27 September 2003

Good morning, good morning. Probably the most relaxing morning I've had all week: the computer works, and I don't have to be anywhere. Getting the car in was truly not that bad. I ended up spending three hours sitting in the waiting room of the Saturn dealership, but the car is now fine to take over the Sierras and the Rockies. I finished reading Darwinia in the waiting room, and it was all right, probably my favorite of Wilson's. I wish I'd brought another book with, though. I ended up working on two different novels and a short story. I would have been fine with a little less of that and a little more reading. Ah well.

I got the rest of my Halloween costume (it's sparkly) and some produce but no ravioli: I tried the other Trader Joe's, and they didn't have it, either, and the clerk obviously didn't care. And then there was the DMV adventure. I went to the one in Fremont. The parking was full up for two blocks around. I went home. Attempted to go to the one in Hayward, which is not where the phone book said it'd be. There's no sign that there was ever a DMV there. Sooooo, I drove in the opposite direction, back down to the Fremont DMV. Where parking had cleared up, and it only took ten minutes to get what I needed. Okay then. Lots of stupid driving around, but at least I got the stuff done that needed doing. Sort of, mostly. For the moment.

Wooooo, yay IEEE! They listened and aren't shoving scarily flawed voting machines down people's throats. Also, go EFF! It's not that often that I get news that restores some of my faith in the political process, but at least this doesn't suck more faith out of it.

Livejournal has been getting things crossed up on me this morning. I try to read one person's comments and get another person's entry entirely. It shows me how glad I am not to read most of the livejournals out there, actually.

Having finished Darwinia in the waiting room with the car, I picked up Kathe Koja's Skin. I expected it to be not my usual sort of thing -- it's a horror novel we picked up for free at World Fantasy Con last year. But I expected that I'd have some kind of strong reaction to it. So far, nothing. Somewhat nasty things have happened to people so far, and I don't really care. I didn't expect that at all. Ah well; I'll be done with it soon enough, and then it'll be packed up and I'll be on to something else, something more inspiring. I'm going to try to save The Lord of Castle Black, but I make absolutely no guarantees. Mark and Timprov have already read it. It's my turn. There's nothing stopping me....

Oh, good. There's a kid hollering, "Car wash!" on the corner again. At least there's a limit to how long I have to deal with that particular issue. Today's children sound furious, their voices rough in the screaming: "Hey! Car wash!" At least when they were having a good time, it was a little easier to take than this petty fury. I find myself thinking, "If I was that child's mother...." Which means that I'm old. But her tone is the same as, "Help me!" or, "I hate you!" Which is both annoying and disturbing.

Yesterday I changed the date when we're supposed to pick up the U-Haul. It was making us nervous that they couldn't guarantee a time on Saturday when the truck would become available, just that it would be available somewhere on Saturday at some time. And visions of picking the thing up at 7:30 Saturday night were dancing in various heads around here...so Friday it is, and the visions can be put to rest. Why not make it easier if we can? They give us a certain number of days for free, once it's that long a distance, so it's not even an issue of the money.

I feel like I'm playing a weeks' long game of Tetris, and once I finish enough levels (boxes), I'll have some kind of superlevel, where the results of the previous levels have to fit together. Heh. That might be cool, actually. Someone who isn't me should do that.

I went through my cookie recipes and found a few I might use. I don't usually make cookies. I make bars. Cookies are fussy: they all have to be done individually, they take up more than one pan, and you have to pay attention to them in the short-term rather than the medium-term. But they seem like the right thing for the move; it's better, somehow, to leave some for Mark and take some in the car and U-Haul than to divvy up a pan of bars. I don't know why this is, it just is. So now I'm deciding among double chocolate cookies, oatmeal sugar cookies, rocky roads, writer's block oatmeal-raisin, and plain ol' chocolate chip. I adore my great-grandmother's oatmeal sugar cookies, and fall is the right time for them (spring and fall, really, Reformation Day and Easter), but they have to be rolled out and cut, and I'm not sure I'll have the patience for that while we're still here. In fact, I'm almost sure I won't. Rocky roads, on the other hand, are ridiculously easy and would use up the condensed milk we have in the cupboard, so we wouldn't have to move it. But since they aren't properly cookies, there's no dough. I am a firm advocate of dough. Hmm. When Mark wakes up, I'll ask him his opinion.

Better yet, I'll wake him.