Thanks for the dog -ma. Now her allergies have given her a cough, too. But it seems to be a little less as the day goes on and she was totally psyched by my corned-beef sandwich.(she got a little meat) I think she is probably going to be all right now, but of course dog coughs can mean all kinds of horrifying things, according to Dr. Google, DVM.

When I was little I had a UN book of folk tales that included one from an Arabic country (I think it was Allah who was their god) about a thief who was injured breaking into a house and who tried to sue the homeowner. In the end, the blame in the case went from homeowner to carpenter to lovely lady who distracted the carpenter to god who made her so beautiful.

Does anyone know where this story is from and where I could find the text again?

In other news, end day, end. Only three meetings to go.

I first found out about Pandora from ita but I didn't join it 'til late last year. I still haven't totally figured out their formula. I tried to make a station Land of Strings & Honey based around my album and things that go well with it like Cheap Suit Serenaders, Janet Klein & the Asylum Street Spankers. But it insists on putting rather garden-variety female jazz singers on the channel. And sometimes stuff that's really far afield purely on the basis that a song on my album has mandolin and SO DOES THIS ONE! Feh. I chalk up part of it to the fact that unless you're a major major artist, they're only listening to 2 songs per album in order to classify the entire album. If you do an album that covers a lot of ground, that won't give them the keys they need to classify it.

Trudy, I didn't know you were doing VO. How cool! I've done a few VO jobs but really need to work harder at it (esp the self-marketing part). Good luck with your temporary move. That's very nice of you to help out like that. It's gotta be hard to live a little limbo-ish like that.

ita, I'm sorry it's a bad health day again. Hope the headache goes away soon.

Cycled to UPS Store and Jo-Ann's this am. Was nearly side-swiped by a truck that didn't believe it should have to wait 'til it was safe to pass. Called the guy's company and need to follow up on that.

Once again I'm very low energy. Perhaps the morning bike rides are taking more out of me than I thought? I dunno. But I need to get some energy from somewhere because the kind of work I need to do is stuff I can't ask for much help with. It involve a lot of decision-making about what goes where and no one here is going to wait around for me to make up my mind between the actual stuff-moving parts of it.

So who here knows what snollygoster means?

[link]

I'm glad Betsy's eating, erikaj.

Yeah...maybe her antibiotics make things taste a little weird...she's been kind of off her own dry, but still loves catfood and stuff I drop.

I know anti-bs can make me lose my appetite -- and NOTHING makes me lose my appetite.

Just as an aside, every time someone posts Betsy's name I catch myself wondering if Erika named her dog after our BHP. (If the dog is 11, probably not, but still, the idea tickles me.)

Library of Congress releases William Gottlieb Jazz Photo Collection to Public Domain

Oh goodie! I just remembered KOOP in Austin will be playing off my album tomorrow morning so that cheers me up some.

Now to take a shower and resist the call of naptime so I can get more stuff unpacked.

Here's a kind of funny WashPost chat with Bradley Whitford: [link]

Why isn't it 5 yet? I am ready to go now!