This is too cool!  Check it out!

Well, I just talked to my brother who had been standing at the top of Gibraltar an hour ago.  Lucky duck!

Said the view was magnificent, but the famous monkeys were so abundant
they bordered upon being pests.  Tonight the ship, the Royal
Princess, sails for Casablanca. He assured me he and Mary are having a
wonderful time indeed.

Of course, he didn't really
call to rub my nose in the fact he and Mary are on a keen cruise and
I'm not . . . he wanted to know how the dogs and cats are doing (Alex
and Beth are presently there and caring for them).  ;^)

Well, Dmitry's in the throes of final exams as this is being
typed.  He's presently struggling to get all 66 books of the Bible
in order.  Technically he's supposed to have the spelling down
pat, but the teacher's gonna cut him some slack on that from what I
understand.  He has worked and worked on learning those
books.  He could be heard reciting them in his bedroom over the
past few days.  He studied them on the way to school this
morning.  Let me tell you, that boy has tried. 

After the Bible test is his history test.  This one we're sweatin'
bullets over.  Then is the science test but it was a 10 question
essay exam and he turned it in yesterday, so I'm not sure what
the kids'll do during the test period.  Yesterday was math, which
he didn't do as well as he'd hoped he would, and P.E., which I think is
just silly.  The test was to make up the rules for a game. 
He wrote down, as best he could, the rules of a game he used to play in
Russia, but that isn't played here.   I thought that was
sensible of him, rather than wasting time attempting to dream something
up, then having to compose some sort of coherent sentences in
English.   Just skip to the English!

Tomorrow is the computer test.  Last night he asked me, "Mom, do
you know what "excel" is in computers?"  "Do you mean the computer
program Excel?  Like Word and Powerpoint?"  "Yeah, that's
it."  "Um, ask your father about it."  The last exam is the
English test, but he says the teacher is excusing him from it. 
Now whether that means he doesn't have to take one at all, or if she's
going to have one just for him, I don't know.

He's about to faint, he's so anxious for 11:30 tomorrow to come. 

The inability . . . or unwillingness . . . of people to heed simple
instructions absolutely baffles me.  At Brianna's dance recital on
Saturday evening there were prominent signs posted:  "NO FLASH
PHOTOGRAPHY!" plus an announcement was made to the same effect before
the show began, and as the lights dimmed.

Yet it looked like the paparazzi had arrived en force,
judging by the flashes of light going off around the auditorium during
each number.  The injunction appeared to be totally ignored. 
Yeah, parents, teach those kids respect for the rules, why doncha? 

And remember the Texas legislature taking up the matter of sexually
suggestive moves by cheerleaders?  Someone ought to start griping
about the same regarding children's dance classes.  Why are little
girls being stuck into dance costumes unsuitable for their age and
stage, and taught to dance in a provocative manner?

Yet this is common, and I regret to say encouraged
by many of the families of these girls, judging by the enthusiastic
reaction of the audience (my family being a notable exception...we'd
mostly sit and glower in disapproval) whenever a line of six or seven
year old girls would do a bump-and-grind motion, or shake their
shoulders and arms.  Believe it or not, not only would the parents
cheer these disgraceful, immodest moves, but I actually heard yelled by
one father (based upon his use of a video camera), "Work it!"

Are these people mad? 

Tomorrow's Don's birthday but there's something going on in the
evening, so we went out to dinner tonight to celebrate.  Don,
Dmitry, Alex, Beth, Hannah and I headed to Macaroni Grill for a bite to
eat, where we apparently ran the gamut of emotion, from happy to
silly...

...to bored out of one's gourd...

Alex got a kick out of this photo, though we figured the restaurant
might not be too pleased. Not much of an endorsement as a party place,
is it? 

In truth we had a delightful time, not that one could tell it from THIS picture. 

Afterwards we came home for a visit, and Dmitry decided to get down to Hannah's level:

Alex took Dmitry's keyboard and gave an impromptu concert featuring the
Alphabet Song and London Bridge Is Falling Down, which tickled Hannah:

Nice to know five years and thousands of dollars of instruction at the
UNT school of music is being put to such good use.  Who says a
music degree isn't practical?   ;^)

A day of drama of varying kinds, that's what today has been, and no mistake.

First we had the pleasure of the company of our daughter, Kirstin's,
three children, as shown below.  Then shortly afterward here came
Alex, Beth and Hannah, in from a fast stopover in Millington, TN, where
Alex is to report for duty on the 27th.  What a fabulous time
seeing them, and watching other family members get a gander at Hannah
for the first time.

Uncle Dmitry is getting to be an old hand at holding babies.

Great-granddaddy is obviously taken with the newest poppet.

Hannah with her mama, her Gran, and her greatmother Gigi.

I loved this one of Beth and Hannah sharing a moment.  ;^)

A bit after these pictures were taken we were off to see Brianna's
formal dance recital, where Hannah met even more family members (no,
Hannah, they never stop coming....get used to it).

Aunt Jessica, Brianna's mother, had a fit over her new niece.

We were waiting for Brianna with flowers, and whiled away the time admiring You Know Who.

At last The Star appeared!  She could open a flower shop with the blooms given to her.

The cousins head off together, hand in hand. 

If only Dmitry had come I'd have had all my chicks there!    Still, it was delightful having the five "Texas-born" together.  Even if some things that one think would change, never do. 

It was a good day. 

I'm snatching a moment to type this as Don is sitting with Bryson, and
Bethie and Benjamin are engaging in a robust game of hide and seek with
their Uncle Dima.  We're watching them while Kirstin and Matt go
to lunch with my parents, and we've already been down to Dairy Queen
(it took him a couple of tries but Bryson finally learned to appreciate
DQ ice cream), played Memory, and various other pasttimes.  Of
course, being silly is a cherished, and much indulged, activity:

Nearly every time I took a picture there was an instant outcry of "Can I see?  Can I see?"

He won't touch the keyboard unless the kids are over.

As we were walking back from Dairy Queen Benjamin stooped and picked a dandelion and handed it to me. 

Whereupon I said, "Thank you, angel!"

Benjamin quickly disabused me of this, though:  "I not angel."

After a pause, he said in a voice brooking no disagreement:  "I a boy!"

I think he was surprised and bit dismayed that he had to point this out to his Gran. 

Well, wouldn't you know it!  Now that most of my
kids are through school (still Dmitry to go, but he's at a private
school so won't be affected), the Texas legislature decides that school
will start the Tuesday after Labor Day in Sept. '06.  The school
districts are having a hissy fit about it, and parents are described as
"lukewarm", but I can't help but think that's because they've never
known anything but early-to-mid August openings.

Tell you what, if you're here in Texas and want to be able to take your
kids on a comparatively-inexpensive cruise, book a late-August '06
cruise NOW.  The rates drop dramatically then.  Checking the
Carnival website, an inside cabin on the seven day cruise on the
Elation, sailing out of Galveston on August 20, 2006, is only
$529.  For a hundred bucks less you can sail for five days on the
Ecstasy, departing the next day.

This is killing me. 

Cow Sponge - you remember the ska band Charles plays with occasionally,
don't you? - might just possibly be about to hit The Big Time. 

Well, Charles says, probably not, but still . . . the band has a June
11 date to audition in Oklahoma City for a couple of record labels
(except they don't make 'records' any longer; I wonder what they're
called now?).  He's really looking forward to it.

You know you're close to landing a music contract when the big boys call you to Oklahoma City. 

Another 18 wheeler's toppled over in Dallas, tying up a freeway.

This is really getting ridiculous!  It's beginning to happen on a regular basis.