I hate to complain (no, really, I do, despite all evidence to the contrary). But I've hit a lull here in Louisville and there's no denying it.

I've been having a hard time getting into the festival today. It's crowded, which isn't surprising. It's always way busier on Saturday and Sunday than the first two days. So it's not like I didn't know all these people would be here. That didn't stop me, however, from having a severe flare-up of misanthropy. Everyone is annoying me today. I hate the general public. They are a bunch of sheeplike, ignorant dolts. Now, I will say the people who come to this festival are slightly less offensive than the people you'd find at, say, the fair, or an amusement park. But there's still a damned lot of them and they are all getting on my nerves.

When I do venture downstairs, it's a major project. The elevator situation in this hotel is shocking. There are only four and they should have twice that many. It has been like this every time I've been here. At certain times of day people are waiting as much as fifteen minutes to find space on an elevator going up. There's really no excuse for it. I've never stayed in another hotel that has been this difficult to get around -- not even in Vegas. This afternoon I spent ten minutes getting downstairs only to realize I had left my admission wristband in the room and had to go through the entire process again. Ugh.

At the festival I have been having a hard time focusing today. I get down there and listen to a couple songs and then lose interest and start wandering. I haven't been too impressed with the bands I've heard today, either. I'm sure part of the problem is the crowd, which is distracting. Part of it may also be homesickness. I miss my kids, I guess. It's not so much I wish I were home as I wish they'd come with me -- which is INSANE because I sincerely doubt I'd be having any more fun if they were here. Talk about distracting!

Then, of course, there was the drama of yesterday, which sort of put a damper on my mood, figuratively, and a literal damper was put on last night when I got all ready and went downstairs only to find out it was pouring rain and the show I was going to see was called off. I also thought I'd feel better-rested, getting my first solid nights' sleeps since before Eliza was born, but I still feel just as tired as ever. On top of all this, I feel fat and sloppy and ugly....what that has to do with my enjoyment of concerts, I don't know, but there it is. I look pregnant and I'm afraid someone's going to ask me when I'm due, and I hate my new hair.

It also occurs to me that maybe the luster of coming on this particular trip alone has worn off. I would venture a guess that less than 2% of the attendees are here by themselves. Everyone seems to have either friends or family with them. Normally that wouldn't bother me. It hasn't in the past, and I sure don't mind doing most other stuff by myself. Perhaps, though, two times alone here was the most I could find enjoyable. I think this feeling is unique to this particular activity -- I don't think I've lost my enthusiasm for spending time alone; just for this one, specific thing.

So there's the happy report for today. Yikes. I'm going to hang out here for a couple of hours -- the next thing I wanted to see doesn't start until 8:30 -- and perhaps I will perk up a bit. If not tonight, then maybe by tomorrow morning. I would sure like to enjoy my last day here.

If you think I'm a complete boob for spending all this money on a trip and then complaining about it, it's probably warranted. Hopefully this is just an off day and I will be back in the swing of things tomorrow.

I have never done anything like this before.

I went downtown L-ville today and went shopping at Borders. When I tried to pay for my stuff they wouldn't take the debit card because it has Robert's name on it. (Incidentally, I only run into this about one in every ten times I use that card, which I do countless times per week.) So I ran across the street to an ATM to get the cash to pay. The ATM was the kind that sucks your card into it. Can you guess where I'm going with this?

Fast forward to tonight. I went to the ATM in the hotel to get some more cash. Guess what? Card = gone. I hadn't used it since I was at that downtown ATM so the only possible explanation is that I didn't take it out of the machine. You know how those types of ATMs usually make a loud, insistent beeping noise until you take your card out? This one didn't. Thinking back, I don't recall telling the machine that I didn't want another transaction. Usually it asks you "Do you want another transaction" and then, when you press no, it gives your card back. I think I said "no" to the receipt (which I remember doing) and then ran off before it asked me anything else.

Now, where does that leave us? Well, that bank is closed tomorrow. And Monday, since it's a holiday. And the card has Robert's name on it, so they probably wouldn't give it back to me, anyway. That is, if it's even in there. Somebody may have passed by and saw the "Do you want another transaction?" screen and pushed "no" and got the card out. Really effing swell.

