I finished up my chores, got to to a good stopping place on the cardigan and started my next animal - a pink - hot pink - bear.

Amazon Fresh is due sometime between 2 and 3. I got a reminder email from them this morning and another one at 1:30. I haven't forgotten yet. They'd be smart to get here closer to 2 than 3. The Sounder game will be over about 3 and there will be traffic.

It's hot hot out. I wonder how Qwest Field is down in that bowl. I'll be no breeze and more than a little toasty. Those nice blue and green team colors will get a lot of pink as an add on shade today.

I'm grateful to the max for my wonderful little air conditioner.

No animal today!! I'm starting a sweater. For me. It's been years since I've made a sweater and I'm crocheting this one. I've never done that before. I killed four hours last night starting and ripping and restarting. Now I think I'm on the right track.

I can knit by feel. I can knit in the dark. Crocheting takes concentration and I have to look at every single stitch. It's exhausting.

So it's not going to be difficult to stop and knit an animal. Switching back and forth will work fine, I think. The animals have to be done and I don't exactly need the sweater right now.

Not the ideal for computing but who could resist this kind of kitty love?

30 minutes on the treadmill - 2.8 will the Rolling elevation program. It was good. There weren't a lot of people there this morning. The gym queen wasn't there and the old (probably my age) long haired bicycling guy wasn't there. But the really nice guy who works the front desk sometimes during the week was there. He was working out with a buddy and gave me a big ole' hello. I have got to find out his name. He has the greatest smile.

I now have sweat running down my back into the crack of my ass - TMI, you think? Ok shower.

My neighbor from down the hall, Ann, came in this aft to catch up on last night's Mariner's game, today's trade, etc. and she said "Oh! You can do that google thing, can't you?"

She proceeded to tell me about this discussion she and husband, Ron, heard on the radio in the car this afternoon about Obama looking at some girl's ass. She wanted to see the photo.

I made her sidle up to the computer. I opened up a Chrome tab and typed "Obama looks at girl's ass" into the address bar. She was cracking up, thinking I was kidding.

The first link brought up a blog which linked to Drudge and bingo, there was the picture.

She was so impressed. I pointed out that she and Ron could do it. I keep telling them to fire up Google and let 'er rip. I don't think she ever believed me until today.

I'm guessing she and Ron are probably ass deep into some hot porn this afternoon.




Oh and I showed her the webcam. So if they haven't found the porn, maybe they are checking up on me.

I made my trek south and it was an adventure. First I scoped out the two yarn places - found them and got the goods. (This place is a maze of strip malls and stand alone stores and a giant mall. There are lots of streets and very few street signs and no street numbers on the stores. Before GPS, it was a horrible place to go if you didn't know exactly where you were going. Now it's a piece of cake!)

Then I stopped at Petco to get a Bolt. Travis and Betty are in for a treat.

Then on to Target. I figured out (with the help of the building manager) why Amira's vacuum keeps blowing my fuses... it's the air conditioner! I need to plug the air conditioner into a different fuse. So I got a hefty (but attractive, it is Target, after all) extension cord.

Then on to the mall. They built this mall last year and I had only read about it. I had never been in it. Or, actually, in any big mall in several decades. Holy moly rockin roly! What a different world that is. A younger, hipper world. I wandered around like ET with my eyes bugged out.

I kept stopping to take pictures of freaky things only to realize probably everyone in the world has seen these things but me. So I just walked around and pretended it was the treadmill with great visuals. It was fun.

Oh and Annie's Attic pretzels? Excellent.

Now home and I have work work to do.

Nice adventure. It was.

And doesn't he kind of have his neener neener face on?

Leaving now for the burbs... looking for yarn. I have a list. Wonder if I have gas?

This kitty is nearly done. He's pretty awesome looking in person. The yarn was an experiment. Sadly, it's really too expensive for routine animal work but it is sure nice - soft and a fun color combo.

