extra time....

 Happy Leap Day.  I hope you've enjoyed a whole extra day today.  As you no doubt know, leap years come around every four years.  The purpose of leap year is to correct the lost segment of a year each of the other three years, because each year is actually 365 days, five hours, 48 minutes and 45 seconds long.  But adjusting for that every year would be a lot more trouble than just popping another day in there every 4th year. But did you know that not every fourth year is actually a leap year? For example, the year 1900 was not a leap year because it's divisible by 100 but not by 400.  Every 400 years we have to adjust back because too many leap years have occurred and we've over compensated.  So now you know more than you probably ever wanted to know about Leap Day, so you can really look forward to 2028.  

world's best...

 I just finished a cup of my very favorite dessert.  I haven't had this particular dessert for months, but my husband found some in the Meijer's on Dupont today and brought it home - such a good spouse.  What is this wonderful dessert?  Luigi's Real Italian Ice.  It comes in several flavors and in little individual serving cups. You can have all of them except lemon.  Lemon is my favorite.  It's delicious and also reminds me of Italy last September where we had gelato almost every day.  My choice was always lemon.  That's it, it's all I'm thinking about right now, except do I want another one tonight.  No, no, I must pace myself.

a fun new toy

 First of all, I must acknowledge that in our last three series of Gin Rummy games, while I won two, my husband came roaring back this evening and won big time. Kudos.  The other fun thing is that he has discovered the joys of having a Roomba, one of those nifty little floor cleaners.  I received it as a Christmas gift a few years ago and it's great. I've used it in my apartment ever since.  Well, now my husband has had time to charge it up and give it a try.  When fully charged it will run for and hour and a half and that's what it did last night.  He set it loose in the kitchen / family room area (we could hear it quietly running from upstairs).  This morning there was proof that it had covered the entire area and then perfectly docked itself to recharge.  Good little Roomba.  By the way its name is Rhoda. You have to name them when you first get them.

found!

Today, when my spouse stopped at my apartment to bring a few more things home, he found, still in my closet, on the floor under some carry-on bags, my very best travel slippers - flat, warm and easy to pack.  But, best of all, they come from Dukes of London.  If you are ever travelling to London, and I hope you are, I highly recommend staying at the marvelous little  boutique hotel, The Dukes of London, which is hidden at the end of a quiet little cul-de-sac.  Some years ago, three friends and I had decided to spend a few days in London before joining our larger group for a Presbyterian tour of Scotland.  Two of us were staying at one hotel, two at another.  I knew The Dukes was the place for me when we walked in to register and were told very politely that our room wasn't quite ready but would we care to wait in the parlor with some tea and biscuits.  Anyone who knows me knows that I love tea and, no surprise, in England (and Scotland and Australia for that matter) they do it right.  Brewed tea, served hot with milk and sugar always available.  Also, through the three nights that we stayed, there was always a treat in our room. One night champaign, one night the most delicious peaches you have ever seen, large, deep almost ruby red and deliciously juicy, and one night cookies (or biscuits if you prefer).  And as I mentioned earlier the slippers were a gift.  To top it off, they were able to get us tickets to the original cast performance of "Kinky Boots," a play which I highly recommend.  All in all, I think you can see why I was so pleased to have my slippers returned.  Comfort and memories, hard to beat.

still merging...

 I thought merging our books and large pieces of furniture was a bit of a challenge, but we are getting things organized, rehoming (thanks to my daughter for that term) many items, and are just about ready for the big move on March 7.  However, today we moved things from my kitchen to his.  And it seems we have a surplus of lots of stuff.  My spouse, who is trying to get things organized as I write this, has just informed me that we have over 2000 toothpicks.  I think a party with lots of cheese cubes may be in our future.  Evidently we also have several containers of garlic powder and garlic salt, and many packages of Ramen noodles, mine chicken, his beef.  Coincidentally, today is, according to my west coast brother, "National Let's All Eat Right Day."  We are working on that in two ways.  First, we are throwing away several expired cans of food, that were carefully tucked to the back of my cupboards, and second, we played hooky from all this sorting and merging, to have a delicious dinner at Ziano's. Yum!!

start when they're young

 My west coast brother has informed me that today is "International Sword Swallowers' Day."  Which led me to the first logical question, why?  I've seen some pretty spectacular demonstrations of sword swallowing but it has never inspired me to want to try it.  But then I thought, if I was the mom in a sword swallowing circus family and wanted my toddler to follow in his father's foot steps, I'd start by telling the little one "No."  Or maybe something more subtle like "You can play with your daddy's little sword but not the big one."  If you have ever parented a toddler you know that telling them "No." (or some variation thereof) is the surest way to get them to do something.  Case in point, when my son was about two and a half, his grandma had just moved into a new little house, and, while she watched him, I was painting her bathroom.  A chore I was happy to do because it really was an awful Pepto Bismol pink.  As I painted, I could hear them chatting in the living room while they ate some fresh cherries.  Grandma had shown my son how to bite the cherries in half and spit out the pits, and all was well until I heard her say those fateful words "Now don't put that up your nose."  Really! Why would you say that to a toddler?  So we two were off to the nearby old Lutheran Hospital emergency room, where I learned, to my intense relief, that this was not an unusual occurrence. In fact the very kind ER doctor had a perfect little tool, a tiny wire loop, that he stuck up in my son's nose, looped around that cherry pit and pulled it right out. So the moral of this story is be careful about how you say no to toddlers.  Some of us who are now grandparents or great-grandparents need to keep this in mind.

the adventure continues...

 It seemed like a simple, straight forward request to me.  This afternoon my spouse and I went to the BMV (the New Haven branch which is very close to us) he to renew his driver's license and me to renew my license and have the name and address changed.  When we walked in, I pulled ticket number 261 and only had to wait about five minutes to get called to a window.  The gentleman who called my number (lucky him) was evidently still in training so he got lots of back up guidance through the process, but it was not easy.  I did fine with reading the eye chart and getting my picture taken, but when it came to the actual paperwork, things didn't go so smoothly.  They did have notice from Social Security about my name change and I did have the same printed out information, but somehow through errors and reprints it took us 45 minutes to get the deed done.  I lost count of how many times I signed copies of the same forms, but finally, finally, as they were calling number 345, I walked out, the proud possessor of a temporary paper license.  Needless to say my husband had renewed his license much earlier in the afternoon.  But the story doesn't quite end here.  As we were driving on Maplecrest, almost half way home, my husband and I each got a call requesting us to return to the BMV to correct a paperwork error.  Obviously we went back, but with some fear and trepidation, to find out what we needed to do.  Happily, it turned out to be one simple form that we each had to sign. Mission accomplished, we headed home.  One sure thing, at this point, I am in contention for "worst driver's license picture ever." I'm not sure if there's a prize but if there is, I should win it.