weather

What is this – I don’t even – gah

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Do I live in North Dakota?  Near any Great Lake?  Do I live in ALASKA?  No.  Do I live below the Mason-Dixon line?  Yes.  Is it October still?  YES.  Then why WHY did I wake up to this this morning?

It doesn't look so bad here, but it was early.

I mean, really, weather, what’s going on here?  The snow switched to sleet briefly and then right back to snow.  It came down steadily ALL DAY LONG.  I don’t live in #$*&% Minnesota, people!

If this is an omen, I may not be leaving the house this winter.  I’ll have to get my groceries airlifted in.  New tires just became a higher priority.  Maybe I should teach the dogs how to pull a sled.  And I can learn to snowshoe.

On top of that, it seems we now have two dogs with stomach problems, so off to the vet we will go (again) Monday morning.

(Obviously – or maybe not if you’re ignoring the news – everyone in the Northeast has it worse than us, but that is not the point.  It’s not even Halloween yet, for crying out loud.)

Hope your day started better than mine

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And I’m not talking about the weather.  Sure, it’s cold, rainy, and gloomy, but I plan to stay inside most of the day, all cozy with the dogs.  No, John and I got up and got ready to go out (he’s heading to his parents’, I was going to run a couple of quick errands), but before we could leave (thankfully, really), Roxy had a seizure.  She’s been having them about one every week and a half or so, and I knew she was due for one this weekend.  That was one of the reasons I had planned to stay home with her rather than go to PA in the first place.  And maybe she did me a favor by getting it over with first thing – now I don’t have to worry about it every time I leave the house.  Not for another week and a half, anyway.  We (me and Roxy) spent about half an hour on the floor together, me holding her still, her drooling and panting on my right shoulder and arm.  I certainly won’t be going out in the clothes I was wearing, and that sweater might be a goner.

She’s partway back to herself now (she’s eating).  Once she recognizes her name, I’ll feel comfortable leaving.

I’m beginning to wonder if I should build an ark

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It’s raining again.  Still.  Some sunshine would be nice, pretty please.

I think writing for a living would not be a good idea.  For me.  Meaning I would not be able to make a living at it.  Put some pressure on me to write (even this) when I don’t have anything particular in mind and I freeze.  Stare at the screen.  Find everything else do to first.  And then write about the weather.  Hello, rain!

I swear I’m not a moron…

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…but I recently had two “Are you kidding me?” moments.  One was today.  I usually keep a close eye on the forecast, but for some reason this week, I just haven’t.  John’ll tell you I prefer to trust weather.com than my own arm stuck out the front door.  I didn’t do either of those things today.  I just left the house to go to the store in shorts, a t-shirt, and flip-flops.  It was 60 degrees out, overcast, and breezy.  I was a little chilly.  In my defense, it was 80 yesterday and it isn’t fall yet…  But a guy at Wegmans still totally made fun of me.

My other moment was last weekend, and it was more of the “oh, that really DOES make a difference” kind.  I was helping John unload the IKEA boxes from the car on Saturday, and I usually have a really hard time wrestling with the bookshelf boxes.  Those things are heavy, and in the past, I’ve nearly dropped them on the way into the house because I just couldn’t hold my end up anymore.  Not this time, though.  I wouldn’t say it was easy or that the shelves were light (I certainly can’t carry them on my own), but it was no big deal.  I find it very unlikely that they’ve gotten lighter since my birthday (the last time we bought some), so the only conclusion I can come to is, hey!  Those strength classes I’ve been going to twice a week for the last seven months?  They work!  Amazing, mixed with a little of course they do, ya idiot.