Robert is going to go to our bank tomorrow and have them find out if there has been any transactions since yesterday afternoon. If there hasn't, it's a pretty good bet the card is in the machine. Either way, he's just going to have them cancel it and reissue a new one -- or, ones, should I say, since I really do need to have my own (obviously). Before he does that he's going to take out enough cash to keep me comfortable through the rest of my trip and then he'll go wire it to me. There's a Western Union about ten blocks away so I'll go over and pick it up.

So, there you go. The story of my stupidity. Assuming no one has gotten a hold of the card, it's semi-easily fixable. It will take a minor inconvenience on Robert's part, and mine, but I will be able to finish my trip in fine style, and as planned. I guess it could be worse (like if someone stole the card and spent all our money. Still fixable, but definitely not in the category of "easily").

I guess I'll go listen to some more music and try to enjoy it. *sigh*

Step one: Get a haircut. Go from just-below-shoulder-length to just-above-chin-length. Have bangs cut in after not having any for her entire life. Then, just for fun, get violent red highlights (think Ronald McDonald). Go home and speak to baby in your normal voice. She'll find it very, very disconcerting.

Step two: Just after baby begins to get used to the new 'do, leave the state. For five days.

The end result is yet to be determined but I have an unshakable suspicion she will be in therapy in fifteen years and this will all come out, somehow.

I arrived in Louisville, completely knackered, around 1:20 this afternoon. I had my usual night of crummy pre-trip sleep and then got up at 5:00 to get ready to go. To make up for it, though, the gods of good trip fortune smiled upon me and the travel was relatively painless. I made good time to DFW, despite some morning traffic. When I arrived there I found that both remote (read: cheapest) parking lots were full and my next-best choice was the express lots, which run $10-11 a day instead of $7. The night before I'd been researching parking and I had joked with Robert about the terminal valet parking, which will cost you a cool 24 bucks per day. I thought it was ridiculous and he said, "Yeah, that's for people with expense accounts." I agreed and we moved on.

Well, lo and behold, I arrived at the express lot and the gentleman manning the entrance produced a coupon and asked me if I'd be interested in trying the valet service -- for $10 a day! You can't beat that -- that's what I would've paid at the express lot, anyhow. And I have to say, now that I've seen how it works, it's a pretty neat idea. You drive into the parking garage at the terminal, to the one-hour parking aisle. The valet takes your information and gives you a claim ticket and you just bop right across the street and into the terminal. When you return they will have your car waiting at your arrival terminal, right there in the one-hour parking section. I still wouldn't pay twenty-four clams a day for it, but it's sure worth the ten.

Anyway, back to the trip: the flight left on time, glory, hallelujah. (Perhaps it was American's last-ditch attempt at trying to make their customers happy, to make up for their crap new policy ) It was a simple, 1-hour-and-35-minute affair and we actually arrived a little early. My bag was one of the first on the carousel and the shuttle I had booked showed up a little early. There was no line to check in, being that most people weren't/aren't arriving until tonight or tomorrow. I stopped and had the concierge make me dinner and brunch reservations and I was still in my room by 2:20. Yes, it was very painless, which sort of makes up for having to rise at an ungodly hour.

After I relaxed in my room for a couple of hours I went to dinner at the steakhouse next door (pretty good but nothing to write home about) and then went to the festival grounds. I was there a couple hours, listening to music and buying t-shirts for the kids (oh, and eating a funnel cake). Now I'm tucked in for the night. My room is overlooking the festival grounds so I can hear the music from the stage closest to the building pretty clearly.

Tomorrow I'm going to attempt to make it out of bed in time to go here Pete Best speak (Pete is the Beatles' original drummer who was chucked out in favor of Ringo). At some point I will likely meander downtown and go to the Borders that's there. Besides that, there isn't much in the way of shopping so I'm not likely to get into too much trouble. My main activities for the rest of the weekend will be listening to music and eating. There's something to be said for not renting a car -- it keeps me from leaving the immediate area and wasting half a day doing stupid crap like finding a Gymboree or something. After all, I did come to rock, so rock, I shall.

