Chocolat

Court loaned me Chocolat after I had checked out Joanne Harris' My French Kitchen, not realizing the cookbook author and the novelist were one and the same. It was a quick, good, somewhat dark read, which I wasn't expecting. My expectations were tainted a bit by the movie version; one of my top ten favorites, one that I put in when I want to watch something light-hearted, with little to no conflict, that makes me warm and happy (and hungry). There's a sequel to the book, The Girl with No Shadow, but I doubt I'll read it... I can't have the movie version messed with that much!

I should caveat that I'm typically one of those people who think that the book is always better than the movie, with few exceptions; and, had I read this book first, I might have thought that the movie version was sacrilege. But in this case, I prefer it this way. How many movies can you say are light and happy and sexy and have a great soundtrack and Johnny Depp? Yeah, I rest my case.

The Curious Case of Frying Panda...Zombies?

Carlos and I saw "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" on Tuesday. It was very, very good. It reminded me in some ways of Forrest Gump, in that epic-tale-of-one-man sort of way. I'd definitely watch it again. The only surprise was that it didn't make me cry... two of my male coworkers saw it and said their wives bawled and that even they got misty-eyed.

Carlos and I also did our gift exchange. I got him a zombie book and I made him a pet zombie. I can't believe I didn't take a picture of him! Maybe I'll make another. Carlos made me a fist-full of CDs, got me a zombie book (!), an icanhascheezburger magnetic phrase kit (now I need to print out some pictures of Alex and Angel!) and a frying panda. I kid you not; it's a frying pan with a panda face on the outside. I used it just last night to make an egg. Yum!

Weekend Purls

The boss let us out early Wednesday afternoon, so a coworker and I ran to Whole Foods for last minute supplies. And coffee. Nom. Then I went home and slaved over the hot ... knitting? Our Thanksgiving tradition has been to spend even years with my family and odd years with Matt's. (Coincidence?) So I don't have to do any cooking. In fact, I only had to bring cranberries. (I'm pretty grossed out by the canned cranberries. The gel that plops out of the can while maintaining the shape of the can is horrifying to me. It doesn't occur in nature and shouldn't happen during Thanksgiving.) So when I got home, I knitted.

(In case you think I'm completely lazy, I DID do most of the Thanksgiving dishes.)

Matt had to work on Friday, and I spent a good part of the day doing laundry and watching movies (Enchanted and Gone Baby Gone... the first was pretty cute, and the latter was just heart-wrenching. I loved it.)

Saturday, we met friends at The Visionary Arts Museum for Bizaart. I love the idea of the self-taught artists selling their wares. My favorites were the purses from hardback book covers, zombie art, cupcake necklaces, whimsical paintings, and enamel jewelry featuring birds. I love birds and was happy to see them represented in several of the vendors' stalls.

Afterwards, we went to the Towson Town Center and wrapped up the vast majority of our holiday shopping. There are a few things I need to order online, then I need to shop for Matt and I am DONE. I'm one of those people who stress from Thanksgiving to Christmas about holiday shopping, and getting the "just right" gifts. This year, I started early, tried hard to stick to a budget, and for the most part, purchased gifts I wouldn't mind receiving myself. The top of the entertainment center is laden with boxes; I don't have the tree up yet, but whenever we do get it up, the gifts have to be where Angel won't try to unwrap them!

The rest of the weekend was spent watching more movies (The Fountain and The Good Shepherd), watching football, baking cupcakes...

And more knitting. One of the three projects I finished this weekend was an autumn tea cozy. Tea cozies are terribly old-fashioned but wonderfully practical. Matt always serves me a pot of tea with breakfast on the weekends, and we often wrap the teapot with a napkin because I like my tea piping hot. The tea cozy will serve to keep my tea warmer with a close-fitting wrap that I can leave on when pouring another cup. Laugh if you will, but I love it! My first cozy is bright orange and was knit in a pumpkin-looking pattern. I had intended to have it done before Halloween, but put it away in early October and forgot about it. I may put it away with my Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations and make another in a neutral color for the rest of the year. (And I'll likely make one in a bigger size for my other teapots. Yes, I have more than one.)

The rest of my knitting projects are on Ravelry, but are Christmas surprises! Now, the only things I have on the needles are my first sock (still) and sweater. Too bad tomorrow's Monday; I wouldn't mind spending another few days practicing domestic arts.

