Doh! Hugging the ex yesterday appears to have given me her cold. It's progessing quickly, though, which is good.

Surfing Wikipedia tonight I came across the tradition of the Three Magi, which makes me smile as I remember a moment in August: my little niece got some toy playset with animals in it, and her older sister jumped in and was trying to think of what to name them. After a couple of normal ideas, I suggested "Balthasar" and "Melchior". She turned around and looked at me with a look I'd never seen on her face: pure bewilderment, at an utterance so far out of left field, from someone in her family--her family, for heaven's sake, the most normal people in the world!--it didn't fit, and she turned back to the toys.

Ah, the beginnings of understanding.