Ah-ROOOOO-gula

Gainesville

What good news, Mom! I know how glad you must be to regain your domestic independence and have time genuinely to yourself. It's also good that you have such a good local support system-- not just family but also service people you've turned into friends. And congrats on graduating to one crutch/cane in record time. I guess experience matters...

Hope you had a nice birthday. You didn't mention it, so I assume it wasn't a disaster.

I did almost all the weekly Blessings today. It feels so good to have them done, but to also see how good the house looks, despite the remaining clutter. Just the magazine stack and the kitchen floor away from having them ALL done. A load of laundry in addition to the towels.

Saw a message today that said hotels in San Diego are already filling up for the next Comic-Con-- in July! The other comics scholars recommend making a contingency hotel reservation now, then trying to get a conference-rate room when they become available in January. This is about as likely as getting a ticket to Springsteen in NYC via TicketMaster, but maybe worth a try. I did score a fall-back hotel reservation-- at a Comfort Inn in the Gaslight district, near where we stayed two years ago. The 10-day stay would set us back a mere $3,300 and change-- plus airfare, car rental, food, etc. We could have quite a nice cruise for that, including all meals and entertainment, and zero stress. Unless we get incredibly lucky in January, our first Comic-Con trip will probably prove to be our last. I would like to visit SD again sometime, but trying to do this during this zoo/frenzy is insane. I could feel my stress-level rise the longer I worked on it.

Made a very nice dish tonight with the unpromising name of "Skillet Pork Chops #3." It was a keeper, though a bit complicated in execution. Shoulda started about 45 minutes earlier. With it I ad libbed a salad of arugula dressed with lemon juice and olive oil topped with sliced avocado and tomato slices. Quite good-- a new brand of bagged arugula turned out to be wonderful, and I still have half the bag left.

Now to come up with two more meals. I HAVE to go on a liquor run tomorrow or I'll be drinking Sandy's Bombay, then Mom's Gilbey! Think I'll get another case of half-gallon Tanq. If Bill doesn't continue requesting Chris' Gin & Tonic when the weather gets cold, I'll have a good supply for the winter.

Speaking of which, the season may finally be changing. Today it was in the low 60, and didn't reacy 70 til around noon. I put on a mock turtleneck plus a sweatshirt, and it felt good, even when doing the Blessings. It almost qualifies as the Official Sweatshirt day I always celebrate-- but not quite. Plus, the AC is running tonight, and the air is dense with mosquitos-- I've dispatched at least half a dozen tonight alone.

Football tonight was grim-- 3-3 tie most of the way, then Baltimore went down to Denver. Boo. Decided to watch the new Sorokin show (Studio 60) instead of the third quarter (on live network TV) and it was very good. Need to figure out some way to at least be able to videotape from the cable feed until it all gets straightened out.

I just cancelled the SD hotel reservation when I realized they were going to charge my credit card for the full amount-- nine months in advance! To hell with that-- I was expecting to be charged for only the first night, as is standard practice in the civilized world. Yeesh.

Forgive yet another un-edited entry. It's 1:00 AM tomorrow, and both brain and fingers are out of gas. Time to hang it up.