Such a beautiful morning

What a joy to wake up this morning and learn that the bill passed the House! I woke up early -- 5 or so -- and started wondering what had happened over night. I couldn't stay in bed any longer because my curiosity got the better of me. It's a great leap forward (use of that Maoist phrase amuses me, but not as much as when I hear a Republican use the words "let a thousand flowers bloom.")

Yesterday was a great day; lots of fun. We got done everything we needed to, including stopping at the jeweler to see if they could replace the earring I lost on the plane to SF two weeks ago. We hung out with Liv and Jon, played much Scrabble (Nick won one game and I won four -- as always he hates it when he wins because of what has historically always come next: crushing defeat.)

Saw a movie we really enjoyed -- The Informant. Very well done. Liv was encouraging us to see Where the Wild Things are, but we went our own way.

I was wrong about the percentage of pain reduction the anesthetic provided. It was one of those "you don't know what you got till it's gone" things. When it wore off and as the doc said I was back to my baseline, I realized how much relief I'd really gotten. Not 33% -- more like 5--60%. Nick is hopeful that what we now recognize as two problems (hip and back) can be addressed conservatively: the hip via cortisone which should make it easier to do rehab for my back. It would be great if he were right, but after a year and a half of this it's hard not to be skeptical. But we'll see.

Today will be fun, just fractured. Nick's taking Holly to the park now, and I'll do some work. Midday he'll leave for the island and I'll meet Sarah. Liv has SAT tutoring early afternoon and then we'll go on the (dreaded) errand to Verizon. When we're all back we'll cook dinner: I'm making the salami rosemary bread Nick and Liv love, and he'll make a great Sunday sauce for pasta. We're packing up stuff to send Whitney, and I heard from our boy soldier, who seemed down because of the mail delays. We'll wait till he gets package #1 before we ship more. Whitney has no problems with mail (and certainly not with email.)

More to come.