When I was putting on my pants this morning I noticed that the zipper tab was a little lopsided and wouldn’t fold down all the way. I fought with it for a little bit and didn’t think any more about it until I got to work, and – as I usually do at least once or twice – headed into the bathroom. There I discovered that the tab was broken, and while it is easy to close a zipper with no tab, it is next to impossible to open one – especially when you are wearing the article of clothing it is keeping closed, and you are…well…in a hurry.

Luckily I remembered that a paper clip can work in a pinch, so I zipped back to my desk and grabbed the first paper clip I could find. My makeshift zipper pull worked like a charm (ha).

However, I didn’t want to have to be surreptitiously sneaking paper clips into the bathroom all day so I figured I might as well try to find a slightly smaller one that I could just leave attached to the zipper. Except that the only small one I could find was bright pink. And I must admit that I did ponder the dilemma of using a bright pink paper clip as a replacement zipper pull on black pants because while it tucked neatly underneath the fabric covering. Because it is oh so important to match one’s accessories to one’s ensemble even if one of those accessories is more commonly used to hold paper together.

We have had the usual things today – getting up too early (thank you cats), hastily casting on for another pair of socks because I needed a portable project to bring with me for Sunday School, choir practice, the last session of ‘The Gospel According to Seuss’, where we took on ‘The Sneetches’ and ‘The Zax’ – a discussion that didn’t have quite the twists as when we discussed ‘Horton Hatches An Egg’ a few weeks ago and put spins on the story that Seuss likely never even considered (such as whether or not Horton might have been either codependent, or needed some counseling to learn how to say no to pushy people (or birds)), but still lively enough to be fun.

Two of the newest babies showed up for all of us too coo over, and they are so very, very tiny – just weeks old, and still tiny enough to keep me too nervous to even consider holding them. It was fun to compare these two latest additions to the little boy who was born in January – especially as a way to see just how much he has grown. Because babies grow – and they grow so very fast that it almost seems as if you turn your head for an instant and suddenly they are in the next size up of clothes.

I think we are, for the most part, done with the latest of our baby booms at church (only one more baby left and he’s due in the next week or three). It does make it hard to focus on what you are supposed to be focusing on when suddenly you are faced with a small cluster of teeny tiny people, but such is life.

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.

We have been waiting for this day for a few weeks – or at least I have been waiting, that is. I really could care less about the opening night for the next installment of Star Wars because I know that that movie will make me cringe and I have no desire to be there when it first is released. But Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is something to look forward, plus rumor had it that they would show the trailer for Serenity as well (which they did, which made us both cheer, but then they also showed the preview for a new Herbie the Love Bug movie and Richard very accurately pointed out that if this is not proof that they are scraping the bottom of the barrel he doesn’t know what is. Although I must admit that I will be putting the new Herbie movie on our Netflix queue, just because I am weak and must watch it just to see how horribly bad it will be).

Richard and I pondered times, but then decided to to to the earlier evening show in Vacaville. We fully expected it to be crowded, and were surprised when there wasn’t even one single person in line for tickets. We got there early, in anticipation of standing in line, but no line at all meant we had time to get inside and pick the best seats in the house, and also time for me to work on my latest pair of socks. The beauty of sock knitting is that it fits in my purse, you see.

The movie was fun, despite the fact that the plot was hopelessly muddled and didn’t exactly make sense, and we were not the only ones who left the theater singing ‘So Long and Thanks for All the Fish’ under our breath, which was the song they played while rolling the opening credits, sung by the dolphins. From a knitter’s perspective the movie was amusing because at one point, all the characters – and the spaceship – turn up as knit dolls. Also, there cannot possibly have been anyone more perfect than Alan Rickman to be the voice of Marvin the depressed robot.

After the movie we headed off to Baker’s Square to get dinner and we were both so tired we were practically falling asleep in our plates. But now we are home and I am feeling wide awake and there is more sock knitting to be done, all while humming ‘So Long and Thanks for All the Fish’, which is such a perky and cheerful little tune that I fear it may lurk in my head for far longer than I really would prefer.

