Laura solves our weather problem

It rained very hard in Denver two days last week. We went to Houston for the weekend, and it rained almost constantly. Now it's raining again in Denver.
As we were driving home from school today, Laura said, "Mom, I wish we lived on Venus." When I asked her why, she said, "It's dry there."
There's also that issue of having an atmosphere with no oxygen, but hey, who cares?

Dryers and dust ruffles don't mix

This probably comes as no surprise to anyone who's ever paid attention to that wimpy material the inside of a dust ruffle (the part that lies between the matress and box springs) is made of. But I've never had such bad luck with them as today. I had two melt in the dryer (which isn't particularly hot), and one of them even went out of its way to ruin a comforter, too. But I'm so cheap I'm keeping the comforter.

An advocate of cloning

"I wish there were six of you," Laura just said to me. "Then one Mom could work in my class, and the other Moms could do their work."
It definitely would be easier to get things done that way.

At least we saw it when we did

The Cutty Sark, the most complete of the remaining clipper ships, burned early today in Greenwich. At least most of it did. Kevin and I saw it during a trip to London in November 2001. Not that I'm a great maritime scholar or anything, but I thought it was pretty cool. Even though it was built to transport tea. (I didn't take this photo, although finding and scanning the photos from that trip is on my to-do list.)

Three years and $90,000 later ...

Kevin gets a silly hat. Oh, and a law degree.

It's official: I've retired

From newspapers, that is, at least for the time being. Lots of people stopped by my desk to say goodbye. And of course there was cake. And of course Gil got the first piece.
If there's an opposite of "of course," it's that no one cried. John kept threatening to, but I don't think he ever did.
So goodbye, everybody. It's been fun. And do come visit.

Why, oh why, Wyoming?

Well, actually, it was because Jennifer wanted to go. But we drove to Cheyenne today. Almost to Cheyenne, at least. It was a totally thrilling trip, right down to the traffic through Loveland. Yep, a bunch of weird Coloradans with "He's still not my president" bumper stickers.
But on the bright side, gas was waaaaaaaaaaaaaay cheaper in the first gas station you come to on Interstate 25 in Wyoming than it is here. $2.99 was the price for 85 octane, which I wouldn't actually put in my car. But 87 was only $3.09. Not a bad deal, although I wouldn't normally advocate driving 124 miles to buy gas.
As usual, Laura forced her fellow travelers to entertain her. She requested that Jennifer and I sing songs. The best thing we came up with was:
Wyoming, Wyoming, we love you, Wyoming, you're only 6 miles away.

Snaggletooth Laura

Laura lost her first tooth Tuesday. The tooth fairy left her quarters, as she had requested. Demanded, actually. I'm sure that poor fairy feared for her personal safety.

Welcome to limbo. Population: us

We'll find out June 6 where our first Foreign Service post will be, but Kevin had to turn in his list of preferences yesterday. These places are ranked highest, and we'll most likely get one of them. (The ones I've marked very unlikely require immediate language skills Kevin doesn't have, so barring a major development, we won't be going there.)

AIT Taipei
Bogota
Caracas
Chennai
Guangzhou
Guatemala City
Guayaquil
Managua
Port of Spain
Quito (very unlikely)
Rio de Janeiro
San Jose (very unlikely)
San Salvador (very unlikely)
Santo Domingo
Shanghai (very unlikely)
Singapore
Sofia
Tegucigalpa
Warsaw (very unlikely)

Kevin's first choice would be Guayaquil. Mine probably would be Sofia.
And as I've explained to several people over the past week or so, I never thought I'd have occasion to say, "Hey, let's move to Nicaragua!" There's a first time for everything, I guess.

Warning: This book will make you hungry

On the plane back from Miami a few weeks ago, I started reading All the Presidents' Pastries, which is a memoir of a retired White House pastry chef. I finished it this week. Roland Mesnier goes into great detail about desserts he made for various state dinners over the years. Most of them sound delicious, and there are a few recipes billed as personal favorites of the presidents he worked for (Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush).
And not that I was considering it, but the trials and tribulations of becoming and staying a pastry chef really wouldn't be worth it to me. The food would be great and the research would be fun, but there are some real minuses, though.

