I am getting more and more excited about the book coming out. The more I reread it and work on it the more I like it. That's the good news. The bad news is that I really have to crank on the revisions of the last half. With my teaching and I'm the chair of the international committee at school to foster international film programs and blogging and, oh yeah, those two kids, I am only a shadow of my once efficient self.

I'm working now, Saturday afternoon although it is gorgeous outside. I feel guilty about trapping the kids in the apartment with me but I have to work on this. They seem happy, though. I made them clean out their toybox so they discovered many of their old favs in the bottom. The irony of imprisoning my kids in the apartment today so I can write a book about what a great parent I am has not been lost on me. We're heading out now for some playdates.

Lucia our wonderful nanny back in LA has been missing the kids so much that she begged me to buy her a ticket to come in two weeks. That's great for her but also a great time for me to go out to my uncle's place in the Hamptons and write all day and all night. Still, with a pub date of February, two weeks might be too late.

Then I just got a call from the kids' mom saying how much she missed them and asking me if I could fly her in to see them. They're slated to visit at Thanksgiving but she can't wait and hasn't seen them since the end of August. It's just exactly what I need right now. she's flying in next week for a week, staying here with us, I suppose, but I will go out to Long Island to work for four days of it. And she's coming Thursday, which is nice because I have a date on Wednesday and she'd be a little hard to explain:

"Oh don't mind that woman on the Aerobed. That's just my ex-wife."