WoW! I just raCED THRU three months of BLOG, pix, vids and updates. CNN called right after my last entry. The news producers all sound miffed that I don't want to play. Apparently they don't get that reaction much. I get to talk to audiences all day long every day for people whose lives, livelihoods, liberty, etc, depend on it. But 1rst I listen. The media don't seem much interested in the listening part, from the spin this little storey is getting.

HOW BOUT THEM PACKERS? Working in the living room is way more fun when the Pack is putting on the shows we've had this season. Its really scary- I (sometimes) even know whats going on! S&J, that sounds serendipitous for you. I had no idea what you two have gone thru running a business and multiple offices and staff. I'm barely managing one little corner of the couch and one grouchy insubordinat "employe". Consolidating at one office s ounds good.

D&S, it cannot be 25 years. There's a Death Cab for Cutie song I hear alot that makes me think of you (Alex keeps my car supplied with music, he thinks Fuggazi is/are good driving material). Young family is driving home from a wedding in the song, one line is about their little boy "with cake in his hair" and I see Stephen under the fruit cart at your wedding, with pineapple in his hair.

M&C, see? SEE? All you do is play on the floor and try to keep up with the energy level. Your jobs continue to sound fun and fulfilling, but Freya looks like she is the most fun. Isn't it fun to play with all the cool little toys and read the cool little books? Grover looks like he has mellowed a lot and adjusted to the bemused big brother role. The girl is going to want to slap mom-and dad- for the potty vid. The lion costume is great. I think you need to start training her for next year tho so she hits more than 1 house. Got to exploit the cute factor at LOTs of houses.

M&D, wow you are so BZ. Diversity makes the career cool, but teaching and traveling on the job is fabulous. Our dogs are slow on the daylight savings time switch too but they finally have stopped howling at 4:30 am- our poor neighbors. It was kinda cute the first time Glif started hollering "OUT! OUT!" but the humor wears thin at 4:30 am. Seamus still hasn't mastered his first word, but he makes up for it by giving me a morning kiss every day.

Domi and Magda, your notes are wonderful! A 38 yr old pen pal might be fun and I am really intrigued by coed bathrooms/showers. Thank God we all grew up sharing bathrooms. But... wouldn't it be thoughtful to have maybe mentioned this at maybe orientation? Classes, sports, plays all sound great. I like the 3 Ariels- All I remember of the Tempest is Ariel and my favorite character Caliban. Wish we could come see it. Magda, we are still trying to get the concert to work. And, I expect both Alex and Stephen often have days when the want to slap their mother.

Mark, I don't know anybody with a spare few million kicking around but I am asking. That is fantastic news.

The evening political discussion shows are on , deconstructing Rudy , McCain laughing at "How do we beat the bitch?"from it takes one to know one supporter, (after his 95 yr old mother said something anti LDS on national news, Hillary trying to find the most politic position on alien driver's licenses and the State Departmenrt Blackwater investigator who doesn't know his brother is ON THE BOARD of Blackwater? We get another whole year of this! I think I want to vote for Michele Obama. Or Elizabeth Edwards. They'd make a good ticket wouldn't they?

Thank you, to each of you, for taking the time to write about the real world- the places, the people, the sights, the events, so we can all share them. I had the best day walking around New York City, and the best first week at Vassar and the most beautiful drive home along those gorgeous Idaho rivers, and the most fun first trick or treat and book reading (Hey everybody, if Mom hasn't already told you the Freya/plastic glass story, ASK! Too funny. And another strong-willed woman in the family! She has already mastered passive-aggressive.), pithy golfing from the sand and a really odd Nemo picture, cute, but really odd, Nemo!

Breath of fresh air. I'll bet that everyone of you get that waterboarding is torture. And I'll bet eveyone of you would state so categorically if asked. Some of you ( I won't name names, but you know who you are) would even have been as brave as the FORMER Justice department guy who tried it out to render an unequivacal opinion: it is. And if we played international contract bridge, I bet we'd tell the other competitors WE weren't responsible for Bush either! The US Bridge Federation will suspend the team for a year! The top US team!

Time to feed the puppies. It doesn't matter what happened in the presidential race, what Paris or Britney did today, why the OJ judge is a justice of the peace and has a pony tail, or what one of my wackier clients did today, they just grin and bounce around and do tricks for cookies. Limited repertoir- Glif says out and eats cages, Seamus lies down. Not when we tell him to lie down. Seamus has mastered the concept of the inclined plane- drop a toy on Tim's ramp and it rolls away, drop it on the flat turn around area and it just sits there, rolling is much preferred. But that's not exactly a trick. Its more like physics Physics 101, but farther in physics that I ever got.

The big sexual assault trial I was stressing over was a win in under 1 hour. It should have been acquittal, but the prosecutor had no option but to take it to trial.
The jury thanked us. The notoriously cranky judge, given to turning purple during public temper tantrums, stopped us before we left, to commend us on professionalism and civility (we were nice to all the witnesses, our own and each other's, and we were nice to each other!) Only lawyers would have a written ethics rule to be civil to one another. And the other folks in the courtroom. They had to write it down. Recently. Its a rule. We had to have it written down for us. Any wonder the profession ranks right up there with used car sales and is the butt of millions of jokes?

Time to feed the puppies. Nite.