There is a car with leather seats whose commercial uses "How Soon is Now?" from the well-known vegetarian Morrissey's band the Smiths' album Meat Is Murder.

I picked up the last of the Seattle reprints today. I refuse to go to Wolf Camera ever again--for at least a month.

Then I picked up a wild rice salad at Organic Orbit and sat on the grass in the Plaza reading Scientific American. This summer has been light on the reading on the grass under a tree. Both at home and at work, the grass is always damp. It's not sprinkled here, it's over-irrigated. Today I found a dry spot.

I don't often read Scientific American. "Often" as in "ever since thumbing through it as a page at Phoebe," but someone left a copy in the breakroom and it had an article on Gödel so I snagged it. I always read a magazine front to back if at all possible, so I haven't got to that article yet; the earlier articles were interesting enough that I didn't skip them. Last week I read a New Woman the same way.

Yesterday we went to Red Rocks for a quick hike. I think we're both in better shape because the usual trail didn't leave us panting. We talked about possible web projects for me, ones e'er so slightly more technically demanding than the bulk of my pages. Erg. Otherwise it was a beautiful day, perfectly blue and clear. I think they probably make days like Monday at the same factory they make cockatiel eyelashes.

A thin line of hills separates Red Rocks from the plains. These are called hogbacks. In Boulder they're flatter and sharper and called the Flatirons. Neither is my favorite of the small hill formations we have here. My favorite are the series of low, gentle bumps that I call buffalo hills (they're not foothills at all but occur on the plains). Remember in The Magician's Nephew when the animals emerged from the earth? These bumps are much bigger than regular bison, but there could be bison under them, titan ones. They're oval, steeper on one shorter end than the other, and they're covered in grass except at their crests, where sage brush flourish. Just like a furry bison with a shoulder hump of thick fur.

Before Red Rocks RDC scampered off to the mall to exchange two shirts that ended up being the wrong size. The Dillard's salesman measured his arm an inch too short--it's only his job, the doofus--and they ended up not carrying his right size anyway. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I scrubbed the deck. Man, I was in a pissy mood. Spiders. City filth. Dust. Leaves. A screaming cockatiel frustrated at the lack of attention. No pinchbugs, anyway. I want to get plastic tubs with lids so those can get filthy but not the grill or the goddamn crap from the trunk of the Terrapin that's sat out there for three months as a car-on-blocks substitute that RDC only yesterday got around to telling me was all trash. I didn't believe him and looked through the crap, found a few pens and the mini tape recorder and one of those cup holders for the car window that I also despise.

The deck was just a disaster this year anyway, with only a few determined petunias surviving to August and absolutely no clean-up attempted until Labor Day. I swore like Yosemite Sam ("ratzen fatzen ratzen...") plus I said "Oh I hate rabbits" a few times, just for good measure. I was about done, and done for, when RDC strolled up, all groomed and cool in his pressed shirt (salespeople do treat you better when you're dressed), and offered me a mocha frappucino. My braid had unraveled into my eyes at that point and my bathtub (I showered the chairs) and I were beyond disgusting and Blake had long since been covered up. The coffee cheered me up, which surprised me. I was ready to grump for the rest of the day.

Did I mention that I vacuumed the whole house (three rooms) before he left and got it all neatly napped and then he put on his hiking boots and got tread marks everywhere? Just like my other grandmother.

Last night I didn't dream about Beth but about my youngest babysitting child who is now starting her freshling year of school (that quiz must be bothering me).