I don't mind the rat race but I could do with a little more cheese.

I have a tiny little headache directly behind my left eyebrow. I push on my eyebrow and the pain flares up for a moment. I withdraw the pressure and the throbbing stops for a few moments. Lather, rinse, repeat.

My craft room is in complete disarray. It will remain that way until Friday night, most likely, when I will have enough time to devote to putting away clothes and accessories. Someday my house will be clean and straight again. And not smell like cat pee. :/

It's been three days since I last bit my nails. I've got a few months before being trapped at home after a blizzard makes me so stir crazy that I bite them all off again.

Things were ugly in Memphis last night. My brother's cat was, presumably, hit by a car suffered a brain hemorrhage and died in the driveway shortly after Mom got home. She loved that cat and is devastated. My brother won't talk to anybody because he's hurting so badly right now. The cat was living at Mom's house because brother's wife didn't want brother's cats in their apartment. Stepdad didn't put the cat inside when he saw the cat wandering around in the yard. (No surprise there; he was an indoor-outdoor kitty.) There's a lot of blame and self-blame going around.

I feel a bit like a fraud for having a Pearl for music since I sight-sing for absolute crap and can carry a tune only when I've practiced and practiced and practiced. Last night's choir practice was another exercise in ALTO FAIL. I'm trying not to be demoralized by it, and I will dust myself off and practice, practice, practice. But right now, me = music phony.

Having a great visit thus far even though both Hubbyfink and I are are burnt to respective crisps thanks to extended soaking in the pool this morning. Mom bought a ping pong table this afternoon (she woke up with a craving for one... I usually wake up simply craving doughnuts) and Johnny spent this evening soundly spanking all of us at table tennis. Good times.

Oh! I saw my first honest to goodness cake wreck this afternoon: a "burger" cake complete with bread crust "fries" and a tiny bowl of red frosting "ketchup". I felt my stomach do a lazy flipflop while I snapped photos of the cake.

I brought Hannah and Dave a Chinese feast for lunch on Friday and then hung out with them at the hospital until Dave was ready to be transported to hospice. I'm glad I was there to assist with packing up their belongings and with getting everything in Hannah's car. I wanted to go to the hospice with Hannah, but I would have gotten there just in time to turn around and fight rush hour traffic to be home in time for the Ponte Alto Newcomers' meeting Hubbyfink and I were hosting.

Wow, was it a good thing I came on home. We had three newcomers show up thirty minutes before the meeting was scheduled to start. Thankfully, psalite and pirategirleee arrived at the scheduled start time just as a couple of ladies from Black Diamond (recent Tech grads who have moved to the area) came in. We had a full house with lively conversations and digging through books and munching on the numerous noms. The meeting wound down around midnight-thirty. Hubbyfink and I quickly cleaned up and dropped into bed.

On Saturday, we behaved like normal people. We did a little light house cleaning, a little laundry, floated in the pool for an hour or so, went to Amphora for a very late lunch (mmm... calamari goodness), a stop by Kohl's for Hubbyfink clothes, and home again home again jiggety jog. I nodded off during the E3 coverage on G4 and headed upstairs to nap while Hubbyfink played "Knights of the Old Republic". When I returned to the land of the awake, we caught up on home improvement shows and Doctor Who. Hubbyfink headed to bed during the Graham Norton show and I stayed up to watch "Cats" on Ovation until I couldn't keep my eyes open.

We headed up to Annapolis on Sunday morning for Father's Day lunch at Stony River with Hubbyfink's dad and mom. I do like my sister-law's family, but it's so nice when we can get one-on-one time with Hubbyfink's parents without kids running around. The food was wooonderful (much more crab to filler in the crab cake sandwich and the truffle fries are To. Die. For.) and the conversation lively. We eventually said our good-byes and headed towards Arlington to see Dave and Hannah again.

Happily, Dave was awake and alert and held a Pookie-cat on his lap. (Calmest cat ever, by the way.) We were there at the same time as recalcitranttoy and vvalkyri. We watched the NASCAR race and talked about home improvement shows, movies, and the delicious-smelling hospice meal. Dave was nodded off a few times, but he was doing sooo much better than when Hubbyfink had last seen him on Tuesday. It was a very good visit.

pirategirleee and I took a spin through the Herndon Festival Friday night where I procured lots of birthday goodies for my nieces, fresh squeezed lemonade, and a funnel cake. We got sprinkled on by a passing shower, but the thick humidity made things much more damp.

Hubbyfink and I worked around the house on Saturday. The camping gear was properly packed -- during Sapphire take-down, I was tossing ropes and whatnot into bags knowing that I could properly coil them in AIR CONDITIONING at a later date -- and the dining and laundry rooms are once again neat and tidy. There was laundry and a couple hours of errand-running. We picked up a kitty activity center to keep Mr Chews-a-lot occupied as well as some thin, chicken-flavored rawhide roll-up thingies to use as power cord snack substitutes. Both Margie and Oreo love the activity center and played cooperatively with it for about half an hour Saturday night. The rawhide roll-ups were less successful, but Oreo did gnaw on it occasionally.

