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While getting out of the shower and into flannel pants, I was weighing what and how much I could accomplish before 11 pm.  This was my one solo-bathing experience/week.  Oh the glory!

For a little over a week I have been letting an entry percolate.  It came to me originally while I was nursing Miss Belle to sleep and probably nodding off as well.  It rooted later that evening as I drifted off myself, and I was shocked the following day when i not only remembered the thought but also that in the thin winter light, it was actually a decent one.  

With my many hours logged in that nursing chair with only my fingers free, the rest of me trapped under, and in the mouth of, sleeping babe, I have become very fond of my blogger-buddies: Drewd, Soule Mama, HyperboleandaHalf, The Oatmeal, Not Martha, many friends at Apartment Therapy.  There are probably better (and certainly more world-shaking, bloggers out there (ok, not better than Drewd), but I'm happy with these simple pleasures.  And yet, they make me so goddamned jealous and regretful that I'm not creating some amazing blog.  

Well, I am, but just not that frequently, and not really in one consistent direction.

So, I considered a brief entry tonight, in which I weeded out anything from the past that would be better left unseen (oh that unfortunate entry. . . if I could turn back time. . . ) and thought about where this blog might like to go.

I don't really have a concrete answer for that last thought, but I do want to write myself a few jogging reminders for what I hope will be the next post, a real one, a good one:

- people think you have children because you have faith in the best in the world

- and yet, the moment you have a child, you realize how f-ed up the world is

- it is truly full of horrible things happening all the time

- just this past year, many horrible things happened

- ugh, and as I type this, Clarabelle is having one of her 3-minute fuss/cry-back-to-sleep spells, which fortunately only happen 1-2 times/night these days, but it still totally sucks to be in the next room as it happens.  I am HERE little daughter, I LOVE YOU!, you CAN fall back to sleep by yourself because you are a strong, amazing little woman, I AM SO PROUD OF YOU!

- This past year: a woman drowned and no one listened to the child who saw it happen, a baby died in a van, children died at the hands of their parents, horrible adults did horrible things to small children, famine, war, torture, disease, my father had a FHA

- and then you wonder, why did I decide to bring a child into this scary place?  Aside from all those terrible things, there is the reality of the everyday, work, worry, fuss, stress, fight, break, cry, try

- and even I, one day,  will cause this small being to feel grief 

- and so I was reminded of an exchange with a street vendor in Mexico.  A man had bumped by on the street complaining, more or less, about how hard life is.  The woman and I looked at each other (ah yes, women are so much wiser than men) and said, "yeah, whaddya expect?"

- Life is hard.  

- But babies are so soft.  It's so hard to think about soft, little babies in this hard world.

- And so, i will write about the realization of this difficult world, this difficult life, and learning to survive with "your heart walking around outside your body" (Elizabeth Stone).  Except, I would rather that, i feel that my heart is more weathered, more world ready than the small, round, innocent one who sleeps next door (yes, it didn't even take 3 minutes - my big girl!).  How every day i feel i must face down these fears, name them, listen to and read about them, even imagine them, to weigh how I would survive, how I would cope, what I would do.

Ah, I'm sorry Clarabelle, life is beautiful and life is indeed hard.  I hope that I may bring you up strong and smart enough to face this crazy place where you live.  For now, sleep, sleep, sleep.  Me too!

With so much recent thinking about myself as a writer, I've been trying to figure out what kind of writer I am.  What's my style? Who am I?  And if I am some kind of a writer, is it a good kind to be?

Well, tonight I was geeking out on some REM b-sides (itunes style, the record store is on your laptop any hour of the day or night) and listening to excerpts of Stipe talking about himself as an artist.  I listened to a clip of "I Wanted to be Wrong" (http://www.amazon.com/I-Wanted-To-Be-Wrong/dp/B00122EW72, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdMjB1j1Mlo) which I hadn't heard before tonight.

Now I know that the sun has shined on my side of the street.
The basket of America, the weevils and the wheat.
The milk and honeyed congregation, scrubbed and apple-cheeked
Salute Apollo 13 from the rattle jewelry seats.

This is class Stipe.  This is why I love REM. Taking a classic phrase like milk and honey and turning it into a verb and adjective at the same time. 

