This morning (besides the 'is it really Halloween today?' issue) I thought about people I've known who have died. I suppose it harkens back to that "All Soul's Day" stuff learned from 13 years of Catholic school. I feel like thinking about my friends that I loved and miss.

Aquim was a year or so behind me in school and we met in the JROTC program at the all boy school he attended. Aquim was the annoying little brother you'd want to strangle, then he'd do something so incredibly thoughtful or funny you had to laugh instead. The day he died, I was at work. I had planned to go up to the school after work the following week to ask him to save me a graduation photo. One of the other girls turned up the radio in the office and said, "You have to listen to this." The announcer said that a teenage boy had been stabbed to death in a fight and said his full name on the air. I started shaking and said, "I know that guy." His death was the first I'd experienced as an "adult" of a contemporary.

I'm really quite lucky, sort of. A girl in my high school class died in childbirth and a guy I'd gone to grade school with had a heart attack at college, but they weren't close friends. Death did not come to trouble me again until Michelle.

Michelle and I worked for the same company. I'd known her for years and had always thought she was a suck up and slacker. When I returned to work after Melani's promotion, I was working side by side with Michelle. Michelle wasn't by any stretch my best friend, but we drew on each other's strengths and were able to compensate for each other's weaknesses. I loved doing reports but hate math; Michelle could do the math but hated writing reports. We worked it out so that each of us did the part we liked best. We'd walk down the street to get coffee sometimes. When I bought my car, I dragged her to the window to see it parked in the lot below.

Before I left the department, I set up dozens of reports to run automatically so Michelle wouldn't be frustrated with them. In the note I left her to explain how they worked I said, "I'm glad I had the chance to work with you, you're like my big sister." And it was true.

Two months later, Michelle was diagnosed with bone cancer. Melani and I drove up to the hospital to see her on a Thursday evening. The three of us laughed and joked until visiting hours were done. Michelle kept the conversation flowing, she asked about all our families and about details we didn't realize she'd remember. Before we left, Michelle asked me to let some folks we'd worked with know that she was sick. I squeezed her hand. Melani and I planned to come back the next week again. The next day, I made the calls Michelle had asked me to make. Over the weekend, she slipped into a coma. Tuesday, they unplugged her life support.

I hadn't been close to death that way and it saddened and depressed me. When I got home from work that day, I cried and cried. After Michelle died, I had to sleep with the lights on. I'd get up and walk around the apartment, touching things, sometimes logging into the big game at 3AM, to make sure there were still people I cared about in the world.

Michelle and Aquim each came to me in dreams afterwards, when I was still depressed over them. In my dream about Aquim, we were both children and walked hand in hand up the stairway of his school where he was stabbed. He told me it hadn't hurt. A couple of months after Michelle died, I dreamt that we were in the hospital's hallway and she was standing up, not hooked to any machines. She said she was fine now and sorry she couldn't spend more time with me but there were so many others she had to chat with. After each dream, I woke up feeling comforted. They'd taken the time out of their busy afterlife to talk to me :-)

Last year was tougher; there were too many people all in one stretch of time. I know that I had a dream about Nora; I have no idea what it was or what she said, but in the same way, I woke up feeling much better.

Anyway, I thought about them this morning when I was getting dressed. They probably all think I look stupid today. My tail is sagging and it keeps pulling the rest of my shirt down in the back. I hope they keep their laughter to themselves.

Today I am a sheep. A black sheep. If we obtain photographs (I forgot my camera) I will put one up for your enjoyment.

You know what I hate, that feeling that you've got the wrong date. I knew it was 10/31. Had to be, all day yesterday was the 30th. Yet when I walked into the store this morning to pick up something for the company potluck, I realized no one else was in a costume. No one. Not even the clerks, who normally have on some make up or hats or something.

My hair is pulled up into to ponytails (ears) that pook out from this black watch cap. I'm wearing a black sweatshirt, inside out so the fuzzy side shows. I have black-rimmed eyes. I felt like an idiot.

But only for a moment. For me, Halloween is fun and dress up is always fun. So I stood a bit straighter and baaa'd when I found the cookies I wanted to buy.

Everything goes better with a baaaa.

