ION, I bought $30 worth of vintage dresses at an estate sale this morning, which at $1 each translates to a LOT of dresses.

Whoo, good score, Holli! Heeeeey, you're doing a lot of thrifting for starting your store, yes? I may send you a photo of a particular pair of boots and ask you to idly keep an eye out for them.

We had an uneventful day until Olivia got mad and threw a toy at me. She's now enjoying an early bed time alone in her room with no story.

Holli, would be interested in taking some vintage items in on consignment?

Yay for a good mac day!

Thank you all for the birthday wishes! I've had a normal Sunday, but productive. I went grocery shopping, cooked for the week and hemmed 2 pairs of pants. Birthday celebration is coming this Saturday. I'm going out for Greek food and then to see Billy Elliott.

For John Stewart fans, here's an hour-long video of him being interviewed by Rachel Maddow. Also for Rachel Maddow fans, it has her interviewing John Stewart.

[link]

Sounds like a very good Sunday, msbelle.

I had an usual name for the time (it's far more common now than it was when I was a girl) but wasn't ever teased for it. I was given a lot of nicknames, but other than the kid who called me "Norway" everyone meant them kindly. And as for the Norway guy, I could never figure out why I was supposed to feel insulted.

Now last name is another thing, everyone made fun of our last name, but there I had 3 comrades-in-arms.

Squeaking in under the wire birthday happies, ChiKat!

A video of a cat chasing an alligator: [link]

My first reaction was, "Boy, that's a stupid cat." But then I wondered - gators are fast, but cats have very fast reaction times. The gator never actually charges or tries to bite the cat - maybe the cat would be fast enough to avoid this.

I still get asked to repeat my name ... complete with a dumbfounded look like they didn't hear me correctly.

I am in a non-chain small town hotel in northern Washington (but, yay! wireless!) to conduct three days of training. I'm thirty miles from the BC border, but darkness fell rapidly so I didn't have time to get a stamp on the passport. Three nights here, then back to Spokane for two.

I'm going with "the gator was full or he'd have eaten the cat and possibly the kid..."

When I was kayaking Wednesday we saw a 16 foot gator lying on half a wild boar he was going to finish up later. 2, 3 vultures kept coming close and even landing on him to try and snag a bite and he'd just glare at them.

According to our guide, he was full so they were safe. And we were safe by virtue of the fullness and the fact that he has little interest in eating people (small children swim nearby in that river) but we stayed well away from him nonetheless.