the underwear drawer

now i will have three children

I know we are not supposed to be buying unnecessary things in These Uncertain Economic Times (and perhaps hunkering down in a bunker with our liquidated assets instead, waiting for the End of Days) but dude, with a new bike, a beautiful autum, a new baby on the way and three sets of grandparents due to visit all in the next few weeks, having a functional camera started seeming less and less like an unecessary thing. And after ascertaining that they don't, in fact, manufacture the Nikon D70 anymore, and that fixing our old D70 (whatever is ailing it--the camera version of leprosy, perhaps) might cost at least half as much as a new camera, we decided that we should upgrade and I ordered the Nikon D90, on the condition (per Joe) that this was to be our joint early Christmas present to each other. Also, I ordered just the body of the camera, as the Nikon lenses we already own are interchangeable, as are the batteries and a good number of our camera-related accessories, thus saving us many of our rapidly depreciating American dollars! See, thrifty!

I am inelegantly excited to play with the new camera. Which, needless to say, I will not make the mistake of letting Cal touch until he graduates from high school. (If he graduates from high school. See that, no pressure! Let's see people make cracks about nursery school MCAT prep now! Our kid couldn't even piss in the toilet at school for a month and a half! Ah hah hah! Ha! Hmm.)

And also: A very interesting op-ed by Frank Rich in the New York Times about the unsettling turn the rhetoric in the presidential race has taken. Worth a read.