Fall Sleepover

Friday, I left work almost an hour early to pick up mom (who can’t be bothered to drive herself to Baltimore!) to spend the weekend with me. Good thing I left early, too, because she called at 6:30 to ask why I wasn’t there yet! Fortunately for her, I was pulling into her neighborhood by then. Saucy minx.

Anyway, we drove north to my house, had dinner, stuffed her Mother Bear (see below), watched a little TV, and went to bed.

Saturday, we tried to go to Miss Shirley’s downtown for breakfast, but that location isn't open on weekends; we headed to Morning Edition instead. Mom was introduced to the ghetto and brie, and seemed to have a preference for the latter. Imagine that! Not only was the food very good, but THE WAITER SMILED. (This place is known more for the dicey location and great brunch rather than for friendly or prompt waitstaff.) After we gorged ourselves, we went to Lovelyarns and dropped off our Mother Bears. It was really nice; we overheard the proprietor admiring our bears, and I had to let everyone know it was mom’s first knitting project, and that we’d be back soon with more. In return, she let us know that we’d likely see our bears hanging on the wall before being boxed and sent to Mother Bear headquarters.

On the way back out, we stared longingly at Dangerously Delicious Pies and made a pact to stop there during the next sleepover. And when we passed the SPCA, Mom wanted to know if that’s where we are going to go adopt her a kitty whenever Bob (who’s allergic) moves out. Mom, who always said she didn’t like pets. She just has to be shown the light!

Next, we went to Target to buy Halloween candy, then Matt dropped us off at the movies. We saw Nights in Rodanthe, which was sappy and teary, but entertaining. Afterwards, he picked us up at Barnes & Noble. How’d he know to find us in the knitting section?!? That night, I made spaghetti with what will likely be the last home-grown, home-made sauce of the year, then we put together baggies of Halloween candy for mom’s trick-or-treaters while watching Chicago, then Mom went to bed with her new Nicholas Sparks book. (I wish I had have bought the Alison Weir historical fiction; maybe Santa will remember me. But I have plenty to read right now.)

Sunday, Matt made pancakes and eggs, then went to the Ravens game with his cousin. I took mom home, then did housework: dishes, laundry, ironing, changing the sheets, pulling up some of the dying herbs and stuff from the back yard, etc. until Matt got back home.

The plan is already set for Mom’s next visit: she’s due to come over again the first week of December, when Matt and I should (!) have some Christmas decorations up, and we’ll go see a holiday movie, eat breakfast at the other Miss Shirley’s, 34th Street should be decorated, we can drop off our latest bears and get a Dangerously Delicious Pie, and – best part? – watch the Ravens vs. Redskins game that Sunday at Mom’s house. (NO PIZZA, MOM! Pizza and pie sound gross together!)

Hope everyone else had a good weekend!

How to Eat

This week went by sort of slowly, and I amused myself by opening a Facebook profile (mainly to see Dan & Kim's photos from Spain), starting a Mother Bear, working on my sock, trying to think of Halloween costumes, and moving horror movies to the top of my Netflix queue (we watched The Mist last night... it was pretty good).

This week, I also heard from a friend who is having relationship problems, and tried to give the most honest, actionable advice I could. I really hope it works out for the best in the long run. But I know how hard it is to keep moving forward when you just want to get to your happy ending.

After work today, Matt and I went to Ukazoo, where we tried to trade three boxes of Mom's old novels in. For whatever reason (maybe they had them all in stock?) they only took two books. The good news is that they had a softcover of Nigella's How to Eat, which I quite gleefully snached right up. I'm looking forward to flipping through this. Nigella is my favorite celebrity cook, and I love her writing... you can imagine sitting in her kitchen, having a glass of wine and watching her cook.

So tomorrow, we'll have breakfast, maybe take out the Halloween decorations, try another used book store, go to dinner with Jeff and Lacey, maybe watch another horror movie. And maybe I'll see if there's anything good for dessert in that cookbook. Yum!

Raining Squirrels and Bunnies (Ain't it cool?)

It rained pretty much all day on Saturday. I got up relatively early for a weekend and knitted for a bit while waiting for Matt to get up, and after about two hours, crept up the stairs and jumped on him and demanded breakfast. This has a happy ending: I had a great egg sammich on an English muffin AND I finished my first cable scarf!!