I remember being 11, 12 years old and trying to figure out what the hell he was even saying, and then, when I had a pretty clear idea of the words, trying to understand what the hell those words meant.  This is what kept me coming back to R.E.M. at a time when I was also buying albums by Motley Crue and Young MC.  I thought that all lyrics must mean something, and that I was the only one who didn't get it.  My adolescent brain tended toward conspiracy and I was certain that if I could only decipher some meaning, it would be so important!  So what did Stipe mean by

There are scratches all around the coin slot
Like a heartbeat, baby trying to wake up,
But this machine can only swallow money.
You can't lay a patch by computer design.
Its just a lot of stupid, stupid signs.

It didn't matter, when he could put these words together and make a great song

Baby, instant soup doesn't really grab me.
Today I need something more sub-sub-sub-substantial.
A can of beans or blackeyed peas, some nescafe and ice,
A candy bar, a falling star, or a reading of doctor seuss;

The cat in the hat came back, wrecked a lot of havoc on the way,
Always had a smile and a reason to pretend.
But their world has flat backgrounds and little need to sleep but to dream.
The sidewinder sleeps on his back.

I'm not saying I'm a Stipe, but still, I do love playing with words just like he does.  I could spend the rest of my life aspiring to his artistry, or even climbing to the top of his Paul Klee circle http://www.abc.net.au/tv/enoughrope/video/default.htm?program=enoughrope... (please skip to Part 1) and not get very close. 

------------- I had a better way of wording the below.  My laptop ran out of batteries and a few sentences went down the drain with the power.  I soldier on. ---------------------

Stipe is fine with, even rightly proud of, his wordplay and the ensuing "opacity" of meaning that often results.  How easy this must be with a few Grammy's on the shelf, not that a lack of those ever stopped him (see Murmur, Reckoning, etc.).  I suppose that it's probably easier to get away with too when you're writing songs versus WAIT, what is it I'm writing again?

I often find, when I reread my ramblings that I love pairing words.  I love alliteration and rhythm.  I don't think that makes a published work, and certainly doesn't make $50k/year.  But at least I know what I do (well?).  And from whence it came.  All those REM cassettes that I ran ragged, the same ones I have tucked in safe upstairs, formed a hefty part of my voice.  I fell asleep every night for months, maybe even years, listening to Out Of Time.  It apparently left a lasting impression.

Speaking of sleep, it's way past my bath & bed times.  I have a feeling I am going to return to this one and do a whole bunch of editing when I'm more lucid (how impressed was I to see that word in a 6th grader's presentation today!).  I hope the various quotes & links work.  Work for who?  I'm not sure.  Is anybody out there???! 

For all the REM geeks who made it through these shaggy paragraphs, here is an adorable account by Michael Stipe of his meeting with Gore Vidal and Nancy Reagan.  I just want to hug him, he's so friggin cute.

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/enoughrope/video/default.htm?program=enoughrope... (please skip to Part 2)

I was reviewing past entries and it seems that there were a few decent entries back when this weblog got off the ground.  I'm not sure anyone else sees threads running through the archives or cares enough to look.  I can't say I've found any unifying themes so far. 

Would I like to write for a living?  Sometimes I think so.  I wonder aout the likelihood of my success in this field, and about the
probability of success without the investment in a master's program.  Then I read this: http://www.bu.edu/writing/welcome-to-the-boston-university-creative-writ... and I get scared.  The Nation's account of Leslie Epstein makes 11th grade English's Ms. Thibedeau sound like a meek and comforting kindergarten teacher.  This Slate article http://www.slate.com/id/2301243/ makes it sound like all it really takes is discipline and practice, a philosophy to which I'm a sure subscriber and a dedicated dodger. 

Alas, time, discipline, practice, these all now belong to one pursuit, and it's not writing.  I would love to birth a book someday, twins, quadruplets even!  But for now, my first job is taking care of my family and my second is working, so that I can afford to do my first.  Still, what kind of mom will I be if I don't follow my dreams.  What should really scare me is that I might stand in my own way of achieving this goal. 

My eyelids are drooping.  I need to eat something rib-sticking before bed time.  I was alarmed at the shrinking number on the scale when I weighed myself after baby & me yoga yesterday.  The toaster just dinged.  Peanut butter sandwhich here I come!

