Seven quick takes

• The kids are down with a bronchial infection caused by a mycoplasma.  It's going around, and it's often misdiagnosed as flu.
• Orestes A. Brownson is online!
• Over the Rhine!  It takes me about two days to make my way through their discography, which I've done nearly every day for the last couple of months.  Some of their songs are shockingly beautiful from the first note; others are good pop songs until the moment when they uncork some unexpected harmonic something and perfection is achieved.
• The yard is carpeted with gold.
• Judging by the volume of her voice, a certain 4-year-old should have gone to bed a couple of hours ago.
• Migne's complete Patrologia Latina is now online and freely accessible, according to Rod Letchford's formidable google sleuthing.
• If you're interested the American constitution and our founding, Brownson's The American Republic is indispensible reading.

Seven quick takes

• There's nothing better than beef & noodles on mashed potatoes.
• I'm currently on an American history kick (one of my ever-revolving cycle of interests) with this and this. The former is inspired by the Texans who are talking secession - I'm trying to see whether that idea makes sense. The latter is the first in my in-depth note-taking course in American history. Every time I find a date I note it in a file, the goal being a comprehensive database of American history. A happy consequence is that it slows my reading down so more of it sinks in and I have time to make connections and explore side roads. I chose that book more or less at random - I had trouble finding a list of early histories of America, and this one covered the pre-Revolutionary period I wanted to start in. As I come across references to other books and build a bibliography, I'll uncover more early histories.
• Mmm... fresh clean socks.
• Why could a cat pee on a dvd?
• Lisa's off to a Mom's night out - her Mom's group is meeting to assemble meals to take home & freeze.
• When covering Greek myths with the kids, follow Edith Hamilton rather than Robert Graves. He gives all the sick depraved details; she politely glosses over them.
• Did you know the northern states were seriously planning secession back when Jefferson was president?

Seven quick takes

• It's payday! Which means... it's grocery day! So maybe tomorrow I can make pizzas for supper. Can't today because we have no tomatoes - whole, canned, diced or pasted - for a tomato sauce, and no butter & Permesan for an alfredo sauce.
• 4yo Quinta has been banned to my office for excessive screaming and crying.
• 7yo Tertius wore his new Cub Scout uniform shirt to scouts last night, and got his Bobcat badge. Like 12yo Primus, he looks spiffy in his scout uniform. We have good-looking kids (of course).
• She's progressed to steady quiet whining.
• My favorite blanket used to be "Old Scratchy", made of a material that irritates my wife but is preternaturally warm, even when the material itself is cold. I've left Old Scratchy for a down comforter and now Harry the cat has adopted it.
• If it weren't for Aldi's we'd be sunk.
• 12yo Primus consistently produces whoopee-cushion-quality farts. Maybe he can get a high-paying job in Hollywood as a foley artist.

Seven quick takes

• Fresh-picked basil atop the pizza sauce and below the rest of the toppings!
• America's Funniest Home Videos is our guilty teevee pleasure.
• I tuned my acoustic guitar down a few steps and now it won't stay in tune.
• I'm working on a texinfo edition of the King James Bible.
• Irish breakfast tea is stronger and tastier than English breakfast tea.
• I've rediscovered http://www.universalis.com
• You can hear the influence of Pete Townsend in this 1969 video from Shocking Blue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2DBcbZc3ck