Mid-October is masquerading as rainy season and I do NOT like it.

Today I successfully led a lovely group of housewives to the tentative conclusion that deep, deep down each member of humankind secretly loves to dance. Then I moved on to trying to convince them that even deeper down each member of humankind also harbors a hidden, terrible hatred of USC. This second discussion was much quicker and more conclusive; naturally they all agreed, having felt the same unexplainable yet unanimously noxious and vile burning deep within their loins upon the conclusion of Saturday's game. Humankind Unites!

After a brief conversation with MicVat as he walked from somewhere off-campus to somewhere on-campus Saturday morning, my ND nostalgia caused me to regard my removed geographical situation with what can only be called misguided/confused frustration . . . I decided that my USC rage could be allayed only by attending some sort of Generic Corporate Pride* Rugby Game and yelling profane things involving Trojans etc. in the vague direction of the west coast (apparently only an alleged 5,474 miles from here). But I didn't. Or, I should say I haven't at this point in time. Because the rage has yet to be allayed. No, instead I spent the eve with a mixture of friends and laughed at Japanese jokes and and other silly antics all while secretly harboring my heavily percolating fury.

I mentioned a ways back that I've been teaching at a group kids school on Tuesdays. It's been fantastic. The ones I get to teach regularly are four- and five- year olds and despite having serious doubt that I'm actually teaching at all, I cherish them immensely. They're such precious little beings -- all tiny rib cages and exploding energy and love of high-fives, song, dance and red light green light. I want to shellac them and put them on my knick-knack shelf along with Dr. Dye's Buzz-Lightyear-costume-clad son. And on a continued work-related note I recently "taught" (proctored?) one of my favorite classes of all time on the topic of eating contests. So for those of you, and I know/hope you're out there, who worry that I'm not exercising 100% of my mental faculties over here . . . well, rest assured that my cache of eating-contest-related trivia has undergone at the very least a trifold expansion.

*Oddly there is no website devoted solely to the idea of corporate pride itself. Why is that? Shouldn't there be?