Not too long ago I was in a bookstore waiting for someone and had enough time to browse a lot more carefully than normal. I found this book about fashion and style and since I still want to improve my style even though I don't put any effort into it -- I scanned this book for quick tips. The first one was, "You can't have style if you're shopping on your lunch hour." Oh, so that's my problem. Apparently to have style you have to spend lots of time in shops and I loathe shops so there's a bit of a problem there.

This week I went to the Rack -- not on my lunch hour but in the hour between after work and before yoga class -- and I tried on a bunch of stuff and even bought things not-black. But that isn't the story. The story is while I was in the dressing room I overhead two women talking and one said, "This is so last season."

How do you know if it's last season?

Does anyone else feel their username/password situation getting out of control? I try to keep things grouped thematically and keep them the same but I'm starting to lose it and am wondering what's going to happen if I get hit on the head or something.

Not too long ago I was at the bank and there was this lady who appeared to have challenges of both mind and body. She was trying to make a withdrawal and of course she didn't have an account number and it wasn't her normal branch so no one recognized her and she fussed about getting out her ID. In the meantime there's a gigantic line. The teller was politely hostile. The teller was finally able to get her account info and announced that she had: $6.31 in the account. The lady says to go ahead and give it all to her. The teller says, "Is a five and a one okay?" Completely hilarious.

I still haven't gotten my act back together since Oklahoma. There are books and papers and lists and notes strewn from one side of my room to the other. I'm going to get it all reeled in tomorrow. I hope.

I'm back. Everything on the trip to Oklahoma went smoothly. Yes, I had to sit in the back row or middle seats on the flights, but everything was on time and safe so we'll just leave it at that. Security is interesting. At PDX on Thursday morning you really did need the full 2 hours for check in. Our flight left at 8:10a and we got to the aiport at about 6:15a and we still had to take cuts in the security line to get on our plane in time. At PDX we walked through the thing, they wanded us and patted us down. In Oklahoma City we just went through the thing. In Denver they were doing random wanding at the gate. Also my ID was checked at least 15 times with my ticket and not one person ever looked at my face to see if it matched the ID. I think that's a flaw.

The Conference was super fun and I have lots of notes but I'm still a little frazzled catching up from things when I was gone, so more later.

I tried to do this last night and after I had my thing all typed up I accidentally clicked "back" and it all went away.

I'm going to Oklahoma today for RTG and I've been rushing around trying to get my act together. I need to bring more stuff than fits in my "tiny" travel bag -- but not really enough to fit in the gigantic bag. We have no medium bag. So I'm bringing extra shoes and warm things since I'm paranoid about being cold. Probably no blog until I get back.

I'm forgetting the stuff about our itinerary getting completely "adjusted" by United -- I can't believe they didn't expect me to be upset that instead of getting home at 6pm I was getting home at 11:30pm on Sunday. I still have to fly through Seattle but they did get me out earlier. We still have a 4 hour delay in Denver today. But -- I see it all as catching up on my reading time.

I haven't gotten the stuff in here about Alicia. She's going to be in this documentary on PBS called Local News. There's a newspaper article about it here and here. I've gotta run, more later.

Well, I was going to do some stuff online tonight but now that I'm here I don't want to do anything. I'm going to finish my soccer game and do some ironing and watch Angel at 9.

One good thing that happened is that my sister was picked to be a torchbearer for the Olympics in SLC. It was Mom's idea but I wrote the nomination so I'm pretty excited about this.

Also I forgot to tell this earlier but I made this dish this weekend with sweet potato and apple which you cook and puree with butter and whipped cream. It was amazing. I ate bowl after bowl and convinced myself it was because I need the yellow vegetable vitamins.

Okay, I just spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to make my blog personalized in the tiniest way. I'm so slow, I still don't have the faintest grasp of tables. I'm sure it's not that hard, my mind refuses to get it.

Today it's cold and wet and grey. I can't believe the heat isn't kicking on. I'd nudge the dial but I hate to be a wimp. I've been working on projects all day including processing about 6 pounds of tomatoes. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.