A few months ago I bought a very large, many-compartmented suitcase from Briggs and Riley (I always refer to them as Briggs and Stratton, who do produce a suitcase-sized generator, but that would be excessive even for me). My trip to Denver this past week required numerous changes of clothing, associated shoes, XL toiletry bag, and all sorts of accoutrements that would only fit in the Gargantuan Bag. All was fine on the trip out, but on the return, when I had stuffed it with various papers and trinkets from the conference, I was informed by the US Airways employee, who had just taken a 21% pay reduction, that The Bag was 1 pound over the 50 pound limit. He glared and told me that in the future I would have to pay the $25 fee if my bag was overweight. Thank the god of long lines that he was too busy to process the paperwork to collect the fee. I have serious doubts that any bag I could heave onto a bed for packing and unpacking could have weighed 50 pounds anyway.

Caitlin turned 16 on Wednesday and will be driving soon. I don't know that anything has ever scared me more than the thought of my daughter controlling (or attempting to control) a multi-ton hunk of steel and explosive substances. Today we spent a drive up to my sister's reviewing the contents of the driver's manual. I am overloaded on space cushions (you should apparently never have another car within 40 feet of yours at any time), signage (did you know that the yellow and black diagonally striped signs are actually supposed to be pointing in the direction of the road hazard to which they are alerting you?), and turn arounds (what used to be called 3-point turns). I doubt I could pass the test for a driver's permit if I had to take it today.

On a somewhat related note, a co-worker who recently became a US citizen related that she and her husband went through the testing process at the same time. He was asked to name the capital of the US. She was asked to name the original 13 colonies. In the order in which they had been founded. Ok, that might be a slight exaggeration. She only had to name them in alphabetical order.

Books: Dot in the Universe, by Lucy Ellman. Yesterday I needed a book for the flight home from Denver and this one caught my eye in the airport bookstore. If I was quite shallow, I would admit that it was the cover art of a Picasso-headed woman in a red corset and fishnets standing in front of a rough looking man who is kneeling in front of her. This deepest-darkest black comedy contains tea cosies, a resurrection, traffic accidents and, sadly, only one mention of a corset.