Reading: Books on Craftsman houses and Dreamweaver for Dummies and Martin Amis's The Information

Moving: Not much

15 April 2000: Agreement

Aha! I have to turn off PC compatibility when I unload the camera, and then Fiver won't crash. I haven't got into the habit of frequently emptying it but do so only when the chip is full of its 83 shots. Maybe that will change.

My grandmother has become delusional and increasingly paranoid and suspicious. I knew that as soon as she lost her cat, this would happen. She lost her cat because she transferred to a nursing home when her residential care facility could not manage her pain, and while the residential place allowed Squeaky, the nursing home does not. I did not suggest this cause-and-effect to my mother, because my mother would dismiss the idea, but I squarely believe that focusing her attention and affection on Squeaky was the last thing Granny had to care about. Without it, she is failing.

I just sent her a letter with a photograph from The Rocky Mountain News of a magpie riding an elk in Rocky Mountain National Park. Magpies, the remoras of Moraine Park.

We went to Restoration Hardware last night to see what we could see. We are yuppies, or whatever yuppies have morphed into. RDC's and my taste in furniture and home decor overlap more than has our taste in anything else in the nearly eight years we've been together. He can enjoy Bob Dylan without me and, except for "Lay Lady Lay" and that new song that's in "Wonder Boys," that's how I prefer to keep it. If we disagreed about furniture as much as we do about Georgia O'Keeffe, we would end up painting a big stripey line (did you catch the slant Kate Bush rhyme?) down the middle of the house. However, we don't.

I like the Mission furniture Restoration Hardware featured. It is handmade and seemed to my inexpert eye quite high quality stuff. I particularly liked how the three-dimensional oak grain reminded me of Phoebe's furniture. Oh, and there was a card-catalog CD case that I craved. I'm a librarian, at least in my head.

Yesterday Dot Org had a 25th anniversary bake-off. I didn't make cookies for it, but my friend Bob (the female bodybuilder) made chocolate-chip cheesecake and key lime pie and fudge brownies. A pastry chef and a bodybuilder. Not the most common of juxtapositions. Anyway, the 25th anniversary aspect including some historical trivia, and all the raciest personal stories involved Dot Org librarians. People perceive librarians as so repressed, and that perception makes our flamboyance seem all the wilder.

The best trivia question involved not a former but a current Dot Orgerista: "What current Dot Org staff member refused to allow then-governor Bill Clinton into a function?" Dot Org, being a dot org and therefore nonprofit, only had seats for invitees. The person at the door had the guest list, which included some but not all the governors' names and none of their faces. When someone demanded entrance but had neither invitation nor identification in hand nor, it would seem, a manner in his head, the Dot Orgerista didn't let him in. I personally admire this woman's ovariness in standing up against what I imagine was a lot of bluff, sexistly charming brashness. I told her so, and she said that's exactly how he was--expecting her to be cowed. She is not easily cowed. This person is, of course, CoolBoss.

(When Dot Org recently invited current President Bill Clinton to another function, we all asked her please to let him in this time, even if he didn't have an invitation on him or any photo id. It's a favorite Dot Org story, but a worthy trivia question because we always have new people.)

(Speaking of face recognition, Colorado's last-but-one governor, Roy Romer, was always a low-tech kind of guy and didn't have drivers and guards and things. Arriving at DIA for a flight to California, he didn't have his wallet. At DIA he had no problem because enough people recognized him that he was allowed on the plane without photo id. Another passenger in first class lent him fifty bucks. However, in LAX on the way home, no one recognized him and no one wanted to let him on the plane. Luckily, he had a Denver Post with his photo on the front page, and that served as his photo id.)

Back to furniture. We looked in other furniture stores and, in comparison, saw nothing as well made--drawers squeaked and didn't pull, gouges flawed surfaces, lots of veneer. Ick.

Also, the furniture stores' various inorganic rooms schemes meant that we saw a lot of color palettes. Pale sage walls, cream ceiling, white trim. That's what we developed on our own and then we saw it in action and now that's what we like. I can't believe we're agreeing this much. It's so unlike us.

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And I heard from PSA for the first time since Christmas. That's because I wrote to him, also for the first time since Christmas. A few weeks ago, just as CBS Sunday Morning went to commercial, Charles Osgood announced that Robert B. Parker, mystery writer, would be in the next segment. PSA loved the Spenser series (even before it became a stupid tv series). After meeting PSA, I read one Spenser mystery, PSA's favorite (Early Autumn, IIRC), but even love of PSA didn't overcome my dislike of mysteries overall. Anyway, I taped the segment and mailed it off. PSA said he mentioned Speaking Confidentially in the class he's teaching in Japanese lit. Huh.

Oh, right, pictures.

Friday, the 31st of March.

RDC in Cassidy on April Fool's Day. He's wearing a turtleneck, fleece vest, and jeans, and suffered mightily that day.

I like his grin.

So Friday it snowed, and Saturday it was hot enough for this cotton shirt and shorts. I don't know where RDC got the idea for jeans and fleece. This is as good as my hair gets, right after a professional has had his way with it, which is the only reason I'm wearing it loose.

I can never cut my hair again. This is after two cuts, the uneven one and the even one, twice as much as should have come off. This looks short to me. If I cut my hair ever again in my life, I will feel bald. (My hair grows really slowly.)

The next day it would snow again, and we'd house-hunt in jeans and fleece and become very wet and cold.

Most of the other pictures are of the house.