Oh, I haven't noticed Jo! Amelia's all open coats and whatnot this episode.

Not as far along.

Car troubles are taken care of for now -- I still don't have a parking placard (that's with my stuff in the repo car, now sitting in West Bridgewater), but I can park in the school lot until Monday morning 7:30 AM and swing by the Traffic office for a replacement after I finish driving on Monday.

For a while it looked like the system wouldn't give me a rental because there were technical problems with the assigning system, but yes, after I waited an hour, there was a nice Chevy Cruze which is bitchin' red -- not red as found anywhere in nature, anyway.

And the mechanic called, and my Subaru's CHECK ENGINE was caused by a shorted wire, so it's ready to be picked up tomorrow when I get around to it. I decided against walking over there because it's cold and dark and blowing rain hard.

I think I have good reason to feel exhausted, frankly.

That time when the Y is decorating for Halloween festivities and the pool staff throws plastic spiders and rats and mice and squishy eyeballs into the pool while you are swimming. Luckily my brain immediately processed what was happening, but I did warn a couple of folk when they got in. And I totally freaked out the pool coordinator by popping up in front of her with a mouse dangling from my goggles nosepiece and a couple spiders on my face, shrieking KELLI!! It only seemed fair, as she was the ringleader. I really liked the touch of a rat floating around on a kick board.

In less fun news, someone got a hold of one of my credit card # and tried to buy $500+ worth of stuff, though it was declined. But I had to cancel it and I had a bill on it scheduled to be paid next week that now needs to be straightened out.

Seeing some Trump signs around my neighborhood, but not a whole lot. Not a single Hillary sign to be seen. My neighborhood is definitely not a bell weather though.

Looks like e-mails are back in the news in a big way.

Got a e-mail from the high school that a student committed suicide. That's horrifying. Can't help but think how close we came to that. I can sort of imagine what those parents are going through, but not really.

{{{Gud}}}

I think I have good reason to feel exhausted, frankly.

Totally.

I am 98% finished with the house. FauxSon and his wife have busted their asses clearing and cleaning. They found lots of stuff they thought I'd want that I'd written off that I was actually glad to have, and he insisted on getting it all packed in my Jeep and his car tonight. He wanted to get it all carried up tonight, but I convinced him it could wait. He also insisted on knowing if the apartment management knew to call him if something happened, because he's afraid of getting a call saying there'd been a horrible smell coming out of my apartment for a few days, and that I'm supposed to keep in touch regularly. I'm supposed to be around for a long time. It's nice to have a son without having to do the hard parts (though when Hubby and I met him nearly 30 years ago, we apparently were instrumental in getting him to adulthood).

In addition, I can see the brightest stars from my balcony. It's going to be glorious in the summer.

Connie, that's lovely. And I'm glad you have faux-son around to keep an eye out for you.

I was doing too much multi-tasking tonight: making a pot of chicken-peanut-sweet potato stew; baking up some cookies from the batter I made last night; and watching the final of GBBO. So I ended up dropping one entire sheet of cookies on the floor -- I took them out of the oven and my pot holder wasn't solid enough, my hand started to burn, and I just dropped them instead of shoving them back in the oven.

So now I have 24 lovely chocolate-chip-nut cookies, and another dozen that were scraped off the kitchen floor and have dog hair all over them. I tossed most of them in the compost but decided to save the least awful-looking ones for myself. I have eaten a lot of dog hair in my time, I think my immune system can take it.

ION, I played two games of chess with Dad today. Which was really nice: he's demented and gets wound up and throws things away but he still knows how all the pieces in chess work. And I think it's pleasant to just hang out with him, without always having something to do (find his wallet, pay bills, etc.).

That is all so good to read, Connie. I hope your next chapter is every bit as wonderful as I am envisioning. Balcony! With stars! Yes.