Sunny South

I left my house at 7:30 this morning and at 3:00 or so got my luggage at the Atlanta airport. I think I could have driven in less time. The first leg of the trip involved very awkward interaction with my mother's students- I can't make myself believe that they are the same age as I am, as my mother's students have always been my babysitters and such. And they still talk to me in a "how cute, Dr. Mayfield's daughter" type way. The second part of the journey involved huge amounts of time in the DC Metro system, which involved talking to a lot of people. Everyone in the United States is so friendly- why am I going to Russia? They were also friendly on the bus to Dulles and in the various airports I was in.
I can get e-mail but for some reason can't reply to it, so hello to anyone who has e-mailed me, nice to hear from you. If you are Laurel, I hear that I got a letter from you today, and it will be sent on to Midd, where I will sneak away to read it in English-speaking secret. If you are Abby, actually I can't see my mail either now, but see you soon, in a state of approach-of-period-of-total-incompetence-induced panic. If you are my father, I"m glad you had a good trip to Bernal and winery and I don't know what El Pueblito is or which restaurant you were referring to but I'm glad it was good, and I'm glad Pau feels better.
Everyone in this house seems to go to bed by 9:00.

Some interesting things I've learned recently from excessive tv-viewing

1) The announcers for the World Darts Championship rival Univision futbol commentators for emotional involvement and yelling tendencies, but surpass them in cool, booming tones.
2) I am very sorry to have missed the Jethro Tull performing years, but you can still see him on public television; I don't know if I am more charmed by the idea that sticking your pants-leg out from your blue trenchcoat qualifies as dancing, and hard-core passion-inducing dancing at that, or by the sight of a long-haired head-banger making random flute noises into a microphone in the interludes of the leg-displaying.
3) Once The Who played in front of a large audience of clowns. This can also be seen on public television.
4) They still wear those awesome hats in Bolivia, and when they interview people on the street for the news they look just like you would expect old Bolivian women to look. It's so awesome. Also, there's not really any news in Bolivia, though they gamely produce daily news programs.
5) Russians who do not speak English should not be employed as English-speaking newscasters. Stilted phonetic reading of a teleprompter is not the same as speaking.
6) All videos on CMT are now by definition awful. Neither country nor music. Though I suppose it is television. And "Smokies versus Bandits" has nothing to do with country music.
7) Jayden is not Darius' baby. Without Maury, this may have gone undetected for years.

Edit: Um, right now I am watching a show on MPT that follows birds around- there is no commentary, it's just birds walking/flying around. There was a section with ducks walking through a tunnel, one of geese flying about, etc.- my personal favorite was the injured bird walkling through the desert sands dragging its wing until killed by a huge crowd of crabs. Is this a show for dogs to watch? I am so confused. Oh, now an annoying MPT woman is on the screen uging me to support such programs by sending them money. This woman has been leading this irritating campaign for several days now- how is she still so perky?

Do you want to know something about US passports?

I am the person to ask. In the 45 or so I just spent on hold with the US Passport Office, I learned everything you might want to know. Little tidbits of passport-related instruction periodically interrupted very cheery classical music- actually there would be as few as 3 and as many as 10 seconds of the cheery music before confident-upbeat-but-serious-man would start in again. Did you know that if one is returning from Swayne's Island, one is not considered to have left the US and need not present a passport? I don't know where it is or how to spell it, but I would not waste my time bringing my passport there, that's for sure. Nor to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, for that matter. I'm not sure I want to go to the Northern Mariana Islands anyway, as a quick check of wikipedia has informed me that it has a male-female ratio of 77-100, the lowest in the world. Also, a person going to the Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, or the Caribbean by rail, automobile, or sea (INCLUDING CRUISE SHIP) need not present a passport, though it is recommended- the new requirement applies only to air travel. I know many other interesting things as well, largely relating to the ability of customer service representatives to assist various sorts of callers and the online and e-mail options available to me.

