Look, if I knew how whole weeks disappear before I have a chance to tell you anything about them, then I would be able to do more about it.

Now, the chestnut candles are out in force and we're urging ourselves ever-forward to the end of the semester. In celebration, this morning the dog found a mouse somewhere in the house while I was away giving a campus tour to a job candidate. When I came home, he dodged me insistently for a few minutes, keeping his mouth closed the whole time, before finally opening his jaws and dropping a still-quivering carcass on the floor. Before I could stop him, he picked it up again, returning it to its concealment within his jaws (none of this hanging-a-mouse-out-of-one's-mouth nonsense for my dog). I still don't know whether he swallowed it whole once I put him outside or whether he dropped it on the ground in the backyard, having had his fun with it.

Fortunately the day got way, way better after that.