I sang and rocked Willow to sleep for the first time yesterday. Usually she needs a draught of warm milk to do the trick, but she's at the age now where she responds to other things as well. She kept closing her eyes and opening them again, as if fighting sleep, but finally she dosed off... There's not much better than that - seeing her respond to gentleness.

Camp continues - the kids were a little harder to settle down today. I brought one of those portable misters along to help cool them down (and to illustrate ideal Redwood tree conditions...) and it proved to be very popular. We did leaf rubbings and spent more time with critters. We got to march past a hapless Wood rat who, sometime overnight, had been struck down in the act of crossing the road. One of the girls thought it was sad. Several others thought it was gross. That didn't stop anybody from playing with the taxidermied rat later on. It is kind of soft and, truth be told, shaped a little like a football (excepting the tail, of course.). At least nobody actually threw it.

Here's a funny mangled english story, courtesy of one of my co-workers: He was talking about his bankrupcy, and mentioned that Nordstrom's had taken him to court because they were "detesting" it (maxed out Nordstrom's card, I assume). I piped up and asked him if he planned to plead "no contest", but he didn't get the hint.

cds I listened to while throwing out the news: Paul Chain "Relative Tapes on cd, vol. 1, 2, and 3"