Rain and Roses

I missed an opportunity to have a real conversation with a cute, vaguely bohemian-looking girl at the Farmer's Market today. Bonus, she had good taste in literature.

So now I'm writing her a post on the "Missed Connections" section of Craigslist.

I really need to make some local friends...

German newspapers in bizarre war over sculpture of six-metre schlong.

$2 says that that's their most-clicked-on slideshow of the past several weeks.

Well, the new kitty is gone - one of our neighbors came by and claimed him. Given her description, I'm not 100% she had the right cat, but that might be wishful thinking on my part - I was really enjoying having him around. But she was obviously happy to see him, so I'm sure she'll take good care of him whether or not he's the cat she lost.

Oh well. There's always the chance that he'll show up at the patio door again. Maybe I'll put some more food out, just in case.

Geek Squad representative to customer: The $1,200 Mac you purchased will not work unless you purchase our $40 "optimization" service. Also, you probably want our $300 extended warranty as well. (Emphasis mine.)

Services rendered under the "optimization" plan, according to the Geek Squad representatives the author spoke to:

• "Putting the customer's name onto the computer" (...because Best Buy customers don't know how to type their own names in when prompted?)
• "Checking the computer's network connection" (despite the fact that whatever network the customer uses will be entirely different from the in-store one?)
• "Scanning the drives" (brand-new drives that shouldn't have anything wrong with them?)
• "Installing an anti-virus program" (...on a Mac?)

And a grand prize of one dollar to the person who can guess how much value the customer gets out of the warranty.

...Yeah. On the one hand, it's perhaps unsurprising that Best Buy is resorting to such tactics when selling Macs - the profit margins on the computers themselves are pretty thin already, and I'm guessing most of that goes to Apple, so a $340 upsell is a pretty big prize for them. And they probably give the Geek Squad members lucrative commissions on them, which (when compared to the base salary of minimum wage) is a pretty strong incentive to lie to the customer. But Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ - how on Earth do they think that this kind of policy is going to win them any customers? Even when dealing with the technologically illiterate whom they can scare into shelling out the cash, all it takes is one knowledgeable friend or relative asking a few questions to let them know that they've been had. And customers who feel cheated aren't likely to come back.

A quick Google tells me that this isn't anything like the first scam they've come up with, either. Somebody explain to me how these people are still in business?

As you can see, “New Moon” is not for me. It seems like it should be. I’m a fan of supernatural stories. I was once a brooding teenager who dreamed of gothic romance. But I absolutely hate what Stephanie Meyer has done. She’s reversed everything that Joss Whedon did for female empowerment. She’s taken all the sex out of the sexy vampire. She’s boiled the “inner demons” metaphor down to nothing, and dressed it with a slightly condescending and bigoted sauce. [...] I know that there will always be bubblegum pop for tweens but this is so much worse than the Backstreet Boys. This is, to borrow a phrase from the source material, a lion in lambskin. It’s intellectually and socially detrimental to both literature and cinema, simultaneously. The fact that so many girls will see this movie and drink up the messages like poisoned Kool-Aid depresses the hell out of me. But there’s nothing I can do about it. You’ve already picked your team.

YES.

That is all.

So here I am, comfortably ensconced in the bedclothes, luxuriating in my morning-after-Thanksgiving laziness, perfectly content to lie here reading Dickens and digesting and let everyone else hunt down the Black Friday doorbuster sales.

And suddenly I have the strongest urge to go down to the mall and buy that beautiful leather-bound edition of seven of Jane Austen's novels that I was coveting at the bookseller's the other day, despite the fact that [a] I have plenty to read already, [b] I'm not exactly in a financial position to be making a lot of frivolous purchases, and [c] there's no earthly reason why I should want to go right now, when the likelihood of being buffeted (and perhaps even trodden upon) by the great tide of bargain-crazed humanity is at its peak for the entire year.

Perhaps there really is something to the "herd instinct" theory of human behavior...

Fire in the fireplace. Delicious meal consumed. Books to read. Cats chasing each other around the house. Pie waiting in the fridge.

Thanksgiving makes everything warm and fuzzy. I hope everyone else has had as lovely a holiday as we.

with being a generally laid-back and happy person is that when you start to feel like you should maybe sit down and have a good cry, none of the music in your iTunes collection seems right for the occasion.

What kind of people declaw (but don't neuter!) their cat and then let it wander around the neighborhood without a collar or any kind of identification?

