Reading: Robin McKinley, The Blue Sword

Moving: We maybe went for a walk

House: I met RDC at the house after work. He'd been there washing walls and spackling all day. I don't think I moved anything, but I brought a big box home on the bus

19 May 2000: Laundry

I enjoyed a little house epiphany this morning. I waited up for RDC last night, or said I was; but of course I didn't sleep as well on the couch in my glasses with the televsion on and the illusion of wakefulness than I would have warm in my bed with a naked face and no tv. So this morning I treated myself to Starbucks. Perhaps coffee wouldn't be such a treat, calorie-wise, if I could tolerate it in any form other than a frappuccino. I don't like coffee unless RDC makes it. I dumped the coins from my wallet into my palm and made change from anything that wasn't a quarter. For almost fourteen years, sinceI was 18, except for summers in my mother's house and two years in grad school when I rented rooms in private houses, I have needed quarters for laundry. The greed for quarters, which are worth far more than 25 cents apiece, is habitual now.

No longer.

I tend to cling to Connecticut quarters anyway, mostly because I'm from Connecticut and partly because they are far superior to any other state's design, but now I don't need any. I hugged my coworker gleefully and dropped more than a dollar's worth of non-Connecticut quarters in the tip jar.

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Last night I tried to make a videotape for my parents. I'll either have to dub it or have one parent send it to CLH for her to send to the other parent. Last night it didn't rain as it did Wednesday, but between clouds and the evening hour there wasn't a lot of light.

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Blake was unamused Wednesday. He doesn't often go someplace new. He likes to go for walks in his little travel cage and he likes to go for car rides and he likes the vet, but the house scared him. Perhaps because it was cold or empty or maybe it was just too new. Also he is afraid of Booboo, and of course I had my bear with me. I try to respect his fear of my precious aged bear and seldom does he ever see old Boo, but for me, for the house, I wanted both my buddy and my bear. Instead of with sage, I smudged the house with lavender incense Nisou gave me, which meant that, to keep the bird as far as possible from the smoldering incense, he even had to be on the same side as the bear. An evening full of insults.

I also set up the Discman and a small pair of speakers so I could smudge to the accompaniment of Passion. After I went through the whole house, I sat in a corner of the living room listening to the end of the album, reading Harold and the Purple Crayon to Blake.

Today, RDC is there with Blake again, with primer and TSP and tools. He brought his own music; besides Passion, Deadicated and the complete Cowboy Junkies, he doesn't like much that I brought. I will join him after work, and then we'll go buy our first furniture, a patio set, for our guests on Sunday. I hope CostCo still has the teak table and chairs we saw a few weeks ago.

I first spelled "complete" as "compleat," but the archaic spelling doesn't work for the Junkies. For the Beatles, of course, and maybe Jethro Tull. Not for my band.

Twelve days to that, eleven days to Jane Smiley, ten days till we lock up the apartment for the last time, eight days till furniture-moving, six days to my birthday, two days to Beth and Jenn.