Hey, munchkins. Just a…

Hey, munchkins. Just a quick note that I'm still up in Milwaukee. I ended up missing Jennifer's party because partway there I realized that I was tired enough that if I didn't just keep driving to Milwaukee, I would never make it up here. So I went straight up (listening to Stan Rogers all the way, so please to imagine me belting out "Mary Ellen Carter" and "Barrett's Privateers" on repeat for long stretches of I-94; I think I've got most of the words down again now) and arrived around 6:30. Not a huge crowd, but a very pleasant one -- I like Roshani's colleagues. I suppose it's not really surprising that a bunch of pediatricians would be nice people. :-) And it turned out that one of them actually used to study classical Indian dance with my sisters. Tiny tiny world. (I studied it too, for about two years when I was twelve or so -- I remember very little, but if you get me drunk enough, you can probably get me to start making little flower patterns with my hands and thumping my feet to the thay thay, thi thi thay patterns...)

Party went to a little after midnight (which seemed plenty late to me because apparently sometime in the last few years I've gotten old), and it wasn't long before I crashed on the couch. Woke up this morning to a nice chat over tea with Tom's mother Christine (who is visiting them for a bit and helping watch Zoe until they can find a local nanny or au pair, so if you know someone good in Milwaukee to recommend, drop me a line), followed by pancakes with curry. Well, Roshani and I had pancakes with curry. The others had fruit and sausages and stuff. Poor devils.

Then a nice tromp over to Harry Schwartz, a delightful independent bookstore here (at what point does an independent become a chain? they have five stores in Milwaukee...), where I bought Zoe a princess puppet because I am a big sap. Also some books. Also (don't tell Kevin) the 13-CD set of the BBC reading the entire Lord of the Rings. Sheer indulgence, but oh, it's going to make car rides so much happier, and I need all the encouragement I can get.

I was planning on heading back after that, but Roshani convinced me to stay longer. So I lounged around, re-read a Brother Cadfael mystery, felt guilty about not getting any work done, ate some pizza, and watched Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, which may have the thinnest excuse for a plot of any movie I've seen recently -- oh, except for Kill Bill. And now I'm saying hi to y'all, and then I'm going to go upstairs and have a lovely glass of dessert wine with Roshani. Mmm.

Tomorrow, back to Chicago, back to work. But a very pleasant interlude...