In other news, there's a new guy hanging around the house. No idea yet if he'll be a permanent fixture...depends on whether his original owners come claim him, and whether he gets along with the current residents. He's awful cute and sweet, though, and at least I don't have to worry about him scratching up the new couch.

Meet Little Friend:

First: We have a beautiful and comfy new sofa! Yay, finally somewhere to sit!

However: We have two (non-declawed, obviously) cats, who made a real wreck of our last one. That wasn't a big deal, since we got it from some neighbors who were moving and sold it to us cheap, but this one we paid full price for and fully intend to keep for the next decade if we can. Plus, the frame is upholstered in leather, which looks pretty awful when scratched.

So...what kind of deterrents have you used in the past? I know that we need to have alternatives available; we have a couple of scratchers around and are considering getting them a cat tree. One cat doesn't mind having his nails trimmed, but the other won't sit still for it. As for the couch itself, my various Googlings have found double-sticky strips (which seem the most promising) and a couple of sprays (whose efficacy seems to vary from feline to feline). A motion-detecting noisemaking device is less desirable, since [a] this is likely to be a heavily-trafficked area and [b] we don't mind if they want to sit on the couch with us, we just don't want them scratching it.

Has anybody tried any of these? Is there anything else that's worked particularly well for you in the past?

So. Here's the deal.

For the last several years, I, like most other able-bodied Americans, have been covered under my employers' health insurance plan (various iterations of Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield). I've been lucky in that the last couple of jobs I've held have also given me the flexibility to go to the doctor's/dentist's/ophthalmologist's office when I needed to; as a result, I was able to get the disaster area that was my mouth patched up as well as getting new glasses.

Theoretically, what you're buying with insurance (as various advertisements love to tell us) is peace of mind. And to a certain extent, it's true; it's a lot less scary to think that you have some help with medical expenses, should you incur any - the cost of care in this country is well-known to be stratospheric. (Sadly, this could have been predicted by basic economics: one of the tenets of the free-market system is that you, the customer, have the choice whether or not to participate in any given economic transaction - if the price is too high, you won't buy. Fair enough, but obviously that's severely broken when it comes to health care, as you literally don't have that choice. If your arm is broken or you're having a heart attack, you can't exactly call around and compare prices, or put off getting care until the prices are better.) So, again theoretically, what I'm buying with my X number of dollars per month is that peace of mind, and that ability to go to the doctor without having to worry about whether I can afford it.

But here's the thing that I've noticed. Everybody knows that getting money out of an insurance company is like pulling teeth (sometimes literally). To their credit, Blue Cross Blue Shield's dental and vision plans were very straightforward and I didn't encounter any trouble getting them to cough up for those (which totalled in the thousands of dollars). But, thanks to the sinister alchemy of deductibles, limits, coinsurance, and coverage gaps, every single medical expense I incurred (which fortunately was only one emergency one, when I passed out suddenly at work) I ended up paying for the majority (if not the full) cost. Part of this was simply punishment for the fact that I'm a pretty healthy person, all told - I think the only year I even maxed out my deductible was the aforementioned emergency, and even then I ended up paying for more than $800 of a $1500 bill. The only recurring medical expense I had was birth control - yearly checkups and pills. But really (and here's the damning part of it all), most of the reason I barely ever went to the doctor (for checkups, or because I was sick with the swine flu and probably should have), was that I didn't want to fight the insurance company about it. Which, I'm sure, is exactly their goal by spuriously denying claims and using all those other underhanded tactics that they're well-known for - sure, they'll often cough up if you fight with them, but the more of your time, energy, and stress that they can cost you over it, the less likely you are to want to do so in the future (and, therefore, the more of your money they can keep).

Now, honestly, this all wasn't a huge deal while I was working full-time, because coverage was automatic (and really quite cheap) - an automatic payroll deduction of $10 or so (more when I was working for a small company). True, the City and Borough of Juneau was shelling out $1090 per month per employee for coverage, but since there was no chance of my seeing that money in my paycheck, I just didn't think about it much. But something happened shortly before I left Juneau that left me truly sick to my stomach at the thought of giving Blue Cross Blue Shield (or any of their ilk) any more money.

