Today's box on the calendar is covered with ink scrawls reminding me of things to be done, not all of which are going to get done today. So no long lovely essays on art in the Berkshires for me today.

FOR SHEER YUCK FACTOR, the boy who peed beetles:

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - A 13-year-old Indian boy has begun producing winged beetles in his urine after hatching the eggs in his body, a senior medical official says.

I haven't decided whether to tell Peter about this news story or not. I know he'd be fascinated, but I think I'd better not.

MEANWHILE, Neil Gaiman sums up our political predicament:

Of course, when stood next to the choice of American political parties ('So, would you like Right Wing, or Supersized Right Wing with Extra Fries?") my English fuzzy middle-of-the-roadness probably translates easily as bomb-throwing Trotskyist, but when I get to chat to proper lefties like Ken MacLeod or China Mieville I feel myself retreating rapidly back into the woffly Guardian-reading why-can't-people-just-be-nice-to-each-otherhood of the politically out of his depth.

Maybe it's because I lived in Europe for a few years at an impressionalbe age, but that's how I see things, and I was born in Bloomington, Indiana, the child of Texans. But really, I do remember when we had a Democratic party. I remember being taken to their picnics as a child when my mother was running for state legislature, pasting their bumperstickers across my chest like a Miss America sash. What happened?

(Via Patrick Nielsen Hayden.)

Today is the birthday of my grandmother, Frances Sackowitz Cramer. She died in 1999. I won't tell you how old she would have been today, since she wouldn't have wanted you to know. Ladies don't tell their ages, she believed. She moved to Seattle from Houston in 1973 to be closer to us and was a consistently reliable adult through much of my childhood and adolescence. She made my life immeasurably better, for which I am deeply gateful. She was a terrific cook and was indefatigably hospitable. Happy birthday, Grandma.