I forgot to mention in the post below

that I would be traveling this week as well. I was supposed to have two trips, but it looks like today's trip will be the only one after all.

Here's a game for you: Can you guess where I was today? Here is a clue:



And here are some more clues.

How sad is it that I am excited about this result?

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 9/10 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?

I thought I had totally lost my math abilities . . . but this 9/10 excited me!

Maybe I unpacked too quickly . . .

I realized today that before the month of March is over, I will travel to the following places:

Chicago
Oklahoma City
New York City
Oklahoma City
Mesa, Arizona

Hmmm . . .

Cause and Effect.

So a girl has lots of work she should do on a Sunday. In order to kick-start her day, she has a healthy breakfast at her favorite place and peruses the paper.

Before heading home to get to work, she pops in to say a brief hello to good friends who live nearby. They tell her about some new cool organizational tools at Container Store, and before she knows it, she is off with them for a Container Store trip.

A few hours later, she returns home with her Container Store purchases, which include storage holders for her china and a cart with a complex but fun filing system that will help her get organized. She spends a bit of time putting the china in its holders and putting the cart together (never quite getting those caster attachments to fit properly).

It seems silly to have this new filing system in such a messy room, so she puts away her clothes, unpacks the bag from Orlando and washes her bedding. While unpacking the toiletries from her bag, she realizes how truly out of hand her bathroom shelves have become. So, she spends an hour or so organizing them:



(Yes, this IS the cleaned-up version . . . can't you see how like things are grouped together???) Lest you fear for my sanity, you should know that this is primarily a backup . . . filled with backups on the various types of toiletries I use, along with samples of such toiletries I hope to use one day. But I'm hoping that now that I know what is actually in here, I can stop buying things I don't need. For instance, 6 backup antiperspirants whould be enough, one would think.

Along with this project came the cleaning out of the linen closet and all three drawers in the bathroom sink area. This added about an hour to the project. It was worth it, as I found some jewelry I had misplaced that is really important to me.

Now it's nearly 8:00 p.m. and she hasn't worked, showered, taken the dogs for a walk or done any of the other things she wanted to do today. She's hungry, but not sure it's worth the effort to beautify in order to go out for sushi.

But the bathroom really does look lovely.

Pictures for you!

Here is a photo of a new little something I picked up for my desk at home:



I like it . . . it inspires me.

And here are the photos from my business trip to Orlando this week--check them out!

Oh, and here is my post about Christmas night in Paris, which I wrote on the way back from Orlando.

Rethinking my agnostic position.

In recent years, I haven't been so sure there is a God. But that was called into question yesterday, when the deposition I had scheduled for tomorrow was postponed. Not that I would have minded taking it (though it would have necessitated another trip to the hellhole that is Oklahoma City). But here's what I will do instead, precisely at 10:00 a.m.

I am a happy Cubs-loving girl!!!!!

A tough day at work.

Work days like this . . . spent at a resort preparing for a client presentation there . . . make the soul-sucking 13-hour administrative-packed days subside a bit in importance. This was my office today:



Here is the hotel's photo of its bay:

Top Ten Things I Hate About Air Travel

I am writing from the fine state of Florida, but more on that later. On the way here, I developed a list. I adore travel, but air travel has some definite downsides and I encountered each and every one of them on this trip. I found that it lowered my blood pressure to write about these things.

Without further ado:

1. People who cough in the airport or on the plane without covering their mouth, especially when they cough on my hair or my back or in the air I'm about to walk through;
2. People who do not help streamline the security process by taking off their shoes or removing required items from their bags;
3. TSA personnel who apply different "clothing rules" to men and women, forcing women to disrobe under conditions when men are allowed to pass without doing so;
4. Airline personnel who selectively apply the baggage size rules;
   
5. People who place all their bags in the overhead bins without putting any bag under the seat in front of them;
6. People who automatically recline their seats even when they are not sleeping;
7. People who make calls on their cell phones from the plane, just to say, "I'm on the plane";
8. Parents whose children pick their noses, depositing the product on the plane;
9. People who hold up the plane by arriving incredibly late; and
10. Listening to "Generic White Guy Talk," with comments like, "You'll be sitting on your porch with a shotgun."
    

Crash.

