I made my first blog entry and came back today to see how many followers I had attracted. It was a big fat zero. On the news today I heard that men who are using internet dating services are most attracted to women whose profiles say they are interested in yoga and cooking. Being married I am not interested in dating but still, since 50 percent of potential readers are men it might make sense do a little update to the profile. It's not a terrible stretch (excuse the pun). I do cook sometimes and I did try yoga once.

Tomorrow is my choir's perfomance of Beethoven's Mass in C (that right, one of my real interests is choral music). This is a very beautiful work, but not much fun to sing for a 2nd soprano like me. Every phrase seems to lead to a high G which has to be sustained over several measures. After a while I feel like I'm shrieking and I probably am! Gerard is taking a group photo of the choir before the concert and completing the headshots of chior members tomorrow. He has been so generous to do this for me and the choir.

Tessa and I have been canvasing our block to sell nuts for Tessa's Brownie troop and have now met most of the neighbors. The odd thing about this is that we have lived in this house for almost seven years -- and we still didn't know any neighbors! It turns out that we have a number of widows living on this street and they don't come to the door if they don't recognize who is there. There are a few well known cases of elderly women who have been overcome by force after opening the door and had their houses robbed. Well, you can't blame them for being careful. We must look harmless because we were cordially invited in to their living rooms and we have now made several new friends.

Well, in addition to selling the nuts, I am also running the sale for the troop. I have put in about 80 hours of effort for $400 profit for the troop so that is about $5 per hour of my time. I'm glad my regular job pays better than that! And our troop gets 25% of the sale price, the girl scout organization gets about 50% and the remaining 25% goes to the nut packaging company. It's a very good deal for the girl scouts organization but not so good for any of the other parties. This is about the same deal as with the girl scout cookies. But I'm not complaining because after all I volunteered to run this sale.

I'm waiting for a phone call from Rachel who is attending an English group meeting and should have called 30 minutes ago to be picked up. I am still in the business of picking up Rachel and Hannah from all their activities even though they are almost 17. I'm starting to regret not pushing them to get driver's licenses earlier because they could be driving by now. But if they were I would be staying up late worrying instead of staying up late picking them up. Hannah is at a marching band competition and will be getting back at 12:15 a.m.

As in most things, Rachel and Hannah are polar opposites when it comes to driving. Rachel is conscientious and remembers to follow the safety rules. She always looks left-right-left before making a right turn. But Rachel doesn't handle the car well so we are frequently in the oncoming lane at some point during her turns. She also has trouble telling right from left when under stress so I learned to point when when giving her turn directions. One day early in our practice driving it took two miles for her to finally make a left turn I was requesting. We were actually in the next town by the time she finally understood what I wanted. Hannah knows her directions and handles the car like a pro but she drives off before buckling her seatbelt, enters intersections without looking either way, and she speeds. She has a serious case of overconfidence. So with her I have to give a stream of safety reminders about the most basic things -- break now, slow down to keep the car under control during turns, etc. In California teens have to have 6 hours of professional instructions and I'm thinking about buying an extra 6, or maybe 60 would be better. Ok, I am cautious with my teen drivers. Natalie has had her license for over 2 years and has only been allowed to drive on the freeway twice.

Time to go figure out what is up with Rachel and why she is not calling. Not that she will answer her cell phone...