Note to self: when lighting candles in a decorative grouping atop a table, light the tallest candle first. Starting with the shortest candle leads to hot fingers. Also, do not lean right over the candles if hair is not in a ponytail.

I am an EAD-encoding fiend these days. EAD is Encoded Archival Description, an SGML- and XML-compliant markup language for publishing finding aids electronically, and the class I'm taking this summer. It's loads of fun, and once you get going you want to markup everything in sight.

This morning for breakfast I had a lemon ginger scone and Koosh had a large mouse. It's the fourth one she's eaten since Memorial Day (fifth one caught--I threw one away when she wandered off to take a nap), and for whatever reason she feels it's necessary to bring them into the house to consume. Usually she eats everything or leaves only what we call "the bean," a kidney bean-shaped purple bit that is probably the stomach. This time she left a foot and an unidentified grayish innard. It was a pretty large mouse and she's a small cat, after all. There had been a little lull in mouse meals for several days while the nesting scrub jays took over the backyard and wouldn't let Koosh out of the house. Somehow they sensed Isis isn't really a threat and left her alone for the most part, but Koosh was under continuous avian bombardment for about a week.

Current reading: EAD: Context, Theory, and Case Studies, EAD Tag Library, and Seamus Heaney (while marking up his poems in my head).