Add one tent, two sleeping bags, two self-inflatable sleeping mats (what the hell do they mean by self-inflatable anyway? You have to blow these things up! I suppose the "self" means "by yourself", as in your own lungs. I had visions of mats that magically puffed up, sort of a sleeping mat version of Viagra.), two flashlights, and two teenage boys (one of whom is allgedly "bang bang" according to both of the teenage girls, which I presume is something on the order of stupendously attractive), and you have one of many parental nightmares. The boys did help the girls put the tent up, in the rapidly darkening twilight when the girls had misjudged just how much light they would need to put up a tent when neither had ever done anything more than open up a Barbie Malibu camper before. When I informed them that the rules of the house, and the yard, excluded mixed gender use of the tent, I was met with the perennial "But Maaa-aaamm, it's not like we were *doing* anything!" Yeah, right, and the check is in the mail...

This morning as I was listening to an old Carter family song from the 30s, I was thinking about Johnny Cash having passed away soon after his wife, June Carter Cash, had died. I then thought about all the celebrities we've lost in the past year and started to wonder, "Are we going to run out of celebrities? Are we replacing them as fast as they're dying off? Are we going to get to about 2012 and not have any remaining? Will we be left with only ersatz celebrities, like Carson Daly and Kelly Ripa?" It's probably best not to share the rest of my shower thoughts...

Movies: The Station Agent. I was expecting a good movie from what I had read of this before I watched it. What I was not expecting was a wonderful, masterful movie that is filled with many moments of quiet dignity. The actors each capture their characters with perfection. The story is simple, a piece of the life of Finbar McBride, a dwarf who loves trains. The friendships portrayed are pure and complex and allow the story to progress to less a conclusion than a stopping. You could watch the story unfold for another hour or more, but the director knew when to end, which is a rare trait indeed.