back at my desk. sigh.

Everyone is out today, but they manage to nag me remotely. That's a skill, I suppose.

Yesterday I managed to renew my auto registration and order new plates (since I need to replace the one that disappeared). I'd gone and got an emissions inspection, even though I didn't need to, but they allowed me to register the car for two years so the fee didn't go to waste. Two years from now the car will have about 140,000 miles on it, so if it lasts that long, that'll be a hundred dollars well spent. (Well, $130, including the inspection.) I also got the nice young man at the parts department to come look at the front bumper and tell me there was no point in buying a new base for the front plate, because it wouldn't stay on, so I should just screw the plate directly to the car. Plus he gave me a handful of screws. And then I also, as you saw, got the pictures off my camera at Ritz -- onto a CD, since I can't find my cable. Grar, but at least that other option was available.

A v. productive day. And then I went for a practice with three other singers from my chorus who are doing the music at a girl's wedding from my section. We're doing a sort of festive Kyrie I've never heard before, a kind of call (me) and response (everyone), and Palestrina's Sicut Cervus one on a part, and we sound good! if I do say so myself. That wedding is the same day as Son of a Preacher Man's wedding in North Carolina, so I'm totally singing at the one and then hopping in the car and making a beeline for the airport. It should work out fine. Whee! Thank god it's a long weekend.

Let's see, what else. This morning I have done a quick work thing I had three messages about from yesterday, from people not realizing I wasn't back until today. It took six minutes. I have also tried to contact the allergy-shot people, who are very difficult to reach, but I need to try them again after lunch. Also a little later I'm going to try again to call the voice teacher I contacted weeks and weeks ago; she returned my first call to say she was going to be out of town for a while but would keep my name on her list and call me for a diagnostic lesson when she got back, which would be around 2 July. I think it's been a safe amount of time where I can call her and say "ahem?".

And then poss. I will call my mom and/or my brother. And oh, also, yeah, get some work done.

I know you have all found this fascinating.

hmm. maybe this is an Unpopular Fannish Opinion?

Isn't it interesting that in so many dialects of English, "fiawol" and "firewall" are (so nearly, if not exactly) homophonous?  I have decided that the latter may stand for "fandom is rarely entirely worth a loud lament", or something.  (In happier times, it could be "fandom is really empty without a little laughter.")

Anyway.  In other news, I have been bitten hard by the knitting bug.  My college roommate K, mostly self-taught, taught me how several years ago, and I bought some needles but I never picked up the habit; then Junior Dean S taught me how about a year and a half ago, made me practice, and gave me needles for my birthday.  I got them out again a few weeks ago and practiced until I was relatively confident with the, you know, extreme basics.  And now I'm about eighteen inches into a thirteen-foot scarf, my first real project, and I'm already looking at patterns for socks and hats and going "ooh!"  I own three pairs of straight needles, y'all (fortunately in three different sizes -- 5, 10, and 15, or 3.75, 6, and 10mm), and have made exactly one fraction of one thing on them, and I'm speculating about circulars and DPNs and gah.  Do I know how to join ends of a round?  Of course not.

But here I go.