Happy Halloween!

Good Day

It's chilly in my house this morning and I cup both of my hands around my coffee mug to warm them as I listen to good music and edit photos from my recent trip home. I got to talk to one of my favorite persons in the whole wide world this morning while walking Mia and learned that there might be a ray of hope in a cloud of devastating news. I just found eight dollars in my pocket and I have a cat purring in my lap. I need to start working on lecture and eventually will head to City of Hope to test a persnickety patient today but none of that matters right now. Right now it feels like it's going to be a good day. I hope you feel it, too.

Directorial Debut

Fall!

Because CA is stubbornly not cooperating with my desire to experience cooler weather, I just decided to fly to MO this weekend to get a good fall fix. Oh, and I might throw a baby shower for one of my best friends while I'm here.

This morning I was sitting on a rocking chair on the front porch of a friend's house, taking in the crisp temperatures and beautiful landscape, when I realized how easy it would be for Ben and I to plug back into life here. I mean, just in the last twelve hours, I've had to call on three different friends for favors. So, thanks, Kim, for picking me up at the airport; Bethany, for picking me up at Kim's and taking me to Jake's, and Jake for letting me borrow the Trooper. I love what that represents - that we are still very connected to our friends and family here. As I visit with more people over the next few days during baby showers and pumpkin parties, I know it will be hard to leave all of this and return to California...

...wait...what?!

What on EARTH is going on with me?! I better be careful - clearly, visiting the Ozarks in the fall is making me nostalgic and sentimental.

Captain Obvious

Recently I've been meeting with students who didn't do so hot on my last exam. One of them said to me, "I feel like you purposefully made this test hard because it's an upper division class."

Um...

Yeah.

That's the point.

Congratulations to the Marcus family!

Our good friends, Todd and Jessi, have welcomed their third child and first little girl into the world. We're so glad you're here, Olive!

Wells, Lincoln,and Todd are all pretty stoked about the new little lady in their life.

I already feel bad for the poor guys who will date her. She's got some protective big brothers they'll have to contend with!

And well done, Jess - way to make it out of the car before the birth this time! We love and miss you all!

Go Dodgers!

I'm still not your number one fan, so I'm not terribly upset about the playoffs. But in honor of getting second place (is that how it works?), I'm posting pictures from the last game I attended. Ahem, ahem...the one where I got to sit in box seats.

That's right, folks. I was this close to the action:

But what impressed me most was the free food box seat ticket holders get. And I'm not just talking any old food here. I'm talking couscous, scalloped potatoes, and Caesar salad:

Our friends, Charles and Barry, the man with the connections.

Cheers!
Oh, and there was free ice cream, too. And cappuccino. And macadamia nut cookies. Had I known about all these perks, I would have become a baseball fan much sooner. Dodger Dog, Smodger Dog.
And now we laugh at those nosebleed seats. Ha. Haha.

I was going to upload a sweet video in which you could hear Take Me Out To The Ballgame during the 7th inning stretch. And so you could see Bullet Tooth Tony, who was sitting in the box in front of us, and who was the real reason I was videotaping. It's too bad you can't see it, because if you watch closely, you can see Ben trying to get a sneaky picture of him. Maybe next time?

Now I may or may not have been writing thank you cards and texting my dad throughout the whole game, but don't let that color your view of me as a sports enthusiast or cause you to think these amazing tickets were a waste on me. It's just that baseball is a REALLY LONG sport, both in season and game. It'll be much more entertaining when Scott starts pitching. We thought he was going to be pulled in for relief the night of this game, but instead, the Dodgers used six of their other relief pitchers. Oh well. Next time. If there's free food, I'm so there.