Hubbyfink was up early on Sunday, sanding paint off a book shelf I've had since childhood. It was white when I got it and I painted it an unfortunate sea green color eight or so years ago. I decided not to help and ventured over to the Cascades Farmers' Market. I think this was my first outing to a farmers' market and I am head over heels in love with the concept (and the practice!). I got fresh strawberries and lettuce and broccoli and cucumber and bread and country ribs. I'd hoped to find more berries and some corn, but nobody had those particular staples. Maybe next week? I was definitely tempted by some of the plants: one farmer had pink hydrangeas; if they'd been blue or purple, the plants would have come home with me.

After dropping the farm fresh goodies at home, I went back out for a pedicure. Headed back home during the worst of the storm. Wow, was the lightning show amazing; although, I could have done without the simultaneous bright flash and ear-splitting thunder crack as I drove under the high tension lines at the boulevard. Yeep! Anyway, got home, showered, dressed and raced back out (with Hubbyfink this time) to the nieces' birthday party in Annapolis. I am happy that the bubble makers and sparkly/ribbony tiaras were a hit with the three-year-old crowd. We took the scenic route home -- to avoid beach traffic on 50 -- and Hubbyfink showed me the haunts of his youth. We were happy to discover the drop in both temperature and humidity when we got home. I shut off the AC and opened all the windows. The kitties are happy to have smellovision again and I slept like a baby with the cool breeze blowing through the bedroom.

My little cousin (little cousin, ha! He towered over me six years ago) just graduated Cum Laude from American University. Of course, I only just today learned that he's been at American. AUGH! I wish my family would have let me know that I had a relative just down the road in DC. Oh well, now that I know he's here -- and plans to stay here -- I can make plans to visit. In the meantime, here's his commencement address.

Hubbyfink and I are in Virginia while my family is in Tennessee. We're watching them open gifts and chatting with them via Skype. It's almost like being there with the added bonus of not smelling the collard greens simmering on the stove. ;)

Merry Christmas!

beaz and Melinda raced to the hospital around one this morning. Mom and Beaz sent me text messages at about the same time letting me know. Boy, that was fun: searching for my the TARDIS whooshing noise amongst the unpacking debris I'd left scattered on my dresser. Mom texted again around seven to say that not much was going on. She and Pete went home to catch a nap a few hours ago. Daddy's in the waiting room and called me to let me know that Melinda's getting loaded up with pain meds. Mimi's been asking me for suggestions on how to be an aunt. That tickles me.

On the phone at 8am for a conference call with the Indians, then got assigned a hot project (completely unrelated to India) which needed to be completed before I left town. Nine hours later I handed the nearly-finished document to my boss so that he could finish futzing with the last Visio drawing which wouldn't copy correctly into the document. He didn't mind; he was thrilled that I had surpassed his expectations of what could be turned around in a day.

Logged off work, raced upstairs and jumped in the shower. Forty-five minutes later, Hubbyfink dropped me off at Dulles. Huh. The security area has been moved downstairs; I wonder when that happened. Was very thankful to travel on Tuesday and not the Wednesday before T-day because the line was LOOOOONG but people were fairly cheerful. Both flights left on time and both flights arrived early. I didn't have to share my seat on either flight and, thus, had the window seat the whole time. Saw many amazing things in the air tonight which related mostly to FedEx planes. The coolest was landing simultaneously with a FedEx plane in Memphis. I figured with my 11:30pm CT arrival, we'd be mingling in the air during the peak of the sort.

Mom, Pete, and the shelties retrieved me from the airport. The cats greeted me when I got home. In fact, Romulus set up housekeeping in my suitcase (he's currently warming the bed for me). Tomorrow Today zipmeister will drag me out shopping for console games we can give to each other as belated birthday gifts (although, his birthday was the 24th so I'm only barely belated). Johnny should be home late tonight. I'll see Mimi, Chris and Bear on Thursday. No clue when I'll see beaznuts and Melinda. Still no baby.

Okay. It's officially very, very late now. Time to fall down, go boom.

Not much going on except for barking with bronchitis and gathering materials for my drawing class which started yesterday. I'm still looking for the right size drawing board and matte spray fixative. Hopefully, AC Moore will have those items.

My sister-in-law has started having contractions. Looks like I'll have a new nephew sooner rather than later. I decided to make the baby visit coincide with Thanksgiving and will fly to Memphis on the 24th and come back home on the 30th. Mom wants me to help redecorate the living room and assist with removing carpet from the upstairs bedrooms. It's going to be a busy visit, but the visits always are.

Left Memphis at 6:50 last night and got to Charlotte, NC with no problems. As soon as I deboarded, I heard the gate agent announce that the flight to Dulles was overbooked and they were looking for volunteers to give up their seats. ( I almost slept in Charlotte. )

Bear's birthday brunch was a LOT of fun. Mom and I made cheesy hashbrown casseroles and fruit salad in a watermelon boat topped with a turtle (I'll post a photo later). Bear got fun toys and lots of books. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves at the party and there was just the right amount of food.

Mom and I ran lots of errands after the party on Saturday but didn't sneak in our pedicures or trip to DSW until Sunday. I'm so glad that I chose to leave late on Sunday. It gave me what felt like a whole extra day to visit and play with my family. I'm excited about heading back in about three months to meet my next nephew.