Chicken Fricassee is cooking in the kitchen. Doolies is preparing the mushrooms and carrots to go in the pot once the chicken is cooked in another 25 minutes or so. The Shabbos table is set and the wine is poured. With the break in the action, I decided to start on writing. If the writing is done earlier then more time for anime tonight.

Dinosaur once again slept through the night in his crib, this time from 11pm to 8am. I think this is three nights in a row. We’re still not sure if these nights are outliers or if Dinosaur is a magical sleep baby. We’re hoping for the latter, as avoiding the fight (with my wife) over when to start sleep training would be wonderful.

Tiger is helping Doolies prepare the carrots and mushrooms. She’s washing the vegetables and fungi. Or, more exactly, she’s tearing the mushroom apart and snapping the carrots. She is handing Doolies pieces of carrots and mushroom for her to chop. She’ll be a good helper one day. Just not today.

The dogs had their monthly bath and grooming today. Their hair is cut more often than mine. Lucky dogs. They’re resting in their cleaned out bed now, recovering from a day playing in the free roaming dog spa.

Friday came late this week. I thought Wednesday was Friday, and was disappointed when I found out it wasn’t. I used that line today a few times. I thought it was funny. For a Wednesday joke.

I spent some time adding a few more paragraphs to my overly long correspondence. We then ate dinner. The chicken was a big hit. I’m stuffed with chicken and carrots and mushrooms and rice and baby bok choy and challah and a nice glass of Sauvignon Cabernet. Or something like that. It was definitely red and had a sharp finish. And it contained alcohol. And now I’m not sure these words are making any sense anymore.

Okay, I’m not that drunk from one glass of wine. Doolies is cleaning up the huge mess I made in the kitchen. Tiger is still eating. She’s a slow eater. Well, that’s not exactly accurate. She doesn’t eat that slowly. She is a late eater. She likes to play around during the beginning of meals when the food is hot (she does not like hot food) and then dive in at the end when everything is yummy and cold. The food is at the cold stage and she’s eating the bok choy and leftover challah. Dinosaur is now in the swing making dinosaur noises.

Speaking of dinosaurs, did you see that scientists announced today another step in their theory of the cause of the dinosaur extinction? They are pretty sure it was an asteroid (or is it a meteorite? I always get them confused. I know the name changes when it moves from space to Earth). Now they think the crater in Mexico corresponds to the extinction event. Before the crater in Mexico was a few hundred thousand years off, but when they dated it with more modern techniques, the dates better lined up. Poor dinosaurs.

We have another batch of photos that are going through my pipeline. We should post them in the next day or so. It’s a complicated process: first I upload the photos from our two cameras to Adobe Lightroom. Then the culling process begins. This is usually a joint effort between Doolies and me, where we go through the photographs to winnow it a bit. This has grown especially difficult with our children. We’re clearly brainwashed on their cuteness, and it’s difficult for either of us to throwaway any photograph of them. My criteria for bad photos is now limited to blurriness: if it’s too blurry then reject, otherwise I keep because our monsters are just that cute. This should explain why our albums have hundreds of photos.

After the culling process, I export the photos and videos from Lightroom to my Desktop. From there I upload the photographs to this website and, at the same time, upload the videos to Youtube. During the upload, I prepare an album on the website, adding the YouTube videos as they finish uploading, and then generating the thumbnails and slides for the photographs. I sort the photographs and then choose my favorites (these appear on the Home Page), and then post the album.

Phew. Probably more information than you truly wanted to know. I’m back after bathing Tiger. She went to sleep after 8pm, which is unheard of in this household. I guess I didn’t realize how late it was. The chicken took longer than expected and we didn’t eat until late. Then we took our time in the bedtime routine. No matter, she will be no worse for the wear. Dinosaur was also falling asleep and is now napping in the swing. Hopefully this doesn’t impact what will hopefully be another good sleep night for him (and us).