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C/o Photo Booth and my iMac at work.

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Hugs

Last night I got home around 7:30; Bob was already home, and he had picked up a sandwich for his dinner. He said, "Why don't you get something to eat, relax a little bit, then let's go out for ice cream." So I microwaved some leftover pizza, sat down at the computer and checked my email and blogs, then went upstairs and asked if he was still up for ice cream.

He was tired -- he's been working long hours, with no days off for the next two weeks, but he said sure, as long as I drove.

He wanted a chocolate malt, and he likes the ones from Culver's, so I checked to see if I had any coupons, and I did -- two for one. On the way out the door, he saw the Harry Potter CD box that I'd brought in after I finished the book in the book in the car, and he picked it up to take with us. He said he wanted to hear the ending again.

So I drove out to Culver's, and left him in the car while I went in to order. We listened to the end of the book again, and I drove around for awhile so he could hear most of it. I still think that it's a wonderful book, probably the best one she's written, but I know that Jim Dale's reading really makes it come to life.

I still haven't seen the latest movie; maybe during Bob's marathon work week next week, I'll go see it. Although, probably not. I'll probably wait for the DVD.

Not much else going on, really. We've both been working a lot, cross paths for a short time in the evening, then he goes to bed early so he can get up early --sometimes before dawn. But it's all good. He still enjoys it, and I love my job, of course, so it's no hardship. The housekeeping suffers, I suppose, but I never made any claim to be great at that anyway. Sometimes it's just good to have an excuse for why it doesn't get done. ;)

Last week one day Shane brought his dog Clark to work. Clark is part Lab, part . . . something else that I can never remember. Something HUGE. He's a great dog -- very gentle, actually, even though he looks intimidating. Jojo was enthralled by him, and wanted to play, but was a bit timid around him, as she should be.

Today, on the other end of the spectrum, Dixie, Jeff's girlfriend's teacup Yorkie is here. She's about the size of Clark's nose. She fits in the palm of my hand. And she's a sweetheart, too.

When I think of the things that make me happiest, one of the things is having the dogs here at work. Jojo has taken over the couch and is basically the princess of the place. She gets a chew toy and takes it up on the couch with her, chews for awhile, then naps there. It really adds something special to have animals here. I think it contributes to the atmosphere, and probably helps keep our blood pressure down.

Whenever I'm having a rough day, Bob will call and say, "Go hug Simon," and that really does help. Hugs always help.

Last night, before I left work, I heard the guys gathering in the kitchen, and I went out to see what they were doing. They had a bottle of absinthe -- I don't know where it came from, but Kurt's birthday was yesterday, so it may have been a gift. Dave offered me his glass, and I had a taste. It smelled like licorice and tasted -- this is the only comparison I could come up with -- like Nyquil.

I just had a small sip, but I could feel it. I said, "So, do you go blind, or insane?" Someone said they thought maybe both, but someone else said you were supposed to see hallucinations. As he was leaving, I heard one of the guys say he was disappointed, that he had hoped to see fairies flying around. That would have been a bonus, yes.

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The Deathly Hallows

For approximately the last month, I've been listening to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on CD on my commute. Jim Dale has read all of the books, and he's absolutely wonderful. I think I only have the last three on CD, I started out getting them on audiotape, and I guess they don't even put tape players in cars anymore.

I'd love to go back and listen to them all in order; maybe I can borrow the earlier ones on CD from the library. Have to look into that.

My favorite book of the series was, I think, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, but I think this one tops them all. It was extremely suspenseful, and I was completely engaged from the beginning.

Anyway, I LOVED it. I didn't want it to end. Bob and I went out to eat last night, and afterwards we drove around and listened to the ending. He said I wasn't allowed to go home until it was over, but I pulled into the garage on the last word of the main part of the book, and saved the Epilogue for my drive to work this morning.

I had purposely been avoiding talking about it, or reading anything about it, because I didn't want to know how it ended. That is, I didn't want to know specifically how it ended -- I knew that several major characters were going to die; I didn't really want to know who died, but I kind of wanted to know who didn't. Has it been long enough now that everyone who is going to read it has already? I guess I should still be careful.