I've been on the Pill for about seven years now, and while I've not always been as religious about timing it properly as I should have, I've been lucky enough not to have any major problems (or pregnancy scares) with it. However, going to the pharmacy and shelling out $15 every month is kind of a pain, and since we were planning a cross-country move (and therefore my daily routine was going to be pretty upside-down for a while), I figured I should look into something more quasi-permanent. After talking it over with my health care provider (a lovely woman named April), she suggested Implanon, a nifty little matchstick-sized implant that they stick under the skin of your arm, that sits there and releases pretty much the same hormone that was in my pill for the next three years. No muss, no fuss, pretty much no worries until I have to get it removed (it ceases to provide protection after three years, and you want to get it removed as soon as possible after that because of the possibility of scar tissue developing that would make future removal difficult). So I decided to go ahead and go with that, since (according to her office) it's covered under insurance.

Surprise, surprise, a month later I get an "Explanation of Benefits" (a misnomer if I ever heard one) from the insurance company, explaining in their standardized spreadsheet form that this service was not covered at all and I was on the hook for $1500 worth of expenses. April's insurance specialist got them on the phone and argued for several hours, to no avail - apparently, under the supposedly-so-excellent City health plan, "there's no coverage for birth control."

May I just get a gigantic W. T. F. from the peanut gallery, please. (Thank you, peanut gallery.)

Because she's a good doctor who's not trying to bankrupt her clients, April dropped $500 off the bill, so I'm "only" on the hook for the other thousand, and she was more than willing to work out a payment plan for it. But Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ - I'd been working for the City for a year at that point, which meant that they'd shelled out $13,080 for my insurance coverage at that point (and I hadn't had a single other medical expense that year). And they refused to pay a bill for a fraction of that cost, because a very basic part of health care that nearly every woman uses (and that saves them money in the long run because they don't have to shell out for pregnancy expenses) "wasn't covered"?

Needless to say, when I discovered that Brian's health coverage (which I do qualify for, as his spouse) was through Blue Cross Blue Shield, I wasn't too thrilled. And when we found out that they wanted $140 a month to cover me (for medical alone, and in addition to whatever Brian's employer is shelling out), I practically saw red.

Well, this is America, after all, and supposedly the biggest power you have in this country is the ability to vote with your wallet. So, insurance companies (all of you), here's my vote. I'm the type of customer you love to insure; young, healthy, productive, no major medical issues, not genetically prone to any diseases that I know of, not prone to risky behaviors. But thanks to your horrendous level of "service" over the past five years of my life, I'm done with you, full stop.* I know it's a gamble, and that if I break my leg or something I might well end up bankrupt. But I'm so very sick and tired of being in constant dread of the next "Explanation of Benefits" that comes in the mail, and I refuse to spend another hour of my life fighting with you over what is and isn't covered under my plan. Since I'm lucky enough not to have any major recurring medical expenses, I'm just going to take my $140 a month and sock it away in a savings account, either until I get another job that offers benefits (and no "take the cash instead" plan) or until Obama manages to cajole/threaten/blackmail Congress into passing a universal health care plan that doesn't suck (which I can't say I'm holding out much hope for, but he worked a pretty major miracle with getting elected, so who knows?). Meantime, we'll see who comes out ahead; but frankly, I'm thinking I'll have enough money to buy a pretty nice car by the time this isn't an issue anymore.

*If anyone's had any experience with a non-evil health insurance company, I'm more than willing to keep an open mind. But frankly, I'm not very hopeful.

As yesterday was a holiday celebrating (depending on the nationality of the person you ask) either the courage and bravery of America's military servicemen or the soon-to-be-horrifically-failed treaty that ended World War I, Brian and I took the opportunity to spend yet another day exploring Tucson. I'm a bit ashamed to admit that we still haven't gotten around to doing a number of the activities we mean to (visiting the Desert Museum, having dinner at Janos, etc.), but I'm sure we'll get there - we seem to be visiting on an at-least-once-weekly basis. (It's still a little odd, thinking that there's an actual city only a medium-length drive away, when for so long the only way for us to visit large cities was to spend two and half hours on a plane.)

Meantime, we've found all sorts of nifty or interesting places, including the HEUUUGE cheese section at Costco (quite a change after the single tiny fridge-case of it in Juneau), a bakery called Beyond Bread that does the most amazing bread, sandwiches, and desserts you can imagine, and a mall that's got (maybe) three open stores in the whole thing. That last was rather eerie to walk through - at first we thought it had just closed early, but then we realized that the various shops weren't just closed, they were also empty. The mall itself was still well kept up and had security patrolling the corridors, but aside from a Target, a Ross, and exactly one independent store, the whole thing was deserted. Pretty creepy stuff. (Fortunately there was a bigger one down the way that was completely full, so we soon determined that the economic crash hadn't been *that* bad in Tucson.)

