okay -- this is the last blog before vacation. I'll blog from the road if it works out.

I've been trying to do about 10 things at once for the last few days. I still haven't packed but I've moved in the general direction of packing. I can throw it all together tomorrow in no time, I'm sure. It's all the last minute odds and ends like making sure the plants are watered and the coffee maker is unplugged that will drive us mad.

I bought a jug of cheap wine last week for making mulled wine. It sounded like a good idea and I didn't make a huge amount but it had a terrible effect on me. I woke up at midnight and couldn't get back to sleep, my stomach felt a teensy bit unhappy (I drank a half bottle of Reeds extra-ginger ale which worked wonders), I woke with a headache and it rotted my teeth somehow. For at least three days I felt like screaming when I brushed my teeth. I've been rinsing with the turbo-flouride stuff I bought from the dentist a couple of years ago when I was having sensitive teeth issues. Meanwhile, I lost my interest in mulled wine (at least my home made version) which is really quite a shame since I have this jug of wine sitting on the counter. Also the jug wine is screw cap and it took me about 15 minutes to get that f*#&ing thing off. I'm not sure the screw cap is the answer.

In other news we got our announcement from Comcast that our cable bill is going up -- like $100 a year. We're getting the everything package which was already expensive and now we're thinking of going back to a smaller package with HBO and then subscribing to netflix instead. I like the option of having everything but Bob is right, I hardly make use of it and the constant juggling of tapes is getting old. I suppose we're ready for TiVo, but I have other things I want to spend my money on first (new desk, new computer). I think cable is the biggest bunch of crooks -- next to the utilities and insurance companies. No shortage of crooks out there. Comcast has a feature where they send you messages and they used to hardly ever send messages. They must have send around a memo or have a new intern or something but we get a message at least once a day, sometimes more. And it's always for something extra to pay for as if $100 a month isn't enough.