Here I am...

to blog you like a hurricane...
My apologies to the Scorpions for hijacking one of their most famous song titles, but it won't be the last time..although I promise never to mention the Winds of Change..
speaking of the Scorps, how they never got nominated for worst album cover for this gem is beyond me, let alone how that ever got the OK from a major record label in the early '80s!

Anyhow, its been a week since I talked to you loyal bloggers..I want to kick a shout out to Wes for commenting on my last entry - comments are welcome and encouraged!
The past week was busy - I'm trying to attend to things I've ignored while I was teaching full time for three weeks in the school's summer institute. And re-entry is hard, I tell you. One of the things I have to get done in the near future is a 15 page paper for a class I took in the beginning of the summer - getting me one step closer to knocking out my distribution credits for my slow moving PhD in biostats. The topic is along the lines of "should the US have universal healthcare and why.." Of course the whole class was pretty much advocating for universal health coverage so its pretty clear what they expect from the paper. I think universal healthcare is a great idea, for sure - not neccessarily easy to do, but a great idea- but part of me feels like being contrarian just because its clear how strongly the instructors feel about it. I'm pretty tired of being a grad student, its a grind. Especially because I primarily want to the degree so that I can teach "anywhere", and a small, but outspoken minority in my department (certainly not most though) seem to think this is the least noble goal of all.
Anyhow, sorry for the rant , I'm just in a lull period with schoolin'..

So my inlaws are here this weekend - they rolled in Friday night and are here through today (Sunday). Micah and Emmet are thrilled to have their Bubby and Pop in the house, as are Roni and I. My father in law is allergic to cats, and we have 2, so they always stay at a hotel. This time around they stayed at the Marriot Inner Harbor, on the 27th view, affording them a kick ass view! Better yet, the hotel has a pool - so all of us went their yesterday and got our swim on. Emmet was really cure as he tooled around in a float, and kicked up a storm. Micah was reluctant to get in the water at first, but after some serious coaxing he got into his float (he calls it his orange boat) and had a great time. It wa my first time in a pool in a year and it was awesome - however it was so chlorinated, I'm still recovering - I'm already white as a ghost, and now any evidence of a tan has been bleached off..

Roni and I were able to got out Saturday night becasue the inlaws were kind enough to babysit. In a typical fashion, though, we didn't get out the door until about 8:15 - we hurried down to Mount Vernon to catch some of Artscape. We got there and it was in full effect - we saw some cool arts and crafts for sale, some not so cool art, and hear Qtip from afar as he was headlining the main stage. A lot of "throw your hands in the air and wave'em like you don;t care" stuff coming stage.. but I can't just raise the roof without thinking about it, so I didn't participate..

It was getting on to about 9:30 and we were hungry - so we rolled back to the Accord and headed back to Hampden to go to the Golden West Cafe and get our grub on. It was really nice to go out on a date together - note to self, get babysittin' more often. We love weekends and hanging out full time with the boys, but after they go to bed its nice to get out of the house and spend time alone together...

Anyway, it's Sunday morning, and I'm out for now - more bloggin' to come soon.