…to Jacob Kekoa Tsark, who apparently took his sweet time getting here on Friday, April 8th. I'll just quote these parts of Kara's email: "20 hours of active labor" and "emergency c-section."Yep, she's definitely got something to hold over this one during his teenage years.

I posted a similar entry, 'Happy belated birthday…,' in January 2003 announcing the birth of Kara and Matt's first son, Danny. A couple of years later, I can follow up what I said there: yep, Kara's a great mom. There's something inherently satisfying and cheering in knowing that the people who should be having kids are having kids. (Time to place yet another round of bets on whether or not the child of two engineers is destined to become an engineer. Check back in about eighteen years.) :D

The squeak of bedsprings told me Jeff was shifting about for a more comfortable reading spot on the master bed. Their familiar squeal is one of the few sounds that transmit reliably through the walls of our house; from my blanket-wrapped perch in the reading room I could tell what was going on without question or movement.

When I dropped it in, the spoon clinked against the glass. Another cup of Saturday tea, chestnut and opaque from half-and-half and sweetener, sacrificed to the literary gods. Naptime, perhaps. Tired.

Edmund, most of the time, is too lazy to work up the effort to squeeze out a full-fledged meow, instead settling for a meaningful glance, occasionally laced with a whiskertwitch or two. Only when he is annoyed (defined as "my brother kitty will not play with me when I bite him on the ass") does he really feel the need to actually audibly voice his opinion. Today was no exception, but even without the vocalization, I got the point.

From the inbox…

My surgery is Tuesday afternoon. This afternoon, as I was driving out to pick up books to read while I'm convalescing, I realized something that caught me off guard for a moment: I was happy about the upcoming surgery. Yes, nervous, incredibly - anything that involves a high likelihood of general anesthesia should be treated with the respect and caution such drugs deserve. But happy. Relieved. Calm. It was going to happen, and I was glad of it - glad and grateful that I live in a country, during a time, that lets me decide the future of my own fertility.

hEll0 wOr1d. Remember me?

Yeah, you. Hey, thanks for the painkillers and this wacky hole in my jaw. I survived anyway, despite your best efforts. Neener. I even had vegetables tonight - you know, those colorful crunchy things you chew? They rock my little blue planet. I was considering starting a peasant revolt if there was to be more soup.