How do you like my new glasses? I've been going nuts with the pictures the past few days. Last night I had a dream that I was putting pictures online for the Sopranos. I think I'm going to cut way back on the computer for a few days.

The San Francisco to Logan trip pictures are up.

I finally have photos of the Germany trip up. (Yes, I know, three months later ...)

I also put a couple more winter storm pictures up.

I'm still working on the Logan trip and Bob's birthday, not to mention several other projects. I took a couple of days off last week to coincide with Bob's spring break. We figured out that March 25 was ten years from the day we met. We celebrated with King Ludwig champagne (thanks Neuners) and Bob carrot birthday cake (thanks Priscilla).

I remember when I was in college and a woman I worked with at the library -- it was her real job, not like a student job -- took a week vacation and stayed home and I thought it was appalling. Now I get it. It's nice to goof around at home. We slept in and watched movies (Pieces of April - excellent!; Intolerable Cruelty - very Coen brothers; and I-Spy - sometimes funny but mostly stupid) and did errands and read papers and magazines and did a little yard work. And Bob worked on his school stuff and I worked on writing stuff. My attitude needed adjusting and this did the trick.

Got Erin moved in this weekend. Lots of stories to tell and pictures to show but as usual you are at the mercy of the time and energy I want to put into this project. Possibly this week as I am taking a couple days off to hang out with Bob for Spring Break. Erin moved in with a woman named Susanna and Bob asked me if I looked at her CDs because he said that's how you can tell about a person. I said I never had time to look at her CDs but I did see the DVD of Wilco's I am Trying to Break your Heart and he said then we know she's okay.

I actually had another story where I knew she and Erin would get along just fine. Susanna and her sister have 3 cats and Erin asked how they got so many and Susanna said that their next door neighbors were struggling and the daughter was having a baby and children's services said they couldn't have so many cats (a momma and kittens) so the neighbors asked Susanna if she wanted the cats and Susanna paid them $25 for the cats. The momma was friendly and the orange one rubbed up against me but the calico was shy and I never got close to it. I told Erin to report how long it took the shy one to glom onto her and she said she watched Alias that night with the calico in her lap.

Tonight I'm flying to San Francisco (actually Oakland) to meet Erin and tomorrow we take off on our big adventure. Erin got a job in Logan, Utah. We're going to do most of the driving tomorrow -- I've never driven through Nevada or even been to Utah -- and we expect to arrive in Logan on Saturday. Sunday we return the truck in Salt Lake and I'm coming back home. I'm bringing the camera so I should have a good report next week.

Meanwhile, check out The Banterist for entertaining reading.

Angel, Buffy, Angel, Buffy
Last night I watched Angel episode 7 & 8 from the first season. Eight is the one where Buffy comes to LA and Angel gets turned into a human again but of course it doesn't end well because that would ruin the series. It was SO SAD. Get your heart broken and you never forget it.

Is there some literary rule that says a significant short story must be crushingly depressing? I just finished "National Book Award Finalist" Adam Haslett's You Are Not A Stranger Here and I was glad to crawl out of the gloom. Don't get me wrong. He's a fantastic writer. The first story in the collection: Notes to My Biographer, has a great voice. The narrator is a this goofy older relative that we've all had a run in with at least once -- and he gets nuttier by the page. But overall the stories were so sad, mentally ill or generally troubled people trying to manage. It reminded me of Lorrie Moore's Birds of America which I liked mostly. But I read it while I was at the writers conference from hell so I was already not in the best head space and one of the stories -- I wish I could find the book, I'd tell you more but since it's not in my room I'm guessing I drop kicked it across the garage or something -- one story was so completely depressing I felt like throwing myself out the window (I was staying in hotel room on the 14th floor). And this reminds me that I was checking into a hotel room last night in my dream and trying to see if Holly Hunter wanted to be roommates.

Today we did yardwork and the yard looks a million times better. The squirrels seem to think so, too. There are four of them out there now scouring the nooks and crannies for their hidden nuts. Whenever I find a wayward nut I throw it across the yard or put it in the compost.

On a whim I taped the Saturday Night Live with Colin Firth last week -- only because he is so dreamy. I only made it through about 3 skits with barely a titter. Even after that experience, on a whim I taped SNL last night with Ben Affleck -- who I really want to like, even though he hasn't given me much reason to -- and the first 30 minutes was HILARIOUS. I watched almost the whole show although admittedly did have a finger on the FF button for most of the last hour. Very funny. Really.

