I call this one: A Day Without Potter.

Bob just came upstairs where I was stirring our dinner: creamy peanut chicken stew. The recipe jumped out at me as a Bob-ultimate. When he saw me cutting something out of the food section he unenthusiastically asked what it was and when I told him he lit up like a 5 year old on xmas morning.

Just now, when he came upstairs he said with great energy: Honey, I can't understand how anyone can't like the Grateful Dead.

I made a loud sigh and said: How long have you got?

This morning I read in the paper that Harry Potter was going to be in high def. at Cinetopia and I'm no crazed fan but I thought it would be fun so I ran over there and well, first of all, I was already very impatient. Everybody has to drive 20 miles below the speed limit or 20 miles above the speed limit. No one can drive a speed that I like and it made me a little cranky. So I pull up and there are about 10 cars in the parking lot plus a fire engine out front and I'm thinking: COOL. But then I get to the window and there is a small crowd of people, all older than me, and the huge electronic sign that says what's what is dead and then I hear "sold out" together with "Harry Potter" and I'm like WTF? Did each car in the lot carry 15 people?

I'd already done enough driving around for the day so I said screw it and went home. I don't know what the fire engine thing was all about. And if a showing of Pride and Prejudice was playing anytime in the vicinity, I would have gone so Cinetopia, get that sign working.

But while I'm on the topic of Harry Potter, I just want to say, FINALLY someone has said it.

I'm going to be the first one brave enough to step forward and admit it: Daniel Radcliffe, i.e. Harry Potter, is growing up to be a stone cold hottie.

Of course, someone is not old enough to be HP's mother and I should probably be arrested. She has one of those countdown-to-legal-age clocks but I'm too lazy to figure out how to put one on my site. I mean, why would I do that? I'm just reporting what she said.

I had three items I wanted to update you on. HP was one. Sony is another:

I'm not tech-savvy enough to explain this worth a damn but if you buy CDs as in music, from Sony and put them on your computer you need to educate yourself on the following: Part I and Part II. My best explanation is that the Sony discs install some sort of evilware on your computer. This is a super bad idea on many levels and hopefully they will get in big trouble.

The third thing I can't remember and Bob is upstairs wanting to tell me something and looking for food so I'm done for now.

I have so many things for you. Tomorrow I will catch up. Maybe.

This thing is happening where I wake up at 3:30am and can't get back to sleep.

Sometimes I drift in something that resembles sleep. Then I nod off about 8 minutes before the alarm goes off. Just long enough to slip into a deep enough sleep that the alarm is like swimming out from under a pool of pudding. That dragging ass feeling is with me all day.

That was yesterday. I put in a long day and Bob and I did the grocery shopping after work. We stopped to pick up something for dinner and while we waited it was like torture. You know when you go on an overseas trip? And you're on your way home and you end up with some horrific 4 hour layover in Minneapolis? And then it's delayed? And by this point you are so tired you are close to weeping. (When this actually I happened I think I did weep but airports are horrible places what with those stupid TVs blaring at you from every corner.) You're almost home. But not quite. This was sort of like that.

Anyway, last night I slept like the dead. I even slept in a little and came in to work at the leisurely hour of 8:45a.

This wasn't what I was going to say when I sat down to type. What I was going to say is that I am SO HUNGRY this morning. Abnormally starving for me. If someone came in my office with a huge greasy meatball sandwich right now -- I would eat it.

Did I ever tell you the one about the hippy kid I met a long time ago back in L.A. somewhere around the time I moved into my first apartment?

I don't know that we actually met as much as he glommed onto me during a show - which I can't for the life of me remember the content of. I vaguely remember it being in the Valley but I also remember David and Karen being there and I can't think what show could possibly have convinced Karen to go to the Valley.

The guy was incredibly young and not my type on any level but at the time I knew nothing about setting boundaries or being clear in my communication about, NO and somehow we ended up hanging out. This part is a little cloudy. He probably manipulated me into giving him a ride home.

