And I managed to read all the fiction in my LJ writer's group.

Did I accomplish much else? House a little cleaner, laundry done, chose several cookbooks to clear out the shelves a little (ones I have literally NEVER used). Did some grocery shopping, helped my mom-in-law, seriously discussed how much money it will cost to get to California to get married and have a little honeymoon...

Not too bad a weekend.

How does one do indented paragraphs in LJ? (I tried the Rich Text editor, but since then you can't use an LJ cut, it won't work.)

Cuervo seems sick, poor kitty. We're keeping an eye on him; he's been lethargic all day and threw up several times, as well as unauthorized peeing. His appetite seems okay, though, and he responds to petting and loves. If he's still dragging around tomorrow, though, he's off to the vet.

Still no writing done. Also did not pick up sketchbook, as I planned. Why are weekends so short?

Sleepy now.

Slept late this morning; I think I'm still recovering from Tuesday's lack of sleep night.

Friday I went to the ophthalmologist. I have healthy eyes, but I learned that someone with my bank account shouldn't have an eye doctor in the Biltmore. The CHEAPEST pair of frames I could find there was $110.00. So I went to price frames at Costco, where that was closer to the most expensive. Much better. I do need progressive lenses, but it looks like it'll make reading a lot better for me. We'll see if I can afford any other bells and whistles; the lenses aren't going to be cheap, and I am broke. (At my doctor's office, the frames would be covered to $130 dollars, with a base $100 for progressive lenses; I didn't ask about the price of the lenses at Costco. However, Costco DID have a wider selection of frames, since the Biltmore office contained largely Big Name Designer frames which appear to all be heavy thick horn glasses these days, and that is not a style that looks good on me - I need gold-toned wire frames.)

Speaking of money, several months ago when I had more of it, I placed an order at Forbidden Planet U.K. I've gotten other things from them, and while slow, they usually process orders. This time - I heard nothing. I finally checked the site. The order was still just sitting there. I wrote to them and asked. They said they were in the process of filling said order. I saw the charge hit my account, and thought, "Good." The next day the money was returned to my account (a few cents more); and then the day after THAT, I saw a new pending charge for a yet another few cents more. I figured it had something to do with the exchange rate. But now there's no pending charge at all, and it still hasn't cleared. So on the one hand, if that order is NEVER processed, I don't get my silly Dr. Who things I don't really need anyway and there's a little extra money in my account. On the other hand, WTF?

The Diamondbacks and the Padres are tied at the bottom of the 10th. This game has been vaguely annoying in that the D-backs have scored every single time I've left the room, so I haven't actually SEEN any of the 7 runs we've scored.

( I finally found something to like about Mr. Scary-Man Pope Benedict )

My shoulder is hurting again. I don't know why. It's back to hurting like it did when I first injured it, a couple years ago. I haven't been doing any lifting, honest (in fact, I've barely been to the gym at all, lazy-ass me).

Top of the 11th. I had planned to watch a little stuff off Tivo today...

I steam-cleaned the kitchen/dining room floor and am cleaning all the cats' food dishes. They Aren't Happy about this. I haven't finished vacuuming yet. Got my review done Thursday and delivered yesterday. I now need to empty the dishwasher and finish up in the kitchen, then look for some rhubarb recipes (or maybe vice versa). Bottom of the 11th, no score yet.

Hosting the Superbowl means the valley skies are full of blimps. I saw the real Good Year blimp floating over our neighborhood this afternoon. It's almost like being in the Dr. Who alternate reality where Rose got left. Honestly. (No, I'm kidding.) No, honestly! (It was really freakin' easy to get hooked on Craig Ferguson. The only reason I hadn't before was lack of Tivo and a need to be asleep at that time of the night.)

Oh, I love my Tivo.

While I'm here...

THANK YOU, miertam!!!

He knows what for. I'm using it right now.

