The list below is the contents of my mom's 'silverware' drawer. I loosely call its contents silverware as this is the drawer in my mom's house where one has the highest probability of finding a piece of silverware that one might desire to use, for eating, or whatever. Many people use a tray to organize silverware. These conformist robots foolishly sort the silverware into seperate sections of the tray so that each time you reach for a desired piece, be it knife, or fork, or spoon, your hand easily finds the piece of silverware and withdraws it.

Now I ask you, where is the challenge in that? Isn't it more exciting to get a mild surprise when you want to get a fork or knife and instead withdraw a nearly-as-useful spoon?

Contents follow:

• Assorted miscellaneous flatware
• 2 packs Captain's Wafers: Cream Cheese and Chives Crackers
• 1 wire wisk
• 8 lids to sour cream, cottage cheese, yogurt containers
• 3 pickle jar lids
• 1 peanut butter jar lid, well cleaned
• 1 can of Chicken of the Sea Pink Crab
• 2 packets of soy sauce, Kimlan
• several ounces of whole cashews, roasted, salted, and stale
• spatula
• shears
• garlic press
• 36" gold-colored chain
• 1 pack Aqua drops breathmints
• 12 pieces, individually wrapped, Nicorette gum
• 1 pie knife
• 3 packets containing one moist towlette per packet
• 1 baking spatula
• 1 set disposable chopsticks
• 1 plastic grocery bag
• 1 potato peeler
• 1 corn holder
• 1 package of seeds
• 1 rubber band
• paperclips
• Roland kobe style mustard
• several twisty ties
• 1 fine tip artists paint brush, stained and battered
• 1 charcoal pencil
• 1 paring knife sharpener taped to a 3x5 piece of corrugated cardboard

I am writing today's blog entry while visiting my mom in Kenosha, Wisconsin. We're having a nice visit with my mom and dad. Last night, Jill and I went out ona pub crawl with our friend Brian. We visited the following three bars: The Port of Kenosha, the Boathouse, and Paddy-O's. At Paddy-O's, we ran into my friend Erik. Erik and I grew up as nearby neighbors, and were very good friends in high school. He and his mom fed me almost one million lunches. We used to watch 'The days of our lives' soap opera and have lunch at his house all the time when we were in high school.

I was very happy to see him as We've lost touch over the past six years. He was very happy to see me. I used to think Erik was crazy, but I've realized in the past few years that he is a normal russian. He showed his pleasure by smashing his wine glass and giving me a big furry kiss on the lips. Then we watched some You-Tube videos on his computer projector. I made him watch a Shakira parody video that I think is hilarious. It's got a big fat white guy in a blond wig who dances around as 'Shakira.' I take ironic pleasure in this particular video, because I actually have no clue who Shakira is and, really, know nothing about her place in the American pop culture pantheon.

My mom, for those who don't know her, is a little unconventional. She is a well educated woman and has a professional practice and dabbles in art and literature. Despite this, she owns as a pet a blue tick coon hound, Smitty. Smitty would be a great dog to release in the north woods of wisconsin, and wait until his thunderous howl alerts you to the fact that he's cornered a racoon in a tree. Like most Blue Tick Hounds, Smitty's voice carries well over distances of several miles - very useful for finding him after he's accomplished his mission.

While Smitty's powerful voice is useful in hunting situations, it detracts slightly from his charm here in suburban Kenosha. I had just gotten my daughter to sleep upstairs and a few minutes later heard her and her brother screaming. I ran upstairs.

"May, why did you scream and wake up your brother like that?" Waking up your brother is an offense for which one sometimes can get a time-out.

"But dad, Benjamin woke me up, and Smitty woke him up."

"Oh, honey, I'm sorry."

Benjamin is now climbing in and out of my mom's file boxes and screaming.

Forgot to include details about our trip up til now. The drive was pretty uneventful until now. The trip from Philly to Pittsburgh was relatively uneventful and we enjoyed visiting Jill's cousins and their kids. We spent the night, and the next day I took a long afternoon nap and then we drove all night to get from Pittsburgh to Chicago. At about 5 AM, we were driving through Gary, IN and almost done with the trip when a terrible rainstorm enveloped us. Visibility was low and we crawled along at 35 MPH while compound semi truck trailers splashed torrents all around our tiny SUV.

It was terrifying, but productive. Nothing like a jolt of terror and brush with the grim reaper on I94 to wake one up after driving all night.

We had a great time visiting Jill's brother, sister-in-law, and our nieces, and 6 wk old nephew. It was a blast.

Some of you know I have been running for occasional exercise. I bought a special running shirt that is one size too small for me. It is a red t-shirt (size medium) that says 'Jersey' and has a picture of a devil on it. The 'Jersey Devils' must be some kind of a sports team. I wanted to have a shirt that was too small to wear while I was running because my normal size shirts occasionally give me a severe nipple chafing while my enormous man-boobs bounce up and down against my t-shirt. Anyway, I saw some plain gray t-shirts at Walgreens that were $1 (with the purchase of a bottle of sunscreen), but I felt like I could do better than that. Sure enough, a super cheesy home made jersey devils shirt turns up, sized properly, for sixty cents, with no epithelium preserving ointment purchase required.

