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I'm up to my eyeballs in cute!

The puppies are eleven days old, starting to open their eyes, and getting all rolly-polly and pup-like, although they still wriggle around a bit like giant garden slugs with fur.

I'm happy about this for the moment, as I know what havoc will arise when they're fully mobile and jumping all over the place with big clumsy puppy feet, using their razor sharp puppy teeth to chew on everything... more

Continued from here, where I was just about to list the top ten things for being a good guest:

1) Ask about policy. If hosts prefer you help yourself, do so, so as not to look like you're waiting to be served. If they would rather you not, wait until you are invited to join in meals, drinks and such.

2) Keep your intruder status in mind. Don't hog the hosts' favorite chairs. Don't leave dirty or wet clothes hanging around bathrooms and such. Make yourself as unobtrusive as possible, allowing your hosts to keep some semblance of their home being their own.

3) Clean up your... more

Because of where we live, my family is destined to have guests in our home, and to be guests in others' when we travel to the US. No matter how fond we may be, the old adage that guests are like fish -- both stink after three days -- holds true more often than we'd like.

Since getting to us takes a very long time ... it's usually somewhere around 36 hours of travel time from the States to Seychelles ... people tend to stay a while. Two and three week visits are common. And we certainly don't pop over to California for a long weekend.

It can be a stressful situation for everyone; guests are out of their element, and hosts are being invaded. When kids are involved, the discomfort... more

I wrote recently about a group intentionally tying adoption to anti-abortion issues and how uncomfortable I was with attempts to link the two and give the impression that they are somehow related in deep and indivisible ways.

Today, I'm coming across stories out of Texas that are taking it that little bit further ... far enough to get question marks popping around in my head.

A Texas state senator proposed a plan to pay pregnant women for choosing adoption over abortion... more

Continued from here, where we were just about to talk about adopting art ... and I don't mean a kid named Arthur. In an issue of the Christian Science Monitor from a while back ... I never see these things until they've been around a while ... the back story, titled "Adoption: entree for art lovers", caught my eye.

An interesting idea has emerged... more

In the book I recently completed, "The Adoption.com Guide to US Infant Adoption" (Yes, that's a plug.), I early on address the fact that adoption is, amongst other things, a word.

The word 'adoption' gets thrown around quite casually in our world: IT companies want adoption of their software; local zoos hope you'll adopt a tiger or a giraffe; elected officials wrangle for adoption... more

Continued from here, where we've been talking about potential dangers of crowding too many unrelated concepts under the adoption umbrella.

CFF's (Children First Foundation) Benefit Committee includes leaders of the New York State Right to Life Committee, the Connecticut Right to Life Committee, the New Jersey Family Policy Council and the Family Institute of Connecticut, organizations that support CFF's efforts to promote Adoption and Safe Havens as positive, compassionate and life-saving choices that deserve greater public understanding, appreciation and... more

I've come across something that has me pondering.

(Yeah, I know. What else is new?)

This story about a "Gala Concert for Adoption" to be held at Lincoln Center in April caught my eye, and on first glance it looked pretty good. I then read down a paragraph and found that the point of the concert is directly linked to Baby Safe Havens.

... "Gala Concert for Adoption" is part of a national effort to raise greater awareness about the important "Safe Haven Laws" that have been enacted in 47 states during the month of April so that, as stated by Tim Jaccard, "not one single baby... more

Since it's Friday, I'm thinking in terms of conclusion ... of tidying up my week, putting it in a nice neat pile where I can see it in its altogether, look closely, and decide if it's been a good one.

Sticking with my weekly summary formula ... I know I haven't used it in a while, but I keep it handy for just such Fridays ... I'll start out with what I've been reading.

I began the week with a lovely, quiet and gentle old English book ... Gay has a fancy edition the Folio Society puts out ... called "Enchanted April" , written in 1922 by Elizabeth Von Arnim.

Set in the early 1900s, it's the story of a couple of... more

Continued from here ... Those feeling a need to know what's going on, no matter how worrying, might find what they're looking for at this site that shows every global incident that may be terrorism-related almost as it happens in the world.

Happily for me, there's been nothing in my neck of the woods, but that's not true of just about everywhere else.

If... more