The Week in Review

Saturday
I went out Saturday with two friends from my classes, Vanessa and Colette. I haven't seen them since class let out. Colette and I made it through to the next level, while Vanessa had a harder time and ended up leaving the program completely. (She's planning on getting married this coming weekend and then moving in December or January to live with her fiance/husband in Japan, where he's stationed for the next few years.)

Anyway, we met at a local brewery and had a few beers. After a few hours, Dave joined us (Colette's boyfriend was supposed to come to, but changed his mind at the last minute) and we had dinner--arepas and a burrito--from the food truck outside.

We came home not terribly late--we still had time to run to the grocery store for chocolate and chips, a junk-food binge run, part of the reason I don't usually drink.

Sunday morning Dave went off to visit his mother and I stayed in bed watching youtube videos about people who live in tiny houses. That led to watching videos by people who live in teensy 13-foot long trailers.

The Brain wants to run away, I think. And it especially wants to run away after having Colette tell me about the emails that were sent out last week with some pre-class assignments that I should be working on right now. Ugh. I'm supposed to have another three days of freedom, but instead I have to start studying for an exam I have on the first day of class. That's this ridiculous program for you.

I started cleaning the area around my desk today. I took out the overflowing rubbish bin and swept up, then Dave came home and we went out for fizzy drinks and to Trader Joe's to load up on a bunch of things that we may or may not have needed.

Dinner tonight was a caprese salad made with heirloom tomatoes, red onion, basil, and burrata cheese. We had it with mixed greens and hunks of baguette dipped in olive oil and balsamic vinegar. (We bought the things to make Eton mess for dessert, but that will wait for a bit until we're less full from dinner.) While we ate, I showed Dave some youtube videos about people who live in their tiny trailers.

Every once in awhile I get on these jags. I watch videos about people who live in tiny apartments or tiny homes or in trailers in people's backyards.

Sunday
Dave went to visit his mom on Sunday, so I ended up spending the day in bed binging on Netflix. I watched the entire first season of One Mississippi, Tig Notaro's show. It's awesome and heartbreaking and I can't wait for season two.

When Dave got home, we went for giant fizzy drinks.

One of our big sunflowers finally bloomed and I've noticed that every night one and sometimes two big bumblebees spend the entire night on the sunflower. Right around sunset, they bed down, clinging to the disk flowers or right at the edge of the disk. Can you imagine? I want to come back as a bumblebee in my next life. Maybe. If we don't manage to kill all the bees before then.

Monday
Dave and I stayed in bed most of the morning then went to meet my mother, brother, and aunt for a late lunch. We had pizza at a place that was once really great and is now only kind of meh.

After lunch, we had to stop for gas, as we had been driving around with the car insistently reminding us that we were about to run out of gas for the last few days.

Tuesday
Dave went back to work and I stayed home. In the afternoon, I went out to run errands with my brother and when I got home I started on the reading I have to have done by Thursday morning, the first day of school.

We had a singing lesson in the early evening--we warmed up then practiced singing the Beatles song "Two of Us."

The smoke from the forest fires to the west and east of us have finally reached us and my already mildly irritated throat was hoarse by the end of the lesson.

We stopped at our favorite little Japanese restaurant on the way home and I had tuna soba (raw tuna over soba noodles) and Dave had tsukumen with double the usual amount of ramen noodles. I switched from ramen noodles to soba because soba is not made from white flour. Eating a giant bowl of white flour noodles was causing my blood sugar to spike and then crash--a horrible feeling--but if I eat soba instead, that doesn't happen.

After dinner, we ran by the office supply store to buy pens. After a few years of using the tiniest nibbed pens I could fine (0.25 to .38 mm), The Brain has suddenly decided to swing the other way and wants to use 0.7 mm nibbed pens to write notes with. I don't argue with The Brain about office supplies (I have to pick my battles), so we went by the office supply store and loaded up on pens with 0.7 mm nibs.

As we were leaving the store, a couple of women were standing in the parking lot taking pictures of the sunset. The forest fire smoke makes for astonishing sunsets. The sun was flaming orange, dropping fast in the gray-blue sky. As we drove home, the sun disappeared behind the volcanoes without a trace of our usual rosy twilight.

We decided to go out later to pick up some things from the grocery store. On the way, we saw one of our neighborhood coyotes near the ditch. I often worry about Gray Kitty when I see them, but I think that for all his in-house goofiness, he's quite street smart. He knows to go up onto (and has an easy path to) the roof, which I assume is coyote proof.

Wednesday
My last day of freedom, spent napping and reading what I have to know when class starts tomorrow.


Sigh.