Cash, my parents once did that with us, except at a you-pick cherry orchard. An hour and a half from home. And we were also drinking cherry cider on the way home. There's only one bathroom stop between Alamogordo and Cruces, and it is 30 minutes from the orchard, 5 from Alamo . And then a flat, slow climb, with only creosote and mesquite scrub across the missile range, so you can only stray a few feet from the road. Cherries kicked in at about minute 45.

At least we were home. Liv came up out of the playroom and handed me a pair of full to the brim underpants.

I gave up and tossed them and put her in the tub.

O, livia.

Disappointment reigns in the Zmayhem household as the stir fry I took 40 minutes to carefully prep turned out bland. How? I put in so much freakin' garlic. Plus a sauce with mustard and soy sauce and hot sauce and honey?

Why are you fucking with me stir fry gods? We were doing so great for about six months there. Just winner after winner, and now...this.

It's to keep you humble, Hec.

So here's the 3 pix I managed before my battery died. This is where my universe lives!

[link]

So now that my dad is Professor Emeritus, he's vacating his office (which is a really nice space) and moving into another office, upstairs. Which was last Clyde Tombaugh's office, been vacant ever since he died. Even still has his desk. (My dad's giving it to someone else, cause he's not a desk person.) But that's kinda cool, and fitting, I think.

Clyde was the origins of the department- it was originally a subspecialty of the physics department- and Dad was one of the people he hired in the beginning specifically to help grow the department into a serious force in astronomy. And I have to say, with a 3.5 meter and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, not to mention smaller projects and collaborations, coming under NMSU's astro department's responsibility, it accomplished that. My dad wasn't alone in it, not by any means, but there is a reason he was site director for APO. There is a reason he was in the "Millionaire's Club" of grants for the better part of the last decade (and he had it in multiples.) He was always muttering about not having enough time for science, but he sure as hell enabled a lot more science than he could ever produce personally.

So I'm proud of him.

Your dad sounds awesome, sarameg!

We're watching Super Why. I think it's time to delete the 20 hours of Yo Gabba Gabba I have on the Tivo.

Have I mentioned I really like Grace's new nurse?

No, you haven't, Kat, but I am glad.

Oh Cash, my sympathies. I've been there before.

sara, I ♥ your parents.