It’s a mitzvah

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Once again, the impetus behind my semi-quasi-half-assed (but still!) massive cleaning effort today is not the desire to live an uncluttered, streak-free, dog hair-free life.  Oh, no, I can live quite happily with clutter piled high and nose tracks on the windows, as evidenced by the state of the house.  I do have some pride though, and I refuse to allow someone – anyone (other than John) – to see the house like this.  Unless they helped put it that way.  And unless they’re in John’s band.  I don’t go to great lengths to clean up when the band comes over to rehearse.  Although maybe I should.  ANYway, I’m cleaning because we’re expecting a visitor this weekend.  Not just a visitor – a refugee fleeing the hurricane.  A refugee with cats!  Because cats shouldn’t have to fend for themselves in the middle of a hurricane.  Instead, they’ll have to fend for themselves in a house with dogs.  Honestly, I’m not sure which they’d prefer.  We’ll manage just fine.  Although based on the weather right now, it seems totally ridiculous to be planning for a hurricane.  It’s sunny, a little muggy, bright blue sky, fluffy white clouds that are not in the least bit intimidating…

Oh, speaking of intimidating, I passed a car yesterday (a dinky, dented, old Honda or something – not impressive (not that there’s anything wrong with Hondas – I’m just painting a picture)) with the license plate DOMN8U.  Really?  In that car?  Napoleon complex much?  It’s so aggressive and hateful.  Maybe I’m reading too much into it.

Update: My house will not be a haven for hurricane refugees after all.  But hey – it’s clean!  So I can enjoy that.  And I’ll see my refugee friend in a couple of weeks.  All is well.

Cloudy – yes, rainy – yes, but gloomy? Never. Cozy.

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All this rain means walking the dogs is out of the question.  So maybe it’s gloomy for them.  It’s been raining almost non-stop all day long.  Very good for the lawn.  I wish I could send some of this rain to Texas.  They need it.

Wait – it stopped.  Walking the dogs is back on the table.  Well, not literally.  I would ruin our pretty (expensive) dining room table if I walked the dogs on it.  And it wouldn’t be good exercise for them.  Not long enough.  Aaaaannnnd…that was dumb.  Moving on.

But not very far. Since I find myself incapable of writing anything anyone might want to read today, I’ll leave you with this video (courtesy of the The Daily What and Say OMG (I think that’s where the original came from)).  It’s only 2 minutes, and the payoff is totally worth the wait.

If I cared about symmetry, I’d skip the title

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I have been busy.  Good busy and bad busy.  The bad busy parts stress me out.  The good busy parts are things I could do all the time, every day.  And if I could get rid of the bad busy parts, I’d have time for things I like to do when I’m not doing the good busy parts, like playing on the internet.  Like READING.  John looked over at my book the other night, noticed I wasn’t even halfway through it, and told me it felt like I’d been reading that book forEVER.  I’m not sure in exactly what way how long I spend reading a particular book affects him, but if he noticed I haven’t been reading much, then I really haven’t been reading much.  Tragic.

I spent most of the last three days (all weekend and much of Monday) working on my statistics project.  (This is one of the good busy things.)  Nothing about it was hard, but there were a lot of pieces and the instructions were confusing.  I tried to get clarification from my professor, but since I never heard back, I made some decisions based on what the instructions would have said if I’d written them.  I hope they were the right decisions.  I turned it in late last night.  One big task done.  Yay!  Actually, that was the main good busy thing.  The one that took most of my time.  I talked to Corey finally (he’s going to disown me if I put him off any longer) – hooray for change!  Also, I, uh, bought more wine from my favorite local wineries and went to Borders.  Again.  These were very important errands.  Really.  Oh, and I saw Crazy, Stupid, Love Saturday night with a woman I know from the gym.  It was cute.  Ryan Gosling’s ears are too small to be believed.  Seriously tiny ears.

I did one other kinda major good busy thing this weekend.  Big accomplishment for me.  (Big.)  I ran 10 miles Sunday morning.  Ten whole miles.  I wasn’t very fast, and I walked a little bit, but I did it.  I am no longer afraid that I won’t be able to finish the race in October.  I did it.  The last mile was really hard (it wasn’t early morning anymore and the sun was high and the shade had disappeared and I’d been running for nearly two hours and it was my tenth mile), but I realized as I started it that I’d never run this far before (8 miles – two weeks ago – was my longest run until Sunday morning).  And with every step I took, I was running farther.  Each step was one more than I’d ever run before.  There aren’t very many times I’ll be able to say that.

