This looks familiar...

Wish I had some of that Instant Pain Annihilator, but I would bet that it's components are no longer legal, and I'm too cheap to buy them on the street. So I guess it's another handful of ibuprofen.

So what's been up lately? Not much. I picked up another ILL today- chronicles from the reigns of Stephen through Richard I. However, they didn't arrive in the facing-page translation I wanted- the library said there wasn't a copy in the system. Grr. And yes, my Latin skillz are feeble, but I know enough to poke through the period I'm looking at, and see that what I need to know isn't there. ARGH!

However, the last two ILL requests came in right, in translation, and I took them down to the local cheap copy place (5 cents a page still!) and copied them and put them in ring-binders. So I now have a copy of the _Gesta Normannorum Ducem_ And the _Gesta Stephani_. They're a little earlier than the time period I'm looking for, but way cool sources nonetheless.

I'm planning to go see Annie the first week in May- really looking forward to it and hoping she'll make some pie for me, since she's gotten so famous for it. Hoping to get to see the Cloisters, and the Met. And maybe eat lunch at one of the famed street vendors. :-) And I'll get to see her nifty rent-controlled apartment, and hassle the Iso kitty!

The big bad news is that the pool I've been going to is closing, a week from Monday. They are having financial problems keeping it open, especially now since the babies' classes have left, and apparently it needs some renovation to keep up with operating requirements. Don't know if/where we're going to go somewhere else- I found some stuff on line about the Arthritis Foundation's pool programs, I need to make some phone calls and check out the various locations here in town.

Larry found a new job, but the scheduling really sucks, and he's not very happy. But in the economy, maybe happy isn't as important as it once was. But we don't get to see him very often, which is a pain.

Been alternating laughing my head off and being really cheezed at the protests this week. Allegedly a tax protest, somehow there was an awful lot of really icky anti-Obama signs, which made it look like a bunch of sore losers rather than grumpy taxpayers. And the funny thing is, they aren't paying attention to _reality_ (as usual) because 95% of us are getting a tax cut! So why are they protesting? Well, it might be related to this (which I posted on Facebook earlier today): in the Eugene paper- "The Springfield rally was one of 20 held around the state by the national anti-tax group Americans for Prosperity, which is run by the owners of Koch Industries, the largest privately owned business in the United States." This isn't grass-roots- this is astroturf. By Big Business. And Fox News.

The reason to laugh at them? Because they fancy themselves a modern-day 'Boston Tea Party', and have been calling themselves 'tea-baggers'. And if you look up the term 'tea-baggers' in the Urban Dictionary (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=teabagger ) you'll see why. (Not Safe For Work!)

Of course, when pressed, most of them will insist that the protest is non-partisan, and that they were angry at the taxes and spending under the Bush Administration too. To which I have to say: "Where were you last year?"