Moving on to news of the kids:

In order to get my daughter out of the house in a normal human amount of time, I have a creed that I recite with her before we go places. It goes as follows:

- Rule number one: Must wear clothes
- Rule number two: Must wear sunscreen
- Rule number three: Must wear shoes
- Rule number four: (the most important rule of them all) Obey your father

When I'm trying to get May to go somewhere, I go through the list to remind her of The Rules. The other day I caught her telling some of her rules to her stuffed animals. May's rules for her animals are as follows:

- Rule number one: Must saw wood
- Rule number two: Must dig holes



Ben has a new tool for manipulating me. He stumbles around, like he is having trouble walking, then when I hold out my hand to offer support. He grabs my hand and leads me to something that he feels needs to be done. The other day, he led me to the front door and stood there looking at it, as if he was thinking, "Here we are at the front door. How long will it take dad to realize that I would like the door to be opened for me?"

One last story about May. She has been potty training lately, and got up in the middle of the night. She needs to go to the bathroom, but doesn't really know it. So, I take her to the toilet and get her settled. She says to me, "Dad, will you marry me?"

"I'm already married to mommy, sweetheart."

"BUT WHO WILL MARRY ME?!" She cries and screams.

"When you find a man who loves you as much as daddy does, you'll know that he's the right guy to marry." Good advice?

I've been doing EBay a lot lately - but SELLING not buying! It's actually very exciting. It has all the 'turn-your-trash-into-cash' giddiness, but none of the irritating 'be-nice-to-a**holes-who-want-to-bargain-you-down-25-cents-on-your-old

-van-halen-cassettes' pitfalls. Very little human contact is involved. They buy my crap, I send it. I've also learned how to collect money via paypal, which makes it a lot easier. I also get m money a lot faster when I use paypal. I'm very close to going to an 'only paypal' Ebay selling dogma.

I'll be honest too - I like going to the post office. All the rows and rows of stamps lend an ordered and calming feel to my perception of the universe.

Jill finished painting May's room today, so May is sleeping in our room on the inflatable mattress. This means I have to be super quiet when going to bed.

Tomorrow I'm going into Philly to lift weights and have lunch with a friend.

On Tuesday, we’re leaving for a drive to Chicago with an overnight stop in Pittsburgh, at Jill’s cousin’s house. My plan is to stay up late once we arrive in Pittsburgh and to take a long afternoon nap before we leave in the early evening. Then we’ll drive all night to Chicago. We’ll spend three days and two nights with Jill’s brother in Chicago before driving to Kenosha to spend until August 2^nd at my mom’s house. On August 2^nd, my mom, Jill, the kids, and I will take a flight to Bend, Oregon to celebrate Michael and Kelly’s wedding. The resort looks great and even has a childcare facility at which we can leave May while Jill and I do some bicycle riding on their extensive nature trails.

We return from Oregon the evening of August 6^th, and will drive from Ohare airport to Madison, WI. We’ll visit with friends and do some relaxing in Madison until August 15^th, when I will help Jill’s parents move out of their condominium in Madison and into their new house in rural Wisconsin. I hope to leave Wisconsin and begin the drive back to Philadelphia on August 19^th or 20^th. Jill will stay a little while longer with her parents and do some additional visiting with some of her friends.

If I survive this ridiculous and suicidal vacation, I start my second year of med school on Aug 27th. Good luck and god bless.

This morning Benjamin had a procedure done in which the ophthamologist opens his tear duct, which has been clogged - causing continuous gunky-eye. The procedure went fine, but afterwards he was very wobbly (from anesthetic) and has been crabby all day. My job has been to keep May out of his way. Even though I don't think she's any more likely than usual to damage her brother's eyes, she has the potential to hit him in a new weak spot.

May and I took the car to get an oil change, browsed at the Italian deli, Severino's, got some ice cream, and then went and got her hair cut. May has a particular stylist she goes to at the Hair Cuttery who does a great job. Right now, May is trying to use the potty. If she's succesful, we'll play video games from the Curious George website.

While May and I were out running errands, Ben was home with Jill. He got up from a *very* long nap and Jill let him run around without a diaper on. Ben promptly relived himself in both ways. Ben hasn't been feeling well lately and has a bit of diarhea. His waste splashed on the floor in every direction and he promptly splashed himself into it, through it, and around the living room. It took Jill a long time to get things cleaned up. That must have happened while May and I were at the ice cream shop. May had vanilla custard. I had vanilla custard topped with lemon flavored Italian water ice (a local treat; called a 'gelati').

