No, I was latest home, Kathryn, got back to the hacienda 10:30 last night. Subsequent events:

Greeted wife (kids in bed). Listened to playback of 2 days’ worth of kids’ melodramas and malfeasances. Was soothing & supportive.

Got changed. Unpacked. Showed magnificent pecan pie gift from Houston show organizers. Explained to wife that we’ve been saying it wrong all these years in America, it’s pe-CAN, not PEE-can. Chuckled over oddities of English pronunciation. Showed presents I got for kids: cute top for Nellie with HOUSTON on it, T-shirt for Danny saying DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS. Wife pointed out that Danny’s T-shirt was TOO SMALL, should be 10-12, not 6-8. Oh God, this is the kind of thing they never forgive you for. Pondered whether to deep six both kid gifts & just plead haste at airport, decided Nellie’s top too nice, too much money down tubes, shall brave it out with son somehow.

Checked phone messages: tax accountant, piano tuner, home improvement firm (we’re having a sun room buit). Checked mail: book for review (John Lukacs’s JUNE 1941, with promo letter from publisher: “A bantam-sized book with a heavyweight punch”–Strobe Talbott: how in hell does anyone ever get to be named Strobe?), this week’s New Yorker, junk, junk, junk.

Sat reading New Yorker while wife watched Sex and the City. Creepily dishonest editorial on immigration, skilfully slithers from sentences containing the phrase “illegal immigration” to sentences with the “illegal” left out, to give impression they are same thing. Then read v. depressing article on Iraq by George Packer, includes picture of an Iraqi army unit that tells a thousand words (attached). Gist of article: Iraq FUBAR, political & military imperatives hopelessly at loggerheads, some brilliant & dedicated US military folk being shafted by politicians, in event total collapse, admin. will blame it all on negative press.

Ate 45 degree slice of Houston pecan pie while watching Leno, who had much sport with the Homeland Security dude arrested for trying to snare teenagers on web: “If Osama bin Laden was a 14-yr-old girl, we’d have caught him by now.” Coincidence: Leno’s main guest is Paul Newman. In my Houston hotel room that morning, I had flicked on the TV for some news, caught the beginning of Cool Hand Luke on a movie channel, & of course had to watch the thing all through (how can you not?), reflecting glumly that nowadays everyone would assume the Kennedy-Newman thing was gay, thus obscuring the entire point of the movie. Unfortunately that was just when I should have been doing Radio Derb. So RD fell by the wayside, sorry fans. Shall do today for posting Monday, NRO webmaster willing. Now of course I have that darn song jangling round in my head: “Well, I don’t care if it rains or freezes…” And so to bed.

Up late this am. Checked email. Email impossibly backed up, 400+ on main a/c, similar on other one. Turn from computer in despair. No newspaper delivered for 2nd day in row, home delivery of NY Post same status Iraq. Kids gone to school, wife gone to work, dog whining for walkies, huge heap of pruned wood to be chipped, tax accountant wants info I haven’t got, OK, OK, don’t panic, just line ‘em up & take ‘em one by one. First check in with blog: DERB PUNCHES CLOCK…