OK, I have uploaded a recent pic of our little guy — look to your right. He's wearing an authentic Mexican wedding shirt (guayabera) that we bought in San Antonio. Pretty appropriate, considering the picture was taken at my father's wedding. One of the guests said our boy had “the best shirt in the place!” Love it.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately but I've been working. Updates on my book Living in Northampton and Amherst are going swimmingly — I even got to talk to the police chief in my town yesterday. And on the 11th I had a meeting with a repeat marketing client that ended with him writing me a check for many hundreds of dollars. Should help to keep the wolf from the door — at least until next week, when I head to the eye doctor. I'm thinking I should have just endorsed the check to the optical shop where I will need to purchase at least one, if not two, pairs of glasses.

So that's what's going on here. We're starting a new group on Fridays with the ladies and another couple Monstro knows from Warhammer 40k. Yes, we're getting geekier in our old age. I didn't think that was possible!

Huh. So Britney managed to show up to Vegas and open the VMAs. Too bad she forgot to wear clothes. She spent most of her performance looking like she was trying not to get sick. Hey, me too!

The great thing about the Internet is that people who you knew a lifetime ago can get in touch with you. Of course, this is also the major drawback of the Internet.

When I was single, I dated quite a bit. I met this one guy, David, at my buddy Brad's pool party. He became infatuated and sent me an acrostic poem. I don't remember what the acrostic was, though I do remember it was misspelled.

I sent him an acrostic poem of my own (the acrostic in mine was “TYPO?”). He invited me to lunch at Oracle, where he worked and also led the Oracle employee choir. After realizing he wasn't going to have the sopranos warm up, I never saw him again. You ALWAYS warm up the sopranos.

I blogged about it at the time (I think this was 2001). Hadn't heard from him in a dog's age until last week, when he invited me to join GoodReads.com, a book website.

“I'm writing Limericks now! (Clean ones only, I swear). Are you still the hot pool party chick you were when we met in 2001?” he asked in his invitation e-mail.

I wrote back: Yup, still hot — at least, my husband thinks so. Our baby thinks I'm pretty OK, too!

His reply? “Now that's one baby I'm jealous of! =-)”

Is he jealous of the baby's intimate knowledge of my netherregions, or the whole nursing thing? In any regard, I'm totally squicked out by the whole thing. And then he went on to say that he himself is MARRIED. What a slimebag.

I've never posted someone's e-mail address on my blog for for revengeful redress purposes, but I gotta admit, I'm sorely, sorely tempted.

(In the meanwhile, however, I'm enjoying goodreads.com and invite you to join — I'm listed there as Motormouth.)

What the h@ll happened to La Victoria Taqueria? We stopped there for some orange sauce on our way from the airport and it was closed! Is it gone for good???

Yeah, yeah, I know I should finish Count of Three before going on to another play, but I was inspired by the headlines while away on vacation. And, I want to submit something for this year's National 10-Minute Play Contest. Sooo, my new one-act is called Dogs. The characters are Phillips, Peace, and Vick — and three dogs, played by actors. I've got a page and a half so far, but the rest of it is mapped out in my head.

If celebrities would stop embodying cautionary tales, I'd be happy to stop writing them, honest!

I'll be posting about our vacation in dribs and drabs as I get the time. Here's how the trip to Chico went:

We left Mom's shortly after noon a week ago Saturday. Successfully navigated the super-tricky quicky-dicky back way through the rice fields and almond orchards, and made it to Lucille and Jeff's shortly after four (we stopped for lunch in Cordelia, where Monstro put premium gas in my dad's generously loaned, 3-month old Mercedes). They weren't home, so we keyed in the code and cautiously led Lex into their living room, where they display many of their collectibles. Our hosts arrived home from a wedding reception shortly thereafter and Jeff busied himself by cleaning their hall closet, because once he got through to the hamper of their sons' and grandchildren's toys he figured he might as well pull everything out. I don't know his final tally of decorative outdoor flags, though 23 umbrellas plus three more (“a bonus for your hard work!” I said) were unearthed.

“How can a woman have so many umbrellas?” Jeff asked.

“Well, sometimes I don't have one when it rains, and other times I've left it at my desk.”

“Or someplace else.”

“Or someplace else,” she agreed.

Lex ran around Lucille's Turtle Garden, fenced around in white mini-fence and marked with an eponymous sign. We hung out on the deck.” Jeff and Lucille have been married for 53 years, so when you take a soda from their outdoor fridge it might be in a '70s can. I opened a 7up that was half empty. It was great.

They invited our luckless buddy Lenny to dinner with us, and after greeting him heartily they were met by the waitress with hugs and happy chattering. Jeff and Lucille had been to the restaurant's other location, the same place that Monstro and I held our rehearsal dinner. The waitress, Alba, told us a story about when her sister asked Jeff and Lucille for man advice, and the next time they came in they asked Alba, “So, have you found a good guy yet?

“I smiled and shrugged,” Alba said, “but thought to myself, 'who are these people and why are they asking me this?'”

Incidentally, Alba and Lex began what I'm certain will be a long-term, everlasting love affair. By the end of the night, I was addressing her has my future daughter-in-law.