I've got a lot going on the next week and am preemptively feeling spun out. Luckily, I've got cold beer and The Sopranos start in a half hour.

I ordered the first season of Angel from Netflix and I got the first disc last week. It has 4 episodes. I watched the first two on Weds night (no Angel) and finished it yesterday. I wanted more. I even re-watched the first episode with the commentary track. Bob said the next disc might come today and I was chained to the computer with a mandatory time frame before I could get up and I heard the mail through the slot. I almost jumped up but I remembered I promised myself I'd work for that certain amount of time. I worked for a few more minutes and then I leaned back in my chair so that I could see the mail and sure enough, that red envelope that I know and love. I wanted to get up SO BAD. But I didn't and we've got plans tonight (Happy Birthday Bob) so I probably won't get to start the new disc until tomorrow. TV on DVD is a dangerous thing.

Bob was surprised to learn that we had a system for the refrigerator. His "butter" (margarine -gak) was on "my" side so I moved it to his side and then explained what I was doing. "I didn't know we had sides," he said. "We've had sides forever," I said, "I'm surprised you never noticed before." Then I explained: "On the top shelf, you have the left side and I have the right side. On the second shelf you get the meat drawer but I get the sides - left for soy milk and tofu and Baking Chocolate and right side for dried plums, dried apricots, Miso and Tahini. On the third shelf you put your pop on the left, the never opened bottle of champagne goes on the right and the butter and eggs go in the back. The middle is a free zone. On the bottom shelf the back is for my things I don't use often like rye flour, spare butter and poppy seeds (do they need to be refrigerated?). The rest is for other meat products or vegetables that don't fit in the vegetable drawers. He thought this was all quite hilarious.

Another typical Thursday morning. I thought I had so much more time than this ...

Here's a list of the 100 Most Mispronounced Words. For example-- Don't Say: triathalon. Do Say: triathlon. Comment: We don't like [th] and [l] together, so some of us insert a spare vowel. Pronounce it right, spell it right.

I thought I was finally getting a fragile grasp on this whole RSS syndication thing and I guess it's still beyond me. I added this atom thing to my site and I can't figure it out and I don't have any more patience. I didn't plan to spend several hours glued to the computer tonight. I doubt there is any regular reader (ahem) out there that's using syndication but if you are ... I'll figure it out eventually. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you might start here.

What Did Pam Eat Today?
Today was a perfect sunny spring day in winter. My first day since sometime in October where I didn't wear tights. I even wore my skinny pants today because I can fit into them fine without tights. I ate a banana, meusli and yogurt for breakfast. And a sliver of coffee cake. For lunch I had 1 1/2 pieces of pizza and some raw vegetables. And I ate the crust. In the afternoon I ate 2 chocolate chip cookies that I made last night in between The Sopranos (Tony's back!) and The Simpsons (repeat). For dinner I had 3 tiny pieces of pizza and salad and after I had dried apricots and some It's Soy Delicious "butter" pecan ice cream.

I was as thrilled as the next Elf-freak about Lord of the Rings's success at the Oscars and I don't know who all took the gamble on Peter Jackson but they deserve the grand prize for taking a risk on that guy. (And I think, considering the bazillions of dollars the movies have made, that the risk takers have done just fine.) What brings me to this topic is a film called The Frighteners made in 1996 and starring Michael J. Fox and directed by ... Peter Jackson. This movies rates a 73% on Rotten Tomatoes and I'd heard it was good and defied genre etc. and since I'm studying scary movies right now and since I think Peter Jackson is so fantastic, I rented it recently. As Jar Jar Binks would say: PEEEEYOOOUSSA. Bob and I started watching it together and Bob left before the first act break. I finished it, and it did have a few elements to recommend but the dialogue was consistently painful and the special effects didn't quite work. MJF saved the day and we are damn lucky that PJ has improved much since then.

After Christmas I bought some Saranwrap on sale. It was "festive" holiday wrap and there were pictures of snowflakes on the box and I thought that meant there were snowflakes on the wrap so I was all excited and bought Saranwrap even though I normally use Reynolds wrap. Holy Crap. Saranwarp is garbage! It's worthless. Mr. Saran ought to be ashamed of himself. And there are no snowflakes. It's just plain red and not even particularly festive. It's a pain to tear off. It's a pain to wrap your stuff in. It is just plain wrong. At the market tonight I bought Reynolds Wrap in festive green and put the Saranwrap in the back cupboard for emergencies.