatya has made a suggestion for my poetry that I can't help but follow. I will be working on it the next few weeks. I will let you all know if it turns out.