I'd like to take a brief moment to welcome the kitty back to our family fold. After being gone for almost a week, he showed up outside the sliding glass door by our bedroom with a "meow," and he seems to have fared well during his absence. He's slightly thinner, but I think he found food somewhere, and he doesn't have a single scratch. The house feels much more like home with him here.

We finally got phone service hooked up after staging a minor production of "Waiting for PacBell." They gave us a four-hour window to wait on Thursday, but they never showed up, and then we had to wait from 8 to 5 on Friday. Things I did while waiting included:

- hand-washed a bunch of clothes because I really hate going to laundromats
- organized both medicine cabinets
- added "PacBell" to my Official Shit List
- decided to give the keyboard a thorough cleaning, realized that I had no idea what I was doing when keys started to fall off it; spent an hour and a half trying to get everything back in the right place and working again; swore off any future "taking things apart" shenanigans
- cleaned both bathrooms and the kitchen
- thought about stuff I'd like to buy
- painted my nails, knowing that the polish would just get chipped as I continued to unpack
- stared at some of the plants that came with the house; realized that I could fit everything I know about gardening on a 3x5 index card; considered taking pictures and posting them to get help identifying them; wondered where my camera was
- wished I had some beer
- started organizing closets; kept abandoning organization as I found fun, interesting things in the boxes I had packed
- talked to the dogs

Our friend S. is coming over tonight, so I need to hop in the shower and get ready. It's good to be back online and on my way to settled, though. Things might actually be relatively normal soon. It feels nice.