Clarabelle is asleep in her crib.  We will see how long that lasts.  Her dinner for many future nights cooks on the stove; orange & green veggies with onions.  We will also have to see how much of this concoction she will eat.  I'm fairly certain that if she's not interested, it will mix well with some yogurt & broth & make a delicious cold soup!

(see previous entry: waste not, want not!)

Clean sheets & an empty bedroom beckon.  I would love to write something inspiring and impressive, but I have "miles (of chores) to go before I sleep" so I'm off to clean & prep bottles, freeze baby food, take a shower & make my lunch for tomorrow.  i have the best husband ever.  Even though it's a Makka Monday night, he scooped the litter before he left, checking off my least favorite to-do.  That's love!  If only I could have him take a shower for me.

Perhaps, thanks to him, I will have time for a pre-bedtime snack and a little tv before bed!

I titled this post 9 months ago; if those October-harvested greens were pregnant, they would now in July be birthing a delicious very green soup that makes the youth at work shiver in fear. 

Last year, as the garden was putting on its frosty blanket and Clarabelle was obstinately wedging her growing head under my ribs, I snipped all of the leafy green pieces left in the garden and prepared them for a frosty blanket of their own.  These greens included the "mixed greens OG" we had planted from Fedco seeds as well as the greens from the fairly unproductive broccoli and the entirely unproductive cauliflower we had planted as seedlings. 

When my mother's mother, Betsy, was a girl, she and her brother Dan moved west from Kansas to California with their parents.  My great grandfather dug ditches and my great grandmother tended chickens, which all died, and goats, whose milk my grandmother and her brother refused to consume in any form.  Two generations later, I still adhere to the values that grew out of that Great Depression.  Don't toss when you can repair.  Preserve food.  Save for a rainy day.  And for the record, Andrew and I both love goat cheese.  It doesn't take a Great Depression for these values to pay off, though I'm sure that Mark wouldn't mind tossing a few of my weathered possessions  (yes babe, I'm referring to that camp sweatshirt from 3rd grade!). 

I researched all I could and never found any reassuring account of consuming broccoli leaves, but I figured it couldn't be that bad.  I plucked all the leaves before the frost could ruin them and threw them into a sink full of water to rinse the bugs and dirt.  It turned out that practicing the values of the Depression is a lot of work.  There were many bugs.  And I did indeed need to check under each leaf.  So many little caterpillars and surprises. It took much longer than I had planned and those leaves had many more hiding places than I had ever imagined.

Nine months later, Mark is not crazy about using those big bags of greens.  Apparently he takes after my grandmother.  I made a big batch of soup with a bag of the greens, courtesy of Deborah Madison.   It featured the usual suspects, evoo, onions & garlic, and was finished with a healthy dose of lemon and cream.  Mark was hungry enough to eat a small bowl for dinner. The leftovers have made for delicious lunches on these lately not-too-hot summer days, as long as I check my teeth in the mirror at work to make sure I don't have a green-specked smile. 

According to the paper I keep posted on the fridge with a list of all the freezer holds (I often forget the treasures packed away in there - tofu meatballs! black beans from scratch! homemade tomato sauce!) I have 2 more jars of the soup and 3 more bags of greens.  I'm thinking the greens will be a great addition to a lasagna and perhaps a quiche.  It looks like this summer, aside from a neverending pile of breastmilk bags, we will also be packing the freezer with lots of tomato sauce and maybe a bag or two of rhubarb.

I wonder how Clarabelle will bring these lessons into her life. My adult self never got to know my Granny, but as I try to "use it up, wear it out, make it do and do without" I feel that my foremothers are still with me. 

As I watch the sky waiver between hazy lazy and threatening thunderstorm, I'm watching Argentina -vs- Mexico and sadly mis cuates are totally giving it away.  I'm not going to let their lethargy be mine.  Things I should be doing today:

- putting the hay away so it doesn't get all wet in the coming rain

- buying lovely fresh tomatoes, bread and mozzarella to eat with lovely basil and olive oil

- buying cheesecloth and a mortar & pestle (they seem vital when making use of excess herbs)

- cleaning the kitchen

- preparing for a lovely meal of bruschetta, grilled veggies salad and three L-ade

It's tempting to idly nap and watch Mexico idly hand the ball in goal's reach to Argentina, but I'll save the disappointment for a headline, rather than watch it unfold before my eyes.  I think it's time to go get some more things done.  My taste buds await!