So that was my weekend.  The good busy stuff is all cool and great (now that I’ve turned in my statistics project), but it doesn’t end there.  I have two more quizzes and a final to complete by next Thursday for statistics, and my next calculus class (differential equations this semester) started yesterday.  I’m so glad my classes only overlap by a week and a half.  Any more than that and I’d be seriously considering quitting my job.  I don’t know how people manage working full-time and going to school at the same time.  With just one class at a time and no extra-curricular work activities (don’t get me started), when I can leave work at work, I can manage.  Anything more and my head starts to spin, Exorcist-style.  (It’s not pretty.)  But yesterday, even though it was a Monday and I had work to do and a project to finish, was a really good day.  The weather was perfect, I had the windows open to catch the very breezy breeze, I got a lot done, my legs didn’t hurt from the run the day before, and my strength class that night was calming.  (I really like my gym.)

———Break for earthquake———

This post was going to have an ending, but then there was an earthquake.  Nothing else got done today.  The earthquake ate my ending.

Lunch is the answer to everything

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This particular Tuesday has a weird vibe.  It’s just after 10:30am.  I’ve been to the gym and joined two conference calls (a daily occurrence now – who the hell wants to start every day with two conference calls?).  Neither of those things are out of the ordinary.  I had some coffee.  Haven’t eaten anything yet, which may be contributing to the feeling (I can hear a croissant whispering my name), but what else?

Part 1: The windows are open.  It’s August.  It’s supposed to be hot and sticky and grossly muggy.  I’m not complaining – I’m thrilled to hear the breeze in the trees and the summer insects buzzing or droning or cricketing or whatever is they do, thrilled to have turned the A/C off for the first time in months.  It’s just weird.  Makes it feel like early fall and I’m not quite ready for early fall.

Part 2: I’ve already talked to Mom and Dad.  Before breakfast!  It’s throwing my whole schedule off.

Part 3: I have gotten things DONE already.  Left messages, rescheduled appointments, refilled prescriptions…I’m on a roll.

[Several hours later]

I was on a roll.  A few hours ago, the sunlight was mid-morning fresh, the birds were chirping, and the breeze was breezing.  Since then, I’ve gotten bogged down in the things I’m supposed to be doing (I was doing them before, but everything was light! and cheerful! and oh, what a beautiful morning!), the cool fresh air that was tickling my elbows turned hot, and the sunlight turned stale.

I can still turn this around.  There’s time.  The solution?  Lunch!  A turkey sandwich with cucumber slices on toast.  Seriously.  I don’t think I’m asking too much of one sandwich.  I get cranky when I’m hungry.  Lunch will save the day.

I melted, and then I got my nails done

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It’s been a busy weekend.  Kind of.  Busy in a good way since I was able to do a bunch of things I wanted to do while still getting most of the things I had to do done also.  Except for the store.  Didn’t make it to the store.  But I did lots of other things, and I got up early (too early – I’m a little tired) both days.

Yesterday, I went into DC to meet a family from France (you’re welcome, Mom) at Eastern Market.  We met at nine, chatted for a while (I’m afraid I babbled at them), wandered the market a little, and then I sent them off to the Capitol, the Archives, a couple of museums, and Kramerbooks.  Nice people.  It was only a little awkward. I wandered the market by myself for a few minutes after they left (bought some cute jewelry, peaches, and sausages) and then I poured myself into the car to go home.  It was only maybe 10:30 or close to 11, but it was crazy hot.  I was melting.

I went back out shortly after I got home, though not into the sun.  It was time, once again, to make the trek (less than a mile – great trek) to my new favorite nail salon (the one I went to in May that’s all crisply white and peaceful and wonderful).  I got the spa pedicure, just because.  They slathered my legs in a purple mud mask that had a chilling effect from the knees down and then wrapped both legs in hot towels.  What a totally weird feeling.  Chilling cold on the inside, but wrapped in steamy hot towels.  Kinda neat.  My legs feel super smooth.  While my nails were drying, I got distracted by the display of nail polishes on the wall.

I’m itching to organize them by color.  Is that weird?  When I ‘m deciding what color to use, I always grab a handful in the same color family and then choose the exact shade I want.  It’d be much easier if they were already on the shelves that way.