And now, good folks, I will bid you a fond farewell. I am sitting here looking at the bed, faced with the prospect of my first solid night's sleep in nearly eighteen months and it's both exciting and scary. What if I'm completely unable to sleep for more than three hours straight, having been conditioned to wake frequently? That would kind of suck. However, even if that's the case, I know I at least won't be awakened for the day at 7:30 tomorrow morning. I might wake, out of habit, but you can be darned sure I will roll right over and go immediately back to sleep. So that's an improvement, right there.

Good night to you all.....and to myself, as well.

I just got back from my conference with Madalyn's Gifted & Talented program teacher. It went as I expected it would, which was something along the lines of, "Blah blah blah frigging genius blah blah blah winning personality" etc. etc. Heh. I also got a bonus comment on how well-groomed and well-dressed she always is, so, hey, proof that all that ironing I do isn't for naught.

Really, though, it was very interesting. Madalyn isn't so big on the details so I have never been sure what all they actually do in the class. The teacher went over all the things on which they've been working and showed me various samples of Madalyn's work. She appears to be doing well with it.

Coincidentally she just, the other day, gave me her third quarter marks for the class, which she had secreted in her desk at school and then forgot. The kids are evaluated and scored on sixteen different skills in the areas of work habits/study skill and cognitive skills. The scores rate their competence and range from 1 (low) to 5 (high). Madalyn scored a 5 in every category. Because I'm completely shameless I can't resist mentioning that, as if that wasn't impressive enough, you should also keep in mind that she is a year younger than the other kids. Dear Madalyn was only supposed to be in first grade this year, according to the local age restrictions, but, you may remember, we started her in kindy a year early. Apparently we were not so far off in our thinking when we did this.

Anyway, I'm very proud of her, as you might imagine. She's a great kid, all around. That child has never given us a bit of trouble and has made parenting sinfully easy. She's smart, she does well in school with minimum effort and no prodding needed from us, she makes good choices and she's got a great personality -- everyone loves her. Yes, I think she's definitely a keeper.

*Ahem*

I SAID "return and post comments on my offspring's stunning good looks."

Where's the love, people? Do you have any idea how I rely on email to fill my empty existence? (Kidding. Mostly.)

New baby photos; get 'em while they're hot!

(Check out the mini-slideshow over there in my sidebar -- click on it to go to Picasa and see the pictures full-sized. Then return and post comments on my offspring's stunning good looks, which she obviously did not get from myself or her father.)

I am positively sick over what happened at the Kentucky Derby today.

In case you hadn't heard, the filly, Eight Belles, came in second in the race only to break both her ankles while cooling down. She was euthanized on the track. On the track, in front of God and everybody. A beautiful animal, who was alive and vibrant and happy this morning, is now dead, and for what? For our entertainment? I'm not entertained. Are YOU entertained? If you are, there's something wrong with you. This is why I am vehemently opposed to horse racing. They could ban it tomorrow and I'd do a jig.

And what about those people there, watching? What did they think? Were they okay with that? When they saw her go down and the people swarming around her, and, minutes later, when they hoisted the dead body onto a truck to take it away -- did they think that was acceptable? Collateral damage, perhaps? The price you pay for a good time? That's bullshit. I'll tell you what it is: it's a travesty. It's disgusting. They should be ashamed. We should all be ashamed.

One of these crazy old nights....

I'll take "Eagles Lyrics That Can, By a Considerable Stretch of the Imagination, Be Applied to My Current Situation", for $500, Alex.

So, yes, it's one of those nights. Which nights, you might ask? (Or you mightn't. Whatever. I'm going to tell you, anyway, so warm up to it.) That would be one of the nights when Eliza wakes up at an ungodly hour (usually around one o'clock) and refuses to go back to sleep. These nights, invariably, find me in the living room, freebasing caffeine, while Eliza tears around like it's p.m. instead of a.m.

