intertext

Like lidocafe, I have had a pleasantly relaxing day, without recourse to any serious work. Procrastination begins in earnest as soon as essays and assignments start coming in. Anyway, today I have been busy, but have not accomplished much of note, and feel relatively content that it should be the case.

I started off fairly early, with my after-a-year x-ray and checkup of my bionic hip. I seemed to be emitting magnetic rays of some kind, because the parking machine at the surgeon's office and then the x-ray machine had hiccups, and later a couple of other machines failed in my presence as well. The x-ray technician was cheery, even though my magnetic emissions meant that we had to move to a different room, and then the pictures didn't turn out and had to be redone (see, I told you - these emissions were powerful!). The surgeon who gave me my new hip has retired, so I met a new one today, who was youngish (maybe in his late thirties or early forties) and quite good looking. I was sitting in my underwear on the bed thing with this stupid paper sheet over my legs, and he said "let me see you walk" - so I jumped down and strode across the room in my undies, completely not bothered, until HE said "oh, didn't the nurse speak to you about wearing shorts..." and I said "yes, for next time" and he said "yes, well a lot of people don't feel comfortable wearing a gown," and blah blah blah, but the upshot was that he made me feel all self-conscious when I hadn't before! Just as well I wasn't wearing a thong!

Anyway, all reports are fine, my hip is still there and hasn't gotten loose or anything, so I don't have to go back again for another year (when I will wear shorts)

Home to find an Amazon delivery - two books! The new Robin McKinley and Fans, Bloggers and Gamers by Henry Jenkins, which I wanted to read because of some things I'm thinking about writing.

Thence with dogs to drop On Chesil Beach back at the library, pick up a few things at Blockbuster, the liquor store and Save-On, and then to Madrona Farms where I purchased salad greens, arugula, and tsai choi, and then a walk (the dogs said FINALLY) at Mt. Doug.

This afternoon I felt compelled to tidy my kitchen and my living room, and would do some dusting and vacuuming, except then I would have nothing left to do to procrastinate with, and I have marking to do, but will, I think, leave it till tomorrow. Dogs are just about to be taken for their second walk.

After that, I will make cauliflour cheese for supper, watch Coronation St and something on dvd, as yet to be determined.

And all the while, it's a blazingly lovely Fall day. I love this kind of weather - sunny but crisp and cool.
Is it the last day of summer today? I can't remember.

When I went to clear up on the deck this morning, it looked like a scene out of The Amazing Maurice and His Trained Rodents (or whatever it's called), you know, the one where the whole crew of rodents go into a bakery and raise hell.

For the past few weeks, I've been hearing the patter of tiny feet on the deck, and there was some, shall we say, "evidence" of furry visitors. I couldn't think what they were after, except I had noticed a few bite marks in one or two tomatoes, and someone seemed to be Italian, with a real taste for fresh basil. No - that wasn't the real target. I have a very heavy plastic box, in which I store bird seed, and on investigation, I discovered that the little buggers had chewed a hole right through one corner of it, and had been having a lovely time feasting on its contents. So, ready for garbage day, I dumped all the seed and washed the deck. Well. This morning, they obviously came looking for their usual cafeteria options, and not finding any, had what obviously passes for a rodent hissy fit. There were droppings ALL OVER the deck. My tomato plant has been completely stripped (about 8 ripening tomatoes gone). They'd been into a hanging flower basket, ripped bits out of it and tossed them all over the place. It was "Take THAT, human - this is what you get for depriving us of yummy bird seed!" I think tonight I may put Clio the cat on guard duty. She's always telling me she wants to stay outside at night - well she can have her carpetted cat house in a dry corner and hang out there. Let her earn her keep for a while.

Meanwhile, indoors, I've been having a Fall invasion of cupboard moths. When I began to feel like a wrangler for a horror movie every time I opened a cupboard door, I decided it was time to have a purge of old cracker boxes, forgotten bags of nuts meant for cooking or whatever. While I was at it, I had a condiment purge, as well, pouring buckets of old teriyaki sauce, walnut oil and goodness knows what else down the sink and chucking all the bottles in my spare recycling box. There was a lovely sort of Oriental soupy smell in the kitchen and now my shelves are clean, organized and moth-free. A very satisfactory way to spend the morning.