Delightful incongruity

So I ran into town this morning to get some equipment from my Grandmother's; I'm working from home, from home today, because I'm under the weather and don't want to get her sick.

On my way back, I encountered a guy in a plaid shirt, work overalls, and a john deere hat. He looked like a clone of my brother-in-law.

Except that he was rollerblading down the road, listening to his iPod.

Of weekends

As RoboHelp churns .mif files into .html files behind me, I'll post briefly about my weekend. Apparently my post-count is in real danger of being overtaken by my LJ-granddaughter, whose journal is a full three years younger than mine.

Durned young whippersnappers. You kids get offa my lawn!

As it turns out, the table I got on Friday night was missing no pieces. Of course, I've still to put together the computer desk, so there's still hope that I'll have to go back. The loose gown was a miserable failure. I'm going to have to pull it apart and figure out what I'm going to do with it. But that's going to wait till after the next project, I suspect. However, I was able to put in another line of hooks into the kirtle, though it still wasn't tight enough.

The event was beyond lovely. It's so great to catch up with old friends, especially when you know that you'll be seeing them again soon. I probably should have brought something for lunch, though the crackers and cheese graciously provided by gracyelala kept the blood sugar from crashing. After my original dinner plans crashed upon the rocks of Real Life needs, I ended up having dinner with some new acquaintances and some existing-acquaintances-in-new-contexts, which was quite fun. Went back to Arnora and Matthew's place after the event, and got to spend time with Bess and Bigie, and make more new acquaintances with some of M's friends from Skrael.

Sunday, I slept in. My voice had completely given out, though it came back a little bit later in the day. I did some shopping in the afternoon, getting two turtlenecks and Christmas presents for the siblings' children. I'm still trying to decide what to get my parents and grandmother. The brother and s-i-l are easy - that's what God made cheques for. My sister is a bit tougher. But all will work itself out.

And, of course, last night was Indian in Fergus (mmmm lamb korma), followed by social time back at Garraed and Eleanor's place. Eleanor has a lovely, lovely workspace.

I was actually asleep by midnight, which is pretty good.

.mif files are done churning. Back to work.

One frustrating thing and one happy thing - guess which is which

1. I found my mother's Christmas present tonight whilst in Zellers looking for cough syrup. A six dvd collection of Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals. Oklahoma, State Fair, Carousel, South Pacific, The King & I and, of course, The Sound of Music. She's going to absolutely love it.


2. The incomparable cous_cous and I have been waiting since December 8 for the appearance of my first consulting cheque in her mailbox. It was mailed from Oldsmar. Now, one can drive from Oldsmar to cous_cous' house in a scant 40 minutes, as long as it's not rush hour or snowbird season. However, for some reason the cheque seemed to be taking the scenic route (that is, through Nome). Every day, cous_cous would check her mailbox and email or call me to let me know it wasn't there yet. We'd begun to fear that her parrot, Pookie, had stolen the cheque and was using it to fuel a fast paced life, full of danger and intrigue.* Thankfully, it appears that Pookie's lifestyle is being enabled by credit cards she got in my name, not with my actual money, for the cheque arrived today. At my Grandmother's house. In Fergus. In Ontario. Where there are no branches of Washington Mutual at all. And after multiple requests to and assurances from my employer that they were sure they'd sent the cheque to St. Pete. In Florida. Where there are many, many Wamu branches.

*Pookie hates me.