Incommunicado

Well, dear friends, it will likely be about ten or eleven days until you hear from our circus again. Jim is taking a whirlwind trip to the mainland, in which he'll visit three graduate schools (Chicago, Princeton, and Ohio State) and, sadly, attend the funeral for one of his soldiers, who died in a motorcycle accident last weekend. Although the girls and I are staying at home, e-mail is the most reliable way for Jim to stay in touch with work and the various programs he'll be visiting, so our happy little laptop is taking the trip with him. Thus, no blogging for a bit. We'll be back, though. And I'm sure we'll have plenty of misadventures to share when we return.

In the meantime, if you have a moment, please say a prayer for Jim -- that he'll travel safely (without lost baggage!), that he'll be a comforting presence to the family of his soldier, and that the visits to graduate schools will give him the information he needs to make a wise decision about the best program for him to attend. Thanks, friends. Perhaps when he returns we'll have news of where we'll go!