Finally

I'm sorry I've been incommunicado. Carrie here. Yes, I've been kind of floored by flu and pnuemonia the last two weeks, but I am recovering now, and basically can do little but sit in the recliner, so I have no excuse but to blog a bit. Except that this laptop, which is the one I use for pictures (I put some new ones! lots!) is about to run out of juice. So this one may be short, but I will write more later, I promise.

Today is Manford's REAL birthday, we could argue, since he was born in the US, where it is still the 22nd. But we're both in rest and recuperation mode, maybe just nibbling a bit of cake and happy the kids are both at school. It keeps alternating promising sunshine and downpours--there must be some rainbows out there--there often are, here. Charlie is looking out the window, waiting for pedestrians to growl at. She's doing better, shifting from barking wildly to just growling to herself, while wagging, of course...

My semester started last week, pretty much without me. Actually, I was there on Monday, thinking I was fine and just a little cough, recovering from the bug, but then Tuesday I got really sick, and Wednesday I could hardly breathe so went off to the doctor's. Thankful for antibiotics--here, amoxicillin is still the drug of choice that seems to work for most things (Joseph is also now on it for a sinus infection)--apparently they haven't gotten the resistenced here to plain vanilla antibiotics. It cost $3. And I am better now, and will start my class, a week late, tomorrow. I did do a bit of lecturing (to the graduate students) yesterday and the day before, and it went ok, but that was sit-down discussion-leading, really. I'm resting up today for the bigger performance (a two-hour lecture in which I try to catch up from missing the first class session) tomorrow.

I'm going to check on that last picture--Manford and his birthday cake--more later.

Carrie