One of the reasons I'm liking Tucson quite a bit - it's apparently a literary enough town that it can support two used bookstores in a single shopping center. In the same complex as Beyond Bread, there's a gigantic used book/movie/game place called Bookman's, and a much smaller new/used bookstore called Mostly Books. We visited the latter yesterday and brought back quite a haul - the new translation of Don Quixote that Brian's been looking for (true story: when we went to the local Hasting's and asked if they had "the Edith Grossman translation of Don Quixote", the girl behind the counter gave us a blank look and went, "Is that a book?" Augh...); a Charles Dickens compendium that included A Christmas Carol and two books of his I'd been meaning to read, Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities; a nice illustrated hardcover version of Journey to the Center of the Earth that Brian couldn't pass up, and a copy of Rebecca (another classic I'd been meaning to read for some time, and was recently reminded of when NPR had a segment on haunted house stories for Halloween). $50 total, mostly for hardcovers too. I love used bookstores, even if they are hard on my bank account.

At the past urging of Brian's mother, we also hit up Trader Joe's across the way. I'm still continually amazed at the general cheapness of wine down here; I realize a lot of it is simply that it doesn't have to go so far and therefore shipping is much, much cheaper. Still, though, $5 wine (especially perfectly decent $5 wine) is completely unknown in Alaska, but seems fairly common here. I think there's more wine in our cupboard right now than there has been in years. Come summer I may need to get one of those portable wine-cellars to keep it all cool.

Then it was to the multiplex to catch a matinee of Zombieland (which was quite enjoyable), and to the Olive Garden for a tasty (if humongous) dinner, and then back home. All in all, a perfectly pleasant day - and now I have books to read!

Perhaps I should look around town and see if there are any used bookstores here that could use a knowledgeable employee. It wouldn't pay as well as secretarial work, but I think I'd enjoy it a lot more.

Neil Gaiman, who just turned 50, recently discovered some long-forgotten family pictures from 1985, exactly half a lifetime ago for him. In them, he's the same age as Brian and me, and (according to the entry) "a young journalist who had sold a very small handful of short stories and two non-fiction books, with dreams of writing fiction and comics [...] and look, my hair is practically normal."

This is exactly why I love photographs. In many ways, they're like wines - when you look at them immediately, even the best ones can seem flat, harsh, incomplete. But toss them in a shoebox or a closet for two, three, five, or twenty-five years, and suddenly they're beautiful reminders of a moment long since gone. Your mind fills in the area off-camera, and whole segments of memory you'd forgotten existed in your brain are suddenly available to explore and remember.

I found this set particularly touching for a different reason, though. Readers of this blog probably know by now that I generally consider Neil Gaiman's work to be some of the most amazing storytelling of any author currently alive. It's hard to remember sometimes that he started from zero, just like all of us, and was once a shy and nervous journalist with dreams of doing something more (and at my age, no less). Given that people have told me since I was young that I'm an unusual or extraordinary person, that with my looks and talents I could do anything, etc., etc., I sometimes feel a bit guilty that I haven't really done much of note, nor do I see an easy path to becoming extraordinary - I'm twenty-six, shouldn't I have done something by now, or at least have a plan for such? But if Gaiman found that path, it's perfectly possible I will too - I just need to be willing to look for the opportunity.

Background information: The other day, Brian bought a Droid and signed up for a ruinously expensive data plan that nonetheless provides Internet access pretty much anywhere, which is really pretty darn cool - I'm updating this as we drive to Tucson.

Me (furiously Googling addresses and scribbling down information to plan our trip): Okay, so we'll probably want to go to Costco first and get some sunscreen before going to the Desert Museum.

Brian: All right, but you don't need--

Me: And do you want to go to Janos today? Because I'll need to call and make a reservation.

Brian: Er, maybe, but--

Me: I should probably get down the hours they're open, too, and the movie times--

Brian: Dear? Go take a shower.

Me (taken aback): Don't you want to get the information for where we're going?

Brian: Yes, but I have a portable internet device.

Me: …Oh. Right.

