I have some pretty cool things to talk about today.

Yesterday, as I was sitting at home trying to get some work done on my take-home project, I felt an odd vibration where my finger touched the trackpad. Then I felt it all over - the computer was shaking, ever so slightly. For that matter, so was the desk.

Come to think of it, it felt like the whole house was being rattled, just a little. I thought at first that maybe a plane was flying a little too low, but that kind of rattle usually has a noise associated with it.

And then, as suddenly as it had started, it stopped.

And what do geeks do when something odd has happened? That's right: they go online. I happened to have a chat window open with Matt and K.T.

"Um... Did we just have an earthquake or something?"

K.T. was dubious, but that's exactly what had happened. So says the newspaper, and so says the United States Geological Society.

I'm just enough of a geek to think that is really, really cool.

Then I had a fantastic morning on Neopets.

Out of the blue, a few days ago, someone I don't know happened to see my strawberry collection and think it was nice, so they offered me a discount trade on something I didn't have yet. That was pretty nice. Today, he sent me three more items for free, as a sort of Neo-Christmas present. Very cool!

Also, there are some giveaway games that you can only play once a day, and I usually play them while Penny is nursing in the mornings. I hit the jackpot bigtime on not one, but two of them.

(For my fellow Neo-geeks - the Fruit Machine gave me three ptolymelons, which netted me a Spotted Paint Brush, and I hit Coltzan's Shrine up for a 10 dubloon coin. That's going to translate to enough cash to help my assorted collections and wishlists along very nicely.)

When I got to work this morning, there was a box from Amazon sitting on my desk.

Oh, good, I thought, the stuff I ordered got here early. Though I did think it was a little weird I hadn't gotten a shipment notice - Amazon is usually really good about that kind of thing.

I opened the box, and saw silvery wrapping paper. I didn't order anything wrapped! Dammit, if they charged me...

But when I looked at the gift tags, I realized it is not the stuff I ordered. It is Christmas presents for me and Penny, from Jeff!

Whoo! Presents! Cool!

(Guess now we need to hurry and put up the tree...)

In less cool news, Penny is sick. Not too bad - she's just got a cold. Not even a fever. But she doesn't have much appetite, and she goes from being happy and smiling to fussy and angry in about two seconds flat. And she wants to be held more or less constantly - it's taking longer than usual to put her down in her crib, because she wakes up the instant we let go, and gets a little grumpy about it.

My mom called yesterday. "Did she get a flu shot?" she demanded. "This year's flu has killed people!"

"I don't think you can give a flu shot to babies under six months, Mom. Anyway, it's just a cold."

"How can you be sure?"

I described the symptoms.

"Oh. Yeah, that sounds like a cold."

I promised her I'd call the doctor at the first sign of a fever, or if the other symptoms lasted more than a couple of days. But we've got an appointment on Friday anyway, for her 4-month checkup.

--Liz