Ivan's okay. Life is good.

My sweet little Ivan (yes, I know he's an ass to the world, but he's still my sweet baby boy) made it through his dental surgery today. I always get so nervous when my babies have surgeries. I know my vet and his team are fantastic, but there's always a risk. There is also always the heartbreak that I know they don't understand why I am leaving them in a scary, stressful place to have bad things done to them. He had his teeth cleaned and a big one pulled--poor baby boy. I picked him up this afternoon as soon as they allowed him to go. He looked small (even though he's a big chub) and frightened in his big cage and was drooling blood all over his pristine white fur. He wrapped his little 'arms' around my neck and held on for dear life, when I got him out of the recovery cage. They let me get him out, as he is likely to rip them open for trying to pick him up. He's a little tired and out of it, but he's already eaten, which kind of surprised me. He doesn't seem angry with me--just quiet.

Yesterday I took a vacation day from work. It was nice to have a day off when I and/or L. wasn't sick. We had a very fun day together. We went shopping and got her some pants that fit. Kohls had the nice 55% off sales that I like. We also got her some winter snow boots, as of course last year's are much too small. We wandered around the bookstore. And we came back home and baked cupcakes. She wanted to make chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting. I talked her into a compromise--we would make two batches of frosting and half would have vanilla (for her) and half would have chocolate (for me). The cupcakes were cooled, and she was just starting to frost when Hunter arrived here after school. They agreed that she would frost and decorate the vanilla frosted cupcakes, and he would do the chocolate. He ran some home for him and his dad and came back to play. She was off for the night, then, but at least I got a whole day of fun with her! At that point, I had to clean up the kitchen and get the stroganoff going for dinner. It was a good day and we capped it off with the final debate.

The debate was pretty much the same as the other two. McCain was even more irritating and stupid, looking like he was going to blow out a valve or something. That man has some serious anger issues. I would most definitely not want someone with that little control over his emotions and expressions to represent our country to the world! I've already scheduled a vacation day for the day after elections. I will be up until the wee hours, as usual, waiting for the final results. Besides being tired, I will hopefully be celebrating the end of this country's darkest 8 years.

L. and I are still studying the Greeks in history and their many, many wars. She's much more interested in the day-to-day lives and the god/goddess mythology than the wars. Unfortunately world history is full of wars, so she's going to have to get through it. She's having a hard time wrapping her head around the reasons for the wars. We read about and I try to explain the reasons, but ultimately they always boil down to a bunch of men who want money and/or power. She's been raised in a world and exposed to people who don't value money or power. We have a wonderful circle of friends to whom money and possessions are meaningless and they are more apt to give away than hold onto. We're also very much live and let live and non-competetive. She can't even put her head in a place where hurting others for resources/power would make sense. I'm glad she's that way, but it really makes for some difficult discussions during history time. She's never really been a selfish child, and I truly hope she stays that way--especially through the ugly teen years!

I had a few more shots from our afternoon at the arboretum that were pretty cute. L. was trying to teach H. how to make a whistle from an acorn top. She's very good at it and is able to make a very loud, shrill sounding whistle. It's cute for a few minutes, and then the noisy whistle starts to make me crazy and we have to declare a moratorium on whistling for a while. H. didn't quite get the piercing sound that she gets, but then she's had years of practice.