It's the Most Yellowful Time of the Year

If colors had personalities, yellow would be cheerful. It's the first color to make a widespread appearance in the spring around here, and I for one appreciate it.

Well, I finished my paper only 5 minutes after the department closed on Thursday, which is probably the closest to on time I've ever been with a paper. I managed to dodge several bullets—the black ink cartridge on our printer was almost empty, but held out for 40-something pages; some of my typed notes disappeared, but they were mostly digressions; and my instructor was totally cool and said I could turn it in "whenever"—and I got the damn thing out the door. So I was pretty pooped out Thursday evening (i.e., no blogging).

Friday we spent the day in Frankfurt. First we went to America (a.k.a. the Consulate) for a few hours to renew D.D.'s passport. As D.D. pointed out, it felt a bit strange to hear so much English.

Then we went to the zoo. It's east of the skyscrapers downtown, but we could still see buildings rising up around the zoo grounds. For a relatively small zoo, we still weren't able to see every single thing in 3-1/2 hours. We only saw the giraffes in the distance on our way to the restaurant (L.H. had found out via their web site that they have a Mexican restaurant—it was ok), and we tried to see the lions at 6:40 on our way to the gate (they close at 7), but some grumpy zookeeper was telling everyone to take off because they were closing. Jerk. Fortunately, a lion was in its outside enclosure, so we got a walk-by viewing.

Saturday we slept in, then we had to make the mother of all grocery trips because we were out of *everything*. Mother Hubbard looked in our pantry and was shocked. When I shop, I like to take a list, and I stick to the list, unless I think of something that I know we are definitely out of and that should have been on the list. L.H. takes a list, but he tends to use it more as a starting point. D.D. is 7 and wants everything in sight, list schmist. Sadly, L.H. and D.D. have had to become fairly adept at sensing when I'm reaching my grocery-shopping breaking point, at which time they become quiet and wary-eyed. I feel bad for them, but at least I retain my sanity and don't lash out at them.

There's a reason L.H. and I have stayed happily married for 10 (!) years:
Thursday morning, preparing to charge myself up for the last leg of paper-writing, I put on a full pot of coffee. L.H. was still in bed, but awake, so I told him, "I hope you've got your coffee-drinking shoes on." And he replied, "More like coffee-drinking Depends." Hee! I love that man!