One good turn seems to cultivate another, and since I've started swimming, with my achingly cheap $30 annual membership to the super-close 5-minute-walk-away City pool, everything else seems to be chugging along so efficiently as well.  Exercising is so funny this way, how you start to do it, and you say to yourself, "oh, right, this is how I'm supposed to live my life," and yet it's so easy to just ease along without it (for sooo long, embarrassing to say. . . ). 

So, today, I woke up and had a productive and pleasant day at the office, crossing things off lists and keeping up with emails, both things tend to be not within my grasp for some reason, but today was an exception.  I returned home not too late, and started the amazing soup that is the inspiration for this post - more on this later!  I swam for a 1/2 hour - 20 laps!  I think a 1/2 mile plus - I guess I swim a little over 1 mile/hour. . . ok, well, that's sort of slow, but I'm just starting out. (I just checked online, and I'm not too off the average "strong" swimmer - hey!)  Upon returning I concluded the prep for amazing soup - yea!

Mark and I enjoyed a delicious meal, on a Monday night, when we're usually rushed and it's a miracle if I can fix a timely and nutritious dinner:

corn soup - best ever, with scallions plus fresh basil & parsley from our garden

iced tea/berry juice mix with cardamon, cinnamon & ginger

quick pickled Boothby's blonde cukes with dill - both from our garden!

sliced avocado

As I got up to fetch all the fixings, Mark stopped me for a moment to toast with our iced teas to the beautiful life that we get to live - this is why I married this guy!  I looked around, at the beautiful colors laid out on the table, and down at the Blueberry in my belly, and at my handsome husband and felt so fortunate truly to be able to toast to such a wonderful life.

And! I have best ever corn soup waiting for me in jars to have as a chilled delicious lunch.  Here's the recipe, adapted from: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Velvety-Chilled-Corn-Soup-106934

- 4 ears corn (some can be leftover from a bbq, if that's your style), cut in half

- 1 big onion, red or white, chopped finely

- 2 red bell peppers

- 2-3 cups veggie broth

- 1 cup (ish) half & half

salt, pepper, cayenne, paprika - good smoked kind, chile pepper

basil, parsley, scallions (chives would be better), dill - ideally, these would be pureed together with a little olive oil into a beautiful herb paste - though I'm not positive, actually, as I haven't tried this yet

cilantro with oil (in my case, frozen in ice cube trays)

avocado, sliced

quick pickles, with dill, salt & rice vinegar

Boil all raw corn (set aside any leftover bbq-ed corn) with chopped onion, in 2-3 cups veggie broth & any additional water needed to cover cobs.  Add a little salt.  While this is coming to a boil, slice red bell peppers in half, place skin side up in lined roasting pan and set under broiler.  Once corn, broth, etc. comes to a boil, let boil for approx. 10 minutes & let peppers broil for same time, or until pepper skin is really black and bubbling off.  Turn off broiler and remove peppers from heat, letting cool completely.  Also, remove corn cobs from broth and also let cool completely.  If you're so inclined, this is a great time to go walk down to the pool and swim a little over 1/2 mile. 

Remove skin from peppers and discard skin.  Slice kernels off cobs (keep bbq-ed kernels separate from rest) and discard cobs.  Chop peppers finely and add to broth.  Add all BBQ'ed kernels to broth along with 1 more cob's worth of kernels.  Bring broth back to a boil. Puree entire soup mixture well.  Pour entire soup mixture into fine sieve on top of heat-safe large container.  Push all liquid through sieve and discard remaining solids.

Yes, there's lots of discarding.  That is why you have a compost bin.  After you have the delicious meal, you may go out to empty your compost bin (it's that time of year when, if you don't things turn into giant beautiful and scary mold blooms overnight!) and you may find an amazing long banana slug crawling along your compost.  An entire entry here could be devoted to the wilderness that has been cropping up in our yard! (banana slugs, fireflies, tons of crickets, tons of beetles - of the garden-eating-variety, possums-ickickcicky, etc.). 

Pour strained liquid back into pot.  It's ok if there is still a little of the solids still in there.  Season with all the kinds of pepper and bring back to a quick simmer.  Lower heat all the way and stir in half & half.  Add the corn kernels - it's ok if they are still in big chunks from slicing off the cob.

