Well, the bare bones are done. With Conner's dedicated help, I got the furniture and most of our belongings swapped between bedrooms. I'm now in the master bedroom, which for the past eight years has served first as a computer room and later a nursery. Zam's stuff has been moved into her new bedroom. I'm afraid, however, the poor girl is forever doomed to lend closet space to Mom.

The main benefit of having the master bedroom, besides the fact that it's bigger and located on the cooler side of the house (no more southern exposure!!) is that I now have my Own Bathroom. Technically, it's only a half bath, but it's mine, and I don't have to share it with anyone, ever. Unfortunately, after sitting unused for nearly five years, none of the plumbing is working, so I've spent the last two hours doing plumberly things; crawling under the sink, working on the toilet, tearing apart the faucet. Decided to just buy a new faucet on eBay.

My son is such a good kid. He's a very hard worker. Now I know why his grandma pays him sop well when he works for her in the summer. And now he's rubbing my sore feet. He pestered to do it until I gave in.

Here's the back.

Give up? Huh? Huh?


I'm so tickled I can't stop grinning. It's the military discharge papers my great great great grandfather George Maxwell Wilkinson received in Dumfries, Scotland. He was released from the 2nd Battalion of the Rifle Brigade after being wounded and no longer being fit for service. According to this paper, he served in Malta and the Ionian Islands, enlisting when he was nineteen and discharged eight years later. On the back, it specifies that he is to receive eight shillings "marching money" for marching three miles from Leith to Dumfries. Most of that information is not in the official published Wilkinson history. I'm feeling gleeful and smug.

I'm still trying to dig up info about his battalion.

This boggles my mind beyond anything I've ever heard. Italy has laws against "driving while gay"? Just when I think I've heard the most stupid thing possible, there's this;

ROME (Reuters) - An Italian court has ruled the government must pay 100,000 euros ($157,700) in damages to a man who was told to retake a driving test because he was homosexual.

When 26 year-old Danilo Giuffrida told doctors he was gay at his medical examination for military service, they passed the information to the transport ministry, who told him he must repeat his driving test or have his license withdrawn due to his "sexual identity disturbance."

Giuffrida agreed to re-take his test, passed it for a second time, but the ministry renewed his license for just one year rather than the usual 10 years because of his homosexuality.

The judge ruling on the case in Catania, on the southern island of Sicily, said the actions of the defense and transport ministries showed "evident sexual discrimination" against Giuffrida and ran counter to his constitutional rights.

The behavior of the ministries led Giuffrida to have "a grave sense of mistrust towards the state," added the judge, who ordered them to pay him 100,000 euros of damages in his verdict issued on Saturday.

Giuffrida's lawyer said the case marked the first time the state had been punished for sexual discrimination, and he hoped Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi would "summon Giuffrida and apologize to him on behalf of the state and all Italians."

Giuffrida said the sentence was "a step forwards for civil rights because from now on what happened to me can't happen again."

My mom appears to be having a "bad face day". Time to rescan this one. She was beautiful, honest!

See? No "funny face". Though I may have to keep the funny one for posterity.