Rubik's Rube

Gainesville

Bill's back! He'd called from ATL to tell me they'd be at least 15 minutes late. I factored that in, thinking I'd be early, then ran into road construction, and they weren't late after all. He was waiting at the curb. I hate that! As if I didn't care enough to be there with bells on to greet him as he stepped off the plane, as I usually do.

Anyway, good to have him back. He had a good conference-- CNI is probably the best of these library things, and he had interesting new things to report on.

I didn't get out to do my big errand run yesterday-- only made it to B&N and a quick food shop. Figured I'd go in to work when he went in this afternoon, drop him off, then do it then. But he was not interested in going in after all. We had lunch downtown at Emiliano's (good tapas), then drove to the student union so he could replace the ID he'd lost last Thursday while we were at Outback. Pretty much shot the rest of the day. But let the record show that I wrote bills tonight, and if I get them mailed tomorrow, they're up-to-date

Now the plan is to go in early with Bill tomorrow. My sick leave payout was not sent to my IRA as planned, but to me as a check. A number of phone calls made to straighten this out, but will still need to return the check and go through channels to get the transfer done correctly. Amazing how complicated all this is. Hope I can then take Moonbeam and get all the various errands done, finally.

Have done nothing about Christmas, and I mean nothing. Still trying to figure out where to put a tree, as it's clear Bill wants one. (Or maybe he's sure I want one, and is being nice. Hard to tell.) The only place in the house uncluttered enough to hold last year's pre-lit one is the middle of the kitchen, but somehow I don't think that's going to work.

Made a very simple shrimp scampi tonight, along with some store-bought hummus (Marty? Your recipe?) with veggie sticks and pita, plus salad. Nothing fancy.

While at B&N yesterday I made a really stupid purchase that I know I'll regret: a Rubik's Cube. I've always hated the very sight of the things, although I was a huge fan of Rubik's Snake, which I mastered easily and found endlessly fascinating for a few years. But something about managing to learn to do Sudoku has got my mind attuned to 3 x 3 squares, and provoked a burst of hubris when I saw the infamous Cube: I bet I could learn to do this, too!

What WAS I thinking? Just what I need: another time-gobbling sinkhole. That is why I didn't blog last night. I looked up and it was way after midnight. And I hadn't even learned to solve one cross, let alone one face. Bad craziness, and just around the holidaze, when there is already too much to do. Sigh.

Also picked up Death in Holy Orders, by P.D. James. I'd listened to the audiobook when it first came out, but had not read it. After reading her latest, The Lighthouse, I realized I needed to actually read it, as a character is introduced who turns out to be, two books later, Adam Dagliesh's true love (and a wonderful character in her own right). The right book at the right time. Again, just what I don't need.

I'm not the only one who's noticed that we're having one of the prettiest Falls ever here-- the Gainesville Sun had a magnificent front page image yesterday which I'd include here, but G-Sun is making it impossible to open the image, and my scanner is still not fully functional. Oh well, take my word for it, it's preternaturally beautiful here just now.

Mom, both Bill and I had a chuckle at your 1985 lament about how floppy disks were so expensive that you felt you had to erase parts of them to conserve space-- and at the same time you'd just taken delivery of an actual organ! And we're not talking some electronic keyboard thing. How times do change...