Part of one of the umbrellas was in the drain.

My dad would like to know the symptoms telling me it is time to deworm... does he really want to know?

Actually, we don't really have a lot of symptoms, other than slightly run down immune systems, which could be anything, really, but they say in India to deworm every six months.  We missed the first six months, so here we go a year!  Or thirteen months, really.  Reary, as one of my British friends would say, with a Briyant! and an Innit? on the side.

Other British friends would say Brilliant, very carefully, and Is That So? and As it Were, and Isn't It?

I love British accents, how they are all over the map (quite!) and full of mild surprise (lovely!) and inexplicable turns of phrase (innit?).

Other things I love:

How it rained yesterday and the air that came to me through the window was so sweet and fern-like that my knees wobbled a bit.

That everyone has given us their umbrellas as they've left, so now we have forty-two umbrellas.

Brown rice.

Kid A: "If you ever need to find a mouse, just come find me, because I'm REALLY GOOD at knowing where things are JUST BY HEARING THEM."

My new plot graph for my book, which makes me feel as though it's possible to finish it even though I never WRITE it, like it's a magic plot graph (Lieutenant Dan!) or something.  (The thing with Ankit didn't work out, in the end, it was an interesting month.  Half of the time I wrote, and half of the time I was sure I had adopted a fifth kid.)

Chinua when he's in that one silly mood where he can't stop laughing and he reminds me of the nine-year-old he must have been.

Possibility.  I line up every morning with my hands out, no matter how tired I was the night before.  I'm in the queue!  I believe!

Forcing myself to do things I don't necessarily want to do and then rewarding myself with small squares of chocolate gently placed between biscuits afterwards.

Spinach.

The thighs that belong to Solo.

Indian steel shops, where they sell all the plates, cups, bowls, pots and pans, and tiffins that you could ever desire.  Cate's been known to love a good steel shop, too.  And who wouldn't?  Once you get into stainless steel, there's no going back.

Waiting for a package in the mail.

This one:



Who, incidentally, clogged an outside drain so badly (by putting things into the fascinating open hole at the top of it) that four people who work for my landlady spent half a day unclogging it.  The most ambitious thing he put into the drain?  A whole toilet brush.  We've had a talk, since then, and I've threatened him a few times, so hopefully he'll refrain from his wild drain-clogging ways.

How they sometimes collapse in laughter.

Hope that does not disappoint.

Bagsu cake.  More on Bagsu cake later.

A good Skype, like the one I had with my parents the other day, or the one Becca and I had with Matty when she was still here.

And this daughter of mine, with her fearlessness and inquisitiveness.