Tonight I watched the movie Crash, which is up for a few Academy Awards, including Best Picture:



I want to watch it again without delay, because I feel like I'll learn even more by watching it yet again. This movie is about all of the negative qualities in us and all the good qualities in us and the myriad of aspects of us that fall in between. It is about class and race and the choices we make in dealing with everyday problems. It is about how those choices affect the lives of others and that feelings they have as a result. This is a truly splendid movie, with excellent acting by Don Cheadle and Matt Dillon and Ryan Phillipe and others . . . including Sandra Bullock, in a role unlike any I have ever seen her play.

I felt as if I lived a scene from this movie today, when an elderly Hispanic man came to fix my furnace. The house was so cold that icicles were nearly developing when he arrived. He was able to quickly get to the cause of the problem and fix it; along the way, he saw a few other issues that needed to be addressed. One was a safety issue--a gadget that cuts off the flame of the furnace if it escapes its fiery hole. Apparently, the company I used to use removed that gadget and did not replace it. The man not only replaced it; he told me eight times if he told me once how important that piece is, that he was replacing mine for free and that I must notify the other company of their error in removing it. I appreciated his efforts very much--particularly because I have been through one house fire and will do everything in my power to avoid having another--but my patience did begin to wear a bit thin on the seventh reiteration of his thoughts on the issue. I realized after a while that he really wanted validation and profusely expressed gratitude for his efforts; I hope I was able to give him that.

Anyway, if you haven't seen Crash, please do. I know you will find it thought-provoking.

What the Natives Do

For those of you wondering what a winter weekend in Dallas might be like, here's a photo of it:



Yes, it is approximately 30 degrees outside, and there was ice on my windshield this morning. One of the dangers of ice in Dallas is that because it is so rare, no one carries an "ice scraper" in the car. Being the enterprising soul I am, I used the lid of a large plastic mug to clear my windshield of its icy veil.

For those of you wondering what people in Dallas do for fun, here's one option:

Last night, I had the good fortune to be invited to a Robert Earl Keen concert at Billy Bob's in Fort Worth. My friend won tickets to the concert by calling a radio station at an ungodly hour of the morning; she kindly shared one of those tickets with me. Two good omens began our evening: (1) it was supposed to rain ice (also known as sleet), but didn't; and (2) we saw the sign for this fine establishment upon reaching Fort Worth:



You just don't see many businesses owned and named by a "Lisa," what with my name having completely lost its popularity right around the time I received it. We struck gold again by finding excellent parking near Billy Bob's, complete with a parking attendant dressed like someone attending a Bears game at Soldier Field in Chicago in the dead of winter.

Inside the honky tonk and dance hall, there was quite a scene to be seen. What you see here is dancers under a sparkly saddle that substitutes for the traditional disco ball:



The number of dancers increased exponentially when the "Cotton-Eyed Joe" was played:



Although this picture, of drunk girls posing on a fake steed, is very blurry, I still like it a lot:



My camera phone doesn't hold a candle to my Nikon, but it does its best in the face of limited lighting and the rush to take a photo before the professional photographer can get mad at an amateur one.

Going to Billy Bob's last night reminded me of the significant role women played in the Old West. Put simply, the women ruled Billy Bob's! Two particularly funny women reigned supreme on the dance floor, trying out kicky moves and tailoring their pantomimes to the song lyrics. There apparently wasn't a self-conscious thought in their heads at the fact that they were the only same-sex pair on the floor--they were just having fun! So were the numerous seriously drunk women who populated the ladies' rooms at Billy Bob's. A particularly brave woman permitted her oh-so-confident male dance partner to spin her around the floor (literally) by her wrist and ankle when he wasn't propelling her around in upright circles at a speed and with an arm angle that reminded one of an airplane preparing for takeoff.

The Keen concert almost seemed like an afterthought in light of the great people-watching we had already experienced. But we partook and the music was great! He played several of my old favorites, including "The Road Goes On Forever" and "Gringo Honeymoon."

