What to do, what to do...

If you go to see Slumdog Millionaire, do not go immediately afterward to a Wal-Mart. The mental whiplash will just give you hives.

The girls had a sleepover tonight - or at least that was the plan. Their friends Ashley and Meghan invited them over, and they had been just buzzing with excitement for days. Ashley is in Tabitha's grade, Meghan in Lauren's class, so it was a natural fit.

So, with an evening to ourselves, Kim and I were faced with the dreadful realization that we are now fun-impaired. We no longer really know what to do with ourselves when we have large blocks of time without designated tasks to fill them. Our days are mostly working and taking care of the girls and odd moments in between - having an entire evening was sort of, well, intimidating, actually. But we couldn't let it pass, and if we stayed home we'd just end up working again.

So we went out and had a nice dinner, and then went to see Slumdog Millionaire - which is a very good movie, but not one that really makes you feel good about the world. And if you should go directly from the slums of Mumbai to the sheer overabundance of uselessness that is your average Wal-Mart, well, you have only yourselves to blame for the resulting psychological trauma.

Fortunately, home contains copious amounts of wine with which to assuage that trauma.

Eventually we toddled off to bed, only to begin a round of phone calls with distraught, overtired children that culminated in my going over and hauling them back to their own beds, where they sleep soundly once again.

Busy night.