"Redemption is a messy business."

--from "This American Life" on the radio today.

I've been slacking off after the two exams and one paper and a problem set. (Translation: I haven't done any chemistry problems.) Feels downright luxurious. In reverse order: Littlest guy and I played Rock Band, we made some lamb stew, and I poked around Harvard Square for a while - hey! Harvard beat Yale today in The Game's 125th meeting! Whoo hoo! 10 - 0. With a lot of dropping of the ball because of the incredibly cold wind. Poor babies.

I had a couple of beers after my last exam and ended up talking to a former classmate for a while; a good thing. He pointed out that professors *expect* to be asked to write recommendations, that it's not really an imposition, and I should expect to be nagged via email until I get over my damn self and ask. Sigh.

This week, I'm thankful for friends, family, and school. When I've poked at Harvard's vast institutionalness and asked for things, the answer has almost always been yes. It's nice. It remains to be seen whether they'll let me go to grad school there, and I have some working of my ass off to do in the meantime, but ... gee. So I've been feeling fond of the place, and find myself giving a damn that the Crimson won The Game. Go figure.

Wednesday night brought some (more) drama: Oldest couldn't remember seeing Angus (one of our cats) since the previous evening, and we couldn't find him anywhere. This is the very social cat, who meows at us constantly and jumps on us in bed. No Angus in the attic, the basement, any of the closets, and the other cats seemed distressed and were walking around with us as we searched. Oldest searched around the house; I looked around the trash barrels for the possibly frozen corpse of a cat. Finally I started to search the barn, and there he was, huddled in a corner: poor fellow, he'd been out in the freezing cold for a night and a day and most of another evening, and he was cold and scared. And after I picked him up, very happy. He used to be on the tubby side, but appears to have burned through an enormous amount of body fat just keeping warm enough to stay alive. He's spending a lot of time eating, cuddling with us, and lying in front of the radiators.

It's good to be home.

Also: cookie cookie cookie. Hee. See you.