1 Small world. My father is running the half-marathon. My mother is with him to cheer him on/pick him up after it's all over. They took my grandmother along for a much-deserved vacation and an excuse to do some AZ site seeing. I'd say I'm jealous but it's not that warm there now, and the thousands of people there for the marathon would get in my way. I'm waiting for Spring Training in March.

2 AND!!! DC has posted a certain Picture, taken, I think, around the time of said Lunch. That's my blogdad and blogmom in the SAME PICTURE AT ONCE!!! With a great restaurant sign AND pretty flowers too! All right, all you bloggers out there. Now you tell me: How often does that happen? HUH? HUH? I am the LUCKIEST blogchild to ever be virtually born.

3 Oooh, hoorah. I was going to send you that pic, and one like it that Daisy Cat took. I was hoping DC had posted it--was going to check on that after I answered my comments. Daisy Cat is an extraordinary woman: bright. With-it. Thoughtful. You'd like her.

4 Sean, it's COLD here right now: maybe not by Wisconsin standards, but by Southwestern standards, it's intense. And I left my jacket and coat in SoCal, so I'm muddling along with sweaters and sort of dancing around to keep warm when I have to go outside. Usually when I come out here in the I pack clothes like the ones I take to the mountains. It's warm generally warm during the day (that sunshine thing), but at night the temperatures drop straight down like lead. It typically goes from 65 degrees in the daytime to 30-40 when it gets dark, here in the desert. How cool that your dad is running the half: I'm going to run a half this coming fall. I'll remember to look for your family in the crowds . . . ! ("Do you like good cooking? Tanqueray gin? Baseball?")

5 AG The last couple of mornings, the thermometer on my patio has been a rock steady 30 degrees. (Friday I ran outside to take pics of my house covered in a mixture of hail and SNOW!!) Spousal unit traveled to Adelanto on Saturday to help set up a friend's new computer... neighbor kids were having fun spraying the bushes with water and watching icicles form.

6 If my mother did the same thing as last year she hunkered down at an Einstein's Bagels with a book and waited for my dad to finish running.

7 Actually, Darleen, I did get your mail, and I showed A the H the pix of your house covered in snow. It reminds me of the time it snowed in Northridge in the early 90s. Wild. Sean, there was ice on the sidewalks here. One runner slipped on it and fell. This is something like a 20-year record cold day for Fenix--VERY atypical. I'm sure your parents didn't even notice.

8 Oh, I do not LIKE being cold like that. Feels too much like Minnesota. Unfortunately I didn't have the luxury of hunkering down somewhere warm this weekend to wait it out. I'm still thawing.