I received an e-mail from a man named Duncan who lives in Calgary. He wrote to say that I was mentioned on a national radio show called Adler OnLine today. Apparently, Charles Adler was interviewing the man behind motormouth.ca — he's an auto reviewer — and the man said he'd tried to buy the motormouth.com domain name from me.

I have no recollection of his offer, but I get e-mails about every six months from people who want to buy it, so the offers kind of run together.

I wrote him back and thanked him for the information. I also told him, “I've actually been to Calgary — a children's chorus I was in performed at the Stampede when I was in eighth grade. It was a great trip until we stumbled upon the campground of serial killer Charles Ng. Thankfully, he wasn't home at the time.”

Also wrote to the Adler OnLine people, to find out if I could get a transcript or .mp3 of the interview.

OK, back to watching “Wiggle Bay” with Lex, who finally decided to wake up from his nap!

Dear God: I'm sorry I called you “stupid.” Please don't let my tantrum affect Mom's home-escrow closing tomorrow. Thank You. Amen.

If you want to make some really good chocolate-chip cookies, buy some almonds and toast them for five minutes, letting them cool before you chop 'em up and mix them into the cookie batter. Trust me on this one.

I just sent three dozen milk-chocolate-chip-and-toasted-almond cookies to Chico via UPS Next Day Air Saver. Not gonna tell you how much it cost. I figure it's 1/6th the price of an airline ticket.

My beautiful funny friend Shannon King, in whose honor Monstro and I Relayed-for-Life the other week, died on Saturday.

I am heartbroken.

Shannon and her husband Phil advised the junior-high youth group at our Chico church the same year I advised the high-school group. We coordinated a junior/senior high VBS class and put on a great skit at the end of it, about the worshiping of a golden idol. One of our seventh graders dolled herself up in a shimmering toga. I fell at her feet. Shannon pulled me away.

“Now, we don't worship golden idols,” Shannon admonished me.

“But it's so shiiiiny!” I whined.

“Come on, now. You know the better way,” she said.

We also took the high-school group to see the movie “Saved.” She and I howled all the way through it.

“When that character said she'd rather have cancer than be pregnant, I just wanted to give her a hug and take her home,” Shannon said as we left the theater.

Her service will probably be on Thursday, but I can't go because I'm pregnant and stuck in stupid Massachusetts.

Stupid Massachusetts. Stupid cancer. Stupid God.

We have two black cats. The little sleek one with the gimpy leg is mine: Jasmine (aka the Jazzy-cat). Tang is our big fuzzy; she answers only to Monstro. We got them both as adult cats from the local no-kill shelter and they are a joy and delight.

The last time I got pregnant, Jazzy wouldn't get off of me. Any time I sat down, she'd be on my ever-reducing lap. This time, though, it's Tang who has been most aware.

They've both been through what I'm going through, so I think they're somewhat empathetic. Tang and Jazz both had a litter of kittens in the lives they had before coming to our homes. Tang's adoption paperwork included a report from her foster family that she was a very good momma. It doesn't surprise me — she's the cat who would run to get me when baby Lex started crying.

(We got no such report about Jazzy-cat, leading us to believe that 1) she wasn't in a foster home when she gave birth and 2) her kittens probably met no good end.)

In a not-unrelated aside, Monstro and I keep a plastic shopping bag of unmatched socks under our bed. Every six months or so we go through the bag to find matches — don't laugh, last week we found five pairs!

We thought to match up the socks because a lot of them have found their way into our kitchen as of late. At first, I figured it was Lex playing around…

…Until tonight, when Monstro and Lex and Mom and I were eating dinner and I saw Tang, carrying a black sock in her mouth. Then she dropped it on the kitchen floor and began crying over it.

As I type this (from my office, which is also in the kitchen), the floor behind me is littered with socks.

Poor Tang.