Party

Today we had a birthday party. There was a decorated cake, hamburgers and porkchops on the grill, chips and salads and drinks. There were many, many balloons, colored streamers and sparkly crowns. We sang Happy Birthday and told stories and laughed.

"I," Uncle said, for his hearing has always been bad, "have no idea what happened with the Chinese."

"What?" I asked, confused, until Aunt said it was a line from church.

"The pastor said a man in China had to choose between renouncing the Bible and drinking sewage. And he drank sewage."

"Oh," Uncle said, shaking his head. "Well, maybe he didn't hear the choices either. That pastor does mumble. Like somebody must have hit my frog with a car and skidded. It ended up all long and flat by the time I got it."

"Frond," Aunt corrected him, smiling and rolling her eyes. "We were invited to get fronds not frogs." I giggled, enjoying him, and sipped some more water.

The dogs - mine and Brother's - played outside and begged for scraps. I found myself completely content as I helped clean up - loading the dishwasher and letting pans soak. I played with Little People and watched dalmatians for the seventh time. I got to kiss and cuddle Smallest One and watched her chew on a paper noisemaker. I hugged Little One tight and told her I'd see her again soon - I hope that's true.

Then I got another journal rejection, which bummed me out. The frustrating thing is that the comments aren't all that bad. I mean, there are good ideas within all the crap. And if people are so blatantly misunderstanding my work, it's not well written. So I'm going to take a break - not for long, I'm sure - but I need to get some distance and try to make corrections without hating reviewers so much. For both papers that I now have back.

But! Happy, happy, happy! I've enjoyed the time with my family, despite a few snags where I was annoyed or angry or something like that. I'm hopeful about 2 job prospects, both of which would mean I'd leave independent research and publications and grant writing and all that stuff. Please, company and/or university. Let me sell out. I'll even come cheap. Well, relatively. I'm nearly packed and ready to make the drive tomorrow. And I have another birthday party - this one for Little Cousin - next weekend. All partying, all the time - that's what you get here.