Loyal blog readers will know that my cousin gave me some suits. I tried to get one altered to fit me, but the tailor told me the suit was too big. It would have cost almost as much as a new suit to get it fit, and it would never look quite right (pocket would be too low, coat would be too long, etc). As it turns out, my cousins rehearsal dinner is a picnic, so I probably don't need a second suit. Instead, I'll go in a shirt and tie to the rehearsal.

Tonight I will ride my excercycle and read my biochemistry review book while Jill attends the Junior Women's Drinking Club of Collingswood. Last night I installed a magical garbage can which hides under the sink and rolls out of its den on silent wheels when called upon to store our trash.

Join me in celebrating the overthrow of the French despotic monarchy three hundred years ago. though there were no (or almost none) prisoners being held in the Bastille when it was torn down, the destruction of this monarchist political prison is the symbolic event that represents the advent of the French republic. Vive La France!

We went to a Bastille Day party down the street at the house of our friends, Keith and Chris. The rule was - you get to drink one bottle of french wine for every child you bring to the party. I drank two. Keith drank four. May took a nap before the party, so I stayed later and left at nine with her. Jill left early (eight-ish) with Ben.

I hate talking to people now, because they always ask 'what do you do?' Then, I have to admit that I'm a full time student. Fortunately, Keith told a lot of people my ridiculous life story, and after that, and the requisite wine, I was able to relax and be social.

We brought an onion tart to the party. I got the recipe out of my 'Recipes from Provence' cookbook. It turned out amazingly well. It's a savory tart.

We filled up the kiddie pool and the neighbor girl, Janee, came over and played with the kids. Janee is eight years old, very nice, very polite, and very respectful. May spent a lot of time teasing her today.

Tonight, just as I finished watering the plants and flowers in the yard, it began raining.

I don't know if you've read this in my blog(s) before, but the philadelphia area is very humid. The other day, I was coming home from Jefferson and descended to the train platform. As I came down the stairs, condensation formed on my glasses. Here's another problem. The humid air condenses on the concrete floors of the subway stations, making it a slick, wet, and dangerous surface. I try to never run in the subway or train stations.

Today I was walking my cousin's old suit downtown to get it altered to fit me for my other cousin's (on the other side of my parent's divorce) wedding. As I'm walking down Fern Ave. I see the following peculiar site:

A squirrel sprinting across the road with a small bird in close pursuit. The bird is flying very close to the ground, at the same level as the squirrel, and the bird periodically stabs at the squirrel with its feet. They run across the street with the bird in hot, violent pursuit. Finally, the squirrel runs up a tree on the opposite side of the street. The bird lands on a nearby branch of the same tree and they sit for a moment together before the bird flies back to my side of the street. What gives? Your comments are appreciated.

Even more remarkable is that after relating this bizarre occurrence to my wife, she admits to having seen the very same event on the very same location of the very same street about a week ago. Curiouser and curiouser...

Benjamin is running around the kitchen with his toy broom and dustpan as I write this. His toy mop is a special favorite, but he's not using it right now. Benjamin enjoyed a pretty wild game of 'whale on the mountain' with May and I earlier this morning. Whale On The Mountain is played by picking a kid up off my bed carrying him/her around the room and dropping them on a large pile of pillows and tickling indiscriminately. The dialog closely mimics the children's book of the same name.

The tailor had already left the cleaners for today so I have to return on Tuesday morning. As I was walking back from the cleaners, the pants I brought for alteration slipped out. I noticed and ran all around looking for them. Someone found them on the street and brought them back to the cleaners. I was relieved.

Dear friends, family, and creepy anonymous blog readers, I am posting again to try to update you with what is going on here in Jersey, where only the strong survive.

Jill bought a ton of stuff at the local farmers market, where, oddly, not much of the produce is organic. Having to choose between local and organic, we pick locally grown - a smaller carbon footprint. I'm blogging while cooking. Jill is giving Ben a bath. He's crabby and exhausted from poor napping today. We're having leftover bean soup with some swiss chard sauteed in garlic and oil for dinner tonight. Swiss chard is a rare vegetable that I don't particularly care for but seems to be stalking me up and down the east coast as we ate some swiss chard last week when we were visiting my grandma on Lawn Guylen. I will probably also eat a side of egg salad. For desert, everyone's favorite LEMON PUDDING.

May is watching the end of 'Finding Nemo.' She had a good day today. May is now between zero and one naps each day. I took the kids to the library this afternoon, and on the way home we took a forty-five minute stroll. In order to be sure May didn't fall asleep on the stroll we played a 'who can scream and grunt?' game. Thankfully, both my kids can scream AND grunt.

For those who haven't talked to me since my last post, Benjamin walks. He's not very graceful, and he walks as if he were a robot in lead boots. He clunks around the house, grabs some of his sisters stuff, waits for his sister to protest, then hollers right back at her.

I'm still in the literature search phase of my summer research project. I was able to finish my anatomy review, and am beginning my biochem review. As you can imagine, it's fascinating stuff.