My dear, dear Ellie

Living in Silicon Valley is expensive. The houses cost too much (and they are not great), taxes are high, and general expenses like food, gas, and clothes are higher than the national average. At the beginning of each year, I typically have to exercise my stock options in order to pay my taxes! It's terrible.

Anyway, today, while playing Gin Rummy with the kids, I took a quick break to sell some stock online to pay the taxes (and have a little left over to get solar panels!). Ellie asked me, "mom, what's wrong?" I told her what I was doing. She ran upstairs quietly and came down with her piggy bank. She dumped everything on the table and started counting and said, "Here you go, mom. This should help buy food for Duke, Chobe and Cheerio."

This made a bummer of a day much, much better. :)