John and I left yesterday to visit family in Kansas for about two weeks. We've got Lori, a vet tech from our veterinarian, taking care of our cats. This morning I got a phone call from her saying that our oldest cat, Edgar, got hit by a car. His jaw is broken, but miraculously the rest of him is okay. He's going today to get his jaw wired shut and then Lori is going to take care of him at our vet's office for the rest of the time that we're gone. I can't express how completely helpless I feel, even though I know we wouldn't be able to do anything if we were there. I just hope he's not too scared.

Ever since we adopted Luke, everywhere we go people try to guess what breed he is. And when we tell them what the rescue group told us (that his mother was a Rhodesian Ridgeback and they think his father was a Lab), they get indignant! They get up in our faces, challenge us as to how we know his breed (one woman last night actually said, "Oh?!? And did you see the parents yourself???"), and then proceed to tell us what he really is. So far, we've been told that he's a Doberman, a Red Doberman, a Great Dane, a Greyhound, a Weimaraner, a Brown Weimaraner (what?), a Viszla, a Viszla/Doberman, and (my personal favorite) a "Vizzla." (For the record, if he is a Viszla he's obviously been taking steroids since birth, as he's at least twice the size of one.) What I think is comical is that these people get so huffy about it when really, it doesn't matter. He's a beautiful, friendly dog. And we adore him, no matter what his pedigree is.

A few weeks ago, the Salvation Army bell ringers showed up at our neighborhood grocery store. For the record, I love Salvation Army bell ringers. The first day I saw our grocery store bell ringer, I took all the change I had and bent to put it in the donation bucket. When I straightened up, the bell ringer started hassling me because, apparently, I could have hit my head on his "Sharing is Caring" sign. "Whoa, whoa!!! You coulda hit yer head there! You gotta be more careful! That coulda really hurt! See that? [he banged on the sign] That's metal! That woulda really hurt! You coulda hit yer head! You gotta be more careful!" Rather than standing around for more lecturing, I wished him a happy holiday and started to walk away. After I was about 10 feet away, it finally occurred to him to wish me a happy holiday as well. How weird is that?

Yesterday I was sitting in the living room, working on my laptop, and I heard the most dreadful crash. I couldn't tell where it came from, but it was definitely the sound of glass shattering. After I couldn't find anything wrong inside, I went outside to investigate and found the guest bathroom window with a baseball-sized hole in it. A few minutes later, two kids biked up to the house very slowly, looked at that side of the house, then turned around and went home. Now, that's certainly not enough reason to go pounding down their door and demanding to see their parents. But assuming for a moment that it wasn't their fault, how else could it have happened? Does glass spontaneously shatter like that?

Shopping with John in November and December has always been problematic. Inevitably, he finds something that he wants to buy immediately, and that something has either already been purchased for him as a gift, or has been given to someone as a gift idea. And once he puts his mind to buying something, there's very little you can do to stop him. Last night we were in Target and he saw a movie he wanted. Before I knew what to say, he picked it up and was putting it in our basket. I wound up saying something lame like, "Why don't we wait until after Christmas to buy that?" He's just impossible.

When I was little, every summer my family went to visit my grandparents in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. One of my all-time great memories of Sioux Falls is Mr. Bendo. He's a giant fiberglass Muffler Man that stands in front of Buck's Muffler Shop on Cliff Avenue, holding a bent exhaust pipe. Apparently I used to request to see him constantly, and my grandparents would obligingly drive past Buck's every time we were in town. Here he is:

I'm looking around on the internet for some sources on the "putting out" system that was common in early America. Stay with me. Putting out refers to the practice by which children, often orphans, would be placed in the home of a relative or friend to work. These children would be raised by their new families as if they were their own. All I wanted to do was find some books that talked about the putting out system. My dilemma? Google it. I dare you.

2006 has certainly been good to the Gators. April brought our basketball team its first National Championship and, after winning the SEC championship game last night, tonight our football team got the nod to play Ohio State for the BCS National Championship. It really is great to be a Florida Gator!