Tuesday, August 28, 2007


This is the photo for my Blogger profile, from my time in Baltic Europe.
In over ten years of working with the traveling public, I have learned a few things. For example, there are two types of people who lose their passports: Americans, and everyone else.

Okay, not really. But there are two types: the kind who wait at least 24 hours before reporting their passports lost or stolen - which usually adds up to six hours before they want to go to the airport; and the kind who call up FRANTIC the minute they realize they can't find The Precious - which usually means they will be in a frenzy until their replacements can be secured. Then they will recover the old ones.

Monday, August 27, 2007

Halley Update: He is nine months old today. He crawls and can pull himself up to a standing position. This is one of his favorite pastimes. His hair is the color of Gold from the Crayola "Big Box" of 64 colors, and his eyes are like mahogany. He babbles with great enthusiasm. He has one tooth that has properly broken the surface of his lower gums, like Sgt. Snorkel.
He weighs 17 pounds and is 27 and a quarter inches long (fifth percentile and about 25th, respectively). He eats all sorts of pureed stuff and has little to no interest in Cheerios. He also likes watching Dora and Diego with his big sister - heaven help me.
Oh, and he is just about the cutest thing imaginable. I have several corroborating sources. Trust me.
Ooops, I read it again. I picked up HP7 again. I've also been plugging away at Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, which I started a month ago. Then two nights ago I watched The Prestige, which has insinuated itself into my dreams, mingling with Potter. I woke up the other morning thinking I had just watched the most horribly lame HP movie ever.
And my husband, bless his heart, is reading The Mists of Avalon (one of my favorite books of all time).
So all of this is to say that I am English-magicked-out at the moment.
As an antidote, I periodically pick up the Mayflower history that my brother sent me for my birthday. It's a paperback, conveniently sized for reading while nursing a wriggly baby. All the other books mentioned above are in hardcover and none is under 600 pages.
I'm also working my butt off at the office - it's high season for tourism, and the Island is abuzz with all sorts of traffic. And all my Islander colleagues ask the same question, "Why call it 'Tourist Season' if we're not allowed to shoot them?"