This has been a really good day, and most of it has been totally home-bound domestic. Got most of the laundry done, finished a review for Teddy Thompson's Upfront & Down Low, which, if you like good country music, is a disc you should buy. Then we played for a while with the new toys, and I made crispy coconut for tonight's rice pudding (a recipe sillymagpie found somewhere), and then we got the urge to see if there was a good little curio at the used furniture store we love up in north Phoenix - there was, we bought it, and now it's in the front foyer waiting to be filled with my bottle collection, which will get it out of the bedroom and free up a lot of room for Barb's desk.

Now I'm relaxing and a chicken is roasting. I need to start the rice pudding. Yum.

Why is it Sunday night already? I want more weekend! WAH!!!

Next Friday I have to finish a review of the bluegrass tribute to Van Halen, Strummin' With the Devil. Not even remotely kidding. It's actually pretty good (and the first time I've ever heard all the lyrics to such songs as Panama and Jamie's Crying). David Lee Roth does guest vocals on two of the songs. Weird and strange, yet it works, much as the bluegrass versions of Kiss and AC/DC did (I AM serious!).

I found my copy of the Traveling Wilburys' first CD, which I thought I'd lost. Whew. Still haven't found my copy of the playbook Assassins, which I'm pretty sure I bought. One part of my fascination with history: The "What If?" I listen to the cast recording of Assassins, which is a strange and black musical I enjoy a lot, and I wonder, "What IF Giuseppe Zangara hadn't missed? What if he'd killed President-elect Roosevelt in February, 1933, before he ever took office?" (In those days the President was inaugurated in March, not January.) No New Deal, no "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" - how would economic recovery have progressed? And then December 1941?

I love historical "what ifs" . . .

I did nothing constructive today, but then, seeing The DaVinci Code does take up one's whole day. The hours pass like hours, although I did enjoy some of it - a passable thriller, although the "mystery" was pretty non-existent - I'm usually terrible at guessing these things, but I had it all figured out pretty much from, well, the beginning. And I haven't read it, either. The controversy? Oh, COME ON. Just how strong is the church, if it can be shaken to its foundations by a mediocre thriller, one which is NOT exactly using any new ideas?

Well, I suppose I should go to bed. At least next weekend is a three-day one. It means Tuesday will probably suck, but at least, hey, three days. Better still, next Friday is payday. This time I MUST NOT spend it all on Saturday. No, I AM serious!

I have written out the checks, filled out the forms, and readied the envelopes w/SASEs for the writing contest entries, and converted the files to Word documents so I can print them at Kinko's. I printed off a copy on my Epson, but there's a definite streak down the center of each word, and I don't think it looks very professional. Yes, I've cleaned the heads. Many times. I think it's just old. And it was cheap, even when I bought it years back.

I tidied the living room with rahirah, and things look pretty good. Got the laundry done while she did the yard. We should give the roses rose food so they will bloom and we can remember what we actually planted.

I made REALLY good pork shoulder chili yesterday with creamed corn cornbread. Very pleased with this batch! My crockpot leaves a lot to be desired, though. I want the $99 AllClad Williams Sonoma exclusive I saw whilst out shopping at the W/S store with sillymagpie. Darn that store, anyway.

On the advice of fenchurche, we bought a couple of passionfruit, and I tried it today. It IS yummy! It was hard to find, rather expensive, and I'm not really sure what all I can do with it, but it was really tasty.

My new iPod speakers aren't working, but fortunately, I discovered great online support for said item, so they've been working with me to try and help fix the trouble, and told me if I can't get it to work, then they will replace the unit. Cool!

I haven't gotten any work done on the Johnny Cash hub, though. Hopefully I can do that during the week some.

I have a SEVERE neck ache. It's killing me. I will try a nice hot bath later tonight. rahirah loosened it up some with a nice neck rub, but it REALLY hurts. It's like a pulled muscle combined with having slept wrong stiff, where it hurts just to turn my head, so of course I'm compensating, so there's more pains elsewhere. Bodies are weird.

