I just got off the phone with my mom. She's down in Mississippi working for the Red Cross. I'm proud of her. She's not exactly what anyone would call able-bodied, but she's loading up trucks and driving around all day getting people food and water and diapers and other supplies, sleeping in a military shelter with 500 other folks & no air conditioning, and just generally kicking ass. Today she's spending the day with a group of kids she befriended yesterday. She sounded really really happy.

I haven't wanted to write about any of this because, really, what more is there to say? Except for the angry parts and the ignorant people I keep meeting around here (my student who wrote in her journal about how it's their own damned fault). My American Lit. students read Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God on a particularly horrifying news day and I, stupidly, read portions of the sermon out loud while having my students draw the imagery. I got a whole mess of pictures of towns being drowned and god's hand allowing this to happen. Ugh.

Abrupt subject change: birthing class started last night. Eh. It feels like a waste of time to me. The one good thing about it is that I am forced to spend at least two hours each week contemplating this Very Huge Thing that will be happening in about six weeks.

We got all the kittens fixed yesterday (yay low cost spay/neuter clinic!) and they are PISSED OFF today. Buson is all hisses and growls at everybody. Poor dears. I do love my kittens. Soon they will be allowed out of doors (poor Jeff can't withstand this situation any longer--his allergies have gone completely haywire, even with the magic medicines. 4 indoor cats + 2 indoor dogs + 2 terrible housekeepers = no match for the magic medicines). The house! The house is rapidly changing--Jeff is all done with the tree biz and is now home full-time. We're getting a new kitchen and a second bathroom and the roof and the deck and the big Basho-proof (kitten proof?) fence and a room for the new babe and central heat & air and HIGH SPEED INTERNET and a new computer and I just can't tell you how exciting it all is. Really. I never thought of myself as very domestic (is this nesting?) but I can't wait to have it all Just So.

And now I really must go because I have three back-to-back classes very shortly and have don't really know what the plan is yet.

P.S. I keep meaning to get my gold membership renewed and then I keep forgetting and I'm sorry you have to look at this ugly page. I will fix it soon.