Small blog got rained on by his own .38.

A small blog for Palm Sunday. It was too fine a day to spend much of the evening at the keyboard. But I do have Ann and Lilly notes. I can play a game with Ann now. Two games, actually. One is “Grab Daddy’s Finger,” the other “Try to Imitate Daddy’s Facial Gestures.” She is becoming accomplished at sticking out her tongue during that second game.

Yesterday, as we cleaned out the garage and one of our cars, Lilly laid claim to the kiddie in-line skates in the garage that we had acquired sometime before she was ready for them. She decided that yesterday was the day. I wasn’t so sure. She has all the gear: skates in durable plastic, knee pads, elbow pads, and a helmet. After she lobbied vigorously to use the skates, I took Lilly to the same park at which she had hunted for Easter eggs earlier in the day, a place where I knew the sidewalks were empty and level. She put on all the equipment (with some help from me with the actual skates). I held her hand and she made slow forward progress, and seemed to enjoy it. Only one fall, nothing too serious.

Jay writes, referring to my account of representing Iraq in a mock UN (April 5 blog). Dees and Robert are two of my nephews.

“I enjoyed the account of your days as Baghdad Bob. Robert is with the model UN and Dees served, too, I think, in junior high. They watch them too closely for anything like your demarche to happen. There'd be all sorts of trouble, too, if it did. The adults who run the model UN take it very seriously.

Last year a high school member of the program was reportedly barred from further participation after he introduced a resolution calling for the recognition of the use of ganja as a legitimate Rastifarian sacrament. It's not clear whether he was expelled for introducing it, or they chucked him out because his resolution (I've heard) passed. According to that story, those in charge nullified the results of the vote.

Dees and Robert after him have generally represented what were referred to in “Yes, Minister” as TPLACs (tin-pot little African countries), Somalia, for instance, one year, and then the Congo (Kinshasa). When Dees — I think it was — represented Somalia four or five years ago (how can your country be represented in the United Nations if it doesn't actually have a government?), I lent them my Bonnie Blue Flag for use in their display. It's very similar to the flag of Somalia, as it happens, and we figured it was close enough for student purposes. When I delivered it to the sponsor, I explained to her what it was. ‘So that's why they named her Bonnie Blue!’ she said.”