Kith & Kin
The L.A.W. gave birth to a bouncing baby boy—Benjamin—on Tuesday, making Brother-in-L.A.W. a proud papa twice over & The Squeak a big sister! "Ben" was only two ounces short of eight pounds, being both heavier & longer than The Squeak was at birth. My wee nephew, whom I believe I'm going to call "Benno" & who does not yet have a Secret Base code name, has Brother-in-L.A.W.'s surname, whereas The Squeak has The L.A.W.'s surname; such are the perils & idiotic, needless complications of modernity. Calling him Benno, like the German actor Benno Fürmann, will have the dual advantages of amusing me & annoying everyone else; win-win! Welcome to the world, Benno! Uncle Mike is your favorite!



Yes, I will from time to time call him "Be Jammin'." Such is a dedication to wackiness—& yes, indeed, awesomeness—that makes Uncle Mike the favorite of wee bairns throughout the land.

I've still not met my niece Lucianna, Where's Teddy?'s little sister, though she is now close to two-months-old. I have twice proposed visits & both times been put off by weak excuses; the inescapable conclusion is that I am unwelcome at Xanadu, unwelcome around my nephew & niece. I hate to grouse, but this wounds me grievously. This injustice I cannot abide.

Postscript (6:59 P.M.): Moments ago, we concluded a "webcam" chat with The L.A.W., Brother-in-L.A.W., The Squeak, & wee Benno (who might be given the code name "The Shriek," if he keeps making that particular voice). He's so tiny! "Baby T.V." is such a curious phenomenon: the infant is too small to be able to do much of anything, & yet staring at him is engrossing for even fairly sophisticated adults. So, now Benno's been told directly that Uncle Mike is his favorite; fortitudine vincimus, by endurance we conquer. The Squeak is enthusiastic & eager to help out, having been trained on her creepy Baby Alive dolls, though of course she's also in the midst of the "terrible twos" & unsure of what this new presence in the household will mean for her. We all reassured her that Benno is lucky to have such a good big sister.

The Explorers' Club
№ CCLXXXIV - The 20th Century Limited (1902-1967), "The Most Famous Train in the World."







The Queue
To my great dissatisfaction, thus far The Man who would be King and Other Stories is a nightmarish bore. The further I went into Kim, the better the book got; the short stories in this collection are afforded no such opportunity to win my favor over the long haul. I already knew that I preferred novels to short stories (& note from my love of the Bernard Samson trilogy of trilogies & the James Bond series that I might even prefer series of novels to stand-alone novels), but I hoped that Kipling's acknowledged mastery of the short story form would carry the day; such is not the case, at least not yet, through the stories "The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes," "The Phantom 'Rickshaw," "Gemini," & "A Wayside Comedy." I'm struggling here, dear readers, to the extent that the idea of abandoning the enterprise has flitted 'cross my mind. More likely, I'll take a break & read something else like The Gods of Mars before returning to the Kipling short stories. Something must be done, because I don't think I can continue like this, not for much longer, not without some promise of improved quality or some other form of succor. By Lucifer's beard!