Monday morning belly laugh

We went over to Joel and Sandie's last night for a simple meal and some play time, and the boys raided the new box of dress-up clothes that Piers & Adsila's grandma had scored at Stuff Etc. during her recent visit with the family.

I could not wait to share this photo of Piers and Arlo hamming it up in their princess finery. Not pictured here: Arlo is also wearing pink slingbacks. Check out my flickr page for more photos.

Tell your friends!

As a member of the board of directors at New Pioneer Co-op, I am really proud of the United Way benefit (see the attached poster) that the Co-op is doing this weekend.

If you are hosting a Thanksgiving dinner at your home this year, I hope you will think about shopping a little early and shopping at the Co-op.

New Pi is donating 10% OF ALL SALES this Saturday and Sunday to benefit our local United Way chapter.

Even if someone else is doing the cooking in your family this year, consider bringing along a nice bottle of wine or two. Or five. Now would be a great time to buy a case of wine at the Co-op—and remember, there is always a 10% case discount. Stock up this weekend for the whole holiday season!

Please pass this on to as many of your friends and family as possible. I will be bagging groceries for several hours this weekend, and I hope to see many familiar faces! Thank you!

I wasn't even trying to shop for boots

...but this pair of boots practically assaulted me from the endless.com web site.

They are practical in the sense that they would be warm and cute and would probably last me for many, many winters, since I'd probably only be able to wear them on the weekends. We'd go sledding! Tromping through the snow! My feet would never get cold!

Therein lies the rub. I'd probably only be able to wear them on the weekends--and I really don't have $150 to spend on recreational footwear. Sounds to me like a great GIFT!

Beary Soft Baby Sweater

I knitted this sweater for the baby-on-the-way due to our friends, Libra and Aaron. Libra is due in December, and we threw a baby shower potluck for the happy couple last weekend. Now that I have gifted the sweater, I can go public with the photo.

The yarn is Andean Silk, from knitpicks.com, and it's one of my favorite yarns to work with--and I adore this orange color, though I don't think they carry it anymore. It's 55% superfine alpaca, 23% silk, 22% merino wool. Yum!

Cutest New Word

Macy likes to hold various things up to the side of her ear and say "Dohhhhh?" over and over again, as if she's answering the telephone.

I assure you, it takes a LOT of this before it gets old for either one of us.

Cheney in 1994 on Iraq

I never thought I'd say, "Dick Cheney was right about that."

But boy, was he ever.

Update

Regarding my post last week about perverts on the Internet, I will say in flickr's defense that they have the following reminder in their "Community Guidelines" document:

"Don’t forget the children.Take the opportunity to filter your content responsibly. If you would hesitate to show your photos or videos to a child, your mum, or Uncle Bob, that means it needs to be filtered. So, ask yourself that question as you upload your content and moderate accordingly. If you don’t, it’s likely that one of two things will happen. Your account will be reviewed then either moderated or terminated by Flickr staff."

(For the record, I still don't think that photos of my child in his underpants are obscene. Booty is in the eye of the disgusting beholder, I guess.)

They also include this toothless warning:

"Don’t be creepy. You know the guy. Don't be that guy. "

So anyway, here's the rest of my update. I filed a "Report Abuse" complaint and have so far received only system-generated e-mail responses with advice on how to make my photos private or block specific users. I have updated the privacy settings on all "questionable" photos, and have effectively blocked ONE specific user from my account.

One idiot was dumb enough to mark one of my underpants-clad three-year-old as a "favorite" --and I found him because I had received an e-mail alert from flickr (in my yahoo e-mail inbox, which gathers dust from complete lack of use) on the day he did that, months ago. I have blocked and reported that one user (by whom I can prove no actual wrongdoing). It was somewhat satisfying to take this small action--but of course it does nothing to address the other thousands of hits my photos received before I stumbled upon the uptick in traffic.

I have sent another e-mail to flickr urging them to investigate the situation--in case they can discover that some of the users who had frequented my site have also, say, set up a private page for sharing child porn or something like that. I've also suggested making their "Don't forget the children" message more prominent, or even e-mailing a reminder to users.

I am considering, as one of my readers suggested, a call to the Attorney General's office, just to get it on their radar in light of the recent Craig's List news, and see if they would recommend any course of action.

I remain resigned to the fact that I probably cannot take much action in my personal situation, but now I am focused on doing what I can to help people protect themselves and their children from predators--even if it is just lonely sick people looking at pictures on the computer.