After nearly two hours in the salon (feet and hands – it was wonderful), I came home only to turn right around again and head to Target and Borders with John.  Oh!  So Borders is closing.  I’m sure you’ve heard.  That’s depressing.  It was packed yesterday afternoon, too.  All those depressed people taking advantage of the liquidation sale.  I picked up the new George R.R. Martin book, even though I’m super annoyed with him.  It’s been six years since the last book in the series came out, and at the time, he was saying that he’d basically already written this one.  SIX YEARS.  I’ve already had one author die on me before finishing a series.  I see no reason to encourage him to take six years between books, with no end to the series in sight, no matter how good I think the series is.  You may not believe me, but I really wasn’t going to buy this one until it turned into a bargain book or until the next next one came out.  But it was 40% off, and I have the others in hardcover (I cared more WAY back then, and he hadn’t jerked his fans around as much yet), so I caved.  I feel slightly ashamed of myself.

Anyway, today I got up early to run (attempting (and failing) to beat the heat, although today was nothing like yesterday), helped John with the lawn, saw the last Harry Potter movie (more on that later, I think – it was both really cool and not what I’d hoped for), and now I would like a nap.

My night off…

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…starts now.  I’ve been eating and breathing statistics for over a week.  I took my midterm this afternoon,  I’m home now, John’s in charge of dinner (I think), and I don’t have to jump right into the next statistics chapter just yet.  I have a glass of wine, random French jazz in the CD player (CDs Mom burned and gave me – no idea what the specifics are, but I was in the mood for something unusual and mellow), and a new book.  And I’m going to slice some cantaloupe.  Cantaloupe will get me through this heat wave.

I’ll take all the help I can get in the sanity department

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Thanks to Nancy (who finds some of the most interesting stuff), I get to share this article with you.  And since almost everyone I know is a little (at least) anal about grammar and word usage, I know you’ll enjoy it.  Number 5 is my favorite.  Also, I think I’m in love with that website.  It’s the only thing keeping me sane at work today.

The rain helps.  Out of nowhere (it seemed, although I’m pretty sure it came from over West Virginia), we got a massive thunderstorm.  Felt like it was right on top of us.  Big thunder.  I like.  Even if I’d rather watch it from my front porch, dirty rocking chairs and all, than my office cubicle.

Who’s not managing her time well this week?  That’s right.  That’d be me.  I have 45 minutes to study before I leave again.  I’m going to use it.

The rain is rolling in

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We’ve had a stretch of beautiful weather this week.  It had to end sometime, and sometime started today.  Today was all gray and ominous, and it’s supposed to rain for most of the weekend.  Rain is good, but sunshine makes me happier.

The dogs need a walk before I head to the gym tonight, so I’m heading out the door.  We’ve been going on a lot more walks lately.  My theory is that the more I can wear them out on a leash, the less likely they’ll be to get all hyper in the yard and dig holes to get to the rabbits (the EVIL rabbits) mocking them from the other side of the fence.

Zannah to the rescue!

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Along with many strangers who happened to be passing by.  I left work early to get home before the weather got really bad, but my normal 20-minute commute took me almost an hour and a half.  What started out as sleet turned into heavy wet snow.  I finally got home and started shoveling the driveway so John (in his Mustang – terrible in this weather) would be able to pull in.  Twenty minutes later, I got a call.  John was stuck.  He was in the right turn lane about a mile and a half away, and he needed rescuing.  I threw the snow shovels in the my car (4-wheel drive – thanks, Dad!) and went to meet him.  We shoveled down to pavement so his tires could get a grip, and he was able to get in the left turn lane.  (A guy in a pickup truck stopped and offered to pull him out, but John had it under control by then.)  He needed to do a u-turn to get home (we were trying to avoid hills – his car wouldn’t make it up a slippery incline), but he got stuck in the left lane at the light.  I got back out of my car and tried to push him forward (the traffic was pretty light – we weren’t worried about pushing him into the middle of a busy intersection), his tires were spinning, and then I heard someone behind me yell, “No no no!  Slow down!  Stop!”  Some other guy had stopped in the turn lane behind me (we all had our flashers on) and was running up to help.  He said he was from Minnesota (there aren’t many credentials better than that in this kind of weather), and he coached John (with totally contradictory suggestions (“Easy now, easy, go go go, no, take it easy!”) through the u-turn while helping me push from behind.  We got John around the median and facing the other way (the right way to go home), and then I followed John up the road.  He made it about a mile and then got stuck (in the middle of the intersection) making a left turn.  This time a guy who was out walking his dogs (and his family) ran over to help me push.  We helped John rock the car out of the center and get across the road.  Our plan at this point was to get to the parking lot of the shopping center where the Bloom used to be and just leave the car there.  We live uphill from everywhere, and there was no way his car was going to make it.  He didn’t even make it all the way to the parking lot.  He got stuck on the road right next to it, but there are parking spaces along that road, so we shoveled one clear and kinda pushed and shoved his car into it.  We’ll retrieve it tomorrow.  That whole time (somewhere between an hour and an hour and a half) the snow was coming down like crazy.  My jeans were soaked through and I had snow falling down the back of my neck.  A warm dinner was called for (and wine for me and rum and coke for John).  Luckily, while the band was rehearsing last night, I made a pot of Dad’s beefy rice (dirty rice, kidney beans, onion, hamburger), and all we had to do was heat it up.  Turned out great.  (Thanks, Dad!)

