Greetings from flu and snot central! Jackson's been home from school with the coughing and barfing for nine days now and we're starting to demonstrate that patient/caregiver dynamic where the patient resents his dependence and raises himself from his trench on the couch and screams I HATE YOU! at his caregiver every ten or fifteen minutes, while his caregiver comes this close to throwing a GoBot at him and walking out the door, after giving careful instructions to the dog on how to administer a one-and-a-half-teaspoon dose of cough syrup every four hours.

I have to say, for the amazing lack of personal time I've had since weekend before last I'm only a day behind in answering e-mails and a week behind on mailing out t-shirts. Which just goes to show you what my life priorities are: #1 = Wrap child in blanket and place gently in front of television, and #2 = RUN TO COMPUTER.

After all my bragging about beads, Jim sent me a nice e-mail and asked me if I'd be willing to take a commission to bead him a WWJDD bracelet. Yes: a "What Would Joan Didion Do?" bracelet. I declined, feeling flattered that he'd assume I was skilled enough to weave little seed beads into interesting patterns on a loom of tiny threads. He forged out on his own and e-mailed me back, saying he'd found what he was looking for, those chunky little beads with letters on them, so never mind. Oh, miscommunication, how I love thee. There I was, telling him I had no idea how to do what he wanted, and he was all, Whoa, okay, I didn't realize putting beads on a string was so, uh, complicated.

Yeah, well, here is the result of the previous barf-free weekends' crafty work. For Christmas, though, I'm totally going to figure out how to make summer camp Indian craft belts for everyone.