I went down to Los Angeles for the Fourth and saw me a little Pamie and Stee (over a chicken club sandwich and ice tea) and Gene (over pancakes and fruit), but most of the weekend I babied it up with Sophia and Jonathan and their three youths aged 5, 3, and 2, who now all sandwich together in a triple-bunkbed that Sophia has painted the most spectacular rainbow of brown, orange, and yellow stripes.

On the actual Day of Independence we all went over to Tom and Mouki's to drink beer and eat hotdogs at their incredibly well organized block party, which included a musical Lincoln shrine and a bouncy castle, which we had all to ourselves for almost a little too long for the tastes of me an my bladder, brimming as it was with beer.

Rubber babies!

Afterward we went home to kill some hours watching The Aristocats (what the hello? have you seen this movie? with the crazy "oriental" jazz cat scene?) and eating some slices of the supreme white-layers-with-chocolate-frosting birthday cake that they got for my endless birthday, before heading back out to park on top of a parking lot in Century City and watch the panorama of local and civic fireworks, which little Rex declared "too lousy" (a tidy combo of "loud" and "noisy," baby genius).

I also wound up seeing Spider Man II, which was worth the $9.50 for the six endings alone, and Napoleon Dynamite, which was worth it just for the guy who got up halfway through and loudly invited us all to "enjoy the movie" as he retreated up the aisle. Really it was worth it even without the angry sarcastic man -- the weird "outside of timelessness" (I would have guessed front-and-center 1980s, but for the Internet chat room references?), the way Napoleon snapped to profile to drink, the way Napoleon breathed through his mouth with his eyes closed, the way Napoleon played tetherball by himself at lunch, yelling "yes, yes, yes" as he hit the ball on each rotation ... it was all satisfyingly awesome.

I came home all set to get down with my new computer and sewing workstation, complete with crazy-loud speakers (with woofer?), flat-screen monitor, and the writable CD and cute, cute, cute little big red box that I inherited from generous Gene. And cable connectivity!

After over eight years of dialup modemnation, the cable is so insanely luxurious, I can hardly express the joy of it. When I was little, I used wear my puffy down jacket to the local pool on the hottest day of summer just so jumping into the cool, cool waters would be that much more refreshing. The ecstasy of the jump from a 56.6 to cable is kind of like that, almost worth the long suffering for the heights of comparative glee it brings.

The plan was to start digging into the fancy freelance lifestyle as soon as I finally got a workable workstation up and roaring, sending out pitches, tooting around craigslist, etc., but instead I decided to succumb to the kiddy cold I picked up after all the slack-jawed goodnight baby kissing in LA and spent four solid days lying in bed watching television and popping cold pills. I did take one small break to do a load of emergency, cat urine-fueled laundry (Note: totally buy new suitcase) and wound up, in a coldmedicinehaze, washing and drying my favorite and relatively new scarf from Supermaggie and hypershrinking it down to a sort of rubbersnake-ish thing, which Marbles has taken to gumming and moewing over. Maybe this means I get to buy one of Suppermaggie's new Fall line of scarves? Like, perhaps, the Vertical in "Boy"? Isn't that exactly what unemployment dollars are meant for?

Note: I know I've been naughty about updating as of late ... something about the overwhelming and surprising business of unemployment, my god, I don't know how I ever had time for work before, it's a little frightening to consider. But I promise, do you hear?, to update EVERY DAY from here on out ... at least until next Tuesday, when I leave for Yosemite for a week with Jill, Caroleen, Jeff, and Marilyn. Okay? Now let's see if that sticks.

PS: Thank you, Christop, Laura, Leah, and everybody for my cute and never-ending stream of birthday gift sensations!

(PS: My diary has officially moved over to my official evany.com website. Let's meet up over there!)

(PS: My diary has officially moved over to my official evany.com website. Let's meet up over there!)