I’ve felt sluggish all day today. Back to work after being away from the office for so long – and it was hard to feel motivated. Of course, as I should have expected, I was greeted with another required reorganization of the project plan involving one of Microsoft’s programs that I am convinced was written not as an office tool, but as an instrument of torture. This would be Microsoft Project. It’s a deceptive little program. It makes you *think* you’re going to produce something useful, but the only way so far I’ve managed to get anything remotely productive out of it is to manipulate task assignments manually. Hundreds of them. Ugh.

Part of my sleep-deprived grouchiness stemmed from the fact that last night was an extremely late one. It was cold and windy – unusual weather for the Fourth of July in this area of California. We decided to make use of the Plot of Weeds and go out there to watch the fireworks, since it’s got a great view of the park where they do the show every year. Turned out it was a fantastic view, and I discovered another reason why it really is a small world. The owner of the boat parked to one side on my lot turned out to be the husband of an old synchronized swim team member from college, and so I found out that our neighbors on one side are his parents. I find it funny that despite the number of times we’ve been out to the lot at various times of day, we’ve yet to meet any of our neighbors-to-be, yet I know their children.

We had another gathering of the families – this time to watch the fireworks together. I think we spent most of the evening laughing. I take that as a good sign. Although I’m not so sure having the police show up as we were just finishing up the fireworks we’d been setting off outside my parents’ house was such a good sign, but it was humorous anyway. Luckily the policeman only issued a gentle warning that it was a bit late to be out being so noisy – although whether it was the fireworks we were setting off or the loud gales of laughter as a certain male member of the group (whose name I won’t mention because of course it’s not nice to poke fun at your fiance) demonstrated that even when provided with matches, lighters, and blowtorches, he just couldn’t get those pesky fireworks to light.

And on a completely unrelated note, my feline addiction provided an interesting side effect today. One of the guys in our group came up with a plastic sack of greens. Apparently they’ve got catnip taking over the yard, and for some odd reason he thought of me. Heh. Probably because he was there when I got into a joking dogs vs. cats discussion with a few of the others, I suppose. Even so, it was awfully sweet of him to think about that and the cats are, I’m sure, properly grateful. I set the bag down on the dining room table when I got home for just a few moments and it was swarmed. I rescued the sack, withdrew one large sprig, and then tossed out pieces and watched the furry horde attack. I even broke off a few fresh leaves, crushed them to get the scent out, and then contorted myself into a pretzel to stuff it back up on the shelf deep under the kitchen sink where Zuchinni-the-invisible-cat was lurking. I only knew he was there because my fingers touched fur. Later on, I checked back and the catnip was gone – and so was he. I can only hope that he enjoyed it, as I haven’t seen more than a brief glimpse of him since I returned from my travels.