Our VanderPal Jeff has added several interesting short interviews to his blog under the title “Justify yourself…”. They’re cool and worth checking out. Of course, we here at Coode St couldn’t help but notice the interviews are all with people who wouldn’t struggle overly with the challenge. ‘Justify yourself, Peter Straub!’ just doesn’t seem like a real threat. Now, justify yourself George Bush or Condy Rice or Tom Clancy would be interesting.

Today was supposed to be dad-and-daughter adventure day, but it didn’t quite work out that way. My beloved is away for the weekend, and it falls to me to take care of the girls and to find things to do that would be fun. Well, I’d thought it would be a great idea to go to the zoo and had recruited a willing uncle to go along. While Jessica, Sophie and I were up and packed early, and had practised for the zoo by stalking around the family room crying out “Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!” – we know our WizWoz here – the travel group had grown somewhat to encompass granma and some visiting relatives.

Now, these were very welcome folk and lots of good fun, but the dynamic changed. Instead of being a small group of hit-and-run adventurers with the flexibility to disappear home at the first sign of a droopy eyelid, we were tourists. We did see tigers, giraffess, elephants having a bath (which made a big impression on Sophie), monkeys and all kinds of other cool stuff, and go on cool old carousel, but it took five hours or so on warm day. By the end of it Jess (4) and Sophie (3) were too pooped to pop, and things were a little cranky at home. Still, they’re in bed now, I just watched When Harry Met Sally for the 451st time, and am now listening to the Jon Butler Trio cd I picked up on Friday, which is pretty cool, and will probably fade off to bed soon. No idea what we’re going to do tomorrow, but hey, that’s another day. I gotta read some SF and write some proposals soon!

Oh, and a sincere congrats to Terry Dowling. Good reading is found on SciFiction every week, but you should check out his story “Clownette”, which will be over there on December 15. Cool stuff.