Well, you know, Corey... I kinda like Enterprise :)

That doesn't mean I don't spend some time flailing at their stupidity. "For crying out loud, you're not sending him there alone!?!" How I rationalize some of their idiocy is that they haven't yet gotten the hang of what they're doing or how to interact with other species on their own turf. I haven't heard any of them invoking the Prime Directive... so I think that this crew, through its follies, will be responsible for a lot of the rules and guidelines that we're used to seeing in the Star Trek series.

Besides, Capt Archer nearly floating out of his shower stall the other week was quite fascinating for me ;-)

This weekend, Rob and I were fairly lazy. He's been spending time in EQ and I've been coercing him into helping me fix some scripts up for our forthcoming auction. Thanks to his loving guidance, I now have tea leaf reading that works as well as a bottle of wise guy potion that releases a pearl (of wisdom, get it? hahahaha! Sometimes I slay myself!) when the drink is gone.

We went bowling (my high score: 113) on Sunday, followed by a couple of rounds of pool and some darts. We may need to get a dartboard for our house so we aren't endangering the public any longer. Rob nearly took out someone watching the big screen TV at the other end of the pub with a mis-throw. The guys playing the golf game beside us took their lives into their own hands by staying put.

That's why we're Twins, Broos :-)

This morning's sunrise was beautiful. Melani rode in with me since Liz is in New York. As we came up from Redondo, we could see the growing pink clouds and above the trees, lines of gold. Approaching I-5, the view across the Kent valley was spectacular...a dark purplish line of mountains with golden clouds above and the sky lightening into blue.

Sunday morning, the bars will be open for an extra hour as we "Fall Back." Knowing this, I turned to Melani and said dolefully, "We'll be seeing a lot more sunrises this year."

I love to watch them, though, and the end of daylight savings time does mean I get to see more. However, they lose a tiny bit of the magic when viewed only from the freeway. Sunrises, like sunsets, are best when seen from your front or back porch.

No, no, Broos...don't thank me.... but I have found your new car.

Muahahahaha!

Yesterday as I was driving home with Liz, we were hit by retread. I was driving Rob's car, the visually lovely but uncomfortable to be in 2001 Mitsubishi Eclipse.

Of course we saw the retread before it hit us. Liz and I could see it bouncing from car to car as it was a pretty big piece of rubber. It rolled off one car, the car in front of us swerved slightly but there wasn't any room for us to move left or right so we just watched as it plunked into the hood and rolled up and over the top of our car.

Liz said, "You're being awfully calm about this." She leaned forward to see if she could survey the damage (it had rolled up the passenger side of the car).

Tracy: "Well, there's not much I can do about it."

I am a worrier. I can't help but worry about all sorts of silly little things going on in the world, in my life, in the neighborhood, on TV. But when it comes down to it, there's some things that I can't let bother me -- like when my car is hit by tire debris.

It wasn't until I dropped Liz off at her house and she was able to look at the damage then give a nervous giggle when describing what it looked like to me (it was too windy and icky for me to feel like hopping out of the car myself) that I began to fret about it. Fortunately, Rob is a good guy. He listened to me describe what happened, went out and looked at the car and then let me put my little head on his shoulder because it had worried me to come home and tell him.

The car's not very comfortable, though, and we had talked about maybe trying to get a different car. I wonder if we can pass off that tire tread spiraling up the passenger side as "detailing"?

I sent one of my GMs a Cow. Not a whole one, but a small stuffed rendition of this particular cow. It reminded me of him :)

In return, he sent me a gift of chocolate. This way outdoes the handfuls of chocolates he bought for me at the convention this past summer.

On my doorstep tonight, a five pound Hershey's chocolate bar.

Yum. Yum, yum, yum!

My boys have gotten used to the idea that they are cherubs. In fact, lately when I refer to them as boys or children, they pipe up, "You mean 'cherubs.'

I'm not sure how long I've been calling them that. Possibly at the same time that I worked for Cecily. Cecily and I had codewords for any number of things because one of our coworkers was able to, as Cecily put it, hear a rat piss on cotton at midnight. In addition to the codewords, we had nicknames, hence calling my two little boys (who were not at their best behaviors back then) 'cherubs.' Then there were our boyfriends, "Mr. Wrong" and "Mr. Wrong's Cousin." No, they weren't related; they were both just wrong. I miss having nicknames for everything. It's a stress reliever. :-)

Well if we have to lose....those damn Yankees better win the World Series. :-(

I'd rather we didn't lose. After all, the Mariner's have never gone 'all the way.' It would be so cool if they did. Also, Liz is going back to New York this week. Merciless will be the ribbings if Seattle doesn't win at least one more game.