One thing on my list that I did not get done yesterday was to zip off to the store and buy all the parts to make trifle. And the reason I needed to make trifle is that today was the annual ladies’ tea and I agreed to make trifle, even though I have never made it before in my life.

The good thing is that trifle is easy – or at least the recipe we were all given was easy. The organizer collected a huge mound of glass bowls and distributed them to all of us volunteers last Sunday, so this morning I lined my three bowls up on the counter and then layered in thin slices of pound cake, freshly washed and cut strawberries tossed with just enough sugar to convince them to start oozing juice, and a mixture of vanilla pudding and sour cream. Then I topped them all with whipped cream spirals and stuck them in the fridge until it was time for the tea. This left me with about half an hour to spare, which naturally meant that I had plenty of time to cast on for yet another pair of socks. Have I mentioned lately how very much I adore knitting socks? They are the perfect portable project.

The theme for the tea this year was ‘Tea on the Orient Express’, and as usual, the room was packed to the gills. I parked next to a group of women who were just getting out of their car to head in so I convinced a few of them (begging politely is usually effective) to help me carry in the three bowls of trifle, since I had my hands full of other stuff – like the old antique iron train engine I was bringing as a centerpiece for my mom’s table. The engine immediately attracted the attention of one of the docents from the Sacramento Railroad Museum, who were there to give a talk on the history of the railroad in California, and he seemed actually pretty excited by it. Richard has three of these cars – an engine, a coal car and a caboose – and they belonged to his grandfather but may be even older than that. They are made of cast iron and they are extremely sturdy and if you happen to be walking around in bare feet and stub your toe on one they are also extremely painful.

The lunch was a little sparse, but one doesn’t go to these teas for the food. The presentation by the Railroad Museum docents was funny and delightful, and best of all, informative, and intermixed in the talk of the trains and laying of railroad tracks and the design of passenger cars was a link to the movie ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ on which the whole premise of the tea theme had been formed. My dad was Hercule Poirot, complete with waxed black mustache and bowler hat (we told him, however, that he had to keep his hat on, because without it he looked too scarily like some kind of Italian mafia). One of my coworkers was the Countess and she did rag curls in her hair and transformed herself so completely we almost did not recognize her. They did a little questionnaire throughout the presentations, where those who’d watched the movie were asked to remember important details about the various characters. I read the story years and years ago, but have never seen the movie. So I plucked my sock out of my purse and commenced to knit throughout the entire thing. Because I decided I needed something a little more exciting than plain old socks, this pair has a lace inset running down each side, and a lot of the little old ladies got a kick out of the fact that I, and my knitting friend (who was sitting next to me at the table) were making socks.

There were door prizes, as there are every year, and as I have each time I’ve attended this tea, I brought one along with the trifle and the iron train. This year I decided to try lace knitting for the first time so I made this, just to see if I could do it. Except that I am not so much a scarf wearer so it seemed like the perfect thing to donate as a door prize. And to sweeten the deal, my knitting friend whipped up a little drawstring bag for it, so it was a joint project. As it turned out, my dad ended up giving my knitting friend his ticket, which was then promptly called as a winner for a door prize, and because my mom had said she really wanted the scarf, my friend zipped up to the table, grabbed the prize she and I had brought, and gave it to my mom, amid much laughter by all of us.

A few months ago my company notified us that as of April we would be starting a new work schedule. Basically we work 8 1/2 hours Monday through Thursday, 8 hours on Friday, and then get every fourth Friday off. It’s not technically a free day because we do end up working the hours over the course of the four week cycle, but considering the minimal impact to the regular working day, and the fact that this means we all now have an extra 13 three-day weekends a year to look forward to, this is pretty cool.