A nice finishing touch to the night was our encounter with a few band guys in our parking lot. No, not that kind of encounter! We noticed the oddity of these appropriately ragged and cool-looking band guys having a "W" sticker in the back window of the big white truck into which they were loading equipment. In a move that shows the spirit of adventurousness that is one of my friend's most excellent qualities, she encouraged me in my desire to quiz the guys about the cause of this cognitively dissonant choice. The less ragged of the two boys, asked, "Why does a cool band guy like you admire George Bush?," said, "W Rocks!!!" Given his deeply thoughtful answer, we concluded that W makes him feel like one of his own is in charge of things. The other guy, who had long, curly black hair reminiscent of a youthful Howard Stern, said he works in an oil warehouse and that the warehouse is empty when a Democrat is in the White House. We probably should have asked him if he was old enough to legally work in an oil warehouse the last time a Democrat was in the White House, but instead accepted his self-serving, but at least rational, answer as being superior to that of his dimwit buddy. And thus ended our Friday night outing in the West.

The essence of love.

In this, my 200th post on my blog, posted on Valentine's Day, I wanted to write about the true essence of love. I am without words for that tonight, and could not top the ones I am going to borrow from the exquisite Marjorie Williams. So, here is Marjorie's last column for the Washington Post, written a few months before she died far too soon, of liver cancer, just over a year ago:

I was the one who insisted on the body glitter. Normally, you understand, I am a mother who pulls her daughter's shirt down and tucks it into her waistband every morning to keep her from showing her navel to the whole third grade. I make her scrub the supposedly water-soluble unicorn tattoos off her cheeks before she goes to school. I court her wrath by refusing to buy the kids' fashions that seem designed to clothe tiny hookers.

But after all, this was Halloween, the holiday that celebrates license. (A fifth KitKat bar after 9 p.m.? Why not?) Alice was determined to be a rock star, and I was happy to help her. Simple enough.

Yet my joy in conspiring with her felt so big. Usually I'm not much of a Halloween enthusiast, not since I was 13 or so. For a while, having children of my own brought me a new version of the old childhood thrill. One year Will came home from preschool and told me he'd learned about a new Halloween creature, one that lurches through the night swathed in flapping bandages.

"Oh," I said casually. "What's it called?"

"The MOMMIES!" he announced, with much more excitement than dismay.

But my delight lasted for only a few years before I returned to thinking of Halloween as just a silly, gaudy night that strains at symbolism -- the floozy among the family of big holidays. I thought, for a while, that I had simply buckled under the demands of Costume Hell. ("I want to be a computer, but also my feet will be, like, a robot, and you can make me a head with glowing red eyes and a voice like Darth Vader.") But that explanation has become less and less convincing: At 11 and almost-9, after all, the kids have more and more fun making their own costumes, with minimal help. Really, I think that I'm just not one of those people who easily climbs into fantasy and achieves flight.

Recently, after my dear cousin Sally spent a night guarding my sleep in the hospital, we talked about the one part of the experience I remembered as clearly as she. When I'd finally taken aboard enough pain medicine to dull the effects of the procedure I'd just been through, I'd said clearly, out of my cloud of Dilaudid, "I love all these random thoughts. All my life I've worked so hard to get words and sentences into line. They had to have a point. I love floating along on all these random thoughts."

It made me hugely sad to see that my escapes from the taskmistress of literalism are still so rare and hard-won. And in the days before this Halloween, it was especially hard for me to avoid interpreting its elements too bluntly. If you have cancer, if you've had it for a while, at some point you start really seeing all those skulls and skeletons and Styrofoam headstones, all those children in hooded capes, bearing scythes on their little shoulders.

So how could I explain the euphoria of the 45 minutes Alice and I spent in her bedroom, colluding over her hair, giggling at her faux-leather, deeply fringed bell-bottoms? The pleasure of watching her strap on those awful silver platform shoes, like something I wore in 1973?

Because Alice was getting picked up to join friends for trick-or-treating, I kept my eye on the clock, and shooed her into the bathroom just in time to add make-up: grown-up lipstick, a layer of shimmery lip gloss over that, and an overall, emphatic scribble, on her neck and face, with the body-glitter crayon. Every other day of the year, any mother knows that glitter is the work of Satan, but last Sunday it lit her skin with a dew of every color.

We could hear her friends pull up to the curb. As her momentum carried her to the top of the stairs, Alice looked back and tossed me a radiant smile. She had become my glimmering girl: She looked like a rock star. She looked like a teenager. She looked absolutely stunning. She thundered down the stairs in those shoes, and as the front door slammed behind her, it came to me -- what fantasy I had finally, easily entered this Halloween.

I'd just seen Alice leave for her prom, or her first real date. I'd cheated time, flipping the calendar five or six years into the future. The character I'd played was the 52-year-old mother I will probably never be.