I spent three hours tonight in the game listening to a player rant about how unappreciated she felt for all the hours she spent volunteering for our game. My mind went, as usual, down two separate tracks. First, why volunteer to do something if all you care about is the thanks you get? And second, are we not telling folks we appreciate them as much as we should?

It's something I've whined about in my sordid past, so I totally understand. Most people like to receive praise. They like to see their name in lights. They love recognition. It isn't so difficult to pat someone on the back and let them know they've done well, yet we often forget to do it.

Still, in this particular case, I know she's not right. I saw many posts on our boards, even one by yours truly, expressing appreciation for the work the players did over the summer when they hosted a fair for the other players. I know there have been pats on the back for the crew, both from my staff and from the other volunteering players. Sometimes, though, when someone gets a notion in their head that they're not appreciated, it's not that "no" one appreciates them but that "someone" in particular doesn't.

She wants me to hire her as an AGM. I haven't done so, therefore, I have not appreciated her. Could it be that simple? Is anything that easy to boil down to its essence?

Nah. That's putting too much on my role. All I did was give her someone to vent to tonight, someone who tried to get her to look at things from a different perspective without any success. I've never spent a more frustrating three hours in one person's company in my life.

Yesterday our company announced, internally only so far as I can tell, that they are instituting a wage freeze world-wide. Non-management folks like me have a six-month freeze starting on our usual review date (mine is January); managers and executives like Liz have a one year freeze.

Our company is stable. It is one of the few insurance companies that has had enough strong leadership and savvy to underwrite the most solid of risks and so our share of the recent events will not bring us to our knees. Our chairman decided though that in order to maintain our high standards and prevent layoffs, we'd all need to pitch in and sacrifice.

I don't mind. One has but to glance at the papers to see how many people are losing their jobs these days. Either the economy or directly because of the terrorist activities, companies are folding and scaling back all over. If all I lose is a four percent raise that I haven't gotten yet, I'm thankful. Too many others have taken harder hits than that.

Last night I also had a wonderful experience. Almost a nirvana… I uploaded a script to the game and it compiled and worked on the first go. Rob chuckled at me because I welled up with tears over it. But hey, I have struggled for years…and you know, it might not be the world's most inventive or complex script - but it's mine! He did verbally pat me on the head later. Probably out of guilt that I asked for his help and he claimed he couldn't get into his email to see the script shards I'd sent him. I still have some tweaking on it to do but it works okay the way it is, even if I did glaze over when Rob was trying to explain to me that I might be happier using variables instead of datafields. Baby steps. It's all baby steps.

My company provided us with a box of disposable latex gloves to use when opening corporate mail. I inflated mine, clamped it shut and hung it up. It makes a splendid Halloween decoration.

I work in the part of town they call the retail district because its where all the big shops are. Nordstrom's flagship store is here, the Bon Marche (home of the shoe sales), Westlake Mall, Pacific Place mall, and dozens and dozens of little boutique shops.

And then there's the $1 to pet the cat booth.

This little booth popped up in Westlake Park late last spring. It's not really a booth, just a cloth-covered table with a triptych behind it explaining that the kitten on display is representing a local animal shelter. For your $1 donation, you not only get to pet the kitty, but can walk away knowing your money is going to a good cause: a home that doesn't put animals "to sleep" if no one adopts them.

The kitten on display has been there since the booth first opened. He's very cute, all black with a white nose. He has a cute little knit cap on his head and occasionally wears a vest. Oh. That's the guy who handles him. Except for the black with white nose part. Anyway, today as I walked by I noticed that not only can you pet the kitty, the kitty now does tricks! He stood on his hind legs and begged. He jumped through a metal hoop. Curled into a tiny furball on the tabletop was a poofy grey kitten, the heir apparent to the black kitty's job of enticing folks to part with their money. Black kitty is getting long of leg. Pretty soon, he'll be a cat and you know what they say: The trouble with a kitten is that eventually it becomes a cat! He'll be going to Tender Vittles High while the little grey poofy one does the soliciting.

