I'm Off To Germany Tomorrow To Get The Buxtehude Bulle

So I'm writing this blog entry tonight.

Don't expect coherence. I've already packed it.

First of all, thank you for your thoughtful comments and for voting on the poll. I found the votes really interesting. The majority of both age groups favor keeping Alex alive (so do I at this point), but not by enormous margins.

Poor Alex. My guess is if I'd put up a comparable poll about Horton the cat, a lot more people would have demanded his survival.

Oh, I put something new on the right side of the blog, a link to a really good essay about using Life As We Knew It in a science classroom. My ninth grade science teacher would have been stunned (I flunked Rocks. I'd flunk it again if I took it again).

Here's what I bought for this trip: A coat, a jacket with a lining to double as a pillow, six pairs of socks (I'm only taking five of them; the sixth was a bonus), a pocketbook, a ladybug luggage tag, a passport holder, the most expensive one of those things you need to plug American stuff in European sockets, plastic bags to put little plastic bottles in, and a suitcase, because when I went to pack everything in my suitcase I discovered I didn't own a suitcase. Did you know suitcases can cost $400? I didn't, and I'm relieved to report I found one extremely discounted for $90.

Also I've learned how to say thank you and please and good day and sausage in German. I don't like sausage, so now I know how to avoid it. But since I don't know the names of any other foods, who knows what I'll end up eating.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, my Christmas cactus has six buds, and my Freecell winning streak is at 504. Now that I can undo all bad Freecell moves, it's kind of impossible to lose.

I'm hoping to be able to blog while I'm in Germany, and if I can find where I packed my camera, I'll take pictures to bore you all with when I get back. In the meantime, enjoy yourselves. I know I will!