Birthday

Today is my 46th birthday. I'm just saying.

Christmas 2008

Last Christmas was one of the worst days of my entire life, for reasons I don't care to revisit. DW and I decided to try something different this year.

We took a hotel room in Alexandria, Louisiana, where we put up a small Christmas tree and laid out the kids' presents underneath it. We brought them over individually on Christmas Eve to open presents and play. That way, T could make his WalMart rounds and A could eat at Subway.

A, as usual, ignored the Christmas tree and the presents underneath.

T got the added bonus of watching DW have a Zen experience with the beanie cranes at WalMart. She became one with the machines and was lifting plush toys left and right--and doing it with her non-dominant hand, to boot. T was jumping up and down with joy.

After we returned T to school, DW and I motored up to Natchitoches, Louisiana (50 miles NW), to view that town's fabulous Christmas lights. When I was a kid, we drove through Natchitoches every year shortly before XMAS on the way to Baton Rouge from our home in Oklahoma, and I could see the lights all set up and ready to go. But it was too far from our grandparents' house for my parents to be bothered with driving us back up to see the lights at night. So I finally got to see them, something I highly recommend.


We went by our kids' mini-group home Christmas morning after they attended mass and opened their Santa Claus presents, which appeared mysteriously while the kids were at church. We had a nice visit, then drove back home. The kids' school provided them with a tasty looking Christmas lunch, but DW and I had our own arrangements fall through. DW made a Christmas dinner of truck stop nachos, and I had a can of Spaghetti-Os with sliced weenies. So much better than a repeat of the same meal we had a month ago.

On the Night's Plutonian Shore

I dreamt last night that a collaborator--someone I didn't recognize--and I had written a law review article exposing corruption at the highest levels of government. Yeah, yeah, I know, a law review is a most inappropriate venue to break the news of a scandal. But what can I say? It's a dream. Anyway, my coauthor and I were rather proud of ourselves. We must have been members of the law review, as we were showing a small group of professors a completed copy of the article.

Instead of being shocked, dazzled, or impressed, one of the professors completely ignored the text and started looking at footnotes. "Your font is all wrong," she said, and she also helpuflly pointed out numerous perceived Bluebook citation and style errors. I know that book reasonably well, but I don't remember whether or not the professor was correct. I was e little hurt by the criticism, particularly as nobody gave a hoot about the scandal we had uncovered.

Dreaming about the Bluebook. Yikes. I suppose next week I'll have a dream where I tiptoe through the entire Oxford English Dictionary.

Boys and Our Toys

I've been viewing photos of my new nephew, Manhattan Sam, on his gentle parents' blog. I see that gentle reader Bill is introducing his son to the computer at a very early age, albeit to watch television. Good job! I was reminded of one of my favorite baby pictures of Toby. Anyhow, will this:

lead to this:
(yes, I really was that slim)
and to this?

Good Books

The TLS books-of-the-year edition is out. Alas, mine usually makes it here a couple of weeks late. I suspect that the print edition will have recommendations from many more reviewers than the online edition offers. I used the best books list to pick up a couple of excellent books last year; perhaps I'll do the same this year.

Or maybe I'll just wait for the next Stephanie Meyer vampire novel to come out. Confession--I've actually not read any of Meyer's books, though DW has, and three of them are in the bookcase on my side of the bed. We saw Twilight and Quantum of Solace on successive days last weekend. Surprisingly, I thought Twilight the better of the two. Love Daniel Craig as James Bond, but, man, Quantum is just plain dull.