Every time I see that black kitty, I can't help but compare it to Mittens. Mittens is spastic. He's low on the cat IQ scale. He's nervous and suspicious and jittery. I suspect he eats the coffee grounds out of the trash can; that's the only explanation for his bizarre behaviour. How did that $1 kitty get to be so calm in the face of hundreds of spectators and cars whizzing by while Mittens takes off like a shot at any unusual sound?

Pike Street, where my office is located, was barracaded by those Police: Do No Cross tapes between Third and Fourth Avenues when I went out to lunch. Someone on the street said they found anthrax in that block. Pure speculation. There's nothing on that bit of street except for a Rite Aid, a Payless Shoes and a Sharper Image. Come on, who'd want to anthrax any of those shops? I refuse to become paranoid just because so many people are out to get me.

The Ikea Incident.

Having admired the set up (amazingly from the same store and with the same product line) at Mooville West during our little jaunt, Rob and I decided we should finally get our office/dining room into shape.

Weekends at Ikea are horrible. Young couples, poor students, families with their fifty children (all in strollers) crowd the aisles, pausing, pawing and pondering. It's an alliterative and figurative nightmare.

We did notice something amusing. Rob is much better and faster at swimming with the masses. He'd grab my hand and start off, me stumbling behind him, knocking over pregnant women at every turn. However, when it comes to swimming against the current, I'm better at diving in between folks and so it was my turn to have him stumbling along behind me and whacking into people. Turn about really is fair play. :-)

In the office furnishing section, we managed to wade off to the side to study desktops. I brought along our little template, which showed us (using the handy cut-out figures in the catalog) exactly which pieces we had wanted and how we were arranging them. After looking at different options and measuring them, we agreed that our first configuration is the only one that would work, given that we're going to fill up three-walls-worth of the room with desktop and need to leave doorways on either end open.

We grabbed a saleswoman and I said, "We want to order these things. These desktops, in these styles, with these legs and then we want two of these drawer things to..." "Oh, you don't want to do that," she said. She brought out a template and drew different configurations, while I murmured that we liked our choice and we only had so much room to work with. She did different things to try and stay within our parameters but was stuck on the idea that we shouldn't want drawers stacked atop the desks. This was a mistake. Rob does not take well to how "you west coasters" take pains to tell people what they can and can't do or want and don't want. It took a lot of cajoling to calm him down, as well as some swimming up and downstream in the store to work it off. When we returned to the office section, I approached a different salesperson. "We want to order these things. These desktops with these legs." He set up the order and said, "Hmm. That right side desktop is out of stock in that color. Have you thought about maybe trying to ..." He brought out the template and another bit of graph paper and Rob began to foam so I said quickly, "You don't want to do that. I'd stop if I were you. Now."

Fortunately, he was bright enough to notice that Rob had started turning green and was about ready to become the Incredible Hunk, so he put in the order as we presented it and told us the store would call when everything was in. He probably was counting his blessings when we walked away, order summary in hand.

I never thought of them as being on commission but Rob figured it out immediately. Maybe that's why I'll put up with folks giving me different suggestions -- I honestly think they're trying to help me look at something a new way. Rob however is sure they're trying to boost their income by offering us different things. Maybe they're trying to do both. Who knows? I can't wait for our desk stuff to come in, though. Then maybe we'll invite Broos to come up and help us install it since he's so handy with an allen wrench and all.

Muahahahaha!

Unlike a lot of girls I went to school with, I never wanted pierced ears. It seemed like a frivolous waste of time. Besides, I hate pain.

After Melani and I successfully completed a quarter at school, we spent the weekend at the coast. It was a girlie weekend for us. We attended the Women's Show (to stock up on coupons and free samples), shopped the outlet mall on our way to the beach, and then rented a VCR and some movies at the video store in Long Beach. We watched "Stand By Me" and "Groundhog Day," neither of which I had seen before. I stayed up all night reading "The List of Seven" and was so agitated I couldn't sleep till long after 3AM. The next day we walked up and down the long sandy beach in the faint Spring sunshine and had fish and chips at a divey-looking joint off the main road.

And on the way back, we stopped in Tacoma and I got my ears pierced. It didn't really hurt, but I did feel sympathetic toward stacks of paper. The sensation was very like stapling.

