This morning, Caitlyn paused in her attempts to “play” with Wasabi to stand in front of the oven and study her reflection in the oven door. She placed her feet wide apart and started doing baby lunges side to side, sometimes looking vaguely like she was also trying to do sideways bends. “Exercising,” she said to her reflection. “Exercising.” I have no idea where she learned this. Certainly not from me, as focussed exercising appears to be out of the range of possibility for me these days. I’ve tried doing yoga with Caitlyn in the room with me; she thinks …

Back at the beginning of the year, Ian’s “Quote of the Day” list sent this out: “This is a marine biological station with her history of over sixty years … Take care of this place and protect the possibility for the continuation of our peaceful research. You can destroy the weapons and the war instruments, but save the civil equipments for Japanese students. When you are through with your job here, notify to the University and let us come back to our scientific home. “The last one to go” – Katsuma Dan, marine biologist, from a handwritten notice he left …

Ian’s Thoughtsam has made the local news! I’m not really that envious of all that creative energy going into something somewhat tangible, I’m not. In completely unrelated news, there are now flowers in the front yard: And we now share the house with a cat named Wasabi:

More things Caitlyn says: “mok” (for milk) “fok” (for fork – dining at other people’s houses can be so much fun… “Fok! Fok! Fok!”) “plow-wo” (for pillow) “inch-ada” (for enchilada) “wha-wha-gigs” (for whirlygigs) “finging” (for swinging, a favorite activity) “nik-el” (for nipple) “upsie down” and “upsie up” (for upside down and right side up) “see water” (for sea otter) “Mama drive now” (upon being buckled into her carseat) “basketball” (for the action of throwing an object in an upwards direction, used as in “Basketball Caitlyn!”, loosely translated as “Throw me in the air and catch me!”)

So, the fourth anniversary of the Iraq war came and went with a flurry of emails urging me to join this vigil, that march, to make more calls, write more letters. Maybe I’m feeling pessimistic, but what’s the point? Does it really matter to the cabal in charge that I don’t like the war? That there were so many candlelight vigils, so many marchers? I don’t think so. It didn’t matter to them that people thought it was a bad idea to begin with. As long as whatever world-domination need they have is getting scratched, and the coffers of their …

Apparently, I’m suffering from “Daylight Saving Time Jet Lag”, as Ian put it this morning. The clock may say it’s time to wake up, but my circadian rhythms want that hour back. I don’t like DST. According to my mother, I never have. And this year, I like it even less. By extending DST for one month, starting on the second Sunday in March and running to the first Sunday in November, “Daylight Saving Time” now lasts for 34 weeks. That’s 65% of the year. Which means that “Standard Time” is only 18 weeks (35% of the year). If “standard” …