I also did a bit of minor tailoring: I sewed down flap pockets on two pairs of capris (Who needs big flaps on their butts?) and I removed some buttons that made some kind of crazy smiley pattern from a cloche hat and added them to my button collection for use later.

There are some red dots left on the hat from when it was made, indicating where the button should go. (See them in the upper right?) I think I need to bug Mom into crocheting a big fluffy grey flower to cover them up.

Seriously, it rained all day. I was hoping to get out of the house and do some walking but instead watched The Pursuit of Happyness and watched the kittens and watched the rain.

We also watched a squirrel (Matt is convinced it's the squirrel I rescued from the rain barrel about a year ago) sit on the railing of the back porch and shiver and wrap himself in his tail and cry. I didn't know squirrels could cry, and of course it broke my heart. When the rain paused, I had Matt leave some bread out for him, but he didn't come back.

Then, of course, it rained some more; which sucked because Carlos gave us four tickets to the Orioles game, and we planned to take Bob and Shannon but were hesitant to have them drive all the way up here if the game was going to be rained out.

But, I'm learning about silver linings. Like when I poured myself some cereal the other day and missed the cup and got Annie's Fruity Bunnies all over the counter, and instead of getting frustrated like I normally do, I said "Ain't it cool?" and admired the crazy colors and then cleaned it up and went about having a snack.

So the weather was too iffy to go to the baseball game. Instead, we met Bob and Shannon at Arundel Mills and had dinner and went to Dave & Buster's, and I played Skeeball once but for the rest of the evening, followed my little family around while they played NASCAR and football and shooting games.


Ain't it cool?

The Road

I read The Road in about two days. Okay, that's not necessarily surprising. But nonetheless, the book was gripping. It's one of those books where you drop into the characters' lives, then fall back out again. You don't really know what happened before or what will happen after, but you are a part of the right now.

The story is about a nameless man and his young son on a journey to reach the coast, trying to survive after an apocalypse. The world is dying, and so are they. All they have managed to scavange, they take with them in a shopping cart or in their backpacks. The other is all each has.

The writing was sparce, and the type large and set with wide line spacing, adding to the sense of flow and scarcity. It was disturbing but engaging read. Not to mention last year's Pulitzer Prize winner.

The Road will also have a movie version, coming out this November. (Cormac McCarthy also wrote No Country for Old Men.) The movies are never as good as the books, but I'm still looking forward to seeing it!

Watchmen

I finished reading this a while ago, but hadn't had the opportunity to blog about it. I wanted to be able to dedicate some time and thought to it. Now, I just want to get it out of the way!



Seriously, though: the book was pretty awesome.

The comic series was written (and set) in the mid 80s and was set a bit of an alternative universe, where Richard Nixon is still president, and The Doomsday Clock is ticking towards midnight. Superheros are a fact of life, but -- with one exection -- are everyday people, more adventurers in funny costumes than anything else.

Matt ended up reading the novel as well, and both of us thought Rorschach was the most interesting character. He reminded me of a member of the military, of great integrity, but blindingly absolutist, and seemingly driven by a singular idea that isn't necessarily his.

It was a timely read, considering the state of the world and our need for something -- SOMETHING! -- to pull things back together. If something as crazy as the events of 9/11 didn't unite us for very long, I fear how dramatic it would have to be in order to work.

I don't think this will transfer well to film. One of the points of The Watchmen was to show what the medium of a graphic novel could do that other media can't emulate. For example, sandwiched between chapters are other fictional elements, like excerpts of books and letters written by the characters and the comic book within the comic book. That, and the story itself, and the pretty incredible ending, may not be accepted by a wide audience.

Julie & Julia

I finished reading Julie & Julia over the weekend. What a fun read! It's a memoir about a neurotic, disgruntled twenty-nine-year-old New York secretary who decided to embark on the Julie/Julia Project -- a challenge to herself to cook all 524 recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year, and blog about her experience doing so. What followed was --obviously -- humor, broken eggs, an obscene amount of butter, and several nervous breakdowns.

I love Julie Powell’s writing style: witty, brutally honest, self-depreciating, sometimes whiny... yet always utterly relatable. (Especially the parts about her long-suffering husband.) Reading it, I was cheering her on and wondering whether she was completely nuts, often at the same time.

Julie's first post was Sunday, August 25, 2002 (that's right, I tracked it down), and it quickly gained an enthusiastic readership... among web surfers and eventually, the media. (Which is what eventually led her to her book deal, that lucky dog.)

