Whew!

It's official: Sparky is in England. I'm not particularly freaked out, although I slept really badly last night. We got the call around 4:30 this morning that they had arrived safely, but I spent most of the night with one ear cocked for the phone (while wearing earplugs: what a dope).

To cope with the departure emotions, we stopped on our way home from the airport at a GINORMOUS theater (30 screens, my God, WTF, decorated with a jungle theme! I fear for our country) and paid $20 for tickets and $25 more for snacks (i.e. dinner) to see Batman Begins. Great movie. Christian Bale was fabulous, but my perception of Katie Holmes' acting skills--which apparently matches the director's--were epitomized by the multiple scenes of her rolling her eyes around in her head pretending to be "panicking."

[She seems a perfect match for the new-and-obnoxious Tom Cruise, who really needs to have his head examined, but I digress...]

By the way, I've decided that, based on family relationships, I will have to watch all of Christian Bales' movies now.

So that was last night. I'm working virtually all day today to make up (ahead of time) for the day off I'm taking Thursday. I was at work at 6:30 a.m. and will head home at 9:30 (stopping on the way to mail something to my sister that Sparky forgot to take; she will see him on Saturday) to pick up the guinea pigs for nail trimming. Then they go back home and I come to work from 12 to 9 to work my usual Tuesday schedule.

Sparky's itinerary today: Windsor Castle, Eton (check out the New Boy Guide), and Runnymede, including the JFK Memorial. Then they finally get to go to the hotel and collapse in a heap of 11- and 12-year-old exhaustion.

Yeah, now I should actually do some cataloging. Ciao.