It was two weeks before my ex-husband noticed.

I don't always wear earrings. In the past couple of years, I noticed that certain (cheap!) earrings caused my lobes to swell up, so I stuck with near pure silver or the one pair of gold earrings I have. Last week, I decided to get a pair of little sapphire studs so I could wear earrings more frequently.

The hole in my left ear had mostly closed up. The post went in the front, but there wasn't a place for it to come out the back.

At home, I managed to push the post through. Yucko!! So now I have to wear earrings until it heals nicely once more. I'm wearing little gold hoops today. They look nice. My left ear feels funny, but I've been soaking it with alcohol (not internally) so I don't think it's an infection. I think it's just been so long since it's had something in it day and night.

Anyway, as you can see, I am thinking of "anything but" as often as I can. Rob may tell you about the Ikea Incident, but if not, I'll go over it tomorrow :-)

Love, peace, hugs and hoops to all! Go Mariners!

Nine years ago, Melani and I took classes after work at the community college. We used our "flex" time to leave early on Tuesdays and Thursdays so we could get into the 4:30PM classes. Last year, when I was in the National Guard and out in Yakima, Melani graduated from the University of Washington after taking only night and Saturday classes. I admire her so much for sticking to it.

I don't get flex time where I work now. The classes I need, for the most part, are the early afternoon sort. To finish up a two year degree, I need 50-some credits in math, science and a sprinkling of "electives." That would be ten classes at 5 credits apiece. I can manage, without flex time, to take one class per quarter if I don't want to attend class four nights a week. Four quarters a year at one class per quarter equals twenty credits per year or two and a half more years of class to reach a two year degree already twenty years in the making.

This supposes that a) they offer classes every quarter that I need and b) that I want to finish this up.

What purpose does a degree really serve? A two year degree seems like nothing. Will it "prove" to my children how worthwhile it is to get a college education? Will it make me feel better about myself? Will I receive a better or higher paying job by getting it?

This Fall quarter, I circled a class or two that interested me, but decided against going since I'm still in that "newlywed" stage. Next quarter, I really should go back if I'm going to get things done. Besides which, the honeymoon will probably be over and Rob will be anxious for me to be out of the house so he can have some peace and quiet. ;-)

Plus, if I pay for tuition this year even if it's for the following year, I will be able to use my last year of Hope education credit on my tax return.

I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up, though. Lack of purpose gives me a certain wishy-washiness to this whole affair. Without a clear path to follow, is there any point in going down this road?

Eat out tonight. It's for a good cause. And, like with shopping, it's for the good of the nation.

More later. Wanted to catch y'all before lunch. :-)

I dreamt that Rob and I were in New York. We didn't go near the World Trade Center site, we were in midtown. As part of my helping the country, it's my patriotic duty to shop so when we passed a store, I pulled him into it.

There were different little rooms opening off the main enclosed plaza, each with its own theme. One carried Christmas ornaments, another Halloween decor. Rob and I were fascinated by a demonstration in the Christmas section of an automatic cookie press that created several intricate and 3-D cookies, then baked them on trays beneath the press. I wanted to explore more of the shop but Rob wanted to watch them make cookies, so I wandered away.

The other rooms of the store were less brightly lit as they were away from the windows and the plaza. I walked through the furniture section, wondering why so many of the sofas were draped in sheets. I passed into another room that was filled with bunk beds, each heaped in towels and sheets.

As I turned around to leave the area, someone grabbed me from one of the bunks and another hand reached for me from a top bunk across the row. I looked around and realized all the bunks were occupied by people, covered by the sheets and towels. There were no other shoppers or sales clerks and I couldn't scream. Suddenly, another woman came up to me and pulled me away, telling me that this area was used at night by the homeless men after the attack and I needed to leave before they locked the doors. We raced through an airlock before it shut, and then another one a bit further down. It wasn't a store any longer but a hospital. As we ran through the women's ward, where an apparent food fight had left lettuce all over the floor, I lost contact with the woman who'd been leading me. I hoped I was heading the right way to return to Rob.

All this between the time the alarm went off at 5:20 for Rob and when mine sounded at 6. You could say I've had a busy morning.