Quite often when this happens (which, incidentally, is always when Robert isn't here to spell me) she has a stuffy nose, which is what, I think, causes the initial trouble in falling back to sleep. But why congestion and preternatural energy go hand-in-hand, I've yet to figure out. Currently the little beast is standing in the middle of the room, wielding a foam toy sword and babbling insanely, while I sit here and curse our income bracket which is not conducive to hiring a nanny.

So, while I am being held captive by someone who doesn't even have the life skills to wipe her own nose, it appears to be as good a time as any to give a recap of last weekend's trip to Dallas.

Friday we got a bit later start than I'd wanted (dull surprise). We had a bit of drama before leaving, as John-Zachary had let out the cat, who promptly disappeared on one of his usual walkabouts. I considered this a problem because I wasn't sure what he would eat for three days while we were gone. The crisis was averted though; as we were just about to pull out of the driveway he came sauntering along the side of the house.

On our way south we stopped in Allen, TX, at the outlets there. They now have a Gymboree factory store, which are pretty rare. These are not factory seconds or remainders. They are entirely different lines than are at the regular Gymboree stores. Usually they are retreads of lines from the past. They are also not available online so I go to one every chance I get. We also had a couple other places we wanted to look. We had made dinner reservations at Maggiano's Little Italy for 6:00 and, miracle of miracles, we got done at the outlets and made it the rest of the way to Dallas and the restaurant with fifteen minutes to spare. We had a lovely dinner and then lit out for our hotel.

For our accommodations we had gambled on Hotwire. Usually it pays off but this time we weren't quite as lucky. We were assigned to the Hyatt Regency DFW, which is actually in the DFW airport, between terminals. It's actually a nice hotel and we got an excellent rate...it's just not the most convenient of locations. But the kids were happy -- there was a pool which was open until midnight and that's all they needed. Once we arrived and had our six tons of belongings brought up Robert took the older two to the pool while I stayed behind and put Eliza to bed.

Saturday morning Robert took all three kids downstairs to the buffet while I got a little extra sleep. He delivered them back to the room and made a Chick-Fil-A run for me (chicken biscuits, mmmmm....). Once he returned it was off to the pool again. They were down there about two-and-a-half hours, until I went out on our (seventh floor) balcony and shouted down to them to wrap it up.

Around 2:20 the nanny showed up. We had hired her through a very reputable nanny agency in Dallas. I was a bit nervous about the whole idea but was satisfied with the agency's standards and hiring practices. We stuck around a little while to let the kids get comfortable with her and then we were off.

Our first stop was a hotel near downtown Dallas to pick up our friends, Dave and Andrea. They had come in from Milwaukee for the weekend. We then went to a nearby restaurant, Campisi's Egyptian, and had excellent salad and pizza, and then made our way to the USA Film Festival at the Angelika Theater. We were there to see, first, a discussion panel on the subject of "Mystery Science Theater 3000 at Twenty" (this year being the show's 20th anniversary). Second, we were treated to a live Cinematic Titanic show. Cinematic Titanic is the current project of many of the original cast members of MST. They riffed on a Roger Corman "classic", The Wasp Woman. It was so great to see the cast after all this time and to hear brand-new riffing. It had been far too long since the last time. Truly an entertaining and enjoyable night. Afterward we returned to the hotel, paid the nanny an exorbitant sum (who cares? We got a night out! Doing grown-up stuff!) and went to bed.

On Sunday Robert, unfortunately, had a family funeral to attend with his dad, which necessitated them flying to Houston for the day. He left fairly early to meet Frank at the airport. The kids and I slept in a bit and then got up, beautified ourselves, and met Dave and Andrea at the Hotel Intercontinental for brunch. I highly recommend it if you happen to be in the Dallas area and are in the market for a good meal. With everyone duly stuffed, we parted ways. I had thought of taking the kids to do some activity but, being a school night and facing a three-hour drive home, I thought it best to get on the road. We had an uneventful drive back. Robert drove home with his dad after they got in later that night.

Well, with perfect timing, Eliza has now begun to whinge and grab at me as I'm typing. The good humor seems to have passed, which indicates to me it's a prime opportunity to try to get her back into bed.

Happy May Day!