Amira and another one of her daughters swooped in this afternoon and an hour and a half later swooped out and left sparkling clean in their wake. I love these people! This time they brought a Miele vacuum cleaner. I did not know this but Miele vacuum cleaners are very quiet! I never heard anything like that before. It was amazing.

We have discovered between this time and last that none of the outlets on the south wall of the condo can accommodate a vacuum cleaner. Plug one in and boom - there goes the fuse. Probably I should get that looked at.

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I found a new browser this afternoon for my phone. Skyfire. It's cute clean and has a nice zoom mechanism. But I think it may be a little too new for me. You have to create an account to get your settings saved and participate in the forum. You can only create an account on the phone (not on the PC). This is not fast or easy and every time I tried, after I filled everything out, I got a message saying that registration was down. Then I discovered that there was no way to import bookmarks.

Fail. Maybe I'll try when it gets a little older.

Next try will be Opera.

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Betty has a new cat bed. I ordered new beds for both of them but the other one hasn't come yet. I replaced the one that Travis liked with this new one. (My plan is to swap them around for cleaning and also variety.) They both sniffed around it and then Travis snuggled into Betty's old bed and Betty just said 'ok for you, I'm taking the new one!'



I think it's up side down but by the time I figure that out, Betty was all snuggled in and didn't seem to care.

Having their own beds seems to cut down a bit on furniture cat hair.

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I'm grateful for many things - especially lately. I am blessed with luck and good fortune. But tonight, I am most grateful for the Ben & Jerry's Vanilla Heath Bar Crunch that is in the freezer and wasting for me. For some reason, it is hard to find Vanilla Heath Bar Crunch this Summer but I finally got lucky.

I think it was the squats. I think that's what did the back of my thighs in yesterday. Today I did 15 minutes on the elliptical machine and 15 minutes on the recumbent bike and they still are not happy. But, I'm done. So there.

The ING Direct coach was in the classroom with his coach-ee's - they are quite the spectacle. He sets up stations and they go from one to the next, grunting and scowling. Lots o' testosterone in that room.

Shower time here.

I need more coffee but Betty is settled into the middle of my lap like a silky present so I figure I'll write a journal entry instead.

The tornado cleaner, Amira, is due here this afternoon. I need to pick up the stuff in the kitchen before she gets here. I don't clean before the cleaner comes, but I do like to make sure she doesn't waste time trying to figure out where to put stuff.

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I ordered from Amazon Fresh. Their selection is good and their prices are pretty darned good. They also give you a target 'sell by' date on the perishables which is very cool. I do not want to buy a half gallon of milk with a sell by date of tomorrow. I've never seen another online grocery who provided this info. It is good. They have no delivery charge for order totally more than $30 which is very reasonable, I think. And, cheaper than Safeway (which I think is the only general grocery that delivers left - I think the others quit).

They also have tight delivery windows which is lovely. I picked Saturday afternoon from 2-3.

The next test will be to see if they deliver everything. My last couple of Safeway tries arrived with key items marked 'out of stock'.

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Tomorrow I'm heading down to a southern suburb where there is a giant mall and lots of chain stores. I need yarn from either Michaels or Joann's. Normally, I'd head east to Bellview but they are working on one of the bridges and I do not want to get caught up in a mess of traffic so south it is. I could order online but I want it now and since it's for a sweater for me, I want to do some feeling. Plus, THE work project has been pushed out yet again so I won't be busy.

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I think now would be a good time to head over to the gym. Nadia's little routine yesterday locked up the muscles in the back of my thighs... they need the bike or the treadmill or something. I guess I'll go find them something.

This yarn is heaven to work with, unfortunately the skein isn't big enough to do a whole animal. So this kitty will have turquoise paws and maybe even ears.

Today was my first 30 minute weekly session with Nadia. I like it way way better than the hour long version (which we only did every other week). It's more consumable and more doable. I feel like I can give it my all from the beginning instead of having to keep some energy in reserve.

