1. I had to buy a new fridge yesterday, but because it's a built-in thing, it had to be ordered, so I'll be fridge-less for about a week. It was over twice the price of a slide-in one :-(

2. So now I'm having to shop for food on a day-to-day basis, because I eat mostly fresh food. This is something of a pain, especially as it's almost impossible to buy just one little pot of yoghurt, they all come in multipacks. And cheese seems to be sold only in brick-sized lumps too.

3. It's been a beautiful Indian Summer day today, so I went up to Hampstead. It was lovely.

1. I'm getting ready to send off my first check that's over 3 figures. (It's a bit frightening, to tell you the truth.)

2. I think I'm going to be bouncing out early today. I've just about finished all the work that needs to be done (including some requests that SHOULD'VE BEEN DONE ON FRIDAY) and there's really no reason to stick around.

3. I've been quite productive for the past few days. I should probably get some more done before the crushing depression comes back.

1. Our school district is on strike and will likely continue to be so until 9/23. My girlie was so anxious to go back to school and start first grade. Now her enthusiasm has waned and she is just kind of aimless, cranky and bored. I don't know what I'm going to do for the next two weeks.

2. Planning my sister's baby shower is a pain in the butt. I either have to host it myself and deal with the mess and parking hang-ups (our neighbors are "lawn people" who freak if a wheel so much as brushes their greenery) or fork out the $$ to have it somewhere else which is going to be brutally expensive. I hate girl stuff.

3. The kids have been getting along exceptionally well today--lots of hugging and giggling. I hope they continue to be close when they grow up. So many people I know are alienated from their siblings.

1) I ordered pizza, $5 for a large at Little Caesar's, which will constitute dinner for 2 nights.

2) Tornados swept through the KC area last Friday, but I found a group of nerd to hang out with, and they had a Wii, so the 4 hour wait for the "all clear" was not so bad.

3) I have to finish my A/V project today, and it requires narration. The only problem is that I'm doing the narration, and I don't sound like Patrick Stewart. This could be painful.

I'm with ya, jrossi. I did the games for my sister-in-law's baby shower and I was a wreck the whole time I was planning them. But things turned out great.

1. I got a short haircut yesterday and was pleased to find that upon washing and re-styling, it still looks good.

2. Trying to psych myself up for the twice-yearly task of purging my wardrobe of stuff I don't wear. Maybe this time around I'll get rid of my favorite 80s dress with the football pads at the shoulders.

3. I'm planning to make three meals today for the week: cabbage rolls, minestrone and baked lemon chicken.

1) I was supposed to go to Washington DC today for a close friend's memorial service but my 2 year old got very sick on Friday and I can't go. I'm really sad not only to miss the service but because I was going to see a lot of people that I now won't have a chance to see again anytime soon. Plus I so wanted to be there for my very good friend, the one whose husband died. The good news is that Jack is doing much better today. But I'm still sad.

2) I'm making a bratwusrt/cheddar cheese soup for dinner. I got the recipe from the Penzey's catalog. I feel my arteries hardening just looking at the picture.

3) It's been raining like crazy here (northern Chicago suburbs) for a few days and we're watching the river behind our house rise by the hour. I think it'll be okay but it's still raining.

1. I went to the burlesque show at Corio in Soho last night. Drag king MC Murray Hill called me gay. The Pontani sisters put on quite a show, and Melody Sweet was as delightful a singer as one might expect. Went with friends, tickets comped by Viacom.

2. Helped my neighbor count coup on our super: for some reason my downstairs neighbor has two fridges, and the super's been hassling him for months -- one of the fridges is his -- he wants it moved to the third floor (really, the super's a little Napoleon who just wants to make his presence felt and would just as soon do nothing). So we moved the fridge out into the front hallway by the stairs yesterday morning. Within twenty minutes, the super showed up in my neighbor's kitchen, blowing a gasket about moving things without getting his permission. My neighbor asked, "You can't get it moved upstairs today?" Of course not, the super says; he doesn't have the resources to just move the fridge! "Oh, okay, I'll take care of it, you just let me know when you want to move it and I'll set it out there for you." We sat and finished our coffee until the super went away, then spent a couple minutes quietly moving the fridge into the apartment.

By the way, the super's a skeezy dick who slandered another tenant to our landlady after she started looking for another place to live (she was in a tiny, not-very-private basement apartment), to the extent that my landlady repeated his slanders to me. I told her he was a liar and a cad to say such things about such a fine young scholar, and that she'd better muzzle him around me because I have no qualms putting down a rabid dog. Plus I told her she should be more careful about whom she chose to believe, which she of course didn't like to hear.

