Today my mom told me some lousy news: Tom Lanane, one of the nicest guys in the history of the world, died Tuesday. He was 84. He survived Pearl Harbor (aboard a ship that sank!), the hit and run death of his daughter Kim, who taught me to swim, then the death of his first wife not too long after Kim's death. When I was in high school, I dated this guy (yes, I know, a guy) who lived with his grandmother, Beth. Through the local Senior Center, Beth met Tom and they fell in love, starting a courtship that involved day trips to Utica, Ohio, tours of ice cream factories and at the end of the day, rubbing knees on the couch. Eventually they married, and had a happy life together.

Here's to Tom Lanane, among the best of guys. You'll be missed.

I am proud to report that I talked the head of the Math department at San Jose City College into letting me into statistics over the summer. This means that I am on my way to becoming a master of recreation.

In other news, I was up half the night last night finishing a rough traft of a term paper. Upon discussing our papers before class today, I discoverd that every single person I talked to thought it was okay to have a question for a thesis statement. Am I just really old school when it comes to writing papers or are these people not aware of what a thesis statement is???? Makes me think I'd be able to land a job tutoring though.

All of my best efforts to save Benny the guinea pig have failed and she died in my arms at 9 pm yesterday. She had a nice 2.5 years with us and I hope she's pain-free now, squeaking away happily, wherever she is.

Algebra = Satan
So... I took the test and got a score of 43. What does 43 mean, you ask? I'm not sure. I know this: I needed a 33 to get *into* the Intermediate Algebra prerequisite to statistics, a 43 is more than that. It's enough to get me an appointment with the head of the math department tomorrow. If I'm denied, I'm going to try my own fine community college, (which is farther from home but may offer a little more leeway). Either way, it looks like I'm headed to stats this summer instead of remedial math. Woo!

The corn will kill you
I don't like corn. Why? Well, I just don't. But our guinea pig did. We'd been giving her these little dried corn on the cob things and she was totally into them. Turns out they were totally into her and she's now all blocked up and not eating. We made an emergency run to the vet on Saturday, where $162 that I don't have got her going again, sort of. She got fluids and a big shot of vitamin C, now I'm feeding her baby food (peas, no less) with a syringe. She's starting to eat some of that but otherwise pretty damn lifeless. Please keep Been-a-min in your thoughts.

And no, she'll never eat corn again.