It was effortless.

I thought of this column this weekend when I spent time with my friends' three daughters. Not that I think death is on the immediate horizon for me . . . I certainly hope it isn't. But when I spend time with these sweet, smart, funny and surprising girls, I feel like I'm stealing moments of the parenting experience I will never have for myself. When I received their valentines in my mailbox today, I was reminded again of how lucky I am to know them and how grateful I am to their parents for their generosity in sharing that experience with me.

Happy Valentine's Day!

And, for reading material until I can make a more Valentiney post, here is a story about heart, and the lack thereof by the White House:

While the White House jokes about Cheney's shooting of his hunting buddy, the buddy has been found to have buckshot in his heart that led to him suffering a heart attack today.

If only the White House Press Corps put this kind of dogged effort into their questions of Scott McClelland regarding issues like the elusive weapons of mass destruction, etc. . . .

A visual aid for Cheney's future hunting trips

A true classic, created by fubar, found via boing boing.

In case you missed it this weekend,

I have updated my photoblog to contain more of my Christmas Day activities in Paris, when I met characters like Luc Skywalquer and his little brother at the Parc des Vosges:



I hope you'll check it out!

I am so proud of myself!

(This is a fake income tax return photo found on the internet--NOT MINE.)

In Internal Revenue Service circles, I am what is known as a "late filer." I always have overpaid my income tax and am owed a refund, but due to my slackerism in all matters personal, the federal government has traditionally received the benefit of free use of my money for several additional months. Typically, I miss the April 15th deadline and obtain an extension through August 15th, but last year was such a horror that I believe I even obtained an additional brief extension beyond August.

Hatred of one's government has the power to motivate even the most lazy tax filer, however. I am sure this is the case, because due to my determination not to let this administration have a penny more of my money than they insist upon, I have completed my tax return a record-setting (for me) 2 months before the deadline!

Yes, folks, it is true. Pats on the back are much appreciated, although the satisfaction of a deed well done is quite enough for me.

TO CLARIFY:

Under normal circumstances, I have no problem with the government taking some of my money and using it to make our country better. However, this administration will use it for things like a war based on false pretenses, shovel it to "faith-based" groups I do not support and throw it at fraud artists posing as Katrina victims because the government is too incompetent to audit the process of awarding funds at the most basic level. So, yes, right now I DO have a problem letting the government take my money or have free use of it for any period of time.

Quick Pre-Dinner Meme of Quatre

Here it is:

FOUR JOBS I'VE HAD:

1. corn detassler for DeKalb-Pfizer Genetics . . . I rose to the lofty position of bus supervisor (the pinnacle position of the detassling industry) before hanging up my shorts and t-shirt;
   
2. photographer's assistant/telemarketer of senior photos/putter-together of wedding proof books for a local photographer;
   
3. sales clerk at Pool-a-Rama; and
   
4. nighttime worker at a detention center.
   

FOUR MOVIES I CAN WATCH OVER AND OVER:

1. Philadelphia Story
2. You've Got Mail
3. Breakfast at Tiffany's
4. Broadcast News

FOUR PLACES I'VE LIVED:

1. Plano, Illinois
2. Georgetown, Texas
3. Austin, Texas
4. Houston, Texas
5. Dallas, Texas (okay, all five)
   

FOUR TV SHOWS I LOVE:

I do not have television--not cable or regular TV, anyway. But here are shows I loved when I did:

1. Sex and the City
2. Six Feet Under
3. Seinfeld
4. Curb Your Enthusiasm
   

FOUR PLACES I'VE VACATIONED:

1. Paris
2. Greece
3. Santa Fe, New Mexico
4. Boston, MA

FOUR OF MY FAVORITE DISHES:

1. anything Tex-Mex from Chuy's
2. sushi
3. an excellent filet mignon with mushrooms
4. my mother's lasagne

FOUR BLOGSITES I VISIT DAILY:

1. http://www.cubs.com/
   
2. http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/
3. http://www.aclutx.org/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/

FOUR PLACES I WOULD RATHER BE RIGHT NOW:

1. Exploring Asia, including but not limited to Japan, China and Thailand
2. Watching the Cubs win the World Series
   
3. Road-tripping through France and Italy
4. in New York, preparing to go to the opera and a late romantic dinner.
   

One benefit of my anti-social mood today

is that I took the time to complete one more photoblog post about my Christmas trip to Paris. This one describes my walk through the charming Marais neighborhood of Paris and includes sights like this:





I hope you will check it out!