So when the super came back after half an hour and found no fridge he flipped his wig because there was nothing to complain about, banged on the door, and asked when we would be available to help him bring it upstairs. I confessed that I had no such intention, and that the labor he hires to do odd jobs oughtta suffice, especially since they're insured for that sort of thing (which was just needling on my part, since I know he hires illegal immigrant labor). My neighbor said he'd push the fridge into the hall any morning before he leaves for work so they could move it as necessary.

Making the super fume is fun. Especially when everything is ostensibly being done to help him, with us complying with demands he's banking on never being met.

3. I keep trying to jam with Hellbient and then not being able to, because of some plans or other. Last weekend it was hangovers. This week it was anniversaries. Yesterday it was a burlesque show, and now my impending porch-rocking with jonmc and Pips. It just puts a keener edge on the desire to rock. Soon, my friend, we will rock. And when we do the world will crumble and bow before our regular- or lite-rock might. Credo!

1. Mr. V and I just got back from an Oyster and Guiness Festival in Asbury Park. Live music, sample dishes from two dozen restaurants, shops open to browse through...plus beautiful sunshine and a cooling breeze. Perfect.

2. Discovered that I actually like Harp beer - and I hate beer. One never knows, does one.

3. Lazing around now, watching football and contemplating ordering pizza for dinner. Life is good. And it's been some time since I've been able to say that.

1. Layed just over 1.5km of cable in the house on Friday/Saturday, but my Uncle/Electrician twisted his ankle on Saturday so we didn't get finished

2. Took Sunday off and lazed around with the kids but ...

3. Short weekend, because I had to fly out on Sunday afternoon to Townsville and won't be back until Thursday night.

1. Survived Ike.
2. Staying at friends/tenants house right now; they have A/C and Internet, I don't
3. I might take a liking to cold showers. When water pressure returned, I had one and it was pretty glorious.

1. Watching football and making bolognese sauce, which will be used for lasagne tonight. Yay, lasagne!

2. I should be working on some freelance articles that are due this week, but I'm not.

3. Went to the gym, reorganized my hamper/dirty clothes area so that it's inside the closet rather than blocking it, put away a bunch of linens that needed to be put away, and did a load of laundry, all before noon. I feel virtuous for the second day in a row.

1. It's football and (sorta) bolognese here, too. Yay! (Well, yay for the spaghetti sauce, and yay for BOP enjoying the football--I don't watch it, myself, but I have a good mystery to read.)

2. In dire need of a haircut. My friend/hairdresser didn't have time to do it before I came down here, so now I'm about 3 months overdue. It's driving me nuts. But I dread trying to find a decent hairdresser who understands that I don't use 'product' and wouldn't know what to do with a hairdryer if it held a gun to my head (except to disarm it and kick it down the stairs). Seriously, is "I wash it and I towel it and that's all I want to do" so hard to understand? 'Cause it certainly has been in my past experience. Wah wah wah.

3. I can't believe I paid over twenty bucks to express mail a whack of cash (in the form of a money order) to my landlord and it's taken over a month so far. It cleared Customs August 23, and he has seen neither hide nor hair of it. For christ's sake, people, I could've flown up there, picked up the envelope, and swum to Galiano and back in that time! For fifty cents I could've stuck it in a regular envelope and it would've been there a couple of weeks ago! WTFucking Fuck?!?!?!?!?!? Am ready to throw things.

But hey, I've got yummy bolognese and a good mystery and things otherwise are pretty damned sweet, so it's not so bad.

1. My eldest son's birthday was yesterday. He is 8. He had three of his closest peeps over for a sleepover last night. Five boys ran wild outside and in and literally only got 3 hours of sleep. They had a blast. We slept a lot today.

2. We're watching the Jets and the Patriots on the NFL ticket. Our neighbor, who is a huge Jets fan, is going to be here at halftime so I (rather, the kids) need to start picking up hundreds of Nerf bullets and popcorn kernels.

3. I'm feeling slightly ill. Dominoes pizza, Cheetos, and sleep deprivation are the culprits.

elizard-My hairdresser totes understands that and has made me finally not hate layers for the first time in my life. She even convinced me to cut my hair shorter than I thought I would like it and IT IS FUCKING AMAZING. Note to self: I need to schedule a haircut ASAP.

1. Spent all afternoon walking around a victorian townhouse tour in The Mexican War Streets which is a neighborhood a few blocks from our place. I was probably one of the only straight guys there who was actually into it and not just being dragged around by their wife/GF. I'm not sure if seeing all those amazingly restored houses made me excited about the possibilities of our place or depressed at the immense amount of work we still have to do.