I love that she starts the very minute I get there and went even past a little because Bob was late. Bob is this wonderful retired lawyer who is in his late 70's I think and is just a delight to watch and he's one of Nadia's favorites.

Anyway, great session. All good.

The only thing keeping this elephant from the green chair are his eyes. They will, of course, be purple.

I'm waiting for a new pattern book I ordered and if it is what I expect, I may soon be making my first sweater in years. The pattern is by a designer I have wanted to try for a long time - Doris Chin - who's doing interesting, different stuff... with crochet!

I cannot abandon my animals so I'm going to have to work the sweater into the mix without screwing up my production. Maybe limit the crochet until after I have done x amount of animal knitting each day? I don't know quite how I'm going to work it out but I'm looking forward to the new project. The pattern is due to arrive here tomorrow.

My big work project keeps getting put off and put off. It's looking more and more now like it will be next week. Meanwhile my next paycheck is going to be skinnnnnnnyyyyyyy.

Of course, when there is no work, I have plenty of time to shop.

What's wrong with this picture?

On the upside we have cool for at least through tomorrow. And I'm loving it.

If the Mariner game of tonight is anything like last night (we just dominated Baltimore) that will be even more to add to the gratitude list.

And, hopefully, after today, we'll get just a little less than solid 24-hour NEW DEVELOPMENTS about Michael Jackson on the news. I still have to get past tonight's TV news casts but I think I've set TiVo to record them and I think I'll wait and fast forward through the MJ-ness.

So, to round up. No news. All fine. Ready and waiting for work, cool-ly.

And another elephant is born... or nearly.

I've enjoyed my mid-morning workout times but I thought today, I'd go back to earlier just for a change. It was nice - fun to see old familiar faces.

I did 30 minutes at 2.8 with half of one elevation program and the second half with the other. It was good. I am sweaty.

Tomorrow I start my once a week 30 minute sessions with Nadia. Wednesdays at 10:30.

July starts off with color diversity!!

I got an email from Amazon this morning saying that my zip code is now available for Amazon Fresh. I've heard a lot of great things about their grocery delivery service. Their prices and selection (at least the stuff I would buy) seems pretty darned excellent. Their delivery fees and time slots are way better than Safeway's. They sent a $10 off coupon which has to be used by next Monday so I guess I'll be working up an order... of heavy stuff - kitty litter and cat food for sure.

Overnight, we went from swelter to sweet. Last week at this time of day, my terrace thermometer got into the high 90's several times as the sun just fried it's little soul. Right now it's at a wonderful, heavenly, oh so welcome 65 degrees. And there is even a little spit of misty rain. And it looks like this will be the story for the next several days which will give this condo a chance to cool down.

Thankyoujesus!

Work promises to be slow again today so my game plan is to use the day to get little stuff done.

I've been thinking about how to give better guidance to my personal chefs (both Karen and Tom). I think Tom may be better at suggesting meal ideas than Karen but it wouldn't hurt either of them for me to come up with stuff on my own so that's my plan. Last night I went to the library (online) and looked up books with recipes for freezing meals. I was able to get a nice little group and requested they be sent to my branch. I should be able to get some good ideas from those.

I discovered last night that Netflix has this deal where you can suspend your subscription for several months - no services but no payments either. I think I'm going to try that. I spent a long time yesterday looking for something I wanted to see in the Play Now section and couldn't come up with anything that interested me. My DVD queue is skimpy. Even on the one-at-a time plan, I've got more than I have time to watch. So I think when I get close to the next payment,I'll suspend for a few months and see how a Netfix-free life works. Renting a $3.00 movie from Amazon every once in a while even with their stupid rules, is probably a better deal for me than $13 a month for a service I rarely use.

I gave my flower bouquet a refresh this morning - new water and cut a bit off the stem ends. They look beautifully fresh and amazing. What a wonderful thing.