He was a very happy little hippy but his circumstances were a bit heart crushing. He lived in a week-to-week motel in Van Nuys. I recall a lot of chain-link fence in the area. He made money by painting address numbers on the curb in residential areas.

I've never seen that around here so I will explain how this works. You, as the homeowner, would receive a notice in your mailbox telling you that your curb would be painted. If you didn't want it painted, you were to tape the notice over your old faded numbers. If you did not, or forgot, someone would paint your house numbers on the curb. Later the painter would come by and collect some money ... not much, maybe $7. The idea was this would help emergency vehicles find your house.

This was how HippyBoy made enough money to go to shows and do whatever he did.

We went out one time. I had to pick him up. It's hard not to think that my wheels weren't a big part of the attraction. We went to see the Purple Turtles. If I'd only known then that this was a preview into my future I might have paid better attention. If you think I'm not into hippy bands now, you should have seen me back in the 80's as knockdown drag-out fulltime 100% rocker girl. It wasn't my thing and he wasn't my kind of guy. But he was into it and there was nothing I could say that could convince him otherwise.

It got to the point where he'd call the answering machine and leave endless messages. I could be out working late or at the grocery store and there'd be these pitiful messages imploring me to please pick up. Not to shine him on. Etc.

I think I finally got mad at him, or maybe he gave up. But sometimes when I'm with Bob at one of these massive hippy gatherings, I wonder if HippyBoy is still blissing out to the scene.

I found a picture of that bus stop. Sorry I couldn't get one with the Christmas lights. [aside: seriously, this took me half the afternoon and I don't know how to make the "bus stop" more pronounced. Give me time and I will be the Photoshop whiz.]

When we were at Bob's Red Mill yesterday Bob (mine, not the one with the Red Mill) picked up some pornographically named treats called: Betty Lou's Chocolate Covered Golden Smackers. Insert your own joke here.

This morning he ate his. He said, "This is like a really good power bar. You can try some."

I took a bite and said, "This is like a really good Reese's Peanut Butter Cup."

"Yeah," Bob said, "But those are already good."

Auntie and Uncle were in Portland for a couple of days and we met them and Aileen for breakfast at Bob's Red Mill this morning. Excellent breakfast. I highly recommend it plus they will meet and exceed all your grain/legume shopping needs.

The bus stop for the kids is at the bottom of the hill from their house. I don't think I have a photo but will look again.

It's a long story why but we were talking about electricity transmission and Auntie said that if you run a long extension cord all the way down the hill to the bus stop, you've got just about nothing for power when you get to the bottom.

"Is that for something to keep the kids warm?" I asked.

"No, it's for the Christmas lights."

After breakfast we started our shopping. Uncle saw Aileen with a couple things in her hands then ran into me with my basket. He said, "I'll bet Janet has a cart." Sure enough, she turns down the aisle pushing a cart and holding her list.

A couple of nights ago we were channel surfing and TVLand was showing an episode of What's Happening!! I totally watched that show when I was a kid.

The episode was classic: the Doobie Brothers were playing a big concert and these bad guys were plying the kids with great seats and in exchange they had to secretly tape the concerts. Yes, they were BOOTLEGGING. And the bootleggers were villians with shiny suits.

Not only were they bootlegging but they were using those big clunky cassette recorders that we used back in the mesomeric era before the invention of technology. It's hard to even imagine that a crappy 3rd generation cassette recording from an orginal taped from a recorder hidden in someone's clothes would have ever been valuable to anyone. Or that the artist would have been backed up about it.

If you've ever seen hippies at a Cheese (or any jam band for that matter) show legally taping with all their gear, perhaps you understand why I think this is extra funny.

This episode aired in February of 1978 and you almost want to go back to that time and tell everyone how the delivery of music to fans will change in the next 30 years because it would blow those people's minds.