I know there is a movie being made from the book, which will have a little bit more of Julia Child's life, based on her autobiography My Life in France. (I need to add that to my to-read list... or maybe my Christmas list.) And Meryl Streep is supposed to play Julia Child, so OBVIOUSLY that's going to be a fun performance.

That said, I don't think all of this is going to tear me away from my devotion to Alice Waters, but it gives me a new interest in and appreciation of Julia Child and schmancy French cooking. It also makes me yen for a project of my own, especially if it can eventually get me out of my sometimes-secretarial-like day job. Knitting? Baking? Jewelry-making? Any suggestion?

Wake Me Up (When September Ends)

I've had an interesting -- and largely unintentional -- barrage of September 11th references in the last few weeks of August. We received United 93 and World Trade Center from Netflix; they happened to be next on our queue. The author of Julie & Julia wrote about her experience at a temporary secretarial job... at a government firm fielding suggestions for a 9/11 memorial. The first essay in my latest Barbara Kingsolver book was a rumination on the events of September 11th... I didn't find out until later that Kingsolver began writing that book of essays on 9/12/01.

I felt United 93 was well-researched, and true-to-life. The film ran more or less in real time, and cuts from the plane to the military to air traffic controllers, building a mounting sense of confusion and fear. Each passenger was represented by a specific actor; I found later that many families met the actors portraying their loved ones. The film played like a good, unflinching, unbiased documentary. World Trade Center wasn't nearly as good. I respect that the artists involved were making their tribute, but as a movie it was neither engaging nor entertaining.

The author of Julie & Julia was surprisingly -- and dare I say refreshingly -- frank regarding her frustrations dealing with outrageous suggestions for a 9/11 memorial. She also writes rather bluntly about her loathing of Republicans. I was pretty amused by her rants. From reviews I've read, some readers have (of course) been offended and feel she is cold and dispassionate. I found her open and funny... someone with whom I wouldn't mind hanging out, and with whom I'd feel comfortable saying all those things I wouldn't say in polite company.

Small Wonder's title essay is sure to be controversial (Kingsolver did make the list of the 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America, along with any other prominent Democrat or Liberal you can think of). She describes the enemy as fear rather than a person, and writes "it would require the deepest possible shift of our hearts to live in this world of fundamental animosity and devote ourselves not the the escalating exertion to kill, but rather, to lulling animosity to sleep." And this, to me, is what I take away from the events of 9/11.

Even on that day, driving to my grandmother's funeral with my fiancee and Marine brother, I was angry but felt no hate. I didn't want revenge. I wanted to grieve, to heal, and to rise up. And then I wanted to understand why there is such hate out there, and how to heal it. I had not considered -- and wanted no part of -- an unending, escalating back-and-forth of misconception and conflict.

Years later, I have some understanding about the hate out there, and about how we may be perceived in countries unlike ours, as well as some that are not so unlike ours. And how little of what we are doing is working to change the perceptions, hate, violence.

I worry a lot about this world gone mad, about wars and foreign relations and the numerous divisions in our own country: by race, economics, religion, sexuality, party lines. I worry about intolerance and injustice, what I can do to combat it, whether I can make an impact. When I think of what a troubled time this is, I try to remind myself that nearly every generation has had its own terrors to overcome. But it's hard to think of them when this is what I'm experiencing. I just wish I knew how to do it, how to lull some of the world's animosity to sleep.

A friend of mine recently said he dislikes liberals, partially because he feels they are spoiled idealists, ashamed of our country. It was a constructive discussion (such a great start!); an opportunity to debate and come to terms. Because dear reader, I am quite the bleeding-heart liberal, and I'll admit to some discountenance. I find myself disagreeing with a lot of things that go on and hoping for change. But while I feel this young nation may be wayward in its teenage years, I believe in its greatness. I love it as it fumbles and finds its way, am exaspirated by its angry outburts and inspired by its compassionate outpourings. I love it with a fierce protectiveness, and I want to see it at its best.

I am, indeed, a liberal. But to me, that has less to do with my political beliefs about civil liberties and social progress. (I roll my eyes at the ACLU as much as my Republican friends.) What it has to do with is my idealistic child-like faith that we can work to make things better, that, even though this world may never achieve perfect harmony, we can accept and maybe even help one another. That perhaps we can lull at least some animosity to sleep.

