Phooey. Now I want mac and cheese, which I really don't need at 9:30.

Had an astonishingly good evening -- took Matilda and her friend N. to see juliana in a free hour-long (and, compressed, even more emotionally intense) production of Julius Caesar in the AIDS memorial redwood grove in GGP. It was Matilda's first non-school-or-puppet-show play and N.'s first Shakespeare (though she has read a fair amount of it for a 7-year-old). They both loved it and were agog at it, and ran/bounced/jumped the entire half-mile home (they'd brought Harry Potter wands and were pretending to be Ginny, Hermione and sometimes Luna with Voldemort "on our heels").

We came home and they tried on a bunch of dresses for the Hogwarts Yule Ball, then went outside to see our flickering dragonfly lights, and now they're wearing small ballgowns, drinking cocoa and watching Ruby Gloom. It may be an impossibly late night before it's over, but at the moment it's quite lovely.

I also defrosted his refrigerator, scrubbed his kitchen (including the floor), changed his sheets, and reorganized his investment portfolio. Oy.

Damn, that is some serious TCB!

I had drinks with my coworker (who is dealing with some ridiculous work BS) on the patio for a couple hours, then met up with this woman for a date. She's been flirting with me for about two years on and off (when we would randomly see each other). But I wasn't sure if we'd have anything to talk about or if we are both just big flirts. I ended up basically turning her down at the end of the evening, which she seemed to think was because she used to be a big player, and was all "this is my own fault/karma/I'm not like that any more" whereas my mind was more "you are 50 years old and don't believe in marriage or kids..."

So flipping muggy this morning. Not hot, but I'm a sweaty mess (sorry lisah!) after my walk to market.

Mysterious 'ready for Hillary' lanyard appeared on neighbors deck yesterday afternoon. She assumed it was mine, put it on my rail, I assumed it was hers when my cats started playing with it & hung it on her door. Don't know whether it was kids or birds. It's brand new, even.

Gardening question! I have a pot with two plants in it, one flowers (but no flowers on it -- sad) and one pepper. The flower plant is, I think, growing too big and crowding out the pepper plant. Can I just dump it all out and put the flower plant somewhere else, or will that hurt them?

I've started watching the show "Leftovers", whose premise is that 2% of the population goes missing across the board.

2% is a really small percentage, although a pretty big number. Aside from the freakout caused by any mass disappearance, I can't help wonder what that would do to the infrastructure. Pretty little, huh? It would be about the personal losses sustained and the coping reaction and lacks thereof.

I am missing multiple art books. Perhaps that's why I can't draw anymore.

I think I saw a snippet of an interview with Lindelof or someone talking about the 2% number, though I didn't watch the whole interview so I don't know what he said exactly. One of those HBO interstitials I think.

Protip: leaving the successfully frozen popsicles out on the kitchen counter for a few hours renders them a lot less successful. Sigh. At least it's not super hot today so I am not lamenting my lack of popsicles as much as I might.

I don't know for sure, Jesse, but I think your plan is probably okay.

Ita, I've been watching it, and that was my thought, as well. Assuming a relatively random distribution, I don't think it would have a significant impact on the infrastructure, this far out, apart from the psycho-social fallout. It would be a mess in the short term, but, at this point?

And I suddenly realized I should take further discussion to Premium.

So I had forgotten how little time appraisers take. 15 minutes and done. But I'm glad I made an effort to pick up the house a bit, since he did take photos inside...

It's been overcast and a little bit rainy here (YAY!) and the fig tree is going bonkers so I made 9 more pints of balsamic fig jam. This round is much jellier and really amazingly good. Way more balsamic, but not in taste (boiling vingear for 45 minutes produces some odor). Unlike the original Thomas Keller recipe, I added pectin and processed it a little less. Still delicious.

Over a gallon of balsamic fig jam. My mind reels.