The Usual

Well, Mrs. Blue, Littlest Blue and I had a good time in Atlanta. We survived the traffic, the multiple streets called "Peachtree" and the financial drain called Lenox Square Mall. Lots of pretty things, odd people and fairly good food were part of our experience during our stay in the hub of the South.

Life, upon our return to our fair city, has returned to what passes for normal for us. I did come back to my office and was told I'd gotten a raise on top of the one we'll all get in October, so I was pretty happy. I'm still underpaid for what I do, but it was a nice start.

Littlest Blue has left the fields of our local big public university (sniff) and gone back for the sorry excuse of what our School Board calls a "high school". No wonder the kid wants to dual enroll ASAP, even the so-called "magnet" program at her current place is so poorly run as to make the kids bored to tears. I'm not a big fan of the voucher program, so highly touted by the neo-cons as the answer to all our educational problems (since it is really just an excuse for the taxpayers to fund religious schools--"Rah, rah, GO BIG TALIBAN!"), I just want my daughter to get the education I'm helping to pay for. Lots of kids less well off intellectually than she will never learn much from the way things are currently going.

Meanwhile, Israel has stopped bombing the bejeezus out of Lebanon (at least for a little while), North Korea says it might preemptively strike at the South Korean and American troops running maneuvers in the South, Iran says it's ready for "serious talks" about its nuclear program (as long as the West kowtows to its demands, of course) and the Big W has said in a news conference that Iraq has damaged America's "psyche" (which to him probably means something like Tai Chi). Yup, life goes on.

Mrs. Blue turned....uh....39 on Saturday. She doesn't look a day over 38 if you ask me.