My university offered me an invitation to submit a foundation grant just days before Labor Day. While it was an honor, it effectively wiped out my 3-day weekend. Combined with my upcoming promotion, Melody applying for another position, and the ongoing heat wave, we decided to spend most of our holiday weekend working indoors. Between power naps and sitting at the computer, we took turns hanging out with Westley, who’s starting to show off a wider vocabulary with words like “car”, “house”, “outside”, “shoes”, “star”, and “fish.” On Saturday, we took him out to watch us eat Ginger Elizabeth’s sundae, but did not make it through brunch at The Porch as we tried to shift him from a two-nap to one-nap schedule. My work load spilled into the following week, with several manuscripts under revision and a textbook to edit, allowing me little time to spend with my new lab post-doc Sook beside a brief lunch in Davis. With us eating mostly at home, we finally finished the Nikita series, and began watching the acclaimed Handmaid’s Tale, which depicts a haunting future reminiscent of changes that are currently happening in our country, especially in light of recent events in Charlottesville. To lighten things up, we also began Parks & Recreation, which hilariously depicts the nuances of working for public office, akin to working at a public institution. Westley can’t seem to get enough of the new season of So You Think You Can Dance. Between hearing news of devastating hurricanes and nuclear threat, I was able to find some reprieve watching him bounce along to the music.