The rain, the rain, the rain. Winter here means warm rain, followed by cold rain. Then more cold rain. Maybe a day or two of sunshine, and then it all starts again.

This morning, Vanya wore his new medal to school. The medal was for completing the 2nd Louisiana Children's Marathon (1.2 miles), and this morning, he was proud of his achievement. But let's rewind.

Like so many others, I was blown away by Jodie Foster's speech at the Golden Globe awards. She wasn't crazy, she wasn't on drugs. She was incredibly nervous.

As we've discussed, I have a daily challenge trying to get V ready for school. I've used everything I know of to motivate him to get ready: a piece of cake before school (pretty good parenting); a swallow of coke (even better parenting); allowing not-too-outrageous attempts to subvert the school dress code.

Wouldn't any decent parent tell his sick child something like, "I would do anything for you to feel better right now?" Be careful what you say, my friends. On the weekend before Christmas, our cute little family went for a hot chocolate, dinner, and then to City Park in New Orleans to see the lights.

A couple of weeks ago, I had to meet Shelly at the airport, where she was dropping off her rental car. (It's a long, holiday season travel story. If you're interested, rent Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. It's much funnier).

This is it! My famous Sussudio story.

Bath time hasn't been the same lately. I rather enjoy turning on some good music, finding a Sports Illustrated, and running a big, hot bubble bath. Or I should say I did enjoy that, because it's ruined.

I had just gotten into my car and shut the door, when I was siezed by a violent sneeze. The result was a small booger on the fleshy part of my left hand. I put down the window and gave it a flick at I started to back out of the parking space.

I'm out of practice at this. After a really busy October and November, I have some time to update my site. (I haven't even looked at our Halloween pictures yet!) But, alas, my less-than-one-year-old laptop had a hard drive crash last week, and everything I'm comfortable with is gone gone.

I get that a lot of you are disappointed that your guy lost, but can we cut out the "America is going to hell" and "I'm moving to Canada" bullshit?

Every week, I carve out a little time to study college football lines. If you've paid close attention, you might remember that I'm one of several who try to pick one upset each week. When your upset hits, you get the number of points in the spread added to your total, and at the end of the season, you pocket a little extra coffee money and have bragging rights for the year.