Our pipes have begun to sing and exhibit occasional water hammer. Fab. Online reference says that water hammer can result from the air chambers in your plumbing getting filled with water. Ha ha, the what? I don't think they'd come up with the idea of air chambers when they plumbed our house. :P

In other news I finally cleaned out the coat closet today.

Guess what the weather is doing right now.

And apparently from the storm last night, the lights in the music room are now not working. The outlets in that room are working, but not the lights.

WTF.

Aaaaaaaand somewhere in the span of the few hours during which the furnace blower died... my cell phone charger also bit the dust. They are not even remotely on the same circuit.

The blower died on the furnace sometime last night. This wouldn't be a problem except that it's the blower for the A/C also, and it's supposed to be 92 tomorrow. And we have a month until the "extra" money for the year comes along.

Today is the annual city-wide cleanup, during which you can arrange for heavy item pickup or just haul stuff yourself down to Athletic Park and dump it. We already took one load and found out they take computer monitors so Charles is going back with three (he thought we had four, but we couldn't find the other) defunct monitors. We thought about hauling the HP computer out as well, but we never did investigate to find out why it stopped working and how terminal it is, so we'll try to do that one of these days; though after however many years we can probably live without whatever data is on it.

Anyway, we hauled a bunch of crap out of the garage and basement, neither of which was particularly clean when we bought the house. (Thanks, Hammonds' daughters... though one lives out of state and apparently they're from two marriages and don't get along, etc.) Among the stuff was a bunch of hay that some birds stuffed into the garage rafters. There's a nest up there, but apparently about half of their nesting material just fell into the main loft. We hauled out all the old paint and other chemicals that were left for us, some old styrofoam ceiling tiles, a bunch of our own old paperwork (we overheated the shredder twice dealing with old bills and statements; guess we need to buy a less cheap one next time) and general crap. There was a cardboard box of old dishes that were kind of interesting--the tan Corelle pattern that was apparently hugely popular in the 70's and some rather pretty hobnail saucers, but even after a soaking in bleach I wouldn't trust a dish that had lived in that cellar for God knows how long. (The big wooden cabinet was lined with newspapers from 1968 so probably a lot of that stuff dates from around then. I'm not sure how long ago Tom died. The cellar appears to have been his mancave, as the small side room with the potato-bin-looking thing had a coax cable running up into a wall.)

Now we just have some stuff to put on Ebay and maybe Freecycle. Anybody want a Chauvet foam machine or a hod of medium-yellow wall tile? Or an Ablounge Sport?

Just woke up after six or seven hours of sleep. I wonder if not sleeping a night helps to eliminate jetlag?

Need to buy food--I know the milk is no good after a week. I guess I'll have some apple juice.

I woke up twice to a face full of white cat: once shortly after falling asleep and once several hours later. I gave the cats a can of wet food after waking up (Charles is in Danville at a church meeting) and I was swarmed by cats.

Now that life is back to normal we definitely have to look into replacing the hot water heater. The old one is getting quirky and I canNOT stand cold showers.

And now I'm sad because Gary Gygax died. Wait, he had a wife and six (SIX??) kids? But... he was supposed to be the quintessential geek! He was also one of the coolest guests on Futurama EVAR.

I have to get my blood drawn tomorrow morning. My numbers are going to be awful. Not only was I kind of a slacker this past week, I went about 24 hours between exchanges due to travel. Heh.

Think I'll go read for a bit, do another exchange, and try to go to bed at a reasonable hour and see how it goes.

I really didn't mean to sleep until almost noon.

• Have a nice omelette for lunch
  
• Bake two batches of soup worth of potatoes
  
• Make two batches of baked potato soup (only one, party was postponed)
  
• Freeze one batch of potatoes
  
• Bake some more cookies
  
• Pack some boxes to ship
  
• Tidy up the office
  
• Assemble the new desk
  
• Move the computers
  
• Do some cards
  
• Cross-stitch
  

Two hundred dollars and we have a new ignitor, and a working furnace.

Though Tom, bless his heart, bought a cheap furnace with an expensive ignitor.

We woke up to find the whole house 57 degrees. Something's wrong with the furnace. A guy is coming over this afternoon. (Actually he's on the phone with Charles now.) In the meantime we're hunkered down in the computer room and adjoining bathroom with the little electric heater running. Rocket was on my lap until I had the temerity to move to answer the phone. Charles is shortly going to shower, and I plan to make an omelette for lunch. I may start my cookie-baking now since we're waiting for the repairman and just to warm up the kitchen.

I haven't had much first-hand experience with comics, but I've picked up some of the basics from hanging out with comics geeks... and I find this hilarious. #31 made me laugh so hard I cried.

We went to the Texas Roadhouse at the mall last night for dinner after grocery shopping. The fact that patrons are expected/encouraged to throw the shells of their pre-dinner peanuts on the floor is a bit offputting, but oh man were the steaks good. We both got the sirloin and they were awesome. We ate late, but (perhaps thanks to getting to bed an hour later than normal) I managed not to hurl overnight, though I did feel pretty green when I got up. Thank you, Canada Dry.

We got Charles' dad a word jumble book to do when he goes back in the hospital again, as Charles found out the other day when he called home that oh by the way, his dad had been in the hospital to get a stent (or something) put in to deal with the 75% blockage of his main artery (apparently know as the Widowmaker). He needs to go back because a couple of others have blockages, including the main artery to his kidneys. Matt (who is, I believe, in his early 80's) was roommates with some kickboxer in his 30's, and had little sympathy for him. Hee. We also got him a birthday card that plays the Beer Barrel Polka because that's what we think of when we think of him--beer and polkas. Hee.

