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Some good things that've happened recently:

• Had lunch with Susan G, whom I hadn't seen in much too long.
• Had dinner with Naomi B (a couple weeks ago; forgot to mention it at the time), whom I also hadn't seen in much too long (except in group social events).
• Have had a couple of nice long phone conversations with various people recently (for example, finally got to talk with Mary Anne for more than a few minutes, for the first time since she left for Sri Lanka), and the beginning of a renewed email conversation after too long a lapse.
• Finally got around to paying some long-delayed bills, and only one had a late fee associated with it, and even that wasn't as much as I'd feared.
• Got a bunch of CDs: three albums by James Gordon (from Borealis) (and the prices are in Canadian dollars, so they're not as high as they look to the uninitiated American eye), and a used CD of Scatterlings, my favorite Juluka album (it was one of the dozen CDs that disappeared on a visit to Salt Lake City a few years back, and I've had a hard time finding a replacement copy). Turns out you can buy the non-US version of Scatterlings from a South African website, along with all of Juluka's and Johnny Clegg's other albums, but the shipping costs are very high and the shipping time is long and even though there's only one song different I kinda wanted the same American version I'd had before. So I requested it used at Amazon, where the average price was about $20 but that's still less than shipping from South Africa, and lo! almost immediately someone sold me one for under $5. (A price so low I was sure it must be the single, but no, it's the whole album.) I'm dubious about used CDs—I figure chances are fairly good that someone made a copy before selling it—but then again, I did already buy this album (it was the first CD I ever owned, before I had a CD player, my sophomore year in college; I had to ask Jonathan W to tape it for me so I could listen to it), and I wouldn't be replacing it if my iTunes ripped copies of the songs hadn't somehow gotten corrupted or lost right around the time the CD disappeared.
• Speaking of music, I've also found a bunch of good stuff at the iTunes Music Store lately. At some point I hope to institute an occasional feature where I link to the latest songs I've bought from there, but too sleepy to start that tonight.
• My birthday present for Kam (it's her birthday next week) was a five-DVD set of the whole series of James Burke's amazing 1978 TV show Connections. I was very pleased to find it (thanks, Leif!). I'm hoping she'll let me watch them too; I think I only ever saw about two or three of the programs. Anyway, I had been mildly concerned about giving my credit card number to some random company on the web that I'd never heard of, but the DVDs arrived fairly promptly and apparently in good shape.
• Dobe sent some photos, including the one here that I just couldn't resist posting. I believe that's me. Apparently I did know how to use a slide rule at one point. . . . I suspect that there's a Pinky & the Brain joke to be made, but I've never seen the show so I'm not sure.
• Speaking of mice, this evening the mouse took the piece of cookie that's been sitting half inside the trap for the past several days. I'm hoping that the lack of repercussions will embolden it to go all the way into the trap after the other pieces of cookie there. But I won't hold my breath.
• We've sent about 120 rejections in the past week. I realize that may not sound like a good thing to y'all authors, but it's at least better than us sending those same rejections a week later, no?
• WisCon continues to impend.
• We've had plenty of sunshine, and I've been riding my bike to work, and I juggled the other day for the first time in at least two months. I even got to pass my shiny new clubs with another juggler at work; I wasn't in top form (and didn't want to risk hurting my back by sudden crouches to pick up dropped clubs), but it was really nice anyway. And it was warm enough and light enough that we could juggle outside, and I discovered that one of the new clubs flashes brilliantly shiny rainbow reflections in all directions when hit by sunlight while spinning. Shiny!
• A friend sent me a very silly photo of herself that I may ask for permission to post at some point 'cause it cheered me right up.
• I've learned a lot about cars, though so far it hasn't made the decision of what to get any easier. (I forgot to mention that the biggest problem I had with the Civic hybrid was an annoying constant high-pitched whining noise the whole time I was driving. The dealer said that's just the way the car sounds, but I wonder if he was right. Jenn, does yours do that?)
• My roses are blooming. (At first I wrote "blooing.") Perhaps I'll post some photos of those when I post photos of my car, to provide some balance.
• Had she lived, Katharine Hepburn would have been 98 today. And J. M. Barrie would've been 145 this past Monday. The fact that they're no longer with us isn't the good part, of course, but I do think their lives are worth celebrating, and birthday are a good occasion for that. (Finding Neverland is on its way to me via Netflix even as I type.)