Went to the sleep doctor today and was told to move my bedtime back to 10:45. How can I possibly do that? I'd miss the last 15 minutes and denouement of such dramatic masterpieces as Law and Order, Law and Order: SVU, CSI:Miami and others. Even if I had Tivo I wouldn't be able to watch anything starting at 10:00. Unless, of course, I had the super-secret government defense project version of Tivo that actually records into the future. Yeah, that'll do the trick.

The photo shoot in Philadelphia today went well - even the Polaroid the photographer took to test the lighting was better than the pictures from the previous guy. I found a parking place right across the snowy street in an area where available on-street parking is unheard of. The studio was in an airy, cluttered loft that was crying out (to me, at least) to be cleaned and straightened up. We'll see whether the results are an improvement over the last open mouth, hand waving, up the nose travesty.

When I visited my sister last weekend one of the Christmas letters she showed me was from a friend she made on one of our summer trips to Canada. I learned that this friend had named one of her three kids after me, which struck me as very strange. I never knew her that well, and I wondered why she didn't choose my sister's name instead. It's a little odd to think that there is a teenager running around, named after me, whom I've never met.

The new carpet is in, deep and rich and, for a few precious hours, essentially cat-hair free. No one is allowed to take any food or beverage into the family room now, a rule that will stay in place until the first time the kids are left alone.