I’m pretty sure there aren’t any vampires in this book – not entirely certain yet

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I don’t think I should be awake more than about 16 hours in a row. Yesterday, we were up for 20 hours, and I’m completely worn out and was pretty much useless today. We got up way too early for a Saturday to meet Jess at a book sale in Annapolis (which was awesome – we came home with over a hundred books for a little over a hundred bucks), came home home in the early afternoon and sorted those books for a couple of hours, and then went into DC to meet John’s mom and sister for dinner. I think it was around 1am when we got home.

I spent about half of today in front of the fire with my book and the dogs. I’m getting better at keeping the fire going; I don’t always have to call for John when it dies down a little. I’m still not that great at it, though. It’s all trial and error – poke this log, turn that one over, move the other one over there. Reminds me of learning to sail. I never could figure out when I was supposed to tighten or loosen lines. I just tried it one way, and if that didn’t work, I tried the other way. I didn’t actually learn anything. I’m surprised I ever managed to bring the boat back to the dock.

I’m done with winter, I think.  Much as I enjoy days in front of the fire, I’m really not okay with nights where the low is 7 degrees.  7!  I just revised my exercise plan for tomorrow.  Inside, inside, inside.

For those of you keeping an eye on what I’ve been watching, we finally finished Firefly (we’d put it on hold because we didn’t want it to be over) and then watched Serenity (which I think wouldn’t have made sense to anyone who hadn’t seen Firefly, but we liked it), the BBC version of Life of Mars is really good (I’ll watch anything if it’s got DCI Hunt in it – we haven’t seen the US version yet), and TRON: Legacy has no plot.

Keeping my dog in dry socks

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It’s raining.  Has been all day.  Because some of the people I work with are AWESOME much of the time, I was able to spend the second half of today working from home.  I spent most of yesterday at home, too, trying to work while keeping Roxy from treating her paw like a tootsie roll pop.  Barely successful.  Because of socks.  My socks.  Which I donated to the not-grateful dog.  Not-grateful possibly because I have to wrap packing tape around the sock to hold it on.  At least I trade dirty socks for clean ones and wet socks for dry ones.  I’m not a jerk.  She could be wearing a lampshade instead.

She does not appreciate the things I do for her.  She also won’t pose for good pictures.  (The foot is getting much better.  She just won’t leave it alone!)

Happy anniversary, Corey and Candy!

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I’m a bad sister who didn’t call.  I’ll call you tomorrow.

The forecast for tonight and most of tomorrow is torrential rain.  I’m lying in bed, hoping to hear it.  I really want to be asleep right now (today was a good day, but long.  I’m worn out.).  I want to wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of rain beating down (I love that), and then go back to sleep knowing I have a few more hours before I have to go out into the rain to get to work.  I need a covered walkway to the car.  Parking in the garage is not an option.  I don’t trust people who actually park their cars in the garage.  What are they trying to hide?  Besides their cars?  Maybe belonging to the Secret Society of Those Who Park Their Cars in the Garage gives you access to secret underground hideouts, hidden from view in those very garages, only accessible by weight sensor.  There has to be a car parked in there to get in.  What do they keep in there?  I may never know.  Wait!  I do have a car parked in my garage!  I don’t have a secret entrance to an underground lair.  Maybe the cars have to be operational.  The secret entrance trigger is related to actually driving the car into the garage, not using it for long-term storage.  Someday John will get the Camaro back into shape so we can join the Secret Society of Those Who Park Their Cars in the Garage and find out what all the fuss is about.

