It's rare for our house to be completely dark. The camp is dark, PEI darker still. We have a street light just outside our window. Inside the house, there are the lights left on intentionally, the electric candle in the window, an evolution of the Christmas lights, a light of hope, and the stove light on for the early risers. Then, there are the dots of light, from the printer, the power strip, the telephone answering machine, the VCR that we hope isn't flashing 12:00. And this morning we have the moon, the nearly full snow moon, brightening up the whitened countryside.

In his 1989 innaugural address, President George H. W. Bush used the "thousand points of light" as his expression of how the service spirit would manifest itself in the country. Added to his lexicon by speechwriter Peggy Noonan in the mid-80s, the phrase has been employed by many different people.

I know that, if it wasn't for Matt, I wouldn't have known to care that Blink-182 is going on indefinite hiatus. (Indefinite Hiatus, by the way, would be a good name for a rock band. ) Blink-182 was one of Matt's favorite bands. I haven't had a chance yet to talk with him about the news. I suspect that it's no big deal. He'd moved on already.

A friend has a three-year-old yellow Lab named Thompson. Thompson is an, um, dropout of assistance dog school. He's great in all settings except when another dog is around. Then he needs to be the alpha dog. That's not acceptable behavior for a dog who is leading someone across a street. With people he's wonderful. Our friend's partner takes Thompson to the library and to school, where children read to him. Children are much more at ease when they're reading to him than when they're reading to adults or to their peers. At the end of the day, Thompson comes home very tired. It's a lot of work to pay attention well.

I received a call from an employment agency yesterday. The job that we discussed wasn't a great one (more than an hour's drive for 2-6 month contract), but it's good to get unsolicted calls.