Watched Evangelion and Hotel Rwanda on Saturday night. Not sure about the first; I don't hate it (although I came close watching the English-dubbed translation - from the second ep on we watched it in Japanese with subtitles and it was much better), but I'm not sure I love it yet, either. It's not Trigun. The second... guh. Intense film. Very glad I saw it, but... guh.

I haven't lost any more weight (I've not been keeping track very well the last week or so), but I have maintained the loss from before, so I haven't gained any, which is good for now. I should get back to behaving myself in the next week or so.

My jury duty has been cancelled, so no federal case. I'm both cheered and disappointed.

I pulled this from liberalrage:

Fox News went on describing a mission accomplished in a place they called Afghanistan, a country utterly unlike the one in which we lived. One night, as we sat in the dark to save generator power for the TV set, we heard some no-name right-wing think-tank prowar neocon talking head explain that America could speedily repair any incidental damage to Iraq's infrastructure, just as it had done in Afghanistan. Security, water, electricity - all those things Kabulis had learned to live without - he said had been restored in Kabul "in no time." Even in the dim glow of the TV, I could see that Helen was weeping. "Please can we go back to the BBC?" she said, and we never watched Fox News again.

(Kabul in Winter: Life without Peace in Afghanistan, by Ann Jones, p. 87)

There's more discussion of the book in the post, and it sounds like a heartbreaking, but necessary read.

Also from liberalrage, a staggeringly frightening discussion of global warming - apparently the sugar maples are being sharply affected by the early, short winters (sugaring season is already finished in Vermont - this should be their busy time). They also posted this picture:

Argentina's Upsala Glacier was once the biggest in South America, but it is now disappearing at a rate of 200 metres per year.

I'm just glad the temperatures dropped from yesterday's high of 94. Now, I'll admit it's been hotter in April before, but... once again, guh.

Still and all, a pretty good weekend.

I really would like to figure out how to transfer video tape to DVD. We have a DVD burner on rahirah's machine, I'm just not sure how to digitize the tapes.

Friday I received my yearly bonus. It was nice and large, and I carefully put away a good-sized chunk in what we hope will become an emergency/vacation fund (the first we've really had in our "married" lives...). Then I took a good deal of what was left and went to CostCo, where rahirah reminded me I needed a new monitor. This I knew, but I'd had my mind set on new boots. I bought the monitor. I can pretty much read this thing from across the room. It's very cool, but I'm not sure if the colors are quite correct, although I've checked every single setting through a couple of times. There's a washed-out look... maybe it's the brightness. Let me check. That didn't do anything. Also, the icons on the menu bar at the bottom are weird looking, like you can see each pixel. But it's nice to be able to read a number of websites now without having to scroll the screen back and forth.

I still want new boots.

I can't figure out why CostCo didn't have Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire. They usually have the big new releases out in a huge display. Oh, well. I did get Lady and the Tramp, and other than the usual "stuff we need at CostCo," it wasn't too bad. I paid all my bills and still have spending money as well as the stuff in savings, so I did well.

But I still want new boots. :)

Oh, that helps some, getting some of the blue turned down. The colors still look a little washed out, though.

I finished the first of the interviews and a number of people agreed they were a pain to transcribe, but we will persevere. I did request payment on future attempts, though.

Friday night I went to see Dave Insley, the best of the local Americana performers. A great show, as usual. He's a kick. I always have a lot of fun with Dave. For anyone who likes Americana (mostly country-rock styled, pure roots, with a solid baritone and some crisp lyrics), check out my buddy Dave. He's heading out to California (and Texas) for the rest of the month (you can check his touring schedule here. Be sure to note the quote under the photo on the right-hand side.

Otherwise it was another great weekend of Baldur's Gate, the usual laundry, and cats. Took Mom out to lunch today with sillymagpie, which was pretty good, and now it's Oscar time. I'm sorry Jake Gyllenhaal didn't win Best Supporting Actor, but I enjoyed Jon Stewart's opening routine.