Goodbye, Summer

It's been quite a week. A good week. A busy week. A week fitting for the last week of summer. Monday was grocery shopping, for groceries I don't think I touched all week. It wasn't a good week for home cooked meals. Tuesday was packed with a client meeting then movie night; Los and I grabbed a much-need beer and some chips before seeing Tropic Thunder, which was a lot funnier than I thought it would be, and thus was one of those movies that made me feel just a little guilty that I wasn't watching it with Matt.

Thursday, we got to go to the Ravens game. Neither my boss nor her friend were using their season tickets, so Matt, Court, VJ and I watched the Ravens get spanked by the Falcons. Matt Stover was the highlight of the game; especially watching him try to tackle a running back. We girls were thinking both "YAY, MATT!" and "Please don't hurt Matt Stover!"

This week also marked the end of "summer hours" at work, where we got off at 3:30. I got out of there around 4pm and Matt drove us down to get my mom, who spent her birthday-weekend with us. On the way, we stopped at an antique shop, where I wandered around wide-eyed and reverent, running my fingers across treasured items once belonging to strangers. There were a lot of things I may have liked to have purchased, but settled on an old costume jewelry necklace and two books, a collection of short stories from 1939 and a 1927 edition of Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse.

After collecting Mom and her things, we headed homeward, stopping at Noodles & Co. near our house for some dinner. (We intended to go to P.F. Chang's, but it was packed with adventurous suburbanites.) Either way, I was grateful for a good meal with some veggies, and it filled Mom's need for someone to place food in front of her. (She has little of my restaurant snobbery, but insists that she be served her food if going through the trouble and expense of going out, making places like Panera less favored.)

Saturday, Matt made a lovely (if not slightly late) breakfast of pancakes and scrambled eggs, then cleaned and did laundry while Mom and I wandered from store to store. At Michael's, she got some silk flowers; at Target, I bought cleaning supplies and yet another magazine; at Barnes & Noble, I bought Small Wonder by Barbara Kingsolver (I've already read the first essay, but will post about that later); at A.C. Moore, I contemplated -- but did not purchase -- sock yarn. We saw Mama Mia, which was sugary-sweet but surprisingly good, and left us both with ABBA songs stuck firmly in our heads. We popped into a funiture store and Hallmark, then met Matt and Don Pablo's for dinner. Mom got her fill of her favorite cheesy-good Mexican (-ish) food, we had a sweetheart of a waiter, and Mom got to wear the big black sombrero and have a restaurant full of people scream "Happy Birthday" to her.

After dinner, we wandered around Pier 1 a bit to digest, then further stuffed ourselves with Cold Stone Creamery. By the time we went to bed, we were fat and happy.


Sunday, we went to Crepe du Jour for brunch. I love Mount Washington in general and Crepe du Jour in particular. We sat outside, and I felt very French. After Matt, Mom and I stuffed ourselves with a steak, crepe and omlette respectively, we went to Hamden (hon). We stopped in Lovelyarns, where I let Mom pick out a lovely sock yarn (so I now need to learn to knit socks) and I bought a set of huge (size 35) wooden needles, and a skein of a mohair/nylon/wool blend, with which I'm thinking of knitting armwarmers for use in my office.


We also stopped into Salamander Books, where I purchased a copy of The God of Small Things and Julie & Julia, which I'm already sixty-some pages into. From Hamden, we dropped Mom off and headed back home, with me reading along the way, and enjoying the clutter of packages I made on the passenger-side floorboard of Matt's car.
And now that I'm home, I'm off to enjoy my new stack of books!

This Morning, I Saw a Gray Stray Tabby...

...the little kitty was creeping around the Educate building and I wanted to park my car and dash after him, clean him and feed him and take him home. But I know I can't do that unless I plan to keep him forever, so I just watched his lean little body from my car and hoped that there is some soft heart in the city who leaves food out for him every night.

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Matt's out of town again this week, in St. Louis. Somehow, this week has been easier than last, even though I went out with Carlos on Tuesday and had a party at work Thursday night. Carlos and I saw "The Dark Knight" which was more along the lines of the types of superhero movies I can appreciate: mysterious and bleak with imperfect characters and a realistic ending. I'll likely go see it again with Matt this weekend.