Confidential to possums: If another of you ever takes it into your head to die anywhere in my vicinity again, I will hunt down your children and bite off their heads. I will not fall for any "look-I'm-already-dead-you-don't-want-to-eat-me" tricks either: I know full well the smell of dead possum, and I will know full well if it is absent.

Edit: And Jack's gradation pictures are up on Facebook. And I've spent sort of a long time being entertained by his class's Indian posse's facebook pictures. And I just spent a long time reading about the Northern Mariana Islands and have deturmined that I really do not wish to go there. The high proportion of females is due to huge, crowed, slave-labor-driven sex shops and sweat shops. And the government is 'nepotism under the guise of democracy,' as the candidates with the largest extended families always win. And this part has not been to possums but to any interested human readers.

sedentary lifeform

Recovering from lengthy familial obligations. Also a little sick (thanks a lot Jack). Spent huge amounts of time happily sitting on couch reading paper and watching tennis. Scraped paint off the shed for a while but it still smelled too much like the recently-removed decaying possum. So, not much to report. Federer won. And Justine Henin. And Anna Kournikova or however you spell her name. Off to find a book to read. Because I am so scholarly.

Update: Reading Watership Down again. It shares the quality that I assume draws people to science fiction, that of creating a large, complex alternate world whose terms must be learned and whose values and parameters are new. Escapism, I guess, but I don't think that's all it is-- it sort of reminds you of the possibilities of reality, that there's no particular reason to think of everything the way you do, that your reality is only one of many hypothetical options. And then it reminds you, by contrast, of what exactly your reality is. Plus rabbit language is very cool, like Welch.

Happy Birthday to Me

At about 1:00 this morning I woke up and realized that I had been alive for 2 decades, and I was suddenly seized with amazement at how wonderful they had been. I don't know what else to say about it, but stood in my room for a long time being amazed. It's certainly not been through any merit of my own. I wanted to do something to express my gratitude, but as usual I was too groundless and unsure.
I am generally sort of concerned about the numerous advantages and blessings of my life, as I think it's true that to whom much is given much is expected, but I have no idea what exactly it is that I'm expected to do. But today I can't muster self-reproach or apprehension- it seems good to just be plain thankful for a while. Es justo y necesario.
The daylight portion of my birthday has so far been anticlimactic. I woke up early, as Dadda was leaving at 9:30 for Mexico and was up at some ungodly hour, and Jack was wandering around the house hacking up a lung. There was much closing of windows and moving of air conditioners and washing of kitchens and arrangement of the huge pile of Dadda's winter clothes and most of the sheets and blankets that were in a heap on my floor and such. Jack continued to evidence signs of drowning in his own mucus in the near future, and when we called Dill to ask if he could just start taking some antibiotics that were in the house we were recalled to the maternal abode. This was about 7:30. So we said goodbye to Dadda and packed up and went; then I spent the rest of the morning in a great flutter of vacuuming and dusting and baking cupcakes and doing laundry and slicing my finger open on a screen I was trying to put in the window and putting sheets on bed and such, to prepare for the graduation party that the poor graduate will be too sick to enjoy- he and Mama spent the morning at the Immediate Care clinic, where they said he had bronchitis and gave him various unpronouncable treatments. The rest of the day has continued in the same cleaning-frenzied vein. I'm currently awaiting permission to do the rest of the deck-cleaning work so that I can take a shower when I'm done. I'm still wearing my clothes from yesterday.

P.S. I cannot neglect to mention that I won TWO contests against my young brother yesterday- cribbage by a landslide and spit in an epic duel of long duration.

Craziness, yo.

'Tis my last day as a "'nager," as my father and Jack and I used to so derisively call the high-schoolers we passed in the car on the way to the bus stop. I didn't do many of the things teenagers are supposed to do. I didn't even get to the minimum required level of liking music that my parents don't. Oh well, it's too late now. Neither did Laura Ingels Wilder, so I don't feel so bad. My new goal in life is to be just like Laura Ingels Wilder.