I am in a bad mood today.

I woke up early, ready to take on the day, but instead spent my morning waiting for a furnace repair company to arrive. They are now 2 hours late and offended that I would even raise a question about their actual arrival time. I told them not to bother coming to my house.

In addition to this, I now realize that someone was fishing for information from me so that they could feed it to someone else. I wondered about this at the time, but told myself not to be paranoid, that people are better than one normally gives them credit for being. Turns out, my instinct was right. Why can't all people be nice and straightforward and decent?

Instead of waiting for furnace repair or stewing over the fact that people are not what I wish they were, I am going to go have breakfast at my favorite place, read a great book and then try to finish my Paris posts before the trip is completely out of my head. Maybe thinking about it will restore my good spirits. I feel a "Lisa Day" coming on . . . haven't had one of those in a while!

Sorry for the blogging drought . . .

I have a big work thing today and have been busy preparing. More this weekend! In the meantime, here's a Paris pic to tide you over:

This is why Americans don't know what's happening.

One of the upsides/downsides of travel is that I typically receive USA Today in the hotel. It reminds me of why so many Americans have no idea what the Bush Admininstration is up to. Today's issue is no exception.

You know the Congressional hearing that is taking place concerning the Bush Administration's illegal wiretapping of average citizens? Well, USA Today relegated that to page 7 of the print version, using the not-quite-accurate title of "Lawmakers Doubtful on Surveillance." No one who questioned A.G. Gonzales yesterday, not even Arlen Specter (well, except for some Republican toady who talks as if he is leading the Confederacy in a Civil War movie), "doubted" that the surveillance the Administration has undertaken is illegal. Even in the online version of the paper, the headline is repeated, though this time on the "front page."

If you're interested, here is how real papers report on an important issues like infringement on our Constitutional rights:

New York Times
Washington Post

I am sad to say that the Chicago Tribune, usually one of the top papers in my book, has buried this story. But then, their editorial came out in favor of Bush in 2004, so I shouldn't be surprised.



(Photo courtesy of http://reclaimdemocracy.org)

Just when I thought Oklahoma City

could not possibly offer me any new delights, this fine city has surprised me again. Yes, it's true!

Oklahoma City has many distinguishing characteristics, such as its amazingly liberal . . . use of the color brown (what did you think I was going to say), a collection of cab drivers in which nearly every single one offers passengers his theory on how to do a better job of blowing up the federal courts building and consistently, stunningly, bad service at the nicest hotel in town. I thought there was nothing that this Very Special Town could offer me that I had not experienced before.

But tonight, as I inhaled my first deep breath of Oklahoma City air while striding from the airport to my rental car, I was treated to the olfactory equivalent of a Tiffany diamond: the sweet, clean smell of skunk:



The scent was so vivid, so untainted by any other smell, such as exhaust or smoke or, well, air, that I wondered briefly if a cargo flight of skunks had landed at the same time as my flight from Dallas. But then I realized I was too hungry to investigate and needed to beat a quick path to my hotel before room service called it a night.

Then, while I was waiting to check into my hotel, I thought I heard the gaggle of women next to me say they are here for a Mary Kay Convention. God, I hope not. But it would give me something to write about, that's for sure.

In other news, Anthony Hopkins is on Jon Stewart tonight, and he could not be cuter (either of them, really).

This is why I wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night.

Via the always-spectacular Dan Froomkin comes this story he found in the New Yorker. Apparently, Michael Gerson, the former speechwriter/now senior policy adviser to Bush, was asked to share with a group of ex-White House speechwriters something it didn't know about Bush:

"Gerson, in a quavering voice, responded with a story that left some of his audience nonplussed. He described a call that he got moments after Bush finished addressing a joint session of Congress on September 20, 2001. Bush thanked Gerson for his work on the speech, to which Gerson replied, 'Mr. President, this is why God wants you here.' Gerson then related Bush's response, as evidence of his thoughtfulness. 'The President said, 'No, this is why God wants us here.''

"An uncomfortable silence filled the room, and then one of Bill Clinton's speechwriters said, in a stage whisper, 'God must really hate Al Gore.' "

So much for the road trip!