Today was my first flex day off, and I decided to try to make the most of it. So this morning, I got up at my usual time, met my mom at Curves, then came back home in time to meet with the gardener and talk about things like replacing the mostly dead pine tree with the grapefruit tree we bought weeks ago (which is, amazingly, still alive because I have been actually remembering to water it), propping up a few of the other trees because the wind we get in our area is brutal to baby trees that have no external support, and getting a quote on the reading nook area in the back yard. We realized that last year we really didn’t do much in to move the back yard forward at all, with the exception of adding another flat of blue star thyme creepers to the rock path around the raised flower bed. And I know Richard especially wants to get a little sitting area out there (plus I want to get the plants in so they can start growing and filling out that bare corner), so we figured we might as well at least get an idea of how much it will cost.

Yesterday before I left work I convinced several of my coworkers to help me load up my car with a dozen or so boxes of old reports from the archiving project I’ve been working on for the past year or so – they’ve been cluttering up the wall by the door and I wanted to get rid of them. The reason they’ve been there so long, however, is because we didn’t want to just throw them all away – it would feel wrong to dump all that perfectly recyclable paper into the land fill. So after meeting with the gardener I hopped into the car and headed off to the recycling center. I ran into my dad just pulling out of the parking lot, so he turned right around and helped me drag heavy boxes out of the car and dump piles and piles of office paper into the bins. Then we sat in the parking lot outside in our respective Prius’s (Prii?) and discussed plans to meet later for lunch.

Back home I tackled laundry, the mound of dishes in the sink, and the various piles of random books and mail and yarn that have been accumulating all over the downstairs, and then it was off to meet my dad for lunch. We were going to go to the little place downtown that sells meat pies and haggis (no I really am not kidding) but they were closed so instead we decided to go to one of our town’s tiny little greasy spoon diners. It’s a fun place just for the experience. They keep a toaster on the table so you can toast your own bread and regulars just go behind the counter and get their own drink refills. The waitress will invariably call at least one person at the table ‘hon’, and the menu lists pretty much every food that a true greasy spoon diner is required to have.

I had a grilled ham and cheese sandwich and oh, it was so good. It’s been so long since I’ve had one of those! My dad and I had fun just sitting and chatting and nibbling sandwiches and fries.

The rest of the day was spent on a myriad of other little errands, including baking two dozen chocolate cupcakes for the kids to decorate on Sunday morning at church. It was actually kind of fun making cupcakes – I haven’t done that in a very long time either. And in the midst of all the errands and running around and getting useful things done, I did sneak in a short nap and also some knitting because after all, it *was* a day off, and surely that deserves at least some snoozing with sleepy cuddly cats and some time with yarn and needles. And I didn’t end up getting everything done I wanted to, but I got most of my list crossed off, and that’s what counts.

This morning I organized my socks. I’m not sure exactly what compelled me to do this, since I was a little rushed for time and I really should have been getting dressed to go meet my mom at Curves, but instead, in the middle of putting away all my laundry I’d washed this past weekend, my brain decided that my sock drawer needed to be organized right then. So I did.

My little spate of organizing actually ended up clearing out a small pile of socks that were getting a little too threadbare, which means there is actually extra space in my sock drawer for a change. Some people might say that it is preferable to have space in one’s sock drawer so one doesn’t have to feel as if one is excavating every time one searches for a missing pair. Those people, however, have not recently discovered the joy of knitting socks. Space in the sock drawer is space to be filled by socks! And what kind of knitter would I be if I did not take that as a challenge?

Speaking of socks, I decided Richard needed a pair, so I whipped them up for him last week. He has larger feet than I do, so his socks took twice as long. I then promptly cast on for a third pair of socks for myself, which I finished rather late Sunday night, specifically so I could wear them today. This did mean, however, that I had to go rummaging through my wardrobe to find a top with purple in it so at least it would match my pretty new socks.

What? Doesn’t everyone plan their outfit around their socks?

