Oh, that's wonderful, Kathy! How neat, on all counts.

Hey, it's raining! I was all, man, it's dark. I must have been slounging around reading non-electric catalogs way longer than I thought. I got up to look at the clock, and nope, not nighttime, just raining, yay!

Smells nice too, so I opened all the windows. Sounds like we might be up a lot overnight though, because it's thundering. AND once again I should have taken my bath when I was thinking about it because now I can't.

I tried to do a 15 minute clean, only something goofed up with my timer and I never heard it so now I have no idea how long I was tidying up and when I noticed I got all disgruntled.

But you are inspiring, Kathy, so maybe I can manage a few more things today. Tomorrow I want to be all about office work, so the better shape I get the household in today, the happier I'll be.

Smells nice too, so I opened all the windows.

I so miss that smell! Any prolonged rain here smells like wet dog.

I don't know hard numbers, but my gut feeling is that this country could not survive without illegal immigrant labor. Not without a dramatic shift in how we pay people and what we are willing to pay for things, and a million other aspects of our society.

Abso-freaking-lutely.

Clean....floors? Huh. I mean, I guess I could try that....

I did go to the supermarket just now, which was surprisingly crowded. The boy in front of me in line (who had a tatto down his leg that read "dying to be thin") said the corn I was buying made him homesick, because he's from Indiana where all they have is corn. Poor boy.

Also, on the subway home some (I think) German tourist kid fell down the stairs (within the car) directly on to me, knocking off my glasses, which luckily no one stepped on! And then still didn't hang on to anything! Fucking backpacks.

I think I'm going to take some time tomorrow to get everything dusted, in particular taking everyting off of the bookshelves and dusting instead of just dusting around the books.

Another thing I found out about was that my dad's paternal great-uncle Gus, who had come to America from Sweden at the same time as my grandpa Bror (he was only a few years older than Bror and had lived with my grandpa's family since he was in his early teens, so they were practically brothers and not uncle/nephew), had lived in Fairbanks, Alaska, for a good portion of the late '40s and early-to-mid '50s (he worked on military bases building barracks and doing other carpentry) before coming back to Chicago, and then relocating to Minneapolis. I always thought he'd been in Minnesota and had no idea about the decade in Fairbanks (he met his second wife, Agnes, there; his first wife had died of cancer in the mid-40s).

Gus was a neat guy--I remember the trip we took to Minnesota when I was around 7. We stayed with Gus and Agnes for a few days, and Gus cracked me up! He was this small-statured old man who had more energy than us kids did, stayed up to all hours of the night playing pinochle, and loved to watch pro wrestling on Sunday mornings.

Speaking of stature, one of the photos I found in my box was one of my favorites, a great photo of my grandpa, his brother, and my aunt Dorothy (who was also my grandma's sister--two sisters married two brothers, which is pretty neat!) on a beach on the South Side of Chicago in 1932. Grandpa and my uncle are in the tank one-piece men's swimsuits of the time, and my aunt is in a gorgeously flowy chiffon dress, cradled sitting on their clasped hands. Grandma is apparently the one taking the pic, which is too bad because I would have loved to see her in a similar dress, which I just know she was.

Well, every time I see that pic, I'm constantly amazed at how much of a hunk my grandpa was as a young man! I mentioned that to Dad today, and he said that he remembered how Grandpa, who had a barrel chest, also had a real six-pack for abs, and had those until he was in his 50s. Also, he had dark hair until he was 43, when all of the sudden, it went white practically overnight for no particular reason.

Ok hivemind, anyone know anything about the nutrition thinking of high fat, low grain, low dairy, high meat protein?

I knew my dad's maternal grandfather, Jesse,

So, Jesse is your great grandfather?!?

Seriously, that is a very interesting story, I love family history.

I'm a lot of people's great-grandfathers.

You are not mine. He is Edgar. Or John. Or 2 unknown Italian guys, but I doubt they are named Jesse!

It's all that time traveling Jesse does. Very complicated.

I so miss that smell!

I know I talk about it, like, every single time it rains, but I can't help it! It is so awesome.

Okay, I cleared out the living room except of the studio detritus that came home with us when the studio closed. Did I talk about that yet here? The music store that is our secondary income...the building they were in was foreclosed on, so they had to move over the summer. Their new location is super great, lots more visibility, better parking, better access, better walking traffic. But it's also smaller, so they are using the next door store for lessons/coffee, but that won't be completed for another month or longer. And even when that's done, no recording studio. So we have no secondary income at all for a few months here. Which is worrying. And also we had to bring home a bunch of gear. Which is now in my living room.