I tried to sleep in this morning, I really did. But Sebastian has lately decided that wandering around downstairs while randomly yelling at the top of his overdeveloped lungs is simply not good enough, and what is far more fun and effective is to come into the bedroom, jump onto the bed, walk heavily over my body to my pillow and then yell at top volume directly into my ear. Gah. If I could just train him to do this on a set schedule he'd be a marvelously effective alarm clock, but 'training' and 'cats' are two words that rarely share peaceful coexistance in the same sentence.

Richard headed off for some sort of training, which I could have gone to except I really didn't want to. So instead I gathered up all my relevant paperwork and headed off to the Davis post office because they have a passport application desk and I have put this off long enough.

It took me about an hour to get through the whole process - since it was, after all, at a post office - and that included retaking the pictures twice because I am so truly photogenic that I kept coming out looking as if I was coming off of a long drug-induced bender and the nice man who did the camera didn't think I wanted that on an official document that I hoped would convince the people at the border patrol to let me back in the country. Then there was the issue of which forms I did or did not need in order to not only renew my (now expired) passport but to also change my name (since I went and got married a few years back).

But I got it all taken care of and I carefully paperclipped my oh-so-lovely passport pictures (the ones where I look least like I could be serving 10-15 for possession) and my check and a certified copy of our marriage license and my old passport to the application form and dropped it into the mail, and hopefully it will be returned to me in time for our Sisters' Only Weekend, which was the whole reason I was getting the thing renewed in the first place.

And speaking of that, when I got home there was a message on the machine from my older sister, so after a bit of finagling, she got the three of us sisters on the phone all together for a conference call and we did our best to hash out the details of our tentatively planned trip to Victoria, BC in June.

I did a lot more knitting this afternoon (I am sure you are all just so surprised about that), until a friend called to see if he could drop by, at which point that was all the encouragement I needed to get up and try to clean the house a little bit, since it was starting to look a little cluttery. His timing was absolutely perfect because he pulled up just as Richard got home from the training, so we all sat around the table and chatted and tried to catch up on what he's been up to, and it was lovely to see him again, especially since I think the last time we saw him it was last year.

Dinner was Mongolian Barbeque with the 20's and 30's group, and it was actually quite fun. We had a newer couple to the church show up - he sings tenor with me in the choir but we've not really had an opportunity to get to know her at all. And any excuse for Mongolian Barbeque is a good thing. There was a lot of talking and laughing and eating, followed by a trip to the nearby ice cream parlor for more laughing and talking and eating, and there were tentative plans made to maybe go see the new Star Wars movie as a group later this month (and then go out for dessert immediately after so we can all sit around and trash the movie together) and then it was time, alas, to go home.