2. I should be working on the website for my neighborhood's xmas house tour but can't quite start.

3. Late Steelers game tonight, so I'll be up late and cranky tomorrow but so will everyone else in the city so no one will notice.

I am full of dread about three things today:

1. There is a Young Adult Friends (Quakers) potluck tonight. I should go, people, nice people, etc. etc. I don't want to. Mostly I am full of self-doubt about not belonging there. Which has been par for the course lately.

2. I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow to talk about a couple of breast lumps. I got one ultrasounded a while ago and they said it was a fibroadenoma, no bigs, and come back in for a followup in six months (which was a month ago). But still. And I think I already convinced the doctor's receptionist that I'm a total weirdo with my "Is he nice? Cause I need a really nice doctor cause I'm totally phobic of medical stuff and if he's not nice I'll just never follow up on things." She assured me that he was. We'll see. (He's foreign-trained, at least, which in my experience HAS meant that they're a damn sight better at bedside manner than what Harvard or Columbia turn out.)

3. Orientation for my new job starts on Tuesday. And I don't know what possessed me to think that I can manage two jobs and grad school but I am full of self-doubt and worry and stress. Frankly I don't know what made me think I can handle grad school, period. (This is absurd, incidentally, and I know this: I graduated a year early from undergrad with two majors and full honors, it's not like I can't do the work.) It just doesn't *matter* that it's absurd.

Yeah, sperose, finding a hairdresser who gets it is as rare as it is wonderful. My friend talked me into much shorter hair a few years back and I loves it. Before that I got my hair cut about once a year and it was down to my elbows. Now I'm used to it being above the shoulders and all curly and bouncy and stuff and it's heading back to way-too-long triangle-head face-draggy-downy and I hates it.

i just blogged a taco
applying for a job; i am the stupid
the cats are both asleep in one of their carriers. it is insanely cute.

1) Finally got to ride my new bike. Haven't ridden in 3 years, but it really does come right back.
2) Got my ass kicked at Wii golf by a 7 year old. Nothing like video games to make you feel old and stupid.
3) Finally got back out to an Indian grocery store for more spices. I like to use curry powder as a rub on chicken and the Indian stores have several kinds and they're super cheap (and generally much better than what they call curry powder in conventional grocery stores).

1) I have a fever.
2) I'm cold.
3) I'm hot.

1. It was suddenly fall this weekend. Woke up to grey skies Friday, Saturday and Sunday mornings, and it was (relatively) chilly. It made me very happy.

2. To celebrate the beginning of fall, I got a pumpkin latte this morning. I could drink those things all day, every day.

3. I am not ready for Monday. My students gave me a run for my money last week (first week of school, special needs kids), and I'm not sure I'm ready to go back quite yet!

1. The powers been on and off, flickering but no damage done.
Yet. It's been raining since yesterday, but today it's been harder, windier and dark.
2. i don't understand domestic chores making one virtuous, but it is nice to be able to appreciate a tangible accomplishment.
i can see the majority of my floor (in one room).
The battle wages on.
3. Did they stop replaying ANTM on Sundays?
i got waylaid just out of the bath and had to get dressed immediately, which i hate. Damp is the word of the day.
Gas, grass, and assiness is up, but thankfully i haven't had to deal with the majority of that yet today.
Discomforts beg for remedy and i will appease them.

2. i don't understand domestic chores making one virtuous, but it is nice to be able to appreciate a tangible accomplishment.

Heh. For me, it's more the fact that I did something other than sit in front of my laptop, which I know is bad for my mental health (at least in excess). Getting up and getting things done (domestic or not) makes me feel less oogy. "Virtuous" just sounded better than "less oogy." If only because saying "less oogy" would require some sort of baseline ooginess scale.

1.The contractor flaked on me and won't finish the kitchen this month.
2.I looked up a wedding etiquette site which states that invitations should be sent out six to eight weeks before hand. My cousin's wedding is the 11th and an invitation to her shower (which had already occurred)was among my mail when I came back from Switzerland. I think it's completely shitty to be milked for a present and then not be included at the ceremony.
3. My dentist gave me the retainer to shift the crown back last week and it's not working.

1. Really, really, dog-arse, bone tired, all the time. I think it's a side effect of the anti-inflammatory I'm taking.

2. I made delicious strawberry ice cream yesterday, by macerating a big punnet of late strawberries in 1/2 cup of sugar and a squeeze of lemon juice, pureeing them with cream then freezing. So good.

3. Caught up on PRAus - loved it, although Lui wuz robbed, I tell ya! I was happy with the final outcome, and I loved Leigh's brocade kilt and want one.