Generalisimo Franco is still dead and other updates

Hello.

Um ...

OK, I guess I don't have much to report. And what I do have to report certainly doesn't fit into tidy paragraphs, but what the hell--here it is:

1. Apple computer sent me the Fed Ex tracking information for the laptop they're sending me to replace the one that broke either five or six times in two years. So far the laptop has traveled from California to Tennessee and is now skulking around on some depot or warehouse somewhere in Chicago. Which means that if all goes well, on Monday I will have a brand new, blazing fast, smokin' hot laptop with wireless DSL. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

2. I made another Target run, ostensibly to return a video game that was the wrong game system (X Box instead of PS2. Hey, what do I know? I'm old. And anyway, we're a Nintendo family.) Anyway, I really went mental. AGAIN. I am not exaggerating for humorous effect, here, either. When I left, I was pushing a full-to-overflowing shopping cart and pulling another.

3. It's turning into fall around here, which would be great except that I haven't even started the whole shifting-the-closet-from-insane-looking-resort-wear-to-rather-more-grown-up-looking-clothing-that-adults-wear thing I have to do at the end of the summer. It involves a lot of trips up and down stairs as I get stuff out of trunks and pack other stuff away. So I'm wardrobe-challenged. This would be OK, except tonight we're going to my friend Pam's for dinner. Pam is extremely style-conscious, which would ordinarily be surprising in someone with a doctoral degree from the University of Chicago, except that unlike me, Pam actually finished and went on the job market and is now an Associate Professor of film studies or the like--and filmies dress kewler than anyone else on the planet. Also, I'm still working off some of the lobster, corn on the cob, and blueberry pie I consumed in August, which means that the few clothes I have available are not only not really in season, they're kind of tight. So I have to go rummaging around to find some larger-sized transitional-seasoned clothes, hooray! And I have an hour to do it.

4. The good news is that That Stud Muffin I Married and I will be going out without our children, which, come to think of it, hasn't happened in a few weeks.

5. More good news is that being a Brownie Scout Leader is slightly less nauseating than being a Cub Scout Den Mother. Also, the uniforms are less ugly. Can I have a calloo, callay, here, people!

--P.