(crowded palm sunday mass) + (feral 4 year old girl) + (kellog’s extra chocolate sugar crack (you know, the cereal with the commercial where kid eyeballs wearing baseball caps turned backward and tee shirts and tennis shoes are bouncing all around the room like superballs and the old, grey pancreas is sitting on the sofa going “leave me alone you wild kids” and they give it some sugar crack and at the end it’s suddenly in color and wearing a baseball hat turned backwards too and bouncing on the sofa cushions squirting adrenalin everywhere))

Breathing a new sense of urgency spontaneity into the expression “last minute” “spur of the moment”, two fellow bloggers will be spending this Easter in Austria.

London was so dang great, I’m looking forward to this.

Beta (who is 12, that’s important to the story) and I were at a farewell reception for some diplomats last night (Alpha was ill and stayed home with Gamma).

Beta: “Dad, stop doing that.”
Miguel: “What are you talking about?”
Beta: “You just look… stupid.”
Miguel: “What?”
Beta: “Like a bunny.”
Miguel: [Bunny?] “Well, Easter is coming, so it’s cool.”
Beta: “And you’ve had a piece of rice stuck to the side of your mouth for half an hour…”

Yes, yesterday was Thursday, meaning I had another cello lesson. For all the jokes I have made about my cello playing, I was happy to observe last night that I am genuinely making progress. Playing cello for me is like having a breath-takingly beautiful girlfriend with eczema who vomits purple slime when sexually aroused, and now the eczema is getting a little better.

Melissa at lavender kitchen made a thought-provoking post recently about skinnydipping at a hotel in Utah. It got me thinking about teenaged girls swimming naked, which I think is something that should be encouraged, especially in public places, as it is a Good Thing for Everyone. Female readers: please take note of this.

She mentioned something about a leering old man up in the second-story gallery, who smiled and went away when she made eye contact with him. If it had been me, I would have done a cannonball from the upper story right into the deep end, still wearing my work clothes.

But everyone is different, I suppose. What is your skinny dipping story?

The children from the local music school who won prizes at the recent provincial contest were honored at a recital tonight. Beta, who won a second prize, played “Glenlivet” (which is an amazing tune) at tonight’s thing. There were speeches before the kids played, and afterwards, then pictures were taken for the newspaper and there was a buffet.

Alpha and I were there, together with Beta’s harp teacher and Gamma. The harp teacher thinks Gamma is a riot, for some reason. Tonight it was way past Gamma’s bedtime and she was squirming throughout the whole thing. She stayed relatively quiet through most of the kids’ performances, but was still the squirmy little girl from hell. I used all my powers to keep her form disrupting the performances, distracting her as well as I could, holding her mouth closed when necessary.

Then the final two speeches, though, there was nothing more I could do. A city councilman spoke and spoke. Gamma snarled. This was pretty funny so I let it go. Grr.

Then, a woman from the parents’ association spoke. Gamma snored loudly. Zzz. This got a lot of laughs. The woman bravely spoke on, heckled by a 4 year-old. Zzz. Afterwards, we ate tidbits at the buffet. They also served wine and champagne. Gamma got orange juice and cake. “And which instrument are you going to play?” she was asked. She liked the guitars and the pretty girls best.

I would have guessed trumpet or accordion. We’ll see.

Hey, has anyone else heard about the tweak for AIM that lets you see who’s blocking you?