Caitlin made ice cream using the ice cream maker we got for Christmas. Although I haven't tasted the end product (she pronounced it "ok"), I do know that it took two trips to the store (rock salt the first time, half and half the second), was unbearably loud and took about an hour to make a quart of ice cream. I did buy some blackberries yesterday to see whether they could made into something approximating the flavor that I loved as a kid.

Movies: Mona Lisa Smile. A serviceable movie in which Julia Roberts, Julia Stiles and Maggie Gyllenhaal give good performances, but Kirsten Dunst, whom I usually dislike in any role, tops them all. Caitlin saw this with me and was astounded that even in 1953 women who attended Wellesley would have felt that their only valid option in life was to get married and have children. A few years ago I visited one of our clients, an institution very much like Wellesley and also one of the Seven Sisters colleges, and was amazed at the lack of change or progress. While I doubt that women are still taught classes in deportment, the attitudes were focused on retaining as much of the past as possible. Many of my neighbors are cut from this cloth - women who believe that their only value in life is to make sure that their Guatemalan maid cleans the kitchen sufficiently so that they have time for their tennis lessons and manicures. These women and I do not have much to say to each other.

Dreams: I was in a large gift shop, perhaps a museum store, and was looking for Christmas ornaments made out of all of our first initials. They had beautiful gold filigree ones, but were missing several initials. Rebecca was with me and wanted a large ceramic gold fish, but I didn't want to get anything that big or fragile. Segue to an office building. I had a large duffel bag filled with papers that I could not let anyone see. I needed to get onto an elevator and go to the 12th floor. There was someone with me as I was pushing the button to call the elevator and I was afraid she was going to see what was in the bag. This is my brain on no drugs.