My dear dear Nancy defended her PhD dissertation in epidemiology Tuesday, and I flew to Pittsburgh to be part of it. She was nervous, of course. And she was great, of course. At the end, one of her committee members said she had made a real contribution to the field. What more can you ask for?

This is Nancy's second career. As a midwife, she's caught almost a 1,000 babies, and now she's teaching in a graduate program for midwives and doing research related to women's health. I am so proud of her.

The more time in bed/on an airplane than awake in Pittsburgh actually turned out fine. All my transportation went well. I managed to work on a little poetry, grade a few papers, and watch a couple movies on the planes, so I didn't explode from boredom. It had been a little over a year since I'd seen Peggy, Nancy and Myron's two year old, so most of my time was spent playing with her. She kept saying, hi Debby! Which was delightful. I brought a bunch of hand-me down toys which we had been saving for her. The wooden food was a huge hit. So were the wooden cars. They kept breaking into pieces, as they are supposed to do, but I think that's more fun for an older child. I gave her David's babydoll and a bunch of our favorite cds.

Even being away only three days took a big effort from family and friends. Three different people picked David up from school. I had to move a tutoring job, so instead of crashing with my family Friday night, I was out working. Rose missed me terribly and worried about getting her work done without me and somehow managed just fine.