I spent much of last night lying awake and listening to the welcome sound of rain drumming on the roof. Shortly before dawn I dozed off and ended up embroiled in a very odd dream in which my mother and I endeavored to manufacture a very large ice cream sundae in a process that involved pulverizing a wide variety of candy. I woke up thinking about the leftover birthday cake in the refrigerator.

AJ is zonked. He was so tired that during our pre-nap story reading, he interrupted in the middle of story number two to say that he wanted to go to bed �right now.� Clearly playing in the house and avoiding raindrops was exhausting. He spent about a third of the morning driving Hot Wheels� cars to and from a pretend hospital, where they were all visiting their grandmothers; another third pretending that a colorful pile of marbles was a group of children at a playground, some of whom played nicely, others of whom had to be reminded of some basic rules of etiquette, and all of whom liked going down the slide the best; and a final third endizzying himself on the Sit �n Spin.

I wouldn�t mind a nap myself, but I foolishly exchanged the opportunity for sleep for a cup of cold coffee leftover from breakfast and the chance to perhaps get a little work done on the ever-worsening condition of my office. I did take a few minutes to check out the condition of the yard after last night�s storm. Although I didn�t actually stop and smell the roses, I did rescue several sorry looking stalks of delphiniums (delphinia?), propping them up again with sticks that had dislodged from the branches of a nearby oak tree. Now I�m off to kill a few trees worth of paper for the good of my dissertation. Lucky I�m not writing about an environmental topic.

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