Can race car drivers deduct speeding tickets on their tax returns ?

My friend J left me a voice mail yesterday regarding our trip out to Vegas this Saturday. She left detailed instructions on giving her a list of what foods/drinks we need, reminded me to bring bathing suits and asked which size diapers we use and what brand of wipes so that I do not have lug all of that with us. Oh, and her husband is going to meet us at the airport to help me juggle luggage and kids since I am traveling without X. Even though I am renting a car, which she had already tried to talk me out of.

Oh, yes she did.

My friend has a million other things to be concerned with right now (cancer! Hello!), but she will not be thwarted in her efforts to be a gracious hostess. Good luck trying, folks. I have been unsuccessful for nearly 20 years now.

So, the trip. Lingers on my brain at all times. Planning, expectations, worries mixed with an odd excitement about taking my kids on airplane together to one of my favorite cities. While we will not have time for jaunts to the Lake Mead, Valley of Fire, Hoover Dam or Area 51, I am planning on a cruise down LV Boulevard and a quickie out to the Red Rock (the canyon, not the casino.) I am also hoping to at least see the Bellagio Conservatory and I would really like them to see Treasure Island, but that is low on the totem pole for the other things we will be doing.

So, yesterday was my birthday. Rita wrote me the sweetest post ever, that made me cry. She can be such a whore like that. Seriously! How rude is that? Making someone cry on her birthday? 'Tis evil, y'all. Anyway. While I am eternally grateful and feel privileged to be carving yet another notch on the Bedpost of Life, it was sort of a crummy day. But these kids? Still managed to make me smile.


File this under Too Damned Lazy to Drag Out the Baby Books..........

Anjali, infuriated with Arun because he took a toy away from her, "AH-WOON! We both sharing it! WE BOTH SHARING IT." (score one for Ni hao, Kai-lan!)

In general, when she gets furious, she gets verklempt and begins stuttering, which usually ends with an adament "I MAD at you!", complete with fingerpointing.

Anjali, pointing to Arun: "Ah-woon, you a good brother." (She hears me say this one a lot.)

Anjali, on the swings, after insisting on being swung really HIGH: "My belly makes a sick!!!" (Then she giggled maniacally.)

Arun, after I pointed out that Anjali was sad we left the swings and that is why she was crying, "Yeah, she cries all the time. I don't like it when she cries because I like her." (An astute observation of the Terrible Twos as viewed backwards from someone firmly entrenched in the Throes of Three.)

Anjali to Arun while they are in their carseats, "Ah-woon, hold my hand. Tank you, Ah-woon. Tank you." (If X and I are not available for comfort, she is turning to Arun more and more, which I find interesting and adorable all at once.)