I'm thinking walking for a mile and a half this morning in the cold rain wasn't my brightest move. Now I've cranked the heat and I'm snuggled under a blanket (and a laptop) and I just can't get warm.

Calli, hot toddy time!!

I saw something resembling snow, but no sticking.

Slow, slow swim. I definitely have a headcold. I was just exhausted and working so hard, and horrible times. I forsee a sick day next week.

Shampooed the carpet while drinking a margarita. I recommend this cleaning routine.

Brilliant idea, smonster! And I even have lemons. Well, a lemon. If I need more than 4 hot toddies, I'll probably need to upgrade to something more pharmaceutical anyway.

I'm afraid to move. I have the 'kin zipped into my fleece. MK suddenly jumped up here and is lying right in front of me, oblivious to the hisses and growls. They are face to face through my fleece.

I went to see Rita Morena last night, who is amazing. She's 80 this year, and she still looks fantastic--at one point she came out in a show-girl's dress and the skirt got torn away (part of the act, which was a comedy skit), and holy cow her legs are still amazing. You would never believe she was even sixty, looking at her body.

And you know, I never knew that she had a five-year affair with Marlon Brando, which she ended by dating Elvis Presley to get Brando jealous. Which worked, but apparently that was the end of the relationship...

Anyway, did that last night, got up early & sat with my mother all morning, cleaned their windows & clipped the dog's feet, went to TJ's, came home, discovered the cleaners still here, went to the pharmacy, Peet's, and the grocery store, came back & paid the cleaners, took the dog for a long walk, and now I'm finally sitting down with my feet up and a half-assed Pisco sour.

I'm too tired to make dinner, although I should probably make a salad, since I had a burger for lunch...

After five roller derby bouts, I was finally on a winning team!

Congrats Cash! Any winning bruises?

Consuela, I saw Rita Moreno at the Paramount before I moved and she knocked my socks off.

I never knew that she had a five-year affair with Marlon Brando

Yeah, well, so did Wally Cox. Brando, you man slut!

We're back from my friend Robin's birthday party. The commute wasn't difficult because Matilda jumped rope the one mile (part of it uphill) to Robin's house after Muni/BART. And it was really good seeing people I hadn't seen for several years and catching up a bit. This is the circle of friends I had when I first moved to SF 25 years ago. Now we've all got kids in high school or going to college.

Excellent evening for Matilda-isms:

(showing Hec a picture she's just drawn): Do you like her?

Hec: Is that a crown on her head?

Matilda [in a withering No, you crazyhead! tone): No, Daddy, it's a birthday cake.

And later, her comments on the list of horror films Hec was working from:

The Fog? That could be pretty scary... like a vampire throwing a smoke bomb!

Also a good evening for people-watching and eavesdropping. On the way back to BART after the party (on a night so balmy Matilda was skipping around in her fairy princess tank dress without even a cardigan, under a crescent moon so big and low it looked like something out of Little Nemo In Slumberland), we passed what looked like three college kids on their way out somewhere, cheerfully giving each other rations of college-kid shit about who knew what. They'd been talking and talking and the tall, vaguely chubby-Malcolm-Gladwelly looking boy in the middle had been saying something when the pink-haired girl next to him threw up one hand and said, "SHUT -- "

Looking mightily aggrieved, he shouted, "I was AGREEING VEHEMENTLY with whatever the fuck you were saying!" And off they all stomped.

On the BART platform we saw a gentleman zombie (rotting face, dress coat and black tie), an assortment of punk pixies, ballerinas and spacegirls, an improbable black belt, and someone who looked like possibly he'd lost the other 75% of his barbershop quartet. On the train itself, more zombies, a sailor, a slutty baseball player, and numerous persons who didn't seem to be costumed exactly, just miscellaneously incredibly sharp dressers.

On Muni, we saw yet more zombies, ballerinas in goth, punk, and traditional flavors, several Angry Birds (a twentysomething sitting behind one of the Birds said, mystified, "So is that like an actual thing?"), a partially costumed Black Panther (not historical or feline, but Marvelverse; she had her spear out and the rest of her costume in her bag, and was utterly geeking out about it once she realized Hec knew the Marvelverse), pumpkins, one of Santa's elves, and a perfectly normal looking man with a toy gorilla stitched to the top of his cap.

Two women standing in the aisle in front of us were in the middle of a long conversation about a film one of them had just seen; I have no idea what it was, but apparently it was by a foot fetishist who has made a lot of movies but finally, finally mastered the delicate balance of fetish and art: "...for the first time ever, it didn't feel like a fetish. It was just an element in the storytelling. Usually the foot fetish calls such attention to itself and you just get hung up on it, but this time he really made it organic to the entire film, and it made such sense you hardly even noticed it was there."

Also, apparently there's some kind of Halloween-themed citywide treasure hunt/capture the flag game going on tonight, and people were jumping on and off the train wearing little sky-blue armbands all the way from downtown to Stanyan Street.

It's the most wonderful time of the year!