While fetching Charles from his friend, Tanner's, house this afternoon
we saw a couple with a pit bull on a leash.  There must have been
another dog behind a fence for the pit bull had pulled away from the
person holding the leash and was barking like mad at said fence. 
The couple rushed to grab the leash, did so, and tried to pull the pit
bull away so they could continue on their way.

Pit bull didn't wanna.  It made a determined lunge for the fence .
. . so determined it literally caused the woman holding the leash to
fly into the air and land on her back in the street as the dog got away
from her.

Stunned Charles and me, but she, upon getting up, appeared to think it was amusing.

We drove past with them still trying to get the dog under control.

Why they couldn't get a nice miniature Schnauzer or poodle or basset hound, I dunno.

You know where you are with a poodle.

And it's not flat on your back in the street.

[bitterly]  Easy Sew my left FOOT. 

Bought a couple of patterns with the intention of making Hannah a
little outfit from cloth with bluebonnets and Texas flags on it.

Don't want her to forget her roots. 

Butterick claims this is an "Easy Sew" pattern, but I can't even figure
out how to lay the pieces out to cut them!  What's said one place
doesn't match the provided illustration, and so on.  Very
irritating indeed.  And I need fusible interface. 

That sounds bad, doesn't it?

Something tells me this project isn't going to be ready by the time we leave for Norfolk on Saturday.

It's looking unlikely that Alex will be heading to Naples after
all.  He "excelled out" early from music school and graduated a
couple of days ago with four others, only those four have received
their orders and Alex has heard zip.

There are no tuba openings on the website the Navy has for such
postings.  It had looked a couple of weeks ago as if he WAS going
to get Italy, since there had been the opening posted, then the website
was closed down (as happens periodically as posts are filled and new
ones put up), Alex told he was graduating early, and the website comes
back up only Italy's no longer on it.

Looked like Ciao! for sure. 

Then the Navy said no one was receiving orders until April. 

Okay.  Fine. 

April's here.  He graduates.

Silence. 

I suppose someone with more seniority (which would be darn near
everyone, as he's just graduated) decided he'd like the Naples
spot.  Which is fine, except there aren't any other openings for
tubists, so he'll just have to sit and wait for something to
appear.  Talk about being unable to make plans! 

Pain.  Agony.  The horror!  The horror!

Seen while printing out driving directions from Norfolk's airport
(airport code is ORF) to Alex's house, the following link:   Outrageously Reduced Fares on Takeorf.com!

TAKEORF???

It must be Spring with a capital S;  just seen outside my kitchen window:

Better start watching for a nest in that bush, I daresay.  ;^)

Ah, l'amour. 

Today as I was driving Dmitry home from school, he pulled out his cell phone and showed me a text message he'd received:  Jordan L you.

The "L" stands for "loves", BTW. 

Jordan, as may be imagined, is a girl.  Must be a rather cute girl, judging by the goofy grin on Dmitry's face all the way home. 

And NOT ONE WORD TO DMITRY about this post!!! 

Mum's the word.  Right? 

Beth wrote and said the music school graduation was small, but very nice....just five people graduated. 

Hannah's wearing the sailor dress I sent her.  Doesn't she look adorable? 

It's been postponed for a day due to the pope's funeral, but it looks
as if Prince Charles is finally going to marry the woman he apparently
wanted to marry in the first place.

[dubiously]  I'm sure she's very nice.

At least I'm reasonably confidant this
marriage shan't hit the skids as did his marriage to Diana
Spencer.  Even now that's depressing to think about;  it was
such a festive time for us English Royalty Watchers!  Got up at
some ludicrously early hour of the morning to turn on the TV and watch
Charles and Diana marry.

Actually, I got up at ludicrously early hours to watch his sister,
Anne, marry whatever his name was, and Andrew marry Sarah Ferguson.

That's right.  The one thing all three marriages had in common was I got up and watched them.  Cause and effect?

I don't recall whether Edward's wedding to, um, dang, what IS her name?
was televised, but I didn't see it if so.  First because I have a
hard enough time sleeping without deliberately waking up to watch the
wedding of people I don't even know, and second because based upon past
experience, if I tune in, that marriage is doomed.

So I'll content myself with reading about Charles and Camilla's nuptials on the internet and in Time.

This is interesting, though!  It's been said by Charles' office
that upon his (finally) ascending the throne, Camilla will be known as
the Princess Consort.  Turns out that is not what the law
says....she'd be queen, period.  Queen Consort, maybe, but still
queen.  For the Princess Consort business to work the law will
have to be changed, and not only in England, but New Zealand,
Australia, Canada, and whichever country is still part of the British
Empire.

Might be a problem with that, as those countries have fairly large
segments of the population that would just as soon ditch the monarchy
entirely, and putting that law on the table for amendment would provide
an excellent opportunity for that to take place.

Charles' marriage to Camilla Parker-Bowles isn't wildly popular in any
case . . . can you imagine the snit people in England would be in if
they wind up "losing" Australia, for example, because of it?

I can't imagine what it must be like to be a teacher these days.  On the radio this morning was this tidbit:

Purple ink pens have taken a jump in popularity among teachers, because
- get ready - of complaints from parents about the use of red ink for
correcting kids' work.

Red ink is just too "harsh", you see.

Presumably purple doesn't hurt the little dears' feelings (or the
feelings of their parents, is probably closer to the truth) as
badly. 

Dmitry amuses me quite a lot, as his vocabulary expands.  Often I'm taken by surprise at the words he's picked up.

This afternoon I took him to buy a new pair of shoes, as he's growing
like a weed and the ones he has been wearing are too small.  We
went to Mervyn's where he found a pair of Reeboks he liked, but he
balked at the price . . . they were on sale for $39.99.  I pointed
out how the sole is sewn on, so they should last for quite a while, and
after trying them on, he decided they would be fine.

When we got in the car to leave for home, he cleared his throat and remarked, "Isn't there something you want to say to me?"

"Huh?  What?" I asked in some confusion.

His face was the picture of pleased complacency as he replied that he
would have these shoes for a long time.  "I am economic!" he
announced smugly.

He's accustomed to my muttering that he's an expensive Russian rascal,
you see, and was anxious to highlight an area where he is economical
(he has a bit of difficulty with suffixes).

Solemnly I agreed he is quite economical.

"But not in video games," he smirked.  "I'm not economic at all about video games."

No argument here!