I don't want to be the responsible, dependable go-to person! I want to sit and read fic while work is dead!

And a friend posted a townhouse for sale a block away from her...for $72k. It's in Baltimore. A $275/month mortgage is nearly reason enough to move there. Damn.

Do you know what neighborhood? Regardless, you should totally move to Baltimore!!! We have beautiful weather, too, (this week).

Bob has essentially been commuting to his job in Chicago while living here since 2009. It works pretty well, mostly, once we were able to sell his condo anyway.

CB was totally quiet for the first few months we had her but it turns out she has a Very Loud bark for a dog her size. She barks at dogs walking by and people on the porch and, when she's out walking, she'll bark at other dogs. Not all other dogs, though. She really hates fluffy white dogs and she yells her fool head off at them. I hope she'd bark ferociously if someone broke into the house while we were in the bedroom at night but she sleeps pretty deeply!

Leaving only an hour late...

My cats come running to me then hide. I don't know that it is helpful.

Pumpkin is all over me in this weather. Applying eyeliner this morning was hard because she kept trying to redirect my hand for pets. She's kneading my knee right now. Loki, otoh, likes lying in the evening sunbeams upstairs in the spare and hasn't wandered downstairs since I got back from the pool(!)

Beat last night's swim time. 56.6s. This is just wild. It was fast night for me back when my paces were regularly in the 57s range. My slowest lap was 58.7. A week ago, I was just aiming for sub 59 averages.

At least I'm getting something together right now.

There was an article recently about how it's cheaper to live in Spain and commute than live in London.

That's interesting. I have cousins (second cousins, I guess, my dad's generation and I'm not exactly sure how I am related to them, honestly) who came to the US after WWII and decided pretty quickly that they'd rather live in Spain where it was cheaper. Eventually ended up in Florida overlapping the time we lived in Louisiana, which is when we actually met. Which is all entirely tangential, but I guess i have that Spain-is-an-inexpensive-place-to-live association from that and you just confirmed my bias.

Were we looking into buying a village in Spain?

OMG, I have to complain a little bit. My biggest headache today was caused by my backup making a mistake, which I do not blame her for, exactly, mistakes happen and this was an easy one to make, but it happened yesterday and if she had been just a little lazier and said to herself "-t can take care of this when she gets back tomorrow, I'm gonna leave it alone" it all would have been fine. WHY CAN'T PEOPLE BE LAZY LIKE ME?!?

So interesting, sarameg. I feel like I almost get why that would happen - not specifically right now to you, but in a general way, how performance ebbs and flows. No, not that I almost get it, but that there's probably a general principal that someone else might get.

Well, the unfamiliarity of Druid sparked this, I think. Lead to a stroke adjustment by accident (narrower lanes where I wasn't always sure how close to the lines lead me to pull my stroke closer under me to avoid thwappage) and now that I've figured out what it was, conscious of doing that. The slowdown coincided with swimming in the ocean, which is a totally different skill set. I think there was a lot more going on that I haven't sussed out, those ebbs & flows you mentioned. But it's nice what is happening now. I needed it.

Cool. I'm glad it's going well for you.

Jack seems to be making progress on the backing at anyone who isn't us front. On our walk today, we passed a family of 4, no barks. Passed a young girl and her dog, no barks. Only a couple of barks at one person who surprised him but that was it. HUGE improvement for him.

WHY CAN'T PEOPLE BE LAZY LIKE ME?!?

I ask myself this ALL THE TIME!

You know what improves my mood? Wine. Way more than whine actually. I'm not convinced it improves my grading however, so maybe I should stop soon. But not yet. My grading is helping to motivate Frances to keep at her homework.