Need to get out more.

"Country" is one Tertius's spelling words this week. He demonstrates that he recognizes it by citing the USA as his home country.

"But country has another meaning," I point out, never content to leave a horizon unexpanded.

"It does?"

"Yeah, as in 'going to the country.' What do you call the place you get to when you go out of the city and head for the open fields and farms and forests?"

"The suburbs."

Headlines we didn't need.

"Miley Cyrus has royal wedding fever."

Associated Press, twenty minutes ago. (I'm not making this up, you know.)

Mooching on Mother Nature

We're stepping out of the house and into a light rain. "You know what I like about rain and snow?" says Tertius.

"What?"

He sticks his tongue out and catches some drops. "Free drinks!" he cries.

The third time's enemy action.

I think that's a quote from Goldfinger (the book, not the movie), but it's not to hand to check.

I was just asked to do the Unicorn Writers Conference again for a third time, next year. I must be doing something right, then.

A thousand words.

For two years now, the talented Darren Wagner has been the official photographer of the Unicorn Writers Conference. He's just posted a montage of last Saturday's event on his website. Here's a smaller YouTube version:

I think this is my first ever YouTube appearance, that I know of. It goes by pretty fast, but in case you're trying to spot me, I'm wearing my reading glasses with the thick, black frames in all of Darren's pictures. My first appearance is 39 seconds in, with Lee Stringer. (Note how the neatness of my hair deteriorates through the course of the day.)

It's in the genes.

I arrive this morning to take the boys to school. Only Tertius comes to greet me.

"Where are the others?" I ask, glancing at my watch.

"Well, [Primus] is in the office reading a book," he tells me, "[Secundus] is still in bed . . . and I don't know where I am."

Where's that better mousetrap, then? And I'm still waiting for my flying car.

Secundus has always been the inventor in the family. But eight-year-old Tertius is catching up. He's just quietly rearranged the boys' shared bedroom into a classroom, with their plastic storage crates for desks and a dry-erase sheet taped to the wall as a chalkboard. Each desk has a book, a Post-It pad (and I want them back!) and a bottle of Poland Spring. A larger teacher's desk faces the others.

I remark to Secundus, who has been studying Thomas Edison in school, that his little brother is following in his footsteps, but that Tertius is now the one putting all his energy into furniture-shifting. When S. gets involved in these projects, he tends to be the more cerebral overseer.

"You know what they say, Dad," he replies coolly. "Genius is one percent perspiration . . ."

Every one a gem.

The wondrous Laura Lippman lamented on Facebook the other day that Tina Fey's announcement of her pregnancy on "Oprah" has "raised the bar" for authors on book tours.

I suggested you could one-up Fey by getting pregnant on "Oprah."

(Lends a whole new meaning to jumping on the couch. Yeah, I know, it's all a bit obvious, but it's not every day a multi-award-winning New York Times best-selling mystery author sets up your one-liners.)

Talking of best-selling mystery authors -- of whom I am not yet one -- I briefly met Carol Higgins Clark yesterday, who was charming and gave a very entertaining presentation at the Unicorn Writers Conference. I did a mystery-writing workshop later, but I don't think I got as many laughs. Well, not intentionally. More about that later.

Of course, in the way of these things, "later" will end up meaning "earlier," since we always read the latest blog first. So you know this already. Do I have to repeat myself?

(Maybe Tina F. will deliver on "The Colbert Report"?)

Roger Ebert is not guilty.

Film buffs may remember the bit in the great Costas-Gavras film Z, in which a conspiracy to cover up a murder is revealed when the same distinctive metaphor -- "as lithe and fierce as a tiger" -- is used to describe an action by supposedly independent witnesses.

I noticed in at least three previews or (generally negative) reviews of the remake of Arthur (the old Dudley Moore comedy, not the PBS cartoon series about an aardvark, although that might have been better casting for Russell Brand) that actress Greta Gerwig is referred to as an "indie darling."

So I did a search, and got nearly 20,000 Google hits on the precise phrase "indie darling Greta Gerwig."

Is an "indie darling" now a proper job title? Or the birth of an accepted piece of jargon, like a native son or a principal boy or an MVP? Or are we just seeing desperately lazy and derivative journalism?

Got me taped.

Netflix charts the ratings you give movies and TV programs and makes suggestions for your viewing.

Their number one selection for me? "The Best of Benny Hill."

That's bordering on racism.

(Next up was a SpongeBob SquarePants compilation, which is more like it, although I always preferred The Fairly Odd Parents.)