The Planit party was tolerable. The food wasn't very good, and I probably only had one glass of wine all night. I stayed until the majority of my clients had left, disentangled myself from the admirer from the office next door, and went home around 9pm. Matt got home later that night; it was probably the first night last week that I slept well.

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Last Saturday, we visited Walt's produce stand, then went to a cookout at Jeff & Lacey's. It had been a while since we've seen them, and some other old co-workers I hadn't seen in a while. Carlos, of course, was there too. Long time no see! Seeing Carlos always makes me happy. :)

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On Monday morning, I dropped Matt off at the airport and got to work about an hour early. I went home and made caponata for dinner and watched Volver and went to bed later than I should have. Last night, I went to Michael's on my way home and bought size eight circular needles for a shirt I want to knit, then started a swatch while watching Auntie Mame, finishing a dozen rows of 30 stitches each... and some pomegranate ice cream. Lovely!

WALL*E

OMG, luff!

The year is 2700 and Earth is uninhabited except for a cockroach (of course) and WALL*E, a robot programmed to clean up the planet by compacting and stacking cubes of trash. The world's population had boarded a spaceship and had been living in ignorant bliss, relying on technology to care for their every need.

But over the 700 years he's been working, WALL*E had developed a daily routine, a personality, and a sense of curious wonder. And had maybe gotten a little lonely. One day, he finally gets some company. EVE (I love this: Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator) is deposited on Earth. WALL*E falls for immediately, but it takes EVE a little time to warm up to him. And when she finds what she is looking for and returns to the ship, WALL*E follows her... all the way across the galaxy.

This is probably my favorite PIXAR movie. For one thing, the movie had very little dialogue, especially at the beginning. And yet, you are fully engaged in the movie. Also, WALL*E and EVE are made of very basic shapes: a box and an oval, but you can feel everything WALL*E is feeling...it is amazing how expressive they made a box with arms and binocular eyes!

And, there were a lot of blatent social messages. Though I told 'Los that there should have been a public service announcement after the movie to drive home the messages to those who may not have "gotten it"... Don't consume so much! Don't create so much trash! Don't rely so much on technology for everything! Don't forget to look around and appreciate your surroundings! Connect with the people around you! Take care of the Earth! And don't let anything stop you in the quest for true love.

Samedi, jusqu'ici

I slept in a bit, braved an egg scrambled with asparagus, showered and got dressed. We had to go to Patient First so I could give another urine sample, and to CVS to pick up my prescriptions (and shampoo, and mascara, since we were there anyway...). We finished watching The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which I thought was wonderful. I should get the book; I'm sure that will be even better.

I managed some mashed potatoes, and later made pita chips (from homemade pita bread) and a white bean dip, though I didn't eat dinner. We played Scrabble down to the last seven or so tiles, and I got lucky enough to beat M:

and now he is reading while update my blog. I need to update my Ravelry blog as well, with my latest crochet projects. I finished Sweet Pea (and wore it to work on Thursday):

I'm very happy with it; it was a quick project, and though the yarn was an inexpensive acrylic/soy blend, it's soft and comforting.

And of course, there is Chanson en Crochet, which my mom finished a while ago, much to my delight:

She claims it doesn't look as good as it did in the pattern's pictures, but I think it is uniqe and gorgeous. It's made with Cascade 220 wool, is snug and still smells like my mommy. :)

I haven't decided what to do next, but will keep you posted. In the meantime... sweet dreams.

Mental Health Day

Today’s catastrophe was discovered when I pulled into the parking garage at work, turned off my car, looked at my keys, and realized I left my house key in the bloody front door. I left work around 11am, after dealing with a work-related catastrophe, and declared a semi-mental health day: I packed up my folders and laptop and went back home.

Those who work in close proximity to me know when I’m scrubbing my desk with Clorox wipes, things aren’t going well. As soon as I got home, I scrubbed my oven. But it must have been cathartic, because I settled in with Fantasia then Fantasia 2000 and now March of the Penguins… lovely comforting background noises and images.
I spent the majority of my afternoon prepping for a meeting with my pharmaceutical client. (I hope I’ll have it tomorrow; we are supposed to have inclement weather starting this evening.) Now, I need to get up to speed on my newspaper client. The fun never ends!

My roses got all droopy so I took them home last night and lopped their little heads off and am thinking I might dump them in the bath this evening, then update my Ravelry blog and crochet a bit. Bonne nuit!