Jet lag almost all gone, life all back to almost normal. Woot woot.

O’C sent me a copy of the Vassar RR invitation. I won’t burden you with too many of the details, but I will provide the tiniest peek of what most of us will be missing: a judging pool so diverse that in that past it has included even me, gourmet dining catered by the Culinary Institute that looks suspiciously like tuna sandwiches and a side of potato salad in the cafeteria (should I break it to Uncle Wiggly that all the people slinging burgers at McDonald’s these days anywhere within a 100 mile radius of Hyde Park are CIA graduates?), and expressions of the genuine and endearing Cruziform enthusiasm that I, for one, always find so touching. (Speaking of whom, my bet is that right now he’s cutting a deal with Homeland Security to get a good spot at LAX to greet the fish students as they deplane and pick up their bottles of vodka bags of text books and head off to Hell in a Handbasket Institute Hell in a Handbasket Institute.) I probably won’t be at the RR, because it conflicts with the annual CFL coaches meeting, although I may try to drop by for a sandwich or something if I get freed up and I can’t find anyone to play golf with. Not that golf comes first, mind you; I hate golf. But then again, junkies hate heroin. Most of the time.

Anyhow, the remarkable thing is, I really like O’C. Yet for some reason I attack him mercilessly. I need to find someone I don’t like, now that I’ve had all this practice. I’m ready for the big game, bwana!

I managed to make my personal deadline last night for getting an episode of Nostrum out to the thoroughly uninterested world at large. I do enjoy reacquainting myself with Jules’s and the Mite’s characters. I had forgotten how many of them there were (and how many voices I am ill-prepared to speak in). The whole Nighten Day speech team is about to be hauled into the Messerschmitt Tournament, and if that doesn’t bring one back, nothing will…

I started trying to get rooms for Yale before I left for my visit with the Habsburgs, leaving a message at the usual joint asking for 10 of the best. When I returned a message telling me I was out of my mind greeted me, and I have now spent most of this week being sneered at by various hostelers up and down the bright boulevards of lovely New Haven. Jeesh! Who are all these people, scarfing up the reserved rooms in June, for God’s sake? Have they no sense of disorganization? Couldn’t they wait till the last minute like they always do, and leave the good rooms for us? I mean, not that the old rooms were all that good; there was usually a couple of layers of fungus growing on the walls, enough hot water to fill half a Coke bottle, and herds of screaming forensicians raging into the night and beyond, plus an unofficial regiment of homeless junkie guards between the school and the hotel that one had to negotiate through late at night. Not to put too fine a point on it, but we weren’t exactly lounging at the Waldorf. One very helpful soul at the New Haven Hotel finally suggested the Fairfield Inn, and I have put in my bid there with a fine fellow there who seemed eager – nay, avid – for our custom. He did think I was talking about Hendrix High School, where the biggest expense would be, I guess, lighter fluid for the electric guitars, but once we ironed that out, we were in pig paradise. The only issue is, it’s not within walking distance of the school. (All right; for me it’s within walking distance, but if you’ve ever herded more than a matched pair of semi-feral adolescents any distance, you know that they have a hundred-yard limit and about as much speed as a garden slug, so it’s just not worth the aggro.) So we may need to keep a bus driver for the weekend, or I may need to seriously examine the parental transport arrangements. It’s still early days for that level of exactitude, however. At the moment, having a place to rest the weary head is plenty good enough. I’ll lock down the signup databases, and we’re practically on our way.

And you thought I was crazy to worry about Yale while I was in Pest. Pah! Shows what you know.