I have been using them for packing, but they are kind of more of a pain than their worth. I stopped after 3-4

scrappy! what a way to begin the morning.

If you think Colin is nice, you've fallen for his master plan.

I rewrote that to say "looks" nice. I have no idea how evil he may be in reality!

Has anyone found a brand or type of protective gloves for things like washing dishes that are not yucky and don't make your hands sweat? I hate gloves.

I wear nitrile gloves because I'm allergic to latex. Playtex disposable long cuff gloves. My hands aren't too sweaty when I take them off. YSweatMV.

ION, I just got an email from eShakti:

I got the same e-mail; it took about a month (including non-business days) for the dress to get to me. I haven't checked my bank statement yet to see if they credited $$$ to me.

Speaking of Steph, has anyone seen her pixels since she told us about collapsing?

That happened Saturday; I didn't post about it until Sunday because of my embarrassment about it. And I'm feeling fine. Yesterday was wicked hot, but the wedding was in an air-conditioned church and air-conditioned fancy reception place. I had about 90 minutes of an enforced outdoor birthday party for Tim's dad, which I was trying to not resent, since Tim's dad ostensibly knew I had heat exhaustion the day before. But I kept reminding myself (1) it's not about me; (2) it's HIS birthday and if he wants to celebrate turning 75 by forcing his family to be outside in 95 degree weather, then he can; (3) we were leaving in 90 minutes anyway; and (4) it's not about me.

I just think if you're dragging multiple electric fans OUTSIDE for the party, maybe you go back inside to the air-condtioned, large, clean house for the party. But -- not my birthday. Also, I got to leave and go where it was air conditioned. So, whatevs.

Ginger, I have a pair of Gloveables [link] that I really like. One of the things I like about them is that I can use really hot water to wash the dishes and my hands don't burn, so they are insulating I guess? Which might lead to sweaty hands. But they don't feel sticky on me like so many gloves do, so, cautious recommendation, YMMV.

Steph, I'm glad you're okay. Nothing to be embarrassed about, heat exhaustion isn't a small thing.

I messed up my sister's plans for an outing yesterday because the place we were going wasn't air conditioned and we'd already spent an hour wandering through an non-A/C thrift/junk store and I was already wiped out. And, we'd gone in the Mustang* which is a very hot car, in the sense that it's hard to A/C it on a hot day. I knew if I spent another couple hours in the heat, I would be miserable and cranky and probably sick. So I stood up for myself (whoo!) and she was surprisingly fine with it. (My beloved sis is a bit of a control freak. And I'm a bit of a pussy when it comes to standing up for myself. We've both gotten better as we've gotten older.) Her boyfriend didn't care, of course.

*Not her Mustang. It's her boss's car, and she gets to drive it when he's out of the country, which is most of the time. She doesn't even like it; I don't know why she decided to drive it.

it took about a month (including non-business days) for the dress to get to me.

Oh wow. That would make me sad!

it took about a month (including non-business days) for the dress to get to me.

Oh wow. That would make me sad!

Since I wanted to wear it to yesterday's wedding, I was panicking at the end, there.

eShakti looks to have some very pretty stuff, but I'm finding I haven't caught up with summer. Walking through the women's department at Macy's yesterday gave me a (literal) (worse) headache. The colours were all vibratey and shit. I need a more soothing palette for my delicate eyes. My sleep doctor wants to ensure I'm triggering my internal clock correctly--if I can't get out of the house in the morning, spend deliberate time at the computer (I think she says it's a 4:1 efficacy ration) basking in the LCD glow.

However, I think Calvin Klein's summer collection might be 2:1.

Business formal tomorrow at work again. Since they relaxed the degree of business casual of the dress code, I swear there have been more business formal days required. Like we have to keep the average going somehow. I'm going to test a theory and wear a tie. In calming black and grey...

Just almost had a tense conversation with my father, which I guess counts as tense--in effect if not actually tense during. I just managed to phrase everything awkwardly so I had to keep stipulating that I wasn't trying to put him on the defensive, but I just wanted to make sure I wasn't inferring anything about my mother's health, and instead was getting it explicitly from him.

Somehow, it just....part of the issue is not saying "well, she could be acting like she feels well--I totally fake it myself" but feeling it's floating overhead the whole time anyway. And just...gnargh. I don't want to undo whatever effect the ER visit had on me. It's just all been really tense and messy everywhere for the past month or more.

ION, David Attenborough Narrates Video of Tortoise Having Sex With a Shoe

On the Graham Norton Show. Also, the shoe was a Croc.

Here is the eShakti dress on a live human being (er, that would be me, with bonus of Tim in guy drag): [link]