On Friday, sixteen families in our neighborhood rented a party barge together and had a good time out on Lake Travis. This was my favorite photo from the day:

Don’t gossip about one coworker to another co-worker via instant message!

This afternoon, I wanted to say something less than flattering to coworker #1 about coworker #2, but because #2 was on my mind, I double clicked on his name in my buddy list instead of #1’s, and I sent the snide comment directly to #2. Doh!
Fortunately, my comment wasn’t terribly bad, and coworker #2 is generally good natured and understands that this kind of thing happens, so the damage wasn’t too bad–this time.
Not like the time I wanted to make a comment about my boss and made the same mistake.

This morning, my cousin Shannon in California called. She and her husband are thinking about opening their home to hurricane Katrina refugees. She had found my blog, read my posts about hurricane Katrina and called to ask me if I knew how they could go about finding someone to stay with them.
I have only seen Shannon once in our adult lives–at my grandfather’s funeral–but it was so cool that my blog brought us together, and for such a good cause.

I’m happy to report that I scored 90% on this eighth grade math test. And I only got the one question wrong due to an incorrect calculation, not because I didn’t know how to figure the answer (not that an eighth grade math teacher would care much about the reason).

Sucker, that is…
This morning, I walked the kids to school. Well, Hannah usually walks ahead with her friends and I accompany Samuel. A small crowd of moms and kids was gathered next to the school building as Samuel and I neared. We saw a young cat emerging from the downspout and a mom trying to help it without touching it.
I reached down and scooped up the cat. The woman looked at me and said, “Your daughter was just here. She said that you would pick it up.” I carried the kitten around the school while I dropped Samuel off, took it home and set it up in the spare dog cage. We’ll decide what to do with it this evening.

Sorry I haven’t blogged much lately. Two reasons, one short-term, one longer.
First, the short-term reason: I had knee surgery this past Wednesday.
The longer-term reason: upon my return from vacation a few weeks ago, I made a few resolutions, among them not to surf the web so much. Less time spent wandering the digital back alleys has resulted in fewer things to blog about.

Poor Samuel has lost all four of his upper and bottom front teeth, though the bnew bottom teeth are coming in pretty quickly (Aside: isn’t that the cutest face you’ve ever seen? I’m not biased or anything)

Katie and I have a long history of adapting songs to fit out pets. Two of my favorites: our former cocker spaniel had problems with his anal glands and would frequently drag his ass across the floor (gross, I know). This action became known as the ‘Butt Scootin’ Boogie’. And at one point, we lived in a two-story townhome; when our 20-pound cat would jump down from the furniture to the floor upstairs, we could hear his landing loudly downstairs, at which point we broke out in ‘I fell the earth move under my feet…’

Thankfully, Samuel’s new kindergarten teacher apparently doesn’t read my blog (like who does?); this morning, she let Samuel into her classroom and she didn’t send me to the principal to have my mouth washed out with soap.

Samuel starts kindergarten this week. In preparation, Katie bought him a new lunchbox and water bottle. The water bottle has a liquid-filled insert that you can put in the freezer, let freeze, and then insert into the bottle to keep your drink cold. Samuel thinks it’s really cool.
I kept referring to the insert as an ‘ice dildo’ due to its shape. Katie suggested I stop using this reference lest Samuel pick up the usage and get expelled from kindergarten before he even gets going.