Big thunderstorms

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It was pouring rain for a while here.  Still raining now, just not as hard.  Is the world ending?  We’ve had a lot of extreme weather lately (crazy snowstorms, severe thunderstorms, power outages nearby, flash floods, record-breaking heat), and that pattern has been worse other places.  There’s been major flooding everywhere, it seems.  Maybe The Day After Tomorrow is happening, just a little slower than in the movie.

Or maybe not.  It’s entirely possible that this is fairly typical summer weather that I just happen to be old enough to pay attention to and think is unusual and that the freak snowstorms were just that.  Freakish.  Likely, even.  (That it’s typical, not that it’s freakish – wait.  Not that the snowstorms were likely…Did I just contradict myself?  Ignore the badly worded thought, please.)

Am I really talking about the weather?

Soaked to the skin

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John needed rescuing today.  His car has been doing this weird thing for the last few months.  If he stops somewhere briefly (an errand on the way home, coffee on the way to work, etc), he can’t start the car again unless he puts more gas in, even when the tank is nearly full.  One time he was able to start it after he waited about half an hour, but other times, that hasn’t worked.  Today, he called from the parking lot outside AutoZone (maybe it was Advanced Auto Parts – I can’t keep those stores straight), apologized because it was pouring down rain, and asked me to bring the full gas can.  It wasn’t raining at home yet (the wind had just picked up, but the rain hadn’t arrived), so I said of course I’ll go help him.  In the time it took me to put my shoes on (flip-flops, even), buckets of water started pouring from the sky.  I opened the garage door, grabbed a couple of towels, dashed to the car (in the driveway) to throw the towels and my wallet into the front seat, and was soaked.  I still had to dash to the garage for the gas can, and then to the back of the car to put it in the trunk, and then back to the front seat.  I was wet through and I pointed the garage door remote thing at the garage and – nothing.  Not working.  So I grabbed my keys, went back in through the front door, closed the garage door, and ran back to the car.  Buckets of water in high winds were coming out of the sky, and when I made it back to the car, I looked like a drowned rat.  Water was streaming from my hair to my feet.  John was only ten miles away (maybe seven or eight), and by the time I got there, it wasn’t raining anymore.  And John?  Barely damp.  If I had waited five minutes to come to his rescue, I could have stayed dry.  But he’s grateful.  That works for me.

Productivity is my middle name

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It rained all night last night.  A welcome change, and really soothing to fall asleep to (several times, since I woke up a few times last night).  We woke up at 7 this morning to find it still pouring, so running was out of the question.  We found ourselves breakfasted and in the basement before 9am, and we spent a good hour making some donation and trash decisions.  We’re not done getting rid of the crap in the basement, not by a long shot, but we made a sizable dent.  (That looks weird.  Sizable.  Sizeable?  Still weird.)  Around 10:30, I went to Costco for Roxy’s medicine and then to Target (yeah, I know – again), and I was supposed to be home before noon so we could leave at noon to meet Erik and Margaret for lunch and a movie.  Well, you know how Target is.  I got sucked in, and it was almost noon when I got in the car to come home and get John.  So we were late.  I hate being late, but this time I can’t blame anyone by myself (sorry again, guys!).  It didn’t help that I got off the toll road going the wrong way on 7 and had to turn around and THEN wade through the normal traffic in the area.  Lunch (at Maggiano’s) was good, but it was more about catching up with E&M, who we hadn’t seen since mid-May, and that was much-needed and much fun.  After the movie (Knight and Day – the first half was funny and pretty entertaining.  The second half was okay, but less fun.), I bought a new wallet (a nice red, big, adult-type wallet to replace my falling-apart, overstuffed, tiny little wallet that gets lost in my purse and was meant to only hold the bare necessities but got drafted into full-time use because I don’t know why), and we came home, checked on the dogs (they’re fine), and did geeky website things together (I updated my Pages section.  See?).  Tomorrow might not be so productive, but you never know.