It's misting outside tonight, just enough to turn all of my windshield dust to a thin layer of mud, which my windshield wipers do their best to smear evenly across my field of vision. Oh, woe. Actually, I quite like the atmosphere created by this kind of weather...

The Dickens was quite active in creating havoc this weekend. We all went to one of the local chain bookstores (because there don't seem to be any local non-chain bookstores left) to pick up some books for the book exchange birthday party that the boys were going to the next day. For some reason, I ended up on the stairs with The Dickens. She didn't want to go upstairs. She didn't want to go downstairs. Okay, she did go upstairs just long enough to snatch an Elmo doll from a shelf. That poor Elmo was soon suffering the indignity of being repeatedly flung down the stairs, his furry little body bouncing off the risers and coming to rest on the landing, again and again. Every time I tried to redirect her attention elsewhere, The Dickens let out a high pitched shriek that probably set dogs to howling for blocks around. I wouldn't know, my ears were ringing. I finally put a stop to this nefarious muppet torture when it became apparent that The Dickens was intent on pushing the hapless doll through the railing and onto the heads of unsuspecting first floor patrons. She was extremely unhappy with me, and let everybody in the bookstore know it. You'd have thought I was attempting to abduct her the way she carried on.

The next day, at the aforementioned party, she was nicely playing with bubbles in the backyard when a bigger boy decided that it would be funny to roar at her through the glass of the sliding door. The Dickens, an old pro at this kind of behavior, roared back. The boy, not realizing who he was messing with, opened the door and tried to intimidate her by roaring in her face. The Dickens swiftly stuck the bubble wand in his eye, thus winning the contest. The boy retreated, tears and bubble solution running down his face.

cds I listened to while peering through mud: Paul Chain/Johar "Split", Ida Kelarova "My Home is Where I Am...", Legend "Still Screaming", and Kristin Hersh "Sunny Border Blue"