Fever dreams

I've had the weirdest dreams lately.

Or maybe the dreams aren't any weirder than they usually are, maybe I'm just noticing them more because I'm sleeping lighter. We've been sleeping with the windows open, which I adore, but which also keeps me from sleeping deeply through the night, so I'm always waking up.

Last night I had several odd dreams, but I only remember one of them, which was really odd. I dreamed that Bob wanted me to kill him. It was because he was out of clean underwear. He insisted that if I would just kill him, he would come back to life, and when he did, he would have plenty of underwear. That didn't seem likely to me, so I was resisting, but he kept trying to talk me into it.

When I woke up this morning I told Bob about the dream, and he said that he had had a weird dream, too. He dreamt that there were mice in the house, specifically, purple mice, and they were dropping out of the exhaust fan in the bathroom. He was trying to keep it a secret from me because he knew I would freak out about it.

I was telling Cello about both of these dreams today, and he said, "What did you guys eat for dinner last night?!?" Which reminded me of Bob's dinner. He had made a lovely dinner for me--shrimp in a cheese sauce, and asparagus--but when I asked him if he had had any dinner himself, he said he had had a can of tuna mixed with cottage cheese, and saltines with strawberry jam. He got hungry around 10:00, and we went out and drove through McDonald's, where he got a couple of fish sandwiches and some fries, and I had an ice cream cone.

When I told Cello about the 10:00 p.m. McDonald's run, he said, "Yeah, the food there is like LSD." Maybe there's something to that.

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October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month

To Do

Keri Smith had a lovely graphical To Do List on her site this morning, and it made me think about what makes up my perfect day.

I really had quite a good day on Saturday. I went to the beauty shop and had my hair highlighted, colored, and cut (yes, in that order), then, because they were having a "Grand Opening" of their new location, I was offered a complimentary hand paraffin treatment and hand massage. It's always difficult for me to be comfortable with things like having my hair done--the necessity for making small talk with someone that I don't know well--but I've gone to this beauty operator for long enough now that I'm very comfortable with her and actually look forward to going, rather than dreading it.

And normally I wouldn't go for something like the hand massage, but it was nice, and it made me want to get a paraffin spa for myself, to use at home. I don't know whether I will or not, but definitely something to think about. It made my hands feel very soft, and made my cuticles (always dry) look nicer.

After the beauty salon, I went to Panera Bread and had a turkey sandwich and a cup of chai--I love their chai lattés, but I seldom get them. I indulged myself.

I had called Bob after I got out of the salon (he had called while I was having my hair done, and had left a message) and told him that I was finished, and that I was probably going to get some lunch. I asked him if I needed to do anything for him, and he said, no, just enjoy your day off! And that made me think, well, yes. I should. I've been working a little later than usual for the past couple of weeks, and by the time I leave work and get home, it's already late, and there isn't really any time to stop and do anything on the way home, if I want to spend any time at all with Bob.

So I tend to do everything on the weekends--run errands, pay bills, do the grocery shopping, do laundry, etc. Realistically, that's what I have to do. But it is also my day off, and that's why I always try to get out of the house for most of Saturday afternoon. I usually pay bills, balance the checkbook, and update Quicken and my Palm on Saturday mornings, leave the house around noon or 1:00 to run errands, and get back home at about 5:00.

I always try to do things that I enjoy--I do enjoy my "errand circuit," really. Bank, post office, library, gas station . . . Well, who would really "enjoy" the gas station? But I enjoy being out.

I took myself to lunch and enjoyed my sandwich and tea, and read for awhile, then went to the library and checked out a couple of books. I got gas, and I washed the car. I went to the bookstore and wandered around for awhile. I went to Target and bought cleaning products and paper goods and a myriad of wings--I'm going to be in Misty's wedding in a couple of weeks and have yet to decide what to wear, but I figure wings should be a part of it, and Target had them in their $1.00 Halloween aisle, so I bought a pair of every variety--lady bug, angel, butterfly and fairy--so once I figure out what I'm going to wear, I'll have the wings to go with it!

Then I went to the grocery store for a few things that I can't get at Target, then home. Bob was going to barbeque chicken for dinner, but he wanted to soak it in salt water for awhile before he cooked it, so we didn't actually have dinner until almost 9:00, but we had snacks--cheese and crackers and nuts--and I did laundry and read one of the books that I had gotten at the library, and all in all it was a very lovely, relaxing, productive day.

Then after dinner we went back to the grocery store and bought bags of Halloween candy. One of the guys who works there--who always seems to be there--saw me and gave me a quizzical look, and I said, "Yes, I'm back! I can't stay away!" He had also sold me a lottery ticket the first time I was there that day--wouldn't it have been great to be able to go back and say that I'd won?? Unfortunately, no. Next time, maybe.

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October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Home again, home again

We had a lovely five days off. It was cool--even cold--but it didn't rain, so it was bearable. Bob would get up early in the morning and go out and fish while I stayed in bed, then he'd come back a couple of hours later and we'd go out to breakfast, then we'd take a drive somewhere, or he'd fish some more while I sat on the bank in a folding chair and read or knitted. I had packed a tote bag with yarn and books--my two indispensibles, my talismans against boredom--and I was perfectly happy.

We ate breakfast every morning at the Bennet Spring Dining Lodge; we ate dinner there one night, ate at Applebee's in Lebanon one evening, drove into Springfield and had dinner with Bob's friend Phil and his daughter Laura last night. We saw Serenity one afternoon--it was wonderful. The whole time we were away was just great. I love this place so much. I'm so comfortable there, and we have such great memories. We've been going there for 30 years! We spent our honeymoon there, in a pup tent, showering in the public showers, Bob fishing, then cooking fish over a campfire.

