monday morning, and miraculously enough, we got three kids off to school; only one was ours. another of ours has dropped out but we haven't given up on him. he's an entirely special kid and i've been a little depressed about how it's turning out. but i must say, he's home, he's not in jail, he's not even causing trouble, and he's eighteen. i should be grateful.

the cold has come in but it is due to warm up again before i think a big halloween chill is coming in. my wife keeps wanting me to leave the hoses out but i, more used to the vagaries of midwest/northern illinois weather, think leaving hoses out is playing with fire. it's an old dispute and my point of view comes from my own add, because of which i'm likely to forget all about them right at the crucial time. she in general is better at this kind of stuff but also tends to not worry about hoses their being my business. to her, why not wait until the last minute, since it's easy to keep track? easy for her to say.

the depression over the state of affairs plus the cold front chilling everything led me again to make my second cup of coffee before the tens even finished, and i'm sitting here, wishing i had my old computer with word on it, so i could be working on my puritan book and printing pamphlets. the charger on that one walked away and i am frozen until i get a new one. finally ordered one on amazon this morning along with some books, but they say it won't arrive until saturday. and, i put it on the wrong card, so my wife has to juggle accounts to make sure it doesn't overdraw. lots of trouble just managing to keep going, but, one way or the other, i'll get this show on the road.

with no puritan book to work on, i'm left to do disney stories, so i'm working on the one with cinderella castle in it. cinderella has to be the epitome of american folk tales, the first one that comes to mind when you mention the word. why is it so popular? what does it say about step-parents and what does it do to their image? and what's all this princess stuff - is everyone enchanted with the idea of being a princess? Maybe this story will address some of these questions.

the puppy is more than eager to occupy my lap on this cold morning - we made the mistake of cutting his hair too short right before the cold weather set in, and the groomer was mad at us for it, as she knew it would cause him to shiver on a morning like this. he's just a little thing and though we always consider his hair to be voluminous and fast-growing, he'll go a week or two before it really fills out and that might be a chilly week or two. right now he's parked right in front of me where i can pet him every ten seconds or so, and that suits us both pretty well.

off to moline later in the day, to fix a car that won't turn off. when the power's on, the key won't go all the way back to its start position, and it just will use up the entire battery sitting there unless you disconnect the battery at the port. well that's a heck of a state of affairs. worth a trip to moline, if nothing else.