I got little patches of poison ivy all over me. A couple on my collar bone, one on my chest, one on my belly, one on my hips, two on each arm, shoulder, hip, ankle. I just pulled a tick off my head. My just-showered head. The dogs, my friends, are a mess of tick infestation. Don�t worry, I just ordered the stuff that makes them go away. Ah, the loveliness of spring.

I made a super delicious salad last night filled with black beans and fresh white corn and salsa and spinach and tomatoes and onions. Plus we got to watch more Alias even though I�m pretty sure Jeff is completely sick of it (but I love it! Quentin Tarantino was on the one we watched last night and I am laughing now just thinking about it. He is the most ridiculous man in the world. Especially when he runs and tries to be scary. I fall into fits of giggles at those parts.) and he wanted to finish watching Confessions of a Dangerous Mind BUT since we started out watching Liar Liar WHICH I got on his request and SINCE that turned out to be a complete piece of shite, I claimed the next choice. I am BOSS MAN (that's my super power). I really have no patience for movies these days. I am not correctly attuned to movie time. A story that takes 1.5-2 hours to tell and then it�s over? Boring. A story that you can watch in 40 minute chunks and that goes on and on and on? Perfect. I only want to watch television shows in their charming DVD packages.

Good news: Blythe got a full-time/with benefits/tenure-track gig teaching English! Clap your hands! One of my very favorite people here in the library, Sue (otherwise known as the Nicest Person Alive (NPA)) won the annual staff service award! Yay! Peaches has entered a new phase in which she wants to learn things! She sits! She stays! She dances! She comes! Can you believe how awesome everything is?

That was a little bit sarcastic, but also partly true.

Bad news: Blythe�s wonderful poppa bear, one of the best daddies of all times, just underwent emergency surgery to remove a big fat cancerous tumor from his brain. He�s recovering and the situation looks pretty good right now, but lord have mercy. He went, in the course of 24 hours, from being his normal friendly helpful joking southern self to anger and nausea and slurred speech and emergency surgery. So damned scary. If you are one who sends the positive thoughts up there or out there or over there, please include him in them.

My own daddio, who ranks pretty dang high on the great poppa list, is itching to come on up here and get to work on the house. He�ll bring Shawn. I think that�ll be great fun. They are so funny together--both of em grouches, both of em hIGHlarious. My dad is just about the goofiest man you ever met. All I have to do is say to Jeff, I just talked to my dad, and Jeff starts laughing uncontrollably. When that�s mostly done, he starts talking like my dad and walking like him and it�s all terribly funny, I promise, even if it doesn�t translate at all to the written word.

I�ve been reading Barbara Kingsolver�s essays and can�t seem to stop even though she annoys the hell out me. She�s so smug about her lot in life�but in this really horrible way (wait, what did I just write? Is there a good way to be smug?). Like she talks about how hard it was when her marriage ended and she became a single mom who had to make money to support her family. Granted. I give her all props for doing that�but she seems to enjoy that position of single motherhood, as if it gives her access to more street cred. As if worrying about money when she has a kid makes her working class or some shit. It�s annoying. You know why? Because she�s BARBARA KINGSOLVER. She makes plenty of cash and if she suddenly stopped writing, she�s still guaranteed a cush teaching job anywhere she likes. She�s got graduate degrees in science and she is a best-selling writer and please, for all that is in heaven, shut up about how cool you are for making your own butter. That ain�t working class. Not anymore, not for a long time, not in this country. Darlin', that�s leisure class.

But still, I keep reading.

Oh man. I think I got fucking poison ivy ON MY FACE. How is this happening? Actually I know exactly how it�s happening�the damned dogs love to run through the poison ivy patch and then I stupidly pet them. And touch my face. Damnation.

Peace out.