I love your patio.

You should visit again! Everyone should visit me in the winter or spring. I'll visit you guys in the summer and fall. As glorious and March is, September is just gruesome.

And for the trifecta before closing the laptop, I checked the entertainment schedule for tomorrow and at 6:45 - Never Stop Believin' - the Ultimate Journey tribute band. Sounds perfect accompaniment to plastic cups of wine and seafood.

I had a pretty nice and active day today: architectural walking tour in the morning, walked about a half mile from the library to and from the music fest in the park this afternoon (it turned out to be slow bluesy country, so I only stayed to enjoy the sun for a little over an hour), drove to a crawfish hut in a nearby town for dinner, then took a 90-minute walking ghost tour of the downtown area near my apartment. I feel I've made up for having my daily walk cancelled by rain yesterday.

That sounds lovely, both Laura & Matt.

You should visit again!

This will sound odd to most of you. My dad and I wanted to come back down when we were in Daytona this year. But my stepmom does NOT approve of us visiting the (female) friend of the family who lives scant miles from Laura. Last year he and I stayed in a hotel and, dude, my dad is fidelity personified. But she was just not cool with it. Sucks because I adore that family friend. She's had a lot of the professional life I'd love to lead when I grow up. So we don't tack on a couple of days to drive down and see B.

Hilariously, stepmom was visiting her to watch the Oscars with girlfriends WHILE dad and I were also in Florida. Mom could have chaperoned!

Oh well.

I really do like B, so I suspect I am hauling my ass to Florida at a non-Daytona time soon. Which is awesome because it has bonus Laura!

Man, Blackhawks are giving me heart attacks. Five straight games to overtime? Ridic.

smonster, I am Castle Centaur. Finally getting to play again too.

So my brother finally showed up to pick up his daughter at 9:30: I'd had her since 7:30 this morning. SO TIRED.

But the chocolate chip cookies came out great. And she was happy to eat two servings of plain pasta. No butter, no pasta sauce: just plain noodles. WTF. Kids are weird.

And then I let her watch too much Dora the Explorer.

Ugh Suela, that's a long sitting gig. You got to build up endurance.

Seafood fest sounds awesome Laura!

I drove to the outlet mall this afternoon. It took approximately forever, as there was tons of traffic. Then I got there and walked in and out of every dang store I thought MIGHT have something interesting (including many stores I would not normally go to). I contemplated a dress at Banana Republic (very pretty, fit my waist and hips gorgeously...but I would've had to alter the top, and as it was silk, I have no idea when I would wear it, and it's not worth both buying and altering a dress I won't wear), but the only thing I ended up buying was a pair of shoes that I got last week from Zappos, because they were $15 cheaper (so I'll return the Zappos pair). A whole outlet mall! And I only bought shoes I already owned! WTF.

I stopped at a different mall (non-outlet) on the way home and bought teavana stuff. Expensive, but they had a travel mug 75% off! And I thought about staying there and watching a movie, but was hoping to meet new friends at a dance. Only I ran home and got dolled up, and they didn't show up. Oops. But ran into a different friend, and we ended up at a different bar with some of her friends. So that was cool. And then we had a hot dog from the street vendor, and now I'm trying to drink water so I'm not hungover int he morning. Because somehow, these days one damn drink does it for me. Argh.