The new bedframe and mattress were delivered yesterday and we made the bed up and the room looks awesome. The dark curtains we bought don't work as well as we hoped, but the paler ones do, so we need to find the receipt to do the return. So fuligin and kiterie will have a pretty room to sleep in while they're here.

Tonight I go to Sam's to pick up some things, and then tomorrow... the turkey!

Charles saw a six-inch "mouse" in the garage today. In case it isn't an isolated event, what's a good way to get rid of/dissuade rats? Neither of us is keen on snap traps or poison--too much risk to Miss Gloria, the neighbor's cat, who likes to sneak in the garage if we don't keep an eye on her when it's open. Meijer has some sort of rodent-repelling product consisting of ground corncobs soaked in peppermint and spearmint (or something like that) oil, but I'm not sure how much stock I put in it... Also, not crazy about the idea of putting ammonia around in the garage.

Get a Cash Advance

It's all the swearing, isn't it? I'd think the occasional medical words would count for something.

In other news, spent the afternoon cleaning up the dining room. The table is now clear (though we seem to have one more chair than fits at the table, or else I can't count), and all the boxes that were in there--with the exception of two that were moved to a new storage place, and the two currently forming the cat pedestal--are gone. The books were dispersed among the empty spots in the shelves. There's still the random stuff up against the west wall to deal with, but the actual eating area is clean. (The media shelves and my bookshelves are a hot mess, though.)

Tidying the kitchen will happen during dinner preparation, and I should also have time to do the gold highlights on the music room walls tonight.

83%LUSH

Are you serious? I don't even drink. What I don't know about alcohol would fill a book, though I guess I've picked up a lot of strictly academic knowledge. Alcohol looks attractive, because it comes in all kinds of colours, with interesting names and pretty bottles, but it all tastes like crap. Apparently alcohol is the strongest flavour in the world. Plus it makes you stupid, and I never have figured out the attraction of that.

Employee Recognition Dinner tonight. I hope it's going to be a lot fun. We have a record turnout, and the door prizes and major prize baskets are really fabulous this year. Prep yesterday was also a lot of fun--our committee kicked butt getting the door prizes wrangled and the registration table packets organized, and it saved us in HR having to stay until 8 PM again this year.

Also need to clean tomorrow, and do grocery shopping, and do some painting in the music room to get further along in getting that put together. Except for the windows, the master bedroom is done, and it looks awesome. Now it just needs some furniture.

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Now playing: Sinfonia of London Orchestra - Charge of the Batmobile
http://foxytunes.com/artist/sinfonia+of+london+orchestra/track/charge+of+the+batmobile

Yesterday we significantly de-cluttered the living room and computer room. We also finally figured out how we're going to do the highlights on the music room walls, which, when done, will bring us one step closer to getting the bookshelves out of the entryway and in place in the music room, which means we could put books on them, which means getting more boxes out of the dining room for good.

Also the beef burgundy/paprikash/stroganoff recipe was not a keeper.

I've been looking for the title to the Saturn. I looked in my "Automobile" filing folder and it wasn't there. I knew I'd seen it recently, so I sorted through my two dialysate boxes of paperwork that needs to be filed. No title.

So I moved the AbLounge (better known as the cat hammock) and pulled out another, lower drawer, and immediately found a folder marked "Saturn title." Duh.

Now we just have to clean out the Saturn. According to the voicemail from Tom Wood Toyota we have two weeks in which to do it.

Also we finally managed to sell the Plymouth last night... for about half what we'd been asking for it, but only slightly less than what the dealership agreed to give us. And this way it's going to a nice young man who needs it for work, and who seemed impressed with how well it runs given the mileage on it.

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And also, it's not so many weeks until Thanksgiving, and fuligin and kiterie are here. I need to call Trader Joe's and find out details about turkey reservations. Also we need to maybe select one room a week to tidy up until it's fit for company. I also should try to file at least one box of that unfiled paperwork this weekend.

I've been having some lower-body joint problems, apparently due to the Levaquin I've been taking. I put two and two together and called the nurse yesterday... she said the same thing I was thinking, that it was kind of up to me if I wanted to take the last two doses and then just see Dr. Beckley at clinic. I decided four or five more days of stiffness wouldn't kill me, so I took the next-to-last dose and will take the last one on Tuesday. I'm just afraid that if I end the course too soon this infection will bounce back again.

I woke up at 3:15 when my sinuses decided I was awfully allergic to something in the room. Eventually I gave up, took two Benadryl, and went downstairs on the couch so I wouldn't keep Charles awake with disgusting "I can't breathe," sinus noises. My sinuses finally cleared up... at 4:45. I set my alarm for an extra 15 minutes, which I never, ever do, and considered (briefly) calling off for the first half of the day.

I already have the second half of the day off since I have to come back to Anderson to sign the refinance papers for the house today. After that I have to do my lunchtime exchange, get something to eat, pick up my refill of Sensipar, and then very likely take a nap before it's time to make dinner.

On the way to and from Mooresville this weekend I listened to the 1995 studio cast album of The Rocky Horror Show, which features Brian May (!!) as Eddie and Christopher Lee (!!!) as the criminologist. I love this cast, and it made me miss doing Rocky. It's been nearly ten years.

Time to get on with it.