Rodent drama

After a not-quite-two-day visit from Daniel, Heather, DJ, Jacob and Bryant, I realized the gerbil Midnight was missing. The cage had been on top of the china cabinet to keep the boys from pestering the tiny beasts, and while it was up there the inhabitants apparently chewed off enough of one of the tubes that Midnight could get out. (Flower could have gotten out, but apparently she decided against it.)
So, Jennifer and I looked and looked for her. Laura tried to help, but of course she made too much noise for us to be able to hear any gerbil-related noises.
But finally, after we'd given up for the time being and were in the kitchen making dinner, Laura yelled, "I found Midnight!" The little freak had been behind and under the refrigerator. So I pulled it out, squeezed behind it and captured her.
We've borrowed a cage from our neigbhors until we can replace the overly chewed tube.
I'd go ahead and give the little pests away, but Laura was quite traumatized this morning when Sebastian left. (OK, so he didn't leave by choice. I put him in a crate and sent him to South Carolina with Daniel.)

When a Crocodile Eats the Sun

When I read about this book on the Guardian Web site awhile back, the first thing that struck me was the title. But I thought it sounded interested, so I put it on hold at the library. And weeks later it became available.
It's a memoir by Peter Godwin, although he finds out later he should have a different last name. It's all about his family's life in Zimbabwe, and there's a lot about the Mugabe regime's attempts to rid the country of whites (including the Godwins).
One of the interesting details: A few years ago, as the government was throwing (literally) a lot of white farmers off their land, some of those farmer relocated a few miles away to Mozambique, where the government was happy to have them. But it was next to impossible to get their equipment out of Zimbabwe. So farm employees -- mostly black families who'd worked on the same farms multiple generations -- dismantled tractors and combines and such and smuggled the parts across the border on donkeys, where they were reassembled.
Most of the book is a study in how corrupt a government can become, alienating the same people who let it exist in the first place. But the dedication of the farmers was striking.

Quote of the day

From Laura, of course.
"I wish I was in somebody else's tummy when I was a baby!"

Flow chart turns whirlpool

A reorganization was announced today at my newspaper. It won't affect me much since I'm leaving in a couple of weeks, but the deputy business editor commented on the fact the little box representing him on the chart showing all the jobs is smack dab in the middle of everything.
"It's like everything is swirling around me," he said.
Regardless of what a lot of people think, it's an exciting time to be working at a newspaper. I think I'll miss it -- at least part of the time.

Hey, I'm not the only person who walks too fast!

Kevin always has told me I walk too fast, and a couple of my co-workers have said the same thing. Perhaps this explains why.

My baby, the author

Today Laura's kindergarten class had their Author's Chair Celebration, during which each of the students got to sit in a special chair and read to the class (and parents and whomever) a story they'd written. Laura got to go first in her class because I had to be at work before the official start time.
Her story was about getting lost on her way home from school. But never fear: She found a ladder leading to a restaurant, where she was able to have "kid food": chicken tenders and mac and cheese. And then she got on her bicycle and rode home.
It was a cute story, but the dedication at the beginning was to me, which was quite touching.
I love my girl.

Not that I get to decide ...

but I've told Kevin these are my top choices of the possibilities for our first Foreign Service post:
Chennai
Guatemala City
Quito
Rio de Janeiro
Sao Paulo
Singapore
Sofia
Warsaw

Quito's probably out, though, as they need someone to start now who already is fluent in Spanish. Same with Warsaw and someone who speaks Polish.
We could be in Washington, D.C., for quite a while. For most of the cities I've ranked high, the jobs don't start until early 2008. But since I haven't seen Kevin's list, it's hard to say whether we're even on the same continents.
Wow, this is fun! And we're just getting started!

Where in the world ...

will we end up? No one knows, but Kevin started Foreign Service training yesterday and got the list of places we possibly could be going.
It's heavily weighted toward Central and South America, which would be good for church and travel purposes (since Continental is big there, simplifying trips to Houston).
But there are other places, such as Sofia (that's in Bulgaria -- look it up!) and Singapore, that also are possibilities.
But no Zimbabwe, Zambia or Burkina Faso. I guess all of my references to the Zambian power grid over the past few months have been in vain.