fairly robust waistline

Cheney tries hard, but he can't seem to get off my top 10 list of most love-to-hate people: waterboarding, although even the US Army forbids it (not to mention several international treaties and all sorts of reasonable folks), is of course practiced on suspect detainees, and endorsed by Dick who decided that oh no, it's not torture, it's "a fairly robust interrogation program".

Heard about the insane leap backwards to the 14th century with the pope going for pre-Vatican II Pie I masses in Latin? My favourite commentary is by L'Humanité (in French): afraid of opening up to the world.

The key to a leaner waist: sticking to comedies, single-color M&Ms, and proclaiming your wine to be from South Dakota - duh.

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The little one was a Queen-to-Bee for Halloween. (Princess is one of her numerous nicknames.)

I have to write these down because I'm sure next week we'll be on to something else: she's been taking a few heedless steps on her own. She continues to point to lights, cats, dogs, people she likes (sometimes, so cute, with both hands). And she's clearly starting to understand a few bilingual words. Fun times, I tell you... Oh and the fact that we can now leave her on her own again in her playpen because although she gets herself up to standing and cruises around, her balance is now good enough that she no longer crashes all the time? fun times too.

My time-off has been postponed by another week and a day, but I'm cool with it. I'll be at home, not knowing what to do with myself after I've caught up on the laundry and vaccuuming and gone swimming and to yoga, and caught up on emails and bills and visits to the local tax office, and doing my accounting, and searching for a good new computer (suggestions?), and a B&B around Montpellier for thanksgiving, and dropping by an orthodontist and getting the car's front airbag checked.

I woke up with a stark realization a few weeks ago - my time off wouldn't be leisurely I realized. Translate that to mean, I would still have a full time job of caring for the little one, while on vacation. I've been meaning to write about this, but have found a much better post than I could put into words here.