Met with the new client again. What shall I call him? Let's call him 'Octavian', because I intend to turn him into a Caesar.

Octavian has followed all of my instructions. His eyebrows are now under control and his skin is beginning to improve. He complained about the diet - too many vegetables - but I nipped that in the bud. I don't care if the dietician tells him to drink nothing but carrot juice, he'll follow my directions to the letter or regret it. I'm not saying I can't be swayed by a carefully worded plea or, you know, the traditional offering of burnt flesh, but you'd better come as a supplicant with the proper amount of humility.

I do admit that monotonous diets are a sore point with me - who is he to complain when I spent how long on just nectar and ambrosia?

Tomorrow we'll be meeting with a real estate agent. He needs to make a marital alliance, and I've got two young women in mind. One is an elementary school teacher and the daughter of a venture capitalist. The other is a hematologist who's the best friend of the young wife of a certain CEO. Luckily for me they both live in the same neighborhood. And there just happen to be a couple of places on the market....

Well, that trip turned out about as well as I expected.

What a fiasco.

What's happening to us? We can't even control our own anymore. Artemis insane, how many others dead, napping, or missing. Even Athena seemed on a thin edge. And me - well, I've adopted a mortal child and I admit I have no idea what I am going to do with her when she turns 18.

I miss the old days more than ever.

Susan and I went to Alki for some purported 'Pirate landing' yesterday. Anticlimactic, crowded, and hot. None of the modern pirate fans seem to understand how violent, pest-ridden, and filthy the originals were. Remind me to write down the story of the time I was kidnapped and held for ransom by pirates some time.

I needed to get some time with her. I've felt her slipping into herself as the pregnancy progresses. Since she started to show last month, most of her friends (and all of her male friends) seem to have dropped her. She still won't tell me who the father is, and I've decided not to press further. It doesn't matter which of those pimply faced teenaged boys she used to hang out with impregnated her - none of them have anything to offer, they're as interchangeable as toy soldiers. We don't need what they can give.