Did I mention that I get up during the week at 5:30 a.m.? So, since she can nag me for 30 minutes, she does seem to get rewarded in the end. Sort of like barking at the mailman, who always goes away!

Yeesh. Now, it all makes perfect sense.

Aversion therapy is possible...like putting a soda can half-filled with dried beans or coins on the night stand and dropping it at her feet when she pokes you in bed. Sadly, this will teach her to be afraid of the bed, and might not last long as a deterrent. Plus, the sound might prick your nervous system enough that you can't get back to sleep anyway. Everybody loses.

I guess the best plan would be to limit her access to you until she has time to forget the 5am habit.

In any case, I feel for you!

It's stuff like this that makes me beyond grateful that Bartleby loves his crate. He never makes noise unless it is an emergency.

Last week, he ate wax paper in the park. A couple of nights ago, I heard faint murmurs that, in my sleep, I was not associating with him. When it got too much for him, he tapped on the crate door just loud enough to rouse me. Such a polite boy. Given how he turned inside out to get rid of the offending material in the yard, I'd have been yelling obscenities at the top of my guts. "Let me out woman! The dam's about to blow!!"

I just got back from DC VegFest. I think I have eaten all the vegan junk food in the world. (First I had a donut, because I'd skipped breakfast, and donuts are breakfasty, right? Then I saw a booth selling pizza made with a kind of vegan cheese I'd been wanting to try, so I got a slice of that. Then, a little while later, it was lunch time, so I got some mixed vegetable curry from the Indian restaurant booth. And after lunch ought to be dessert, so I got a carrot cake cupcake. I think the cupcake was the one thing too many, because now my stomach hurts.)

I also listened to a speech by a vegan body-building champion, and pet some cute dogs, and bought a book. And while I was there, my mom called, wanting to know the ingredients for a recipe that I'm going to make for Rosh Hashanah, so that she could have my dad go do the grocery shopping. I couldn't remember exactly what was needed, but then I remembered that the recipe was in a vegan cookbook, and I was at a vegan festival that had at least four booths selling books, so I found one selling the book the had the recipe I needed, looked it up, and called Mom back to tell her what was needed.

And now, I think I will nap. And contemplate a salad for dinner to counteract all this grease and sugar.

So, it seems there was a protest today: [link] I was just a few blocks away, and didn't notice anything.

I'm glad your mother is doing better Hil.

Hrm. I have basil, olive oil, garlic, nutritional yeastand a mini food processor. Can i made a decent vegan pesto without nuts or do i really need to haul my butt back out in the midday sun for nuts?

So, it seems there was a protest today: [link]

That's one seriously monochromatic protest.

Lasagna is ready to be baked. House is tidy. Snacks are ready. Just need guests to arrive to play Rockband.

Ongoing ~ma for your mom, Hil.

I am in Canterbury at a wedding where The Girl is the maid of honour. I left the house (in London) at 10am, arrived at 1pm (sat in traffic for twice as long as I should have done), the wedding was 2 til 3, the drinking started at 3.30 and it's now 9.30. For convenience sake I've been on crutches most of the day and left the wheelchair in the car. Unsurprisingly, I am exhausted. We had, fortunately, already got ourselves a room in the hotel where the reception's taking place. I am pleading chronic illness and going to bed. If all the people in my life don't know by now that I can't handle more than seven hours of partying in one go, they really should learn...!

Wedding was kinda fun. I was expecting it to be horrific, as I'd heard it was going to be very traditional. And it was indeed cookie-cutter British Anglican wedding style, right down to the reading about love from I Corinthians and the precise wording of various blessings from the Book of Common Prayer and so on. But I was less unimpressed by this than I thought I'd be, since it was what the bride and groom wanted, and that was nice.

Still, TG and I made up codes for "this is OK" and "we are IN NO WAY having this at our wedding", and since the reception started we've mostly used the latter. It's good to get a sense of what you don't want to do.

Glad to hear your mom is doing better, Hil.

Happy Birthday, Polter-Cow!!