reasonable creature

I had heard about this, but didn't really process it until is showed up on the Publisher's Lunch list of new book deals:

Denver Post writer Doug Brown's JUST DO IT: How One Couple Screwed Their Life and Love Back Together, about the 101 days the author and his wife committed to have sex every day, no matter what, and exploring how anyone can strengthen a relationship, and fall back in love with their spouse even after a decade together, to Allison McCabe at Crown, by Daniel Lazar at Writers House.

If the Creature takes a job, will she still be Reasonable?

Just axin'.

That's right, as of this morning, the Creature is a fully licensed driver. (With a perfect score on the road test, no less.) So to all those people who have let me mooch rides for the past, um, 36 years: Just let me know when and where you need to go, and I'm there.

From today's reading, two items that the Creature found most comforting:

On Baby Chic 101, a photo of Apple Martin, about to turn 3 and still drinking from a bottle. (Our doctor demanded we go cold turkey at one year, but we still haven't had the guts to tell Baby.)

And it turns out I'm not the only one who saved the pregnancy test stick as a memento. (Although I did toss it some months later.)

Some better news about the Georgetown library in the Washington Post: The historic collections may have not been completely destroyed. And there may be some temporary services restored soon-ish.

Thanks to the many RC readers who have emailed to commiserate.

We've always sensed that there was something otherworldly about Baby. Witness her intense experimentation and nature study (following ants, obsessing about the whereabouts of the moon, testing the laws of gravity, fluid dynamics, etc.). It is as though she is busily readying reports about Earth for her alien overlords. Whatever language it is that she speaks certainly sounds foreign, and her sense of humor is, well, unique.

But my thinking has evolved, and I have a new name for her: Monkey Princess.

I think this captures a lot about her, in particular the contrast between her primate goofiness and her elegant, withering hauteur. She is surely monkey-cub-like in her movements, whether clinging to me, eating a tomato out of her hand, or scrabbling around the living room looking for a pen, or sunglasses, or cellphone left carelessly just within her reach. And while she's no girly-girl, she does have her preeny moments. Plus she is waited on hand-and-foot by her overeducated, underpaid servants. Er, I mean parents.

As I write, the local public library is burning to the ground. I was almost in tears as I watched the roof fall in amid a huge swath of brilliant orange flames. As far as I was able to tell from talking to the police on the scene, no one was injured, but I have come to feel like the place itself is part of our family. Baby visits up to three times a week for the excellent story-and-craft time, and the children's area is--was--big and well-designed, and a great place to run around. Plus the library housed irreplacable archives of local history that no doubt are lost.

It is a big blow to the neighborhood.