We had the carpets cleaned this morning. This year's sponsored "treat" from the management company as a thank-you for renewing our lease for, like, the 20th year in a row or something.

This is good, because it's supposed to be 95 today and by opening the windows and doors and turning on a lot of fans, it means I'll be able to get the carpets mostly dried in 2-3 hours. (The R.C. bailed and went to the mountains with a friend for the day.)

This is bad because--doors and windows all open. It's hot. I can't turn on the a/c.

I'm probably using just about the same amount of electricity I'd be using with the a/c and no fans, but I tell myself I'm putting fewer chemicals into the air or something. (Aside from whatever dangers carpet-cleaning soap fumes might provide.) It's hard to be green when your carpets are wet.

The carpet-cleaners guys were pretty amusing, though. They came in claiming they'd put a specific order in with the apartment management people for me to have lunch ready and waiting for them.

I told them we'd just finished serving and that they'd missed their opportunity.

Mindful of my mother's oft-repeated warnings in my childhood about how walking on a freshly cleaned, still-wet carpet will destroy it forever, I'm not walking on the carpet if I can avoid it at all. Of course, like most USofA apartments these days, this place has wall-to-wall carpeting, so that means I'm unable to move out of my chair or, in a fit of real daring, more than the two steps it takes to get to the PC.

Speaking of computers, I took the laptop in yesterday. I'm proud to announce that a quick review by the Tech Boys revealed--wait for it--user error!

Turns out that a laptop's battery sometimes refuses to release, even when you plug it back in. If you get that weird red light right there where I had a weird red light, next to what might be a symbol representing a broken battery (although I thought it had something to do with the power cord because it looked more like +/- to me and that says electricity, not batteries, but obviously I'm stupid), what you do is you pull the battery out physically, then stick it back in. Problem solved.

A comprehensive warranty means never having to pay a stupidity fee.

Speaking of stupidity, I hear the multiple and conflicting copies of HP7 are already up on the internets. Some people need to get a grip. The actual book is coming out this weekend. They couldn't wait three days?

Yes, I have a copy on order. I have had for several months. However, I can't honestly say that I'm awaiting with bated breath the next developments in this increasingly dark and gloomy fictional universe. (As you might suspect from someone whose favorite author is P. G. Wodehouse, I'm not about "dark" in my fiction. There is no place in my psyche where torture, humiliation, and brutality are labeled "That's Entertainment!")

My teensy-weensy Knit-Lit group is finally gearing up to start. All three of us. We've selected Nora Ephron's I Feel Bad About My Neck as our first Lit.

This will be interesting. I've never belonged to a "reading club" before. I do a lot of reading and occasionally I find someone else reading what I'm reading and we talk about it, but nothing organized. Our first meeting is in a couple of weeks, giving us all plenty of time to make it through all 136 pages. (I'll probably wait until the day before to read it, so it will be fresh in my head.)

I still dabble with my Knit, but I'll admit I'm doing a lot less these days. Summer, when it's 95 outside, is not the time to be sitting around with a lapful of hot wool.

That's pretty much it for excitement in the most recent five hours of my life.