I hurt my back on Sunday and, until I found some 800 mg fake Motrin pills this morning, was hobbling around like the old woman who lived in a shoe, if the old woman who lived in a shoe only had one child but that child was very heavy and insisted on being picked up all the time. It was stupid, all I did was pull a door closed. But it's almost never what you do, it's that your back was just waiting for an excuse. Ironically, I had just mailed a book to my father, whose back also just went out, called Healing Back Pain. The author believes that many people with back pain don't have anything physically wrong with them, and that back pain is the mind's way of diverting attention from the real (mental, emotional) problem. I can tell you that the other three times I have been knocked out with back pain have accompanied (1) a change in job and a moving-in with a boyfriend, (2) a father-in-law-to-be dying of cancer, and (3) going to Mexico on vacation when I didn't want to go because I don't really like going to Mexico. So, of what am I in fearful denial right now? Root canal? Being pressured by in-laws to have another baby when I don't think I ever want to give birth again, despite the fact that it went fine that one time I did it? Still being mad about losing my job, though I should be over it by now, especially since I just qualified for extended unemployment benefits? All of the above, plus the whole apartment still smells like onions from Jack's Jacques Pepin moment in the kitchen last night and I am still not quite up to hauling out the garbage. And who suffers? The children.

Funniest thing that happened this weekend: Jackson sneezing with a mouthful of cottage cheese.

Second funniest thing: Taking Jackson to the Santa Barbara Kennel Club Dog Show at the Earl Warren Showgrounds. (Yes, that Earl Warren, the one who headed the commission that determined that a lone gunman with a magically ricocheting bullet killed JFK. But that's not the funny part.) Dogs running around in the ring and being judged wasn't that interesting to Jackson, it was too far away, even though there were big, highly visible Irish wolfhounds. But outside on the grounds where people were grooming their dogs and just hanging out we ran into a couple with two English bulldogs, Clyde and Spot. Clyde was the most perfect little gentleman bulldog I've ever met, no drool, no attitude, just sixty pounds of pure love, but he had that classic need to bury his nose in someone's crotch, and the crotch he picked was Jackson's three-hour-old-diaper crotch. I've never seen a look of such pure confusion on a child's face, but I'm sure he'll get that all straightened out by the time puberty rolls around.

We also took Jackson to the basketball court to show him how it's done. Yes, mommy can still make a nice right-handed layup, even when doubled over in pain, but daddy can't dunk for shit anymore, at least not without hurting himself. And check out the silver Nike baby sneaks! Dad's got on some nifty blue Puma Californias, I see. We *heart* outlet shopping and wearing last year's rejected fashion, because it still looks good on us.