Long week.

Thanks to a bus driver strike, it'll be a four-day work week. However, it certainly seems longer. In the three days that I've worked, each one has been a 13-hour day, thanks to newspaper production.

Am I tired? Absolutely.

Am I behind? Most certainly. I owe someone college recommendations, and thanks to the flu and production, my back is against the wall.

Am I frustrated? Definitely.

But my biggest woe? My girls.

I've missed them. I get home by 7 P.M., shove food down the pie hole, try to find out what's going on, and then veg out. As tired as they make me, my girls complete me. Looking at them is like revisiting my own girlhood, back before deadlines and bills and standards and commitments. They bear the innocence that we lose all too quickly.

The highlight of my weekend (which far outweighed trying out the triathlon bike) was going for ice cream after we spent an hour comparing bikes. We went to the kitschy Ice Cream World with its robin-egg-blue stools and flying saucer dessert selection. Watching my girls enjoy the simplicity of ice cream brings me comfort, as does looking at their photo. There was no arguing, no issue of sharing, no efforts to tease--for that would get in the way of dairy heaven.

And lord knows we never mess with dessert. Never.