Rob stopped by this morning while my group was in a rare all-hands meeting. He got to meet everyone I work with and paused to look at the cube where I spend my days. I wonder if he noticed that I have the beanie baby lamb he sent me on one of my speakers? It's holding a flower I saved from the bouquet Rob sent me for my birthday. :-)

He couldn't arrange it to be in my neighborhood till lunchtime, alas. "Where are you working today?" I asked. "Around the corner at this shop. You should know it; they sell shoes."

Men.

Dearest, sweetest Cosmic Twin. I didn't notice but I felt it. Rob and I really wanted to take your mind off things (and our own minds as well). I know we did a fair job of things but yeah...when I look around now I too think of things that I can't seem to stop inside. I know that you're that way, too. TwinChick :-) We're wired like that.

When the plane was taking off from Seattle...I'm always freaked at take offs and landings. Rob let me dig my claws into his hand and after an entire chorus of Ave Maria (in my head, not aloud so as not to frighten the neighbors), we're airborne and climbing. We were over Federal Way en route to San Diego. Looking out the window (beyond Rob, who had coveted the window seat forcing us to race down the airplane's aisle in an undignified manner upon boarding as I was suddenly possessed of a desire to sit there), I thought as I looked at the buildings and waterways below, "This is what it would have looked like for those poor, poor people on those planes."

I don't know with everything going on in the world now…they said things would never be the same. You hear that a lot about events and somehow, things do seem to recover and go on as before. This seemed to be so personal, so close, even though it's no closer than anything else. I feel more upset and bewildered than I did dodging bottles and tear gas during Mardi Gras. Things really aren't the same. Even something as personal as my fear of flying is now tinged with fear of something else that was never there before.

This weekend, I sought diversions. I read a couple of children's novels by L. M. Montgomery, the last two in the Anne of Green Gables series. I hadn't realized the last novel, "Rilla of Ingleside," dealt with the Canadian entrance into World War I. It wasn't as escapist for me as I'd wished, although still a lovely story. I'll have to read it again at some other point in time where it's harder for me to identify with the initial denials and eventual personalization of the tragedies in their time and place.

And so, we strike back. Thank goodness for weapons of intricate design and skillful plotting. No wonder the Chinese didn't believe we'd made a mistake in bombing their embassy. We can be so precise with our weaponry.

In three years, Chris will be old enough to register for the draft.

I'm glad to know you had a great weekend, Corey. :-)

Poor Maggie, my sweet yet chubby cat.

She hates Mittens the kitten. He annoys her and upsets her dignity by running across the room and rolling her over as he leaps across her bow. She growls at him. He blinks at her, then backs up, charges and tumbles over with her again.

Every day when Rob and I come home, Maggie waddles up to the door and looks at the handle, expecting to be let out. Mittens is too stupid to go outside, so he may whine at the door but is not allowed to go play. Maggie used to be a barn cat so she's well-equiped, even without claws, to defend herself in the cold, cruel world. And she's so big, 18 - 20 pounds of raw cathood, that she's not molested by the other neighborhood critters.

Last night when I came home, Mittens perked up and whined to be let out. "Where's Maggie?" I asked him. Then we both heard an odd sound from upstairs and turned to look toward the living room.

*shlup*
*shlup*
*shlup*

Maggie turned the corner to come greet me wearing nothing but a paper bag about her substantial waist. I blinked. Mittens blinked. Maggie waddled up to the door, paper bag shlupping beside her like a motorcycle sidecar. She had threaded herself through one of the bag's paper handles but could not, due to her girth, slip out the other end. She could not back up out of the bag either, as the strap slipped upward into her fur when she moved, keeping it loosely trapped around her chest.

"I can't let you outside looking like that!" I said. I cut the bag's handle strap, pulling the handle so as not to cut her. Shooting me a dirty look at the delay, she darted outside.

Once she was safely out of earshot, Mittens and I had a good laugh at her expense (poor Maggie).

*shlup*

Suz and Bruce are in good company over the DVD movie cropping issue. Roger Ebert is on their side. Thumbs up, dude!

Bwahahahaha! We are successful! We are smart!

Now if only we could figure out how to fix that index page using html instead of Publish.