One of the nicest feelings in the world (for me) is when you meet someone in person for the first time and there's that immediate chemistry of "Hey, here's someone who's going to be cool to hang out with." Which isn't to say that there haven't been plenty of folk without that whom I ended up becoming friends with once I got to know them better, but some people you just chat for a bit and go "Hey, you're cool." I don't even know what causes it, or what causes the opposite reaction to someone you don't know well. Appearance has something to do with it, as does bearing and self-confidence, but that's only part of the equation - I've met very charismatic people before who, after talking to them for a few minutes, made me go "Huh, not interested." But whatever the complex equation of speech patterns and charisma and pheromones and body language might be, it's always a very pleasant surprise to find someone who comes out as a positive result.

On that note, I'd like to thank Dan (aka gracewanderer) for hanging out tonight, and express my regret that he's taking off so soon.  It was a fun night of karaoke and fast food and pool and dancing, and I (at least) enjoyed myself immensely.  What with having him and Adam around (and even Brian for part of the evening), it felt comfortable and fun, like I'd been living here for a while and had friends.  Sadly, Adam's going to be on a business trip for three weeks (in Hawai'i, the jerk) and Dan's done with his training, so it looks like I'll be on my own for the next couple weeks.  Guess I'll have to actually make some local friends.  Ah well.

As for a report on the local nightlife, it's surprisingly not bad.  There's a little place called the International Karaoke Bar that's cozy and well-kept.  The drinks have very little booze in them, but I don't particularly mind that - I'm all for a drunk-enough-to-be-friendly-but-not-obnoxious crowd.  The bartender (a little Asian woman apparently known as "Mama") has a reputation both locally and on various websites for running a tight ship, and the bar reflects that - it's clean, well-maintained, and any troublemakers get shown the door promptly.  I'll have to show up another time or two to confirm my initial impressions, but on the whole I'd recommend it.  (Sadly, there was a sign behind the bar saying the place was for sale - one can hope that she'll only sell it to someone who runs it equally well, but there are no guarantees.  Sigh.)

We also checked out Rendezvous, which bills itself as an upscale nightclub.  To their credit, they mostly live up to their promises - the place is definitely nicer than anywhere in Juneau.  The quality of fixtures and general cleanliness were both quite good (with the pool tables and cues being worthy of special mention), the staff were friendly and alert to potential issues, and it was pleasantly crowded but not overly packed.  I didn't try any of their drinks, so I can't comment there, but the service was pretty good.  The DJ, sadly, had rather more ambition than skill - Journey's "Midnight Train" really didn't need to be mixed with Daft Punk's "One More Time".  But you can't fault his enthusiasm, and there was some decent music in amidst the "Bwuh?"-inducing segments.

Unfortunately, Rendezvous suffers quite a bit from the common nightclub problem of sensory overload.  I realize that loud music and flashing lights and all of that are kind of the point, but there's nothing wrong with [a] having the loud music be well-balanced instead of completely bass-heavy, and [b] providing a chill room or something so that people can hang out and chat (or get to know each other) without shouting.  The pool room, usually the closest thing to such in a nightclub, was at least moderately removed from the dance floor, but the music was still loud enough to be intrusive to conversation.  Even the bathroom (usually the area of last resort for the overstimulated dancer) was equipped with super-powered air hand dryers, which worked very well but were LOUD.

All of that said, I'll probably go back at least a couple more times, especially once I get around to making some friends locally.  Perhaps their DJ will even improve, who knows.  If nothing else, the Latin music and odd mixes break up the constant stream of hip-hop, which gets old after a while.  Now if they can just get him to work on his transitions...

After hearing Lady Gaga's "Just Dance" any number of times through overdriven nightclub speakers or on a tinny radio, I finally got around to acquiring a copy and listening to it through my super-nice headphones.  It's really something of a revelation.  I'd assumed that the mushiness in the midrange and vocals was an intentional stylistic thing to go in line with the funk beat, but no - it's actually quite crisp and cleanly mixed.  Serves me right for not being true to my audiophile roots in the first place.

'Course, now that I've heard it properly, I wonder if the overdriven-mushy-nightclub version will drive me nuts next time I go out dancing.  Of course, I can always hope that the local upscale nightclub has better-quality speakers and a DJ who understands proper mixing, but I'm not going to hold my breath...

As some of you might have gathered, Sunday was a bit of a downer for me.  I couldn't even tell you why - there wasn't anything particularly bad about it (quite the opposite).  Brian thought it had something to do with the fact that I'd been basically moving nonstop for the entire two weeks prior, which is certainly a possibility.  Whatever the cause, I was pretty noticeably depressed that day, to the point of nearly breaking down in tears in the middle of Lowe's for no discernible reason.