On work day mornings, Richard and I have a tendency to eat breakfast together while reading. It’s a nice way to catch up on random reading – either recently received magazines, or something off our well stocked shelves. Short stories and fluffy magazine articles (or books of knitting patterns and techniques from the library) are perfect for breakfast reading because I usually don’t have a whole lot of time, and one of the downfalls of being able to read extremely fast is that I tend to prefer to be able to read through a book from start to finish in one sitting.

This particular book is a rather large collection of a lot of classic fantasy and ghost stories. And while I’m usually willing to give most text the benefit of the doubt and continue to slog on even if it fails to capture my interest, there are a few exceptions. This morning I determined that anything written by Henry James is one of those exceptions.

I tried. I really did try to engage myself in this particular short story (The Jolly Corner). But after three pages of random babble about some nondescript man who might have been building a house or something that might or might not have had a ghost, I just couldn’t care. The style is painful to read – conversations are buried in long rambly paragraphs of unrelated blathering – and even when I forced myself to stop my usual mode of skimming whole lines of text at once to try to read it word for word, I still could not work up any reason to care.

I am sure there are those people out there who adore Henry James’ work, just as I am sure that there are people out there who can read anything written by Hemingway without wanting to gouge out their own eyeballs with whatever sharp object might be handy. Unfortunately I have neither the patience, or the desire, to wade through James’ ponderous text (or Hemingway’s annoyingly repetitive and awkward prose), and after about ten pages of torturous reading I finally gave up and flipped hastily on to the next story the book had to offer.

In the continuing saga of random beeping and mechanical failures at the office, the infrequent beeping continued yesterday, along with the occasional blip in network and phone access. It wasn’t so much a problem most of the time, except when the phone system decided to hang up on one of the more senior partners while she was on hold. Wince.

We finally decided to test the theory that one of the older battery backups had actually gone bad, and transferred everything that was plugged into that box to one of the other backups.

This morning the theory was confirmed. The backup in question apparently decided to give up on the infrequent beeping and started actually screaming. When I got in to work two of my coworkers were staring at it in consternation, since even though they’d unplugged it, it was still yelling its little head off. We tried putting it out on the front porch where it could scream all it wanted yet not annoy us, and then finally figured out how to turn the thing off completely. In the meantime, all network access and phone service seems to be functioning normally. I think at this point we’re all reduced to simply crossing our fingers and hoping that this is finally a fix.

The email has been sitting in my box for two weeks, and prior to that it was another week or two of knowing they were expecting *something* before I sent the query off to the board to try to narrow down what, exactly, they were looking for. Write a bio about yourself, they said. But what does that mean? How long? What sort of information? One or two sentences? A full paragraph? Tell me what you want so I will then know exactly what I can spend the next few weeks dithering about until I finally can’t stand it anymore and just do it.

The problem, you see, is that while I can write about anything else, and do it fairly well, I have a very hard time writing about myself. I suppose that statement comes out a little odd, considering I’m writing these words to post into a journal that’s now in its sixth year of entries about me, but this sort of writing is different. I can be myself here. I can be funny (or at least try). I can be casual. I can be introspective. But most importantly, in this journal I do not have to try to be professional or formal or important. I can just be ordinary me.

Writing a bio for yourself, no matter how short, is an entirely different matter. Because what they really want is for you to write about yourself in a different way. Make the words look formal. Make *you* look formal. And a bio for a church curriculum isn’t exactly the place for self-deprecating humor, no matter how much I might think such a composition would be improved with a little interjection of lightheartedness.

Today, though I finally sat down, held my breath, and hastily wrote it out. I wandered around the house trying to think of the best place to take a picture of myself (did I mention they also wanted a picture?) without having it come out like a police mug shot. In the end I sat in one of the chairs in the library and Richard snapped a shot of me in front of one of our huge shelves full of books. It wasn’t until I was cropping and removing the red eye (because what would a picture of me be without the red eye – sigh) that I realized we’d posed me right in front of Richard’s collection of religious texts. How appropriate.