We put Lex to bed in our portaged Pack-n-Play, between the twin beds where Monstro and I would sleep much later that evening, and we three (with Lenny) took off in Lenny's Metro, me in the backseat. Parked in the lot of a bank, where we ourselves had never had the guts to park.

“Uh, is it ok to park here?” Monstro asked him.

“They're closed. Do they really need the parking? And are they really going to tow a car that looks like this?”

I unfolded myself from the backseat. “Don't lock it,” Lenny said.

Much of Chico is the same but the new shops and their goods look much more expensive. We made it downstairs to the bar that used to be Team Players but now is Dino's.

“What did that used to be?” Monstro motioned up to the left on ground level. Lenny told him it used to be a tattoo shop (the only place Monstro told me never to enter), “but then my boss bought the whole damn building and kicked out all the places that were disreputable.” Lenny then told us stories about “raw sewage up to your thighs” and a drunken repairman lost in the ductwork between the ground floor and the basement's ceiling. We ordered two pitchers of Sierra Nevada Anniversary (happy anniversary, Sierra Nevada brewery!) and played the world's longest game of darts.

I don't remember who won. I do remember this indiscriminately Asian-type guy sidling into what might as well have been our trio's special room, if not for the more-as-the-night-got-later women, marching toward the Ladies'.

“So,” he asked me. “What are you doing?”

I kept it so cool I don't think Monstro knew that I knew the guy was hitting on me. Honey, I knew. Of course I knew.

But I played it cool. “Playing the world's longest game of darts,” I told the guy.

“How's that working out for you?”

“Not so good,” I said.

(My prophecy came to pass not much later when I dropped a dart point-side-down into my big toe, getting a spot of blood on the cute green sandals I bought at 21st Century in Manhattan)

“You gotta admire his guts… we're practically in a private room, playing a game, two of us are wearing wedding bands, and he hits on you,” Monstro said later. “You knew he was hitting on you, right?”

“Uhm, yes,” I said.

In a move that bummed me out at the time but made me really super happy the next morning, my “let's go somewhere else now!” pleas fell on deaf men's ears. Lenny dropped us off around midnight. I took the bed on the right because it had a footboard that would need to be climbed over.

Six hours later: “Mama? Mama! Da Da!” The kid's awake, it's 6:30, so we piled in the SUV as quietly as possible.

“Jack's?” I asked.

“Jack's.”

The waitress there sat us on the left-hand side, away from the bikers and the homeless people but in front of two late-teenagers that somehow became eight. One of them threw up on the sidewalk on his way into the place.

“That's why I always carry a toothbrush with me,” he told his buddies, who nodded in agreement. “Good idea,” another said. Their welcome ritual was laden with expletives, prompting the girl in the short plaid skirt and bandaged wrist to apologize on their behalf. They cleaned it up a little, but whenever someone forgot I heard the girl, behind me now, saying “sorry” under her breath. Then they all started talking about acid. It got quieter after that.

My California omelette tasted amazing and we dug into our hashbrowns, yes, hashbrowns with great abandon.

There is more to this but it's too good to rush through, and Lex just awoke. I shall leave you with the taste of hashbrowns in your brain.

This past Saturday, I married my father. Oh, wait: I officiated the wedding of my father. It was a great excuse to wear my Master's robes again, even if they do make my butt look big.

Lex began nursery school yesterday. He handled it fine, while I was in tears by 10:30, feeling like I'd already failed nursery school. Guess that's normal — I had jet lag and my period working against me, and the environmentally friendly diaper I'd put baby in leaked out his butt, making two vertical smiles of baby-pee on his shorts, and the change of toddler clothes I thought was in the diaper bag was actually in my carry-on, which was at home, plus Monstro bitched at me for not having memorized his schedule (I'd made three copies of it, which were also in the aforementioned carry-on. Damn the carry-on!).

In other news, we are back safely from a three-week vacation. Turns out an old family friend, Dave Houseman, has bucked common belief by being the first person to write about my family's secrets. I think my aunt will be most surprised at this — the down south family hasn't been all that friendly toward me since receiving word of my MFA. Well folks, House was considerably more underhanded than I'd ever be, publishing an interview with my Alzheimer's-addled uncle without getting the other side of the story (like when he deserted his sick kid) from anyone in their right mind. Shoddy journalism, that. My grandma would be ashamed of you, House.

All in all, I'm jet-lagged and beat, yet buzzing from the grande Caffe Verona I just had, while typing this via

Wi-Fi at the closest Barnes & Noble to Lex's nursery school. Prayers appreciated.

Let me warn you that if Southwest Airlines rolls out its new San Antonio trial boarding policy nationwide, you parents of small children will be choosing to take your business elsewhere.

We hadn't been in San Jose longer than two miles before I saw the first “Mystery Spot” bumper sticker. Ten miles later, a Lee Industrial Catering taco truck. It's good to be home.

Sorry dear darling MFA/SJ buddies but I'm pretty wrapped up with parental stuff, not the least of which involves being the officiant at my dad's wedding next weekend, so a trip to see y'all is not in the cards this time. It hurts me more than it hurts you, I'm pretty sure.

Back to laundry!