Things are moving along here. Peter and I went to a speech-development program for little ones his age this morning. It wasn't really a success. The program involved sitting in a circle and doing action rhymes for an hour. The other kids did that, anyway. I spent a lot of time bringing him back from the hall, and just when he seemed to be settled and enjoying a quiet story, the animator said it was time for another jumping-around song. I thought that would be a good time to go.

Our lovely painter is painting outside, and we hope to have the back of the house done (!!) by the end of the weekend. It's going slowly. There were 1" holes in the clapboard where insulation was blown in 20 years ago. There were some missing shakes, some cracked clapboard, some rotted trim, and some gaps that a small cat could crawl through. But Tom is out priming right now, and there will be a big change in the next day. We're off to St Martins for a very short break tomorrow, and then our trusty electrician will be in on Monday to install some lighting over the kitchen sink, and hopefully advise on a few other projects. A light in the kitchen hall would be nice, but there are no nearby outlets to run a wire from, and the walls (every one of them) are solid plaster. What to do, what to do, what to do. In the meantime, I've moved these ferns from the intensive care unit (the windowsill behind the kitchen sink) to a new home in the upstairs hall. The intensive care bed is now occupied by my poor burro's tail, which got either too much sun or too much cold a few weeks ago in the front porch.