Hi.

Just a quick note to say I'm still alive - last week was slightly evil (everything's fine now) and this weekend I was in NY visiting my parents (it was good). I'm just going to need a little more time to regroup, which won't be helped much by working through the holiday weekend (see "last week was slightly evil," above). But I'm still here. And here's the surprisingly effective cell phone picture of the birthday cake I got at home on Saturday. Apparently, I'm not yet too old to get the correct number of candles. The lights weren't out, it's just that my parents' dining room is the darkest place in North America. It's the only room I've ever seen with a hardwood ceiling.