It’s not so bad as all…

It's not so bad as all that, really. Aside from the Evil Humming Pipe o'Doom, it's awfully nice to be home. Most of my plants survived their month-long abandonment (thanks to some good care from Shannon and Kevin and my sister), and the ones that didn't were on shaky ground before I left anyway (mostly herbs, which apparently don't like how cold it gets next to my windows in December). I've blithely replaced them with pots of red tulips, blue hyacinth, and tiny yellow daffodils. I'm particularly pleased with the hyacinths -- I never appreciated this flower before this year, because I thought it was sort of funny-looking...and it is, but it smells glorious. I must admit, though, that my favorite new plant is my Madagascar Dragon Tree. Mine is not so big as the one in the photo; it is only about as big as my head. But it is happy and healthy and nicely spiky and it has the coolest plant name I've ever heard. I have a deep desire to fill a room with dragon trees, and see whether dragons come to roost in them. I rather think they would. I would, if I were a dragon.

I spent much of yesterday fine-tuning the Foundation website, which should officially launch on Monday, and drafting a press release. When I say much, I mean about 3-4 hours. The rest of the time was spent goofing off, reading Diana Wynne Jones's The Power of Three (fun). And some laundry, oh, and lots of grocery shopping. We were down to chicken broth and bread crumbs, which is not the happiest state of affairs. We needed stuff. Masses of stuff. Many many bags of stuff, not to mention some plants (as mentioned previously), which meant that I actually needed to drive my car to the grocery store (generally a rare event, since the Dominicks is only about five blocks away, and the tiny Greek grocery store is only a block).

It was an adventure getting my car to actually go to the grocery store -- the car was parked a block or so away, and I found the right back tire was half-encased in ice. I kicked away as much as I could, but I still couldn't get the thing to move. Luckily, an elderly gentleman came along who really wanted my parking space, and he talked me through rocking the car back and forth, while he pushed, until after about twenty minutes of this, we managed to get the car actually out of the morass of snow and ice surrounding it. A shovel would have simplified the process enormously, but we do not own a shovel.

I can't believe I've come to live someplace where I need a shovel in order to get to the grocery store. It must be love.

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