Lovely autumn morning here. I'm sitting around in my PJs, drinking coffee, reading online newspapers and dealing with emails. As to the newspapers, I can truthfully say that the week past has provided a couple of positives: Harriet Miers' nomination was withdrawn and Scooter Libby has been indicted. I can only hope that V. P. Cheney and Karl Rove follow at some point, preferably sooner than later. Himself asked me why I was so happy that conservative opposition helped bringing about the nomination withdrawal: my answer is that I have no objection to conservatives doing the heavy lifting on this one. Saves liberals exhausting capital before the next nomination fight.

Unfortunately, the week also saw the 2000th American death in Iraq. Like Russ Feingold, I want a timetable....

Genealogy has been very, very good to me this week. As I have already mentioned to some folks, I unearthed another Lincolnshire connection, thanks to the appearance of the 1851 British Census online. It turns out that approaching the matter of my great-grandfather from the paternal side isn't terribly productive, as it seems that he was the only one of his immediate family with a sense of adventure. Now the Blakewells (his mother's family) seem to be a different sort. We knew that two of his maternal first cousins, George and Thomas Couling, came to America: George in the late 1850s, Thomas in the 1860s. It did not appear that there were any more relatives on this side of the Atlantic. Until I reviewed the Blakewell siblings, that is.

First thing to know about the Blakewells is that they were not of one mind on the subject of how to spell their surname. Some use "Blakewell", some "Blackwell". John Blakewell appears frequently in censuses as "John Blackwell". I noted that Eleanor Blakewell Clay and Mary Blakewell Couling had a brother William for whom I could not account. So I happily plugged his name into my new toy and presto chango! there is William Blakewell with a wife in several children, present in Kirkby Green in 1851. I checked back using both Blackwell and Blakewell in 1861, and couldn't raise any of them. Not William, not his wife, not any of the children. They had vanished from the face of the earth. Not a whiff or a wisp remaining.

Not quite. As in the cartoons, a light bulb appeared over my head. George left Timberland in the 1850s for Illinois--why not check for William in Illinois in 1860? And damned if he and all his family (plus a new one born in Illinois) weren't there in Brimfield, Peoria County. This of course led to a chain of lookups with the result that I have a reasonable framework of the Illinois Blakewells and a possible present day link to them. I feel a positively obnoxious sense of self-satisfaction about this.

Other good genealogical things: the National Archives is now set up for online order of records. I have submitted requests for the combined service records of several of my Civil War folks and can track their progress online as well. Three of my orders were sent out yesterday, including one for James M. Thurston, my fourth great-grandfather, who died at Andersonville. I have also requested his pension file, not because it contains much about him, but because it will allow me to track his children and widow to a certain extent. I know where they are in 1870, but I lose track of all but two of them after that. Such uncertainty is unacceptable to someone with as compulsive a nosiness as me.

On a less pleasant note, #1 son missed two days of school last week. He was just totally depressed, flat affect, anhedonia, the works. His depression also took its usual toll on his GI tract. What's especially troubling is that he can't identify a triggering event. Doesn't bode well.

#2 son announced that he wants his teeth lasered and to use professional acne products. He is also lobbying for color contacts because he wants lighter brown eyes. No to all three proposals. He has gorgeous eyes, his teeth are fine, and he seems to have his face under control. He does have some light scarring, but I am confident that it will fade. If it doesn't, it's light enough so that the home micro-dermabrasion kit by Neutrogena should work. My son the metrosexual. I'm surprised he hasn't asked for a spa day for his birthday. Sidebar: nothing on his birthday list is less than $200. Where does he get these ideas, anyway?

Today and tomorrow we hit this year's Food and Wine Show at the Coliseum. We're doing two days in order to taste test both the wines and the micro-brews. No anhedonia here. ;)

Events of the upcoming week: Will gets his upper braces off. Conor's 15th birthday. Hallowe'en. The organizational basketball meeting, after which parents of the "student-athletes" [har! har!] have to cough up megabucks for shoes, unies, participation fees, and joining the booster club. The thought of actually belonging to something called a "booster club" is making me gag. I know, I'll put the membership in Himself's name! A visit from my long-lost niece. ;))

So it's off to breakfast and shower now. A tout à l'heure et jusqu'à jeudi!