September 17, 2002
Claire's birthday
Today is Claire's 7th birthday — around 1:40PM if I recall correctly. It's hard to believe it's been seven years. Scarier yet, in seven more years she'll be in high school! Meanwhile this next child will probably be just entering first grade. Claire brought some birthday treats in to school to share with her classmates. She also has a special one-on-one lunch with her teacher.
Last night a sitter watched the kids while Michelle and I went to dance class. We're gradually getting the hang of it. Afterwards Michelle and I went to Bertucci's for some coffee and their dessert trilogy. When we got home we watched a little more of It Happened One Night, a 1934 classic directed by Frank Capra and starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. It's good so far but between Clark's thin mustache and his perpetual smirk, I just want to slap him. I don't know why... maybe it'll pass. Once that movie is done I'm hoping to get to see the original version of Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, another Capra 1936 classic starring Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur. On the kids' side of the house, supposedly Monsters, Inc. comes out on video today. We'll be picking that up for the girls this week.
Christopher Reeve (aka Superman) is railing against the Bush administration for supposedly caving to pressure from the Catholic Church in the administration's position on embryonic stem cell. From my read of the article Reeve supports “therapeutic cloning” while not supporting reproductive cloning. I guess it's an 'ends justifies the means' argument. It's ok to create (and destroy) new embryonic lives to make new tissues and cures, but not to make new people. Best blogger comment I've seen on this — a bumper sticker that reads “Save Our Celebrities: Support Embryonic Stem Cell Research!”