BH: 593

So, at about 3 a.m. we realised that the power had been knocked out by the wind. (As I just said in an e-mail to Sarah, it was knock-out-the-power, bang-decorations-against-the-side-of-the-house, carry-off-small-pets-and-children, witches-in-striped-socks-and-sparkly-red-shoes-should-hide-now wind.) I kept thinking of the Buffy ep from this season with Dawn in the house when the lights went out, etc. And that creeped me out. I snuggled with Ken and reminded myself that the house was sturdy, and that helped.

The power was still out when I went to my chiro appt at 10 a.m. this morning, but back on by the time I got home at about 1 p.m. Today was major errand day, and I got little else done. Exhausting. First was chiro and massage, which was wonderful. Then I had a dentist appt a few doors down, at 11 a.m. Ken’s appt had been at 10 a.m. When I got there, he was still there. Uh oh, I thought. More root canal fiddling, wretched stuff. My own news wasn’t much better. I have three cavities (two very tiny ones, and one that I was told “wasn’t my fault” because brushing wouldn’t help because the tooth is deeply grooved). That should say “had”, I suppose, because they filled one of them. They’ve apparently invented Smart Novocain, because the only thing that got numb was my teeth, not the whole side of my face. I was a little stressed at first but it turned out to be a down-and-dirty job that was over quickly. I also have tiny spurs between some of my teeth from lack of flossing [guilty look], so they’re checking to see if my insurance will cover an ultrasound cleaning. And the crown that I got in Wales because of a cracked molar…well, the crack is extending down deeper than that dentist apparently realised, so a root canal is probably in my future as well. [shudder] Also, the dentist asked if I wanted the gap between my front teeth (aka The Failure of Seven Years of Braces) fixed. Huh. Never really considered it. Maybe. It bugs me a little, but not a lot. It feels very southern Californian, almost like plastic surgery.

After all that fun and festivities (not), I went to Costco to get Dr Pepper for Ken, and also grabbed trash cans, pot stickers, ravioli, frozen pizzas, and a Pilates DVD (on the theory that when I actually have five minutes to exercise, it’ll give me another option so I don’t get bored). I grabbed a slice of pizza there because I was starving, then headed home because I had frozen food in the car. The power was back on, so I checked e-mail quickly, and then headed back out.

I mentally rearranged my route based on the fact that I’d gone home, and went first to the post office. Learned that Mondays are bad days to go to the PO. So are Fridays, and the beginnings and ends of months. Thursdays are the slow days, I learned from the helpful and pleasant PO worker. I made a note of that. I’m always pleasant to PO workers, because people treat them like shit. I know this because for several years in college, I worked at a local bookstore that had a PO contract station in the back, and sometimes I had to work in it. At the front counter, people would hand you what they wanted to buy and chat with you while you rung it up. At the PO counter, people would throw a $5 bill on the counter and stare at you belligerently, not speaking, just assuming you could read their mind and knew that they wanted a book of stamps (which at the time cost $4.20 or $4.40 or something like that). Oh, that pissed me off. (So I’d smile sweetly and asked what I could do for them.) So I know working in the PO sucks. And I’m going to do my best to make it less sucky.

After standing in line there forever, I headed off to the copy shop and finally finally finally dropped off our holiday newsletter. It’ll be ready tomorrow morning. Hell, it would’ve been ready tonight if I’d wanted to go back. So, the whole reason it’s going out late is I was too lazy to get it to the copier before today. Ah well. I suppose I’m evil, but this means it goes to everyone who sent us a holiday card, plus a few more people who didn’t.

I then went to Staples and bought a postal scale, finally. No more standing in line at Mailboxes Etc. or the PO, yay. More mail in the mailbox for the mail guy, boo. I think we need a bigger mailbox, actually. The mail guy tends to just drop packages on the front step. He rang the doorbell the last time, which surprised the hell out of me. If we had a bigger box, everything could go into it, end of story.

Barnes & Noble was mostly a bust. Well, no, really, it wasn’t. The book for my mom’s birthday is on order and they’ll hold one for me and call me when it arrives. The book for Amy I can get at Psychic Eye (Amy, you didn’t read that, did you?) and I was thinking I’d prefer to go there anyway). I did buy lots and lots of birthday and Valentine’s cards, and a mushy card for Ken to thank him for all the work he’s been doing on the house lately. Which impressed the woman who rang me up. “I’ll have to do that,” she said. Anything I can do to bolster your relationship, lady. No need to thank me.

Then it was off to Pier 1 to buy wine glasses, because we’d seen perfect ones at Twelfth Night and learned they were on sale. We ended up with a set of 8, plus 8 regular glasses. Dark green, with gold etching around the rim. After I got them home I discovered that they don’t actually go with our green dishes, but close enough. They’re absolutely gorgeous. I wandered around Pier 1 and looked at expensive stuff we can’t afford right now and things on sale that we could except that I was so freaking tired by that point, nothing was worth it. So I came home.

I cleaned all the trash out of the front yard that had blown there in the killer wind, came inside, and about 15 minutes Ken arrived home from work. I’m now blanking on what we did then. I think we both did computer work and discussed various things and tried to get caught up and all that. Then we ate salad and cooked a frozen pizza and went outside to sew with everyone who’d shown up for the usual Monday night frenzy. I finished all of the tunics for Meg, and repaired a split seam on my Twelfth Night garb. Ken finished his gold doublet so he’s got that to wear to An Tir Twelfth Night. We came back in and cleaned up a bit and I wrote and he read and then we slept.

End of what was probably a very boring entry. Thanks for sticking with it this far—but whatever were you waiting for?!