Serve hot (if your husband isn't into cold soups) or cold (if you're me - make enough to have hot for dinner and cold for lunch!).

Add garnishes of herbs.  Other garnish possibilities

- fresh whipped cream, sans sugar, perhaps with finely chopped herbs. . . . ooh

- creme fraiche, minced cucumbers & chopped chives, says the recipe - sounds good!

- cilantro oil and slices of avocado, says another recipe - also sounds good

- all/any of the above - or let me know of your own!

As I chomped down on the super delicious dinner, I couldn't help but remark multiple times on how good I can sometimes cook.  Mark couldn't help but remark on my humility, suggesting perhaps that Blueberry might be lucky to be more humble than his/her mama.  Well, perhaps, but when you make such amazing dinners, humility is hard to come by!

She buttoned her nubby cardigan and planted her foot into the spongy mud inside the barn.  Aside from the obvious, Spring was evident in the alternating wooliness and ruddy skin of the two babies.  Down in Boston the two girls would have been Irish twins.  Up here, it was just life's tricks: two runny-nosed imps toddling together around the pasture, naked but for moth-eaten pullovers.  As soon as Ella and Beatrice had grown old enough to notice clothes, they had both forsaken them.  Once summer arrived they would be fully and constantly naked, black flies be damned. 

Once summer arrived.  Well, if the seasons were to be believed, summer would have to come.  It was already closing on Easter and lamb was on the menu for more than one of Nora's neighbors.  Killing had been easier last year with only one toddler, the other one bundled onto Nora's back, out of the way and out of trouble.  This year the ewes had been busy and fertile, and Nora had become particularly attached to the youngest.  She had named only one of the precious pink moist lambs.  He was born on the first day of lent, and so irreverently honoring religion, Nora had given him the name Jesus. Their lumpy bumpy farm life did not forbid naming the animals, but the pace was generally quick enough to limit it.  Names or not, they mostly ended up as food and were delicious either way.

As her eyes adjusted to the warm, swarmy air inside the sheep's stalls, her head bobbed to avoid the now-useless and fly-laden sticky tape dangling from the ceiling.  After Beatrice was born, Nora had never really regained her full pre-pregnancy memory, and so little thing like new fly-paper for the barn tended to lie undone for a bit longer.  Fortunately, Colin rarely noticed and life tumbled on as happily as before. 

Sooo. . . . what's the story.  I need to ponder this in a quiet room somewhere.  I need a little suspense - the picture is mostly painted, but what is going to HAPPEN?!  Wins: 4 words used!  "She BUTTONed her nubby cardigan and PLANTed her foot. . . life's TRICKs. . . FLY-laden".  Concerns: 313 words used so far total, leaving only 287 to make something happen & resolve it enough to satisfy myself and any possible readers.  Gonna ponder it.  For now, BBC & bedtime - yum!

The title is the first thing that came to mind - the overwhelming theme of this computing experience.  Sticky would have also been an appropriate adjective, as would "riddled by body odor" and "spent looking for the correct keys misplaced on this Spanish keyboard and having to press too hard on the resistent keys". 

Enough complaining, I guess.

I've been reading short stories and it seems that I must be able to do as well, right?  There is even a story in the "Best of 2009" collection that is a first attempt by a new writer (probably not his first attempt, but perhaps the first sent in?  So I get a little inspired, and then there are all these weirdos here with their own stories.  I wonder if the stories I imagine for them are more or less fascinating than the real deal. It seems when you do hear the truth that it is often even more amazing than fiction (an Australian marine who escaped Mexican prison twice and was hired by the Mexican jailers to show them how he escaped and has now come to the beach to die of cancer, for starters.)

The change in vibe at La Isla is what has been most on my mind.  The mood has been somber, for many obvious reasons: Javier's death, the ban on fogatas due to the recent murder (which we just missed by a few days, and which was unrelated to the locals), and of course, the baby.  Rebecca seems to have matured, having gained more than ounce of common sense with the new weight of Zisla on her hip.  She wears this well.  Armando, on the other hand, has become a bit more distant, seeming pensive.  He delights in showering Zisla with the small gifts he can: a rattle, a pacifier filled with honey, diapers, cheesecake, baby turtles, but does not hold her for long.  She is thrilled by it all, though tires of sitting in the stroller or in peoples' arms.  When the world turns simply for her (her cousin jumping like a duck, her father lifting her up) her smile spreads across her face and her few teeth cut through her gums, drool rolling down her chin.   Other times she seems as confused at this entire situation as I am, raising her strong eyebrows in surprise over her dark eyes, the exact eyes of her father.