Instead of driving to Houston this weekend, I flew. The story of that change in plans, and of what I did in Houston, is found here, on my other blog. Here is a picture from the trip to tantalize you:



In case you are wondering what I think of Houston as compared to Dallas, I'll just say you would never find this fun and funky kind of place in Dallas.

UPDATE:

Incidentally, I forgot to include in my travel post regarding this trip a description of two interesting passengers on my return flight. One of them, a very early 20-something girl with unnaturally blonde hair, sorority letters on her canvas tote bag and a petite figure clad in, among other things, skin-tight jeans and heels, came dashing up to the gate just after her group had boarded. As she came running up, our young friend took a pull from a freshly opened bottle of beer. She was ready to throw her drink away at the gate when the flight attendant told her she couldn't take it on the plane, but received a reprieve to take it as far as the other end of the jetway. So our maiden swigged indelicately from the bottle as she speed walked toward the plane, so rapidly that it was nearly empty by the time she reached the door of the plane. Having successfully run the "beer gauntlet," our heroine settled into a seat next to a similarly-aged friend with a large Louis Vuitton purse and matching tote.

Each of them ordered "Wine. White." when the flight attendant took drink orders before takeoff, courteously letting her know in advance that they would also expect refills before the plane landed. The pair chatted enthusiastically and nonstop (with one exception I will describe below) throughout the entire hour-long flight in voices strangely reminiscent of the "valley girl" talk popularized in the 80's, covering such wide-ranging topics as shopping, travel to Mexico for spring break, shopping, their Moms and shopping. When those topics ran dry (who thought that was possible?), they compared aloud the prices paid for the various items of clothing they were wearing. I can only wonder what the normal-looking 40-ish African-American woman sitting next to them thought of this scintillating and soul-wrenching conversation.

At one point, the beer-swigger trotted off to use the facilities; more than a few heads followed, then exchanged confused looks, as her seatmate sprang up and joined her in the tiny airplane bathroom. They stayed in there for several minutes before returning to their seats. Just when one thought additional entertainment from these two would be too much to ask, they launched into the topic of comparing their respective family histories of poverty, with the beer swigger declaring that her mother "grew up poor, just like Johnny Cash," and the seatmate countering with, "My Mom came from money, but they still shopped at Wal-Mart. She was smart like that, like my Grandma." Not to be outdone, the beer swigger described with pride her mother's recent purchase of pants that were originally $450, but were marked down to only $45 . . . "on a half price sale!"

And with that, I was ushered back into the Dallas city limits. Hope you had a great weekend!

Spring plans!

Typically, I am the queen of the Last Minute Plan. But I find that I have a fair number of plans already in place for the spring, all of which make me very excited! I thought I would share them with you here. This is what I have on tap for the spring:

My first-ever trip to Disney, where I will spend one glorious day before a business meeting later this month:



In March, I have two fun events planned . . . a Sheryl Crow concert with friends:



and a long weekend at the Cubs' spring training in Mesa, Arizona, capped by a Cubs game against the World Champion Chicago White Sox:



Then in April, I will see the great David Sedaris at a charming theater in Dallas, with some great friends:

Oh good lord.

I finished the Dreaded Document today. I feel free, free as the wind, that is, if the wind was tethered to the ground with a 40-pound weight. Because there is more work for me tomorrow . . . actually, the next many tomorrows.

But right now, the prospect of a full night of unsullied sleep is so tantalizing that I feel like it's the first time . . . I mean, well, you know. Although I am tired as tired can be, I'm not ready to go to bed yet. I just want to savor the prospect of going to bed.

My friend at work called me "punchy" today. I think she was right!

UPDATE:

I know you must be dying for an update on the orgasmic nature of my sleep last night, meaning whether it measured up to expectations. My sleep was blissful and dreamless. But strangely, it came to a screeching halt when I awoke at 5 am, a full 3 hours before my alarm clock was scheduled to wake me. So I got a drink, put a movie on in the background and went back to bed. I fell asleep right away but still had a hard time waking at 8. And, to my even greater surprise, I was even more punchy this afternoon than I was yesterday. Apparently, I have not yet replenished the sleep well to its satisfaction. So I'm home now, drinking a glass of wine, and planning to fill that well to overflowing tonight.

UPDATE II:

If you're interested, I just updated my reading list. That last book was a bit difficult to get through, but I hope to pick up the pace now!