We don't camp anymore, though. We had booked a kitchenette unit at the motel where we were staying, but it was only available for two nights; we had to move to a regular room for the rest of our stay. It was annoying, but the second room turned out to be nicer than the first one, really. We really didn't need the kitchenette--we weren't going to be doing any cooking--but those units are larger and it's nice to have the extra room. The room we moved to on Friday was almost as large, though, and seemed newer, or at least better cared for.

Unfortuntely, though, they were having problems with the cable television. The first room only got three television channels--two fuzzy local network channels and ESPN. Which was fine, really, since I don't care much either way about television and at least Bob could watch sports. But then the second room got three channels, too--two fuzzy local network channels and CNN. Which was crummy. No one wants to watch news all evening long, and there were games on that Bob would have liked to have watched, so that was disappointing. He watched it as long as he could stand it, then asked if I had any books that he would like to read.

I had been catching up on Jim Butcher's Dresden Files books. Harry Dresden is a wizard who lives in Chicago and fights supernatural crime with the help of a policewoman friend and various other cohorts, supernatural and otherwise (a vampire, a werewolf, a disembodied spirit, etc.) I'd read the first three a couple of years ago: Storm Front, Fool Moon and Grave Peril; then I just couldn't get into the fourth one, Summer Knight. I'd started to read it a couple of times, but found it hard going. Then I saw that there was a new one out in hardback, the seventh book, Dead Beat, and I put it on the request list at the library.

Then I figured I'd better get with it and get caught up so that I would be reading them in order. So I took Summer Knight, along with the fifth (Death Masks) and sixth (Blood Rites) books in the series with me, and read them all while we were gone. Summer Knight picked up after awhile, although it's still probably my least favorite. Death Masks was very good--I enjoyed the story more--and that was the one that I gave to Bob to read. He read the entire thing last night, in three or four hours. I'm not as fast a reader as him, although I guess I did read about one a day.

Anyway, now I'm up to speed and ready for Dead Beat whenever it's ready. I'm next on the list, so it shouldn't be too long. I guess if Bob is really interested in the series, I might end up buying it. He wants to go back and read them from the first so he can see how the characters develop, and obviously that would be the ideal way to do it. Although a lot of times I'll read the latest installment of a series just to see if I like it enough to go back and start from the beginning. What fun, though, to find a new series character that you enjoy and get to go back and read five or six (or more) books all at once.

It's always fun, too, to have Bob read something that I've read. It doesn't happen all that often. It was nice to sit in the room with him, both of us reading, and hear him chuckle over a humorous passage, or have him ask, "Who's Bob?" (Bob the Skull -- an "air spirit"/Harry's "research assistant" who resides in a skull on a shelf in Dresden's workroom) or ask him, "did you read about the Archive yet?"

The books are apparently going to be made into a Sci Fi Channel television show next year, according to this article in Variety, produced by Nicolas Cage:

Story follows Harry Dresden, a wizard who makes his living as a Chicago-based private eye. Using his extraordinary abilities to see the paranormal forces behind crimes, Dresden helps the police solve their more baffling cases.

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October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Couple of things

As I mentioned over in the Weblog, I've been having a terrific time building my library at LibraryThing. Liora introduced me to it, and I've been entering books whenever I think about it -- right now it's mostly books that are either within my eyesight either at home or at work, or are ones that I just think of randomly, and remember that I own. I'm up to about 150 now, I think.

One of the cool features of LibraryThing is the ability to see other peoples' libraries; one feaure that I particularly like is sorting them by similarity, so I can peruse people who have a lot of books that I also have, and maybe find some new books that I might enjoy by virtue of the fact that we appear to share interests. It doesn't always work that way, of course, but it's sort of like being able to look through someone else's bookshelves and getting an idea of their personality through the books they own.

My bookshelf is here; if anyone builds a library there (it's free for up to 200 books, $10 for more than 200), I'd love it if you'd send me the link to your library so that I could add you to my list of "watched" users.

Bob and I are going down to Bennett Spring for a few days so he can trout fish and I can knit and read and hopefully relax a little bit. I won't be posting anything here until we get back (I don't think the motel we're staying at even has phones, but I intend to post some pictures at the Mobile Blog from the (cell) phone periodically.

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October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Halloween surprises

I had the best surprise when I got home tonight!

When I called Bob to tell him I was in the car getting ready to come home, he said I had a box from Yankee Candles. Okay, actually, what I thought he said was, "You have a package from Naked Candles." I said, "What? Naked Candles? I have a package from Naked Candles?" and he said, "No! Yankee Candles." "Oh," I said. "I don't remember ordering anything from them, either."

Then I thought, well, I remember looking at the site a couple of weeks ago, and thinking about ordering some things . . . could I have placed an order and forgotten? Could I have put some stuff in my shopping cart and somehow managed to order them without even intending to? It was a mystery. But I figured even if I had ordered something accidentally (not likely), it would be okay, because I adore Yankee Candles.

But no! It was a surprise! It was a darling little black cat tealight holder with a box of yummy "Witches Brew" scented tealights, two amber colored glass candle holders with copper outer holders pierced with stars, and a bag of "Trick or Treat" scented votives, all from my friend Val in Indiana. I've never met Val, but we've corresponded for years, and she sent me this surprise out of the blue because she knows I love Halloween. I was actually having kind of a bad day, but that snapped me right out of it.

I think I'm going to take the little black cat to work with me and put it on my desk in my office. My office is looking really cool lately. I've got two light-up jack-o'lanterns, this sign on my door:

Clings on the window:

and you can just barely see the Halloween garland above the white board in this picture.

Kurt came in this morning and said, "Your office is really scary!"

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October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month