Well, I thought I had the link thing covered. Maybe it's because I'm uploading this with the little blog box and it wiped out the template I fixed up last night. ::ponder::

Aha! I figured out how to make a permanent link to the rest of my (little) website. :-)

Spent a lot of time last night trying to figure out how to update my index page and the archives pages. The new computer doesn't have MS Publish on it, so I edited in Word, which wasn't particularly helpful. Looks like the changes are okay but there's a lot of blank spaces now. I'm not sure how to fix that. Guess I'll try installing Publish on this PC and take it from there.

Rob and I both forgot to mention the incident with the flight attendant on our return trip. There were a number of families with small children aboard and she was passing out wings. Rob commented to me that he was disappointed, she didn't offer him any wings. As she walked past us, she must have sensed his sadness and said, "Aw. Does he want some wings?" Hehehe! After she walked away, he said he was disappointed now because it has a sticky on the back instead of a pin. Hard to please lil bugger! I'm going to put them on his monitor tonight so he'll be able to cherish them.

Back in Seattle, home of the Doubting Sheepster.

I was too tired last night to even think about staying up to clean up my blog and post something. I notice Rob didn't mention the parking lot fiasco, so I'll do the honors.

But first, many, many thanks to our gracious Host and Hostess! Rob and I had a lovely time!

We saw them at the beaches and in the sky and in the backyard. We saw them driving down the coast and off the freeways and at Sea World. There's a lot of wildlife in San Diego.

As for being afraid of hummingbirds, Broos. :P You'd be scared too if you were innocently admiring the view when one came up to buzz you!

I was relieved to learn that the rules I've been playing Settlers with are pretty much the same ones that Suz and Broos use. They do play a much nicer version of it with a lot less cut throat use of the robber though. I tried to be polite and play nicely until Rob swiped all my (and everyone else's) wheat, forcing me to use my monopoly card on the next turn to get some back, thereby costing Rob a win and giving Suz a chance to walk away with our accolades as the Lord of Catan. And believe me, I was still hearing about my betrayal at the airport where we waited for our flight.

The inspection process was a lot quicker coming home than it was leaving. Apparently between Saturday and Sunday, at least at SeaTac, they relaxed some rules a bit to make things smoother. When Rob and I left Seattle, the line to be screened was very long although it moved quickly. At San Diego, the lines to check in were long, so while we waited to get picked up, I was very dismayed. Leaving though was very easy. In fact, Rob and I volunteered to give up our seats as our flight was completely full (the early afternoon flight was cancelled and their passengers combined with ours). Unfortunately, we didn't get to spend several additional hours at the airport; they used other folks' seats. Darn it. We wanted the free round trip tickets they offered as incentive to volunteer.

Back home, we encountered the parking lot fiasco. I found on the internet a newly opened parking facility that charged 99 cents per day to park in September. Whoo hoo! My thrifty soul rejoiced! Saturday morning, the lot was full so the attendant took my car key in case he needed to move my vehicle. Sunday night, the shuttle driver seemed surprised that we and another woman didn't have our car keys, and when he radioed the office, the first remark back was, "They don't have their keys?"

Rob began to foam at the mouth. He ranted, he raved. I tried to placate him, and he finally sat back down. Eventually, about a half hour later, they found our key and after cruising up and down the parking lot, located our car as well. Meanwhile, I was trying to calm Rob down while he went off on us pathetic west coasters who let these things happen to us without a fuss because we're all so "nice" to each other.

The meter at the exit gate said we owed over $4 for parking. Rob started to get his dander up again over the seeming 100 percent tax. I shushed him, then told the attendant that our coupon said 99 cents per day with 8.8 percent tax -- where'd that other couple bucks come from? "Airport use fee, SeaTac sales tax, state tax, blah tax and recovering lost key fees," the guy mumbled to us. I waved the coupon. The manager came over. I read back to him where it said 8.8 percent. He snatched the coupon from my hand trying to find something that supported all the other fees he charged. I said we'd been waiting a half hour for them to get our car anyway, and I wasn't about to pay any additional fees considering how long it took. He finally tossed the coupon back at me and waved his hands in the air saying, "Give it to them, give it to them," and walked off.

As we drove away, $2 in parking fees later, Rob started chuckling. "I didn't think you had it in you," he said approving of my outburst, which started me giggling. After all, he'd said we left coasters were wusses and here his Settlers-back-stabbing-it's-okay-honey wife just went off on the poor parking lot guy.

What a weekend :)