The pool is going to be open until 10 pm. This is great news. This means there will be something to DO at 9 pm around here during the week.

I went to the movies again, this time with Rick and Sarah. We saw Ratatouille and then it started to pour rain so we skipped out on Pirates of the Carribean 3 which is okay by me. Then a bunch of social stuff fell through (mixed signals plannign a lake trip, too many clouds for flying) and I knew I was back to my old self again when I shrugged and thought "oh, well I guess I'll have some free time to do a bunch of stuff around here" And I did.

I took all the recycling out. I cleaned up the kitchen. I took the hanging baskets with the fake plants on them off the kitchen ceiling (you'd have to see it to really get it) and put them out on the porch where they look nice and are more easily dusted. I mopped the floors. I paid the bills. I did the laundry. I unpacked some stemware that I'd brought home from my Mom's place months ago and put the box out in the garage. I planned the Nova Scotia trip. I updated my blog software (well, I'm in the process now). I finished a blog project for a friend. I started another blog project. I downloaded some music. I changed lightbulbs. I did a little dusting. I threw out a bunch of bottlecaps with pithy sayings because I didn't have anything to do with them. I wrote a few letters. I made plans to move my 401K from the random people who were managing it to Fidelity who has the rest of my investment-type money. I called the fuel oil people.

You get the idea. It felt GREAT. It's been getting cold here and tonight I had tomoato basil soup and a two-cheese grilled cheese sandwich to welcome the Autumn. The Virgo Month of Leisure begins on Thursday and I think I've gotten a lot of picky nonsense done that I will NOT have to do while I'm trying hard (and failing, as usual) to relax.

Plus I'm training to be a lifeguard. More on that in a few days.

Labels: autum, fall, friends, me, virgomonthofleisure

I got back from Seattle Wednesday morning the first and Wednesday was a sort of predictable sleepy haze. My sister arrived on Friday (see drive-in pic below) and there was a meetup at my house last Saturday for about 13 people. My friend Joanne stayed over so she wouldn't have to drive down the moose and bear highway late at night. Sunday Gordon stopped by briefly with his cheese head and I had a friend from libraryland swing by on a trip through the Northeast for the evening. Monday I hung out in Randolph with my friends' three cats. Tuesday my friend Peter stopped by on his trip around the US and I got to pick him up at the train station right in Randolph which is something I don't do very often. It's nice to get to walk to the train station. Gordon showed up at about 1 am on his way back from a punk show in Pennsylvania and he slept here brielfy before catching a morning flight. I drove Peter to his Dad's house -- one of my all-time favorite houses but alas I don't want to live there -- and then it was back to catland until Tom (MetaFilter user Meatbomb who sent me a lovely satchel from Afghanistan as well as this excellent hat) showed up with his fiancee on their first stop on their cross-country adventure. I made them some waffles in the morning and sent them off to Niagara Falls. Then it was back to clean-up and laundry and closing down the catsit for my friends' return. When my friend Finn showed up last night I wanted to take a photo of him holding a sign that said LAST BAG but forgot about it entirely and we went for a walk down by the river and ate some homemade foccacia and were savaged by mosquitos.

I went to bed in an empty house and woke up with a totally open day. Well, open until I have dinner with friends this evening and I'll probably hop into the pool before then, and I guess I have some errands to run. My plan is to spend the next few weeks doing some local visiting. I have friends renting a lakehouse up in Vermont and a few other pals with new babies a little farther out that I'd like to see sometime before things get hectic again. The hectic, of course, coincides with the Virgo Month of Leisure, as usual.

Labels: august, friends, me