August 31st, 2005

Home this week on vacation... some vacation it is! Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning... for Diana's arrival Sunday. The news is depressing. The huge hurricane that hit New Orleans, so many people stranded, dying, and dead. So many people hungry, thirsty, DEAD... horrible! And I am caught up in my own little world, cleaning and worrying about the arrival of company that I haven't seen in over 30 years! In the whole grand scheme, this seems insignificant, --and my new DVD Recorder that took all afternoon yesterday to set up! Still isn't quite right, or at least my cable reception stinks now... but I'm caught up in that and got incredibly frustrated at all the trouble I had getting it hooked up and the two calls to Panasonic and the more than half-hour wait on the phone each time, before I got someone, a real person, to talk to.

Well, let's see... I'm knocking around in this house that's probably bigger than I need at this point in my life, though I have a lot of STUFF! I have to say that even though I am on VACATION, and I have a dear friend coming for a visit soon, I am looking forward to going back to work! Strange I guess, but I really like what I do there and I have a routine, though it is demanding and I am not sure how long I'll be able to do it, what with the long commute to Boston, and what's required of me.

OK. I'm a consumer. I'll admit it... I went to Marshall's today and bought some clothes for my return to work and the new school year... This week, I also bought a new microwave oven and a new toaster. I'm a consumer all right! Of course, I can rationalize and say that I needed all of these things, but still I feel guilty. If I'm not worried about something, then I'm feeling guilty. Maybe it's worse at the moment because I'm tired from working so hard today, cleaning... washing floors, vacuuming, gathering up clothes to go to Goodwill... and then going shopping at Marshall's!

So here I sit at my Mac PowerBook, with one of my three cats (Rosko) lying on the table beside my computer, typing away. It's time to turn in I expect, so I can get up early again tomorrow and do some more cleaning and OH, by the way, call my insurance company and tell someone there that a woman in a red minivan hit my car as she was backing out of a space in the supermarket parking lot (Market Basket) and I saw her coming too fast and honked my horn but not soon enough and another woman came up to me when I got out of my car and offered to be a witness, saying that she saw it all and the other woman wasn't looking at all and was going too fast and she gave me her name and phone number... and the woman in the red minivan and I exchanged names, license numbers, phone numbers... and I forgot to get her registration info but she gave me the name of her insurance company and I gave her mine and she said it really didn't matter to her, but that I should probably do something since there is a crack in my bumper (plastic I guess) now...