That's right, there's no Almanac today. But you knew that. There may or may not be an Almanac tomorrow, but the Studieskolen class is taking a tour of Assistens Kierkegård (weather permitting), and I'll be bringing my camera with every intention of posting shots of the graves of Søren Kierkegaard, H.C. Andersen, Niels Bohr, Dan Turell, and many, many more dead people! MoronAbroad: your one-stop shop for the celebrated Danish dead...

And for what it's worth, I just gave Molli her first full meal out of a bottle. I realize this means it may be possible in the future for Trine to delegate the occassional midnight feeding to me. I'm beginning to wonder if I've made a horrible mistake.

I also just went to the store to get a little PepsiMax to have with dinner. I'm wearing old blue jeans, scuffed-up white sneakers, and a lime-green, long-sleeve pullover. I've got a little stubble going. My eyes have huge bags under them. But as I left the store, my friendly neighborhood købmand smiled at me approvingly and told me I looked sharp. I asked him to repeat himself three times, because I was sure I was misunderstanding him. I wasn't. So either he's completely lost his mind or I've been such a wreck for so long that right now I look great by comparison.

Hopefully he's lost his mind.

Molli was a joy last night. What I mean is that she was tired, sleepy, and quiet. Never have I so enjoyed her silence.

A huge thunderstorm rolled in around 10:30pm and lashed us with rain, lightning, and rolling thunder. This had the surprising effect of lulling Trine and Molli right to sleep. I was surprised by Molli's indifference to most of the thunder. She's just a baby--shouldn't she have been afraid the sky was falling, or the universe exploding? She only reacted once or twice, to especially nearby thunderclaps, and even then all she did was peek around nervously and hiccup.

As for me, I was so cozy just reading in bed while my wife and daughter dozed beside me and the storm raged outside that I didn't want to let go of it. I stayed up reading for hours even though I was so tired I was probably clinically dead.

That's why I slept in and hurriedly cobbled together an Almanac that was supposed to be about toothbrushes but ended up having more to do with celebrity politicans. (If you're willing to concede that Joe Piscopo is even still a celebrity.)

All the big news when I first browsed the headlines this morning had to do with the near-simultaneous downing of two Russian passenger jets last night. The story seems to have withered away over the course of the day. Strange. Oh wait... it's still out there, never mind.

But I did manage to find a treasure trove of Dennis Miller rants...

Today's Almanac is up (Red, wrong, and purple). I, on the other hand, am down. We had a real rough night with Molli last night. She cried inconsolably all evening. She hadn't eaten any big meals all day. By 10:30 or 11:00pm our defenses had been worn down to the point that we panicked and called a doctor for advice. We were told that a doctor would come by the house if she was still screaming in three or four hours. The notion of her screaming that long horrified us into numbness, I think and our numbness succeeded in calming her down to the point where she could sleep. Naturally that frightened us even more: she'd been so cranky all day—how could she sleep so peacefully?

We spent the night doting on her. She slept beautifully, woke at normal intervals for more or less normal meals, and gave no indication of anything but perfect health. The two of us, on the other hand, hardly slept at all.

We'll get the hang of this stuff eventually.

Won't we?

(I should mention that this was only the second or third bout of inconsolable crying Molli's experienced since we brought her home nearly three weeks ago. From everything I hear and read, we ought to be grateful. Parents of colicky children are now like gods to me. Saying I salute them doesn't being to communicate the depths of respect I have for such parents. I honestly don't know how a colicky child could be endured every day, week after week, for three months, without pharmaceutical assistance.)

Today's Almanac is up (and Almanacs were posted every day last week, so I'm a little more optimistic about staying regular from now on). An appeal for employment, coming to terms with addiction, drawing and quartering, and a big bean update.