Fortunately, it was a pretty short-lived bout of depression, and by Monday I was feeling fine again, although I ended up sleeping through the afternoon and didn't get to do much exploring like I'd planned.  I would have just attributed it to general laziness, except that Brian has been getting progressively grouchier over the last week or so, with his mood reaching a nadir Tuesday morning - air beds are all well and good, but just don't work well for sleeping two people, especially for more than a few days.  "Something must be done," I cried, or would have done so had there been anyone to hear me but the cats.

Lo and behold, Craigslist decided to cooperate, throwing up an ad for a four-year-old memory-foam mattress for $250, in a town an hour away.  We'd ordered a new one from Costco.com for about $680, but it was taking its damn sweet time to ship.  So I called them up to cancel the order, called U-Haul to see if they had a truck available, and decided to go for a bit of a road trip.

Now, a bit of a confession.  For all that I give off the impression of being a very competent and take-charge kind of person (and I am!), I went through quite a phase of nervousness when I was a teenager, especially pertaining to things that were particularly "adult" (like renting a truck), and especially-especially pertaining to things I'd never done before (like renting a truck and driving it to a town an hour away).  And while I'm mostly over that, I do still occasionally have bouts of insecurity and nervousness, especially when I do things that are notably outside my comfort zone (like renting a truck and driving it to a town an hour away to buy a mattress from a couple people I've never met.)  But I pushed through the nervousness and went on ahead, and I'm glad I did - the sellers turned out to be super-nice people, missionaries who were being stationed in Indonesia and needed to lighten their load.  The mattress itself was pretty nice, too; showing its age a bit, but still plenty comfortable (and definitely better than the air bed we were sleeping on).  I thought it was worth $250, so I gave them as much, and was a bit amused when the husband said "Oh, er, here, $200 is enough..."  I guess they figured the buyer would try to bargain them down.  Awfully nice of them, anyway - it meant the total cost for the whole trip (even with the $100 truck rental and $20 of gas) was less than half of what the new mattress would have cost.

I think it was a good experience for me in a number of other ways, too.  I've never driven a large truck before, and I'd heard Brian complain often about how they were difficult to pilot, so the idea of taking one through Sierra Vista and to another town was a bit scary.  But I ended up rather enjoying myself.  Sure, the GMC Sierra I got from U-Haul wasn't the most comfortable ride (stiff suspensions + bumpy Arizona roads = Vibra-Truck!), but it was easier to handle than I was anticipating, and it had a pretty decent sound system with an Aux In jack.  So I rocked out to the contents of my iPod as I went along on one of the first longish drives I've done in a while.  The landscape was pretty, too, albeit in a very different way than Juneau is - mostly brown, but with some brush and brownish-red mountains that really look more like hills to my Alaskan-trained eye.  It felt odd not to be anywhere near the ocean (pretty much everywhere I've lived in the past wasn't more than a few miles from the coast), but it was neat to explore a bit nonetheless. 

It strikes me that the trip also helped me feel better because I did the entire thing (making arrangements, renting the truck, getting the mattress, bringing it back, hauling it into the house and setting it up) by myself.  It's not that I'm against the idea of accepting help, but sometimes I start to feel like I'm getting too used to having Brian or my friends to lean on.  While I certainly value the consistent help from those sources, I'm an independent enough person to feel vindicated when I do something moderately difficult all on my own.  (Plus it meant that I could surprise Brian when he got home.  It was really sweet, seeing how happy he was not to have to sleep on the airbed again.)

And, hooray!  Now we have a real bed, and let me tell you - I slept pretty darn well last night (as did Brian, if his mood this morning was anything to go by).  In fact, I think I'm going to go back to sleep right now and catch up on some of the hours I missed due to tossing and turning on that air mattress...

Because he thinks in a very straight line when he's just woken up from a nap, Brian is currently sitting in the kitchen, peeling potatoes in his underwear.

My husband is awesome.

Go.

Something else grand about living in the Real World - real high-speed internet.  Bank of America's web pages no longer takes five minutes to load!  Woo!

Also, it's occurring to me that my blog title might not be quite so appropriate anymore.  Suggestions?  I was thinking of going with "Desert Rose" with a subtitle taken from the song's lyrics, but that song was so overplayed for a while that it seems kind of cheesy.  But then, it's been a good decade since then, so maybe it's cool again.  I suppose I could just call it "Year One of Wandering Through the Wilderness"...