Before I started listening, I had a list of people that I was interested in, and I asked Bob (he read the book in about a day and a half), ""Does ______ die?" and he'd tell me no, and I got through about four or five names before I got a "yes." So I felt like I was a little prepared, and knew that it was a mostly happy ending. Even being prepared, I cried several times over the deaths of characters that I'd come to know and love over the years. It was a very emotional experience for me.

What little I've read about the book tended to be people saying that they didn't like it, that it was a let-down or disappointment, but I didn't feel that way at all. I adored it. I thought it was very well written, and the CD version is worth every penny. I'm going to miss them all so much.

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More nothing

Yesterday was just a great day. At lunch, eating beans and rice, I bit down on something and thought it was a stone, but it turned out to be a piece of a tooth that had broken off. It hasn't started hurting yet, but the part that's left is sharp (I think it's a tooth -- a back one -- with an ancient filling in it), so there's definitely a visit to the dentist in my future.

Then, on the way home, I stopped at the post office to mail off some jewelry orders, came back to get in the car, and one of my tires was flat. It was a few minutes aftter 7:00, National Tire closed at 8:00, and I debated whether I should call the road service and have it changed again, or just try to get to the tire store. I was fairly close, just a few blocks, so I drove over there, carefully, praying that I could get there before I was driving on the rim.

I got there, parked, went in and waited in line, and when it was my turn told the guy that the tire that they fixed on Saturday was flat again. I wasn't positive it was the same tire, but it made sense that it would be. He said there would be about an hour and a half wait, and asked if that was okay, and I said, well, what else can I do? So I gave him the keys and went and sat in the waiting room. I hadn't brought a book with me; when I left home that morning I thought about not having a book -- my ever-present guarantee against boredom -- but thought, you're only going to work and home, you don't need to lug a book with you. Hah!

But I had my knitting. So I sat for about an hour, knitting on the wall hanging I'm making for work. I could see into the garage, and they got the tire off, messed around with it a bit, then came and told me that it was ruined. Naturally.

So I ended up buying another two tires. So the downside is that I spent almost $600 on tires this week. But as Bob pointed out, on the plus side, I have four new tires. "The only thing between you and the road" is, I believe, how he put it.

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Forced to do nothing

I took Monday and Tuesday off this week--after the last couple of weeks I felt like I needed a few days off. So I had a nice, long four day weekend, and basically didn't do anything. Oh, I did buy tires.

One day last week, Monday or Tuesday, John left early, and called me from his car to tell me that one of the tires on my car was flat. As I was driving to work that morning, I'd heard something--thought I'd run over something--but looked back behind me and didn't see anything, so kind of forgot about it.

I went out to the parking lot to look, and the driver's side rear tire was totally flat. I have emergency roadside repair on my car's extended warranty, so I called Ford, and they sent someone out to change it. I called the dealership to see about coming in and having the flat repaired, or, if it couldn't be repaired, getting new tires, but the close at 6:00, and you can't make appointments, so theoretically I could have gone in at 7:00 a.m., but if there were a bunch of people there, I'd end up sitting for hours, and I just couldn't do that last week.

I called National Tire, and they had the same deal--first come, first served--but they didn't close until 8:00 p.m., so I was going to try to get there, but that just didn't happen, either. So I ended up driving on the doughnut all week. On Saturday, the first place I went was NTB, sat and waited for about an hour to have the tire repaired. I went back up to the counter after I'd put in the ticket, and said I'd forgotten to ask if they could rotate the tires, too, so I ended up waiting again, for that, and then the guy came and told me that I really should replace two of the tires. Not the one that had the flat, but the two on the front.

They were Pirelli's, so, even though I don't know a thing about tires, I thought they were good ones. But he said they're expensive, high performance tires, and they may be good, but they don't last very long. I've got less than 30,000 miles on that car, and shouldn't have had to replace the tires, but whatever. I did.

And that was basically the only major thing I did all weekend. It was nice. It's not like I usually spend my weekends doing anything terribly strenuous normally, but it was nice to have four days ahead of me with nothing in particular to do. It made sitting at the tire store for two hours not that big a deal. I had a book with me, and it was actually kind of nice to be stuck somewhere and forced to do nothing.

This weekend I also put a few new pieces of jewelry up at my Etsy shop. I have more to put up, but the photographing and posting take awhile. I suppose I should really get some pieces going that I can duplicate, so that I don't have to do every one individually, but that's sort of the charm of it -- one of a kind.

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