I am kind of sick today, so upon Leo's request, I will do a mostly text post. Geez, things are getting a little dumbed down around here lately.
On ubiquitous conversations of late:
Everybody's talking about how you can potty train a child from birth. Apparently all it really means is you train yourself to recognize the signs of when your baby is about to poo or pee. Then you can hold them over the toilet, or...a bush. I like the sound of this, because I hate wasting money/resources and am intrigued by things that urban hippies do. I also don't really know how to change a diaper.
Another thing that's the talk of the teacher's lounge (kill me) is how plastics are going to poison us all. I think this all started from an article in Vogue called "An Inconceivable Truth" that Jill alerted me to over the summer. People: stop heating up your tupperware in the microwave! In fact, stop using a microwave! As an aside, who knew that teachers read Vogue?
Last: Water. In bottles. Totally unnecessary. We live in a country with plumbing and reservoirs and nice scientists who add fluoride to the water supply for our poor decaying teeth. Anyway bottled water basically comes from an enormous faucet poured into an enormous Brita.
On women and clothes sharing:
Last night my sister and I were remembering that year of my life when I was being a giant turd, heretofore known as The Year of the Turd. We happened to live together at the time, and though we always had a set of unwritten rules on the girl phenomenon known as clothes-sharing, she unknowingly broke a huge one when we were fighting one night and I came home to find her in my pink sweater: "You are not allowed to wear my clothes when you are MAD AT ME!" I declared, in a splendorous flash of turd glory.
Some other rules on sharing clothes with girls:
1. Brand new and unworn clothes items are OFF-LIMITS. If it still has its tags, you're not welcome. It doesn't matter if the thing sits in a closet unworn for two years, you can't wear it until the owner has.
2. If the clothing item is new and particularly unusual or special, you can't really borrow it until the owner has established associative ownership. So when you finally wear it out, everyone in your circle is like, "Oooh, Jill let you borrow her Marc Jacobs bag, cool." (Which she totally did, after about 3 years of coveting the thing. Score!)
3. If the item is just soooo definitive of said owner, you probably shouldn't try to borrow it anyway, you poser. Like in the case of Jill's Chanel purse. I can't even go there. By the way...WTF? All of my bags are from H&M.
4. One good turn deserves another. If someone is generous to you with their sweater collection, let them borrow your favorite jeans for a couple of weeks. Unless they are MAD AT YOU. In that case, don't let them borrow anything.
Since these rules have been set in place through a painstaking series of trial-and-error tests over the years between my sister and I, I don't really have a rule on washing the borrowed clothes. We usually just dropped the dirty clothes down the laundry shoot and the Laundry Shoot Elves would get them back to us clean and folded a few days later. But...you should probably wash the borrowed goods before returning them. Unless you smell like fabric softeners day and night. (Which you probably don't. Sorry.)
So of course Leo got to sit on the birthday stool.
We're just 2 guyz havin' a good time. Party over here!
Jill, official gift wrapper of the family.
I cooked a meatball and spaghetti dinner. Teamwork!
Family style. 
We retired to the porch after dinner.
Luke is sad about something? Maybe that crooked AC in the back?
Then, presents!
There are no ordinary cats.
Crumpled Care Bears.
Some French Guy, from Ashley, who knows where all the cute things are.
A pencil case.
And a bendable cat.
There was apple pie with candles. 
Fambly.
Friends.
And Foam.
It was a good night.
See, I told you I had pictures of a bean sprout sprouting. 
It was Hilwa's gift from Sarah, so there was a musical note on the other side.
Sue Cat.
Hil Cat.
Minnie had herself a new york birthday! 
We were at a place I like to call, "Mama Fuck You." Sorry, Mom. 
There were some real go-getters with us. For more information, go here.
I once knew a car named Go Getter, but I think that is quite the opposite of the point. 
Making videos in which we say what we love about Minh. I think I said some very strange things. It was the sake, I swear!
I don't even know. Saying strange things, perhaps?
Birthday messages on paper bags. (We love you more than cheese and jam, we wrote.)
This one speaks for itself, I think.
Minnie's little sis even came out for the occasion. 
There were fancy deserts at a fancy place. I missed peanut m&ms.
Make that wish!
I don't know why, but Rosie prefers her face obscured. I'll allow it.
Don't say with your lips what you can say with your feet.
Alone time.
Contest: if you can figure out where this picture was taken, you win a free limo ride.
Birthday huggin' and dancin'. HBD, my friend of friends!
Jailbird word.
This hydrant was doing this all day. Such a shame, water being more precious than gold and all.
Sammiches.
The question is, who's the Thelma and who's the Louise? 
Maybe we're both just Tina Marie.
A Halloween scene.
If this picture doesn't make you smile, your heart must be made of stone.
