Delia and Ballet

Well, I have signed Delia up for an introduction to ballet class. We have committed to just nine weeks to start, to see if she likes it, and if she does, we will sign her up again.

Mondays will be very difficult. I get off work at 4:30, and will have to pick up Delia and get her to her lesson at 5:15. It lasts until 6:15. When Fiona switches to red belt, I will have to get her to the dojo by 6:45, and since it's a sparring class, I have to get her there early so she can kit up. I wouldn't have time to go home to get her, which means I'd have to take her with me to Delia's ballet class and take them both directly there. If I am continuing with karate (and I really have not made my mind up yet), my sparring class is immediately afterwards at 7:35 and goes until 8:30. What do I do with Delia all this time? And when the hell do any of us get dinner? They would have to get their homework done before 5:15, too.

If Rob could help with some or all of this driving, it would be a big help, but he is totally unreliable in the evenings, due to his job, so I think it's very unlikely.

Hmm. Mondays really are going to suck.

George W. Bush's holiday cards

What's missing from the White House Christmas card? Christmas.

This month, as in every December since he took office, President Bush sent out cards with a generic end-of-the-year message, wishing 1.4 million of his close friends and supporters a happy "holiday season."

Many people are thrilled to get a White House Christmas card, no matter what the greeting inside. But some conservative Christians are reacting as if Bush stuck coal in their stockings.

(read more here.)

They really do act like they own him, don't they? The conservatives feel they put him into office, and by gum, he'd better deliver the goods on their pet issues. This an interest group which seems to me to have a sense of entitlement which is growing seriously out of proportion to their proper place in American life (because they think it is their right to take over American life), and I am finding it increasingly alarming.

Fairy lights

Today I felt at a low ebb. Work was long, and uneventful, and extremely boring. I brought the girls home from church supper and retreated to my office.

It is actually surprisingly clean these days--clean on the floor, that is. Just about all the piles of paper which used to clutter up the floor for months have been put away. There is actually room to exercise again, and I pulled out one of my DVDs and had a go yesterday (I exercised on the elliptical at the work gym for a short time today, too). Not much, but better than I've been doing for the past six weeks. Hope to keep it up.

I have taken down the old burned out icicle fairy lights that were strung along where the wall met the ceiling, where I have hung up a frieze of art postcards, and I have put new ones up. They are burning now, and give the room a lovely golden glow. Rob, after months of bullying, has cleaned up the mess of computer parts in the corner and put them away, and so all that is left is a large box which is covered with a velvet swath of cloth, making an end table besides the old chair. I have covered its ugly fabric with a burgundy velvet throw, and so now it is cozy and inviting. I haven't quite sorted out the art for the walls--I don't have quite enough space, since there are book cases in the way--and the desk is still overly cluttered. But altogether, the office is more inviting than it has been in years.

So I curled up in the chair tonight, wrapped in my cashmere shawl, and have been drinking hot apple cider and re-reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I did not read to the girls at bed time. I did not do anything productive. I just enjoyed my office, my haven, which was exactly what I needed to do. And it felt so good because it really does look so much better. It feels more like a haven now, for the first time in a long, long time.

LJ is being wonky

I am getting a spate of e-mail notifications from comments that were made days ago to my posts.

Weird.