For those of you who have been following the last couple of entries, I have discovered that the song I was thinking of is in fact called "Dance of the Sugar Plum Faerie". Which is somewhat less prog-rock that "In the Hall of the Mountain King", but I stand by my statement, and add to it the statement that Edvard Grieg would be a prog-rocker too. Probably a drummer.

I did some shopping today, which generally I try to avoid. (Shopping on Christmas Eve, not shopping in general.) I picked up Kierkegaard's "Practice in Christianity" for Ben, kind of a retaliation gift for the copy of the Tao Te Ching he got me two years ago. But he's a Religion major, so he needs to stay well read and all, right?

I am very glad to not be a pediatrician. By noon today (Christmas Eve, let me remind you!) my mom had been paged at least 12 times. That's easily thrice as many pages as she receives on the average day.

What was their excuse? "I didn't want to bother you on Christmas..."

Seriously. This one parent was calling about something her kid had had for a month. A month! And she waits until Christmas Eve to call my mom.

"The thing is," she tells us, "when I've finally had enough, and I decide I'm going to be nasty with the next person, they always say something like, 'I'm sorry... my father just died.' And then you feel terrible."

This is why my family is so nice. We're forced to be by fate.