I didn't think it would end like this, although Zisla is a beginning, not an end.  Still, I saw Armando as he always will be, and Rebecca, not a part of this for much longer.  I wonder how they see it.

For now, I am deciding who would be best suited as the narrator. 

concept:

man and a woman uniting

man has stomach problems? (hence the weird hurried
shuffle)

they are supposed to meet

they don't

she instead, the next night, goes to local bar & meets an old high school acquaintance - they are at the edge of the age where it is neither ironic nor desperate to be reuniting with a fellow high school alum - they never knew each other anyway

his obituary is not in the chronicle of higher ed

he's a teacher - reading the chronicle of higher education

Write, write, write

I am the shabby professor.  Tenured, sweater unraveling, corduroys worn to the quick, boots unlaced, hair oily.  If my appearance is going, my mind is sharp.  And perfectly sharpened to the task or repetitive student lectures; the same witty accounts term after term have my
students falling head over heels for evolution.  Do I know that my students wonder their way imaginarily into my divorced bed, wondering what it might be like to have mothered my three similarly sloppy and brilliant children?  I like to think I don’t.  If I am potentially grotesque, surely I have a boyish charm and a reliably provocative ability to make you feel like the cleverest girl in the classroom. 

She is likely rounder and softer than her picture, but still with flair.  Perhaps she wears scarves or boots.  She tells me she is an environmental engineer and works from home.  She doesn’t meet as many people as she used to.  She could do better, but he’s not the one to say.

They connect online, sharing the sciences.  Of course, he reminds her of that feeling: singled out for her probing questions and praised with fingers grasping the air.  He would have been the proud professor and she, the ready protege anticipating the ends of his sentences.  If she’s aware of the teacher-student complex that feeds the online attraction, she doesn’t admit it, least of all to herself.  Yet, on the phone, it’s obvious.  She purposefully puts it aside as she lifts her sleeping cat off the keyboard. 

“We can meet at the Cornerstone Café.”  She calms a slight shiver as she says this.  She thinks, there’s no need for these nerves.  “What time are you free?”

He calculates travel time and replies, “4:30 work?”

“Yeah, so I’ll see you then?”

“Yup, Thursday.”

“Bye now.”

He likes how she says that.

When the day comes, it’s not one of his best.  The cafeteria may have served him something questionable or perhaps he’s just been working too much.  Do the students ever understand all the other hours it takes?  The office hours, the reading of papers as repetitive as his lectures, but with none of the wit and wisdom, they all take their toll.

The toll is paid that afternoon.  Sitting at a table in the window, reading the Chronicle of Higher Ed, just like I’d told her, I’m suddenly alarmingly awanare
of my stomach.  We mostly go through our days blissfully naïve that our stomachs even exist.  I curse nature for poorly selecting this response to a wayward bacteria.  I rise from the table, satchel across my chest, hunched and shuffling quickly down the sidewalk.  If I’m going to take a lover, today is not a loving day.  An excuse can wait.  It never comes.

She arrives a few minutes later.  The Chronicle is spread across the table so she sits and waits for him.  Perhaps he stepped up to buy a coffee or to take a phone call.  When he never returns, she frets, but not too much.  She knows she could do better.

And she does.  A week later.  She is home and wonders how many more Thanksgivings her parents can host.  She gladly escapes to the local bar with an old friend also home for the holiday, both too old to be single and sleeping in their childhood bed.  When her path crosses Glen’s, she remembers him from high school.  They are both at the edge of the age when it’s no longer ironic, and not quite desperate, to end up with someone from high school.  They never knew each other anyway.    

Two years later they wed.  Two years later she sees the shabby professor.  She recognizes his voice, speaking on birds and habitats and conservation at the conference on campus. 

So what?  This is almost the end?  What happens? Does she regret it? Has she “dodged a bullet”? Does she introduce herself? Let me think.
. .

Write write write, I don’t like this

He looks too old

But I like the concept of “at the edge of the age”

Bah - screw it - the spacing is all f-ed up from using Word - I gotta go make dinner. . .