Eugene Volokh turns 36. This combines with a discussion I've had recently with both Monica and Roni about age, about being as old as you feel, etc. I think when I was Roni's age I was older, but now that I'm almost the age my mother was when she came to live with us, I'm a lot younger than she was!

Well, I had three teenagers when I was 37. AND my Mother lived with us. While SHE treated me like a child, the kids were happy to make me feel like I was raised in the 1700s. I could have been a lot more confused than I was.

I still was involved, I think, with my Girl Scout troop. At home, I had a D&D game going with my son and his friends on Fridays, when they got out of school early. There were moanings about how dangerous role-playing was... seems to me there's always something people think is ruining the children, and generally it's something the kids think is fun. I figured I might as well play WITH them, and therefore keep tabs on what was going on. I also had a couple of letters-to-the-editor published. We were playing arcade games, and I was getting really good at Millipede. I *miss* Millipede!

This was just before my 20th high school reunion, which is the same for Roni. (I hope she plans to come to that this year with the family! The "nursery" will be ready for that by then!)

This was the time when the older boy was into science experiments. He superglued a nickel to the kitchen floor and it took some weeks to discover that nail-polish remover was what we needed. Then when I came across an egg in the freezer, I knew who to blame. The worst was my precious piece of hand-hammered copper dinosaur skin, which he bent till it broke, twice, giving me three precious pieces of hand-hammered copper dinosaur skin. For his birthday, three different people gave him watches, and by the next day, all three were reduced to gears and springs. Monica's right, they're lucky I let them live to adulthood! I suppose I shouldn't have objected, but should have encouraged this curious mind, which is easy to say if you aren't trying to live with it!

I gave Roni the cute fridgie I'd picked up from a cache, with the 50s family: "They'd always wanted to ruin their family, and they succeeded." Heh. I realized, when she went in for the knee surgery, that I've become a footnote in her life story, no longer a major character. Last year, when Eric was born, it was a little bittersweet to realize that I'm not going to be around to find out how his story comes out. Since then, I've expanded that to the other grandchildren... I want to know what happens! This "death" thing is quite annoying.

We have extra online time this month, which gave me time to edit photos, and to download new software and upload pictures! 3.8 meg of Alex pictures! Unfortunately, then it all fell apart, and I couldn't share the photo album I made.

Instapundit: A reader sends this interesting observation:

The New York Times article this morning on Iraq's Oil for Food program mentions Glencore but conveniently leaves out that this is the new name for Marc Rich's Swiss Trading Company. Just Google, Marc Rich + Glencore and look at all the matches. Do you think that the New York Times did not want to mention that the recipient of Clinton's most famous pardon was buying Iraq oil and kicking back to Saddam?