That's how I feel today.

Not physically, but mentally. I have 20 days (while the 'Nuts are largely absorbed in the busy season rush) to decide what, if any, changes I should make to their advertising based on data from the new website structure. I realized about ten minutes ago that 60 days just isn't enough data to base any major alterations on, so now I'm sitting here, pretending I'd be doing something worthwhile with my time if I weren't at the office.

Fuss. Fuss. Fuss. So much to do, so little motivation when I'm not at work. Drawing to practice (I'm going to get back into it), knitting projects to work on, books to read, dvds to watch, recipes to experiment with, etc. Sigh.

I have a box o'books and a set of dvds ready to send to the L-i-K-S. Fortunately I'm a world-class procrastinator and I got them packed up but did not get them sent this weekend. "Fortunately" because I'd forgotten she was moving. She sent me her new address this morning. I'll re-address the box tonight and, with a bit of effort, get it to the post office one day this week.

Saturday, I got up and worked for a couple of hours.

Then the R.C. and I decided to do something together--something different. We headed over to Northfield (in old Stapleton, where the airport used to be) to check out the new-style "outdoor walking mall" they'd built there.

That was a bit of an adventure. Owing to an unfamiliarity with that part of the highway, we missed the poorly marked exit we'd been heading for and wound up circling about 220 compass degrees around our destination before we found a through street. (This, mind you, for a mall that is right beside the highway. When you drive past, it looks to be about a 30-second hop to get there.**)

I'll give them this--parts of the area can easily be walked. The big anchor stores (Target, Macy's, JCPenny's, etc.) would be a bit of a hike, especially if you made heavy purchases, but they're reasonably close. (Less than a quarter-mile.) The walking part is mostly non-chain stores or smaller, boutique kinds of stores. We tried on many things. The R.C. was tempted by (and fell for) a necklace. I bought a pair of $8 shorts.

The day was notable only for the restaurant we found, an Asian place called Ling and Louie's. The R.C. had the teriyaki beef (made with filet mignon) and I had the teriyaki chicken. Both were absolutely delicious. The R.C. was feeling a touch delicate, digestion-wise, so I demanded both her and my leftovers to take home.

I got 'em, too, and I've been enjoying them every day since. (You know what I call value? I call a $22 meal "value" when two people have lunch, then there are leftovers for five or six more meals.)
Adventure-wise, the R.C. was pretty much done but I was still eating (as in, still chewing) when the meal ended. Our Little Server Boy showed up at the table with our leftover/takeout boxes and proceeded to shovel the remainder of our food into them.

I had my chopsticks still in my hand. I was still chewing. What part of that picture do you think he interpreted as, "she is done eating now"?

In my next life, I want a more useful superpower than the ability to send service staff nutsoid the moment I appear on the horizon.

(This morning I was passing by some building HVAC techs here at the office and one of them stopped me and asked if it would be okay if they turned the A/C off for ten minutes to install a new part. Why were they asking me?)

Saturday evening was the little treat from 1977, Tentacles. Long-time sufferers on this blog know of my fondness for finding old monster movies--the cheesier the better. What I like is creature features.

This one was bad--but not really in a good way, you know? ( I mean, I had my doubts when the body count was initiated with an eight month-old baby.) I won't ruin it for you, but I did want to mention how very amusing and unusual some aspects were.

For instance, there was almost no incidental music. It's so ubiquitous in moves these days that you hardly notice it's there, but I have learned that you notice if it isn't. It was difficult to stay in the plot--when nothing in particular is happening onscreen and it's not happening in complete silence. It takes very little time before your mind starts to wander.

Also? I know nothing about the director or most of the actors, but I'm assuming the director was either terminally pretentious or g*a*y*. In place of the scantily clad female bodies that litter the screens of today's low-budget films, we got--legs. Lots of legs. Young male legs. (I swear, there was one part of the movie where the camera hadn't panned above a young man's calves for fifteen minutes.) Yes, they were nice calves and I did appreciate the opportunity to admire them, but it's more difficult to figure out who's who if you're never shown anyone's face.

The movie ended with two attractive young men going off together to start a new life.

O-kay.

Sunday, I got up and worked for three or four hours. Then it was Chore Day. I did some sewing and mending that's been piling up. (Just the odd droopy hem or missing button.) I cleaned in a half-hearted way. Porcelain in the kitchen and bath. Floors ditto. Some dusting. Cleaning counters. Tidying up piles o'piled-up-stuff.

Bein's* as I'm back on the diet, I also whacked up a pre-cooked turkey breast and a quarter of a watermelon and got them ready for weekday lunches. Those, a non-fat yogurt, and a baked potato (with salsa, not butter) are what I eat during the week, during the day. If it wasn't for binging in the evenings, I'd be thin!

With my bonus I also indulged myself in a few inexpensive "just for me" DVDs and a couple of books. Sunday is also (as I've mentioned) Being Happy day, so I started one of my new books and watched one of my new dvds.

Sunday evening's creature feature was Empire of the Ants. As a movie based on an H. G. Wells story, it really should have been better than it was. I suspect that that first 45 minutes where we established the sexual and financial peccadilloes of various characters was a Hollywood addition. I do give them credit for trying to establish some characterization, but it meant that the real heart of the story (I won't spoil it for you) was crammed willy-nilly into a half-hour or so block of time at the end of the movie. That block would have made a great movie.

Okay, that killed 30 minutes.

What else?

Yesterday the A/C went out here at the office and I went home to work when the temperature in here reached about 90 or 92. Then, last night, it got so cool that I had to sleep with my window shut. Very odd weather.

Oh! And I've introduced (via email) Gidget and Bernie. I have informed both of them that from now on, the initial and client-contact parts of Bernie's accounts are her problem, not mine.

That's a load off my mind.

I'm pretty sure I've actually done some interesting things recently, but I can't remember any of them right now.

On the calendar hanging by my desk, the 28th of this month is marked as, "28z" and it's bothering me. It's not a holiday (those are marked differently) and it's not something I can find on any other month. Just August 28th.

28z

28z

28z!

28z!

No matter how you punctuate it, it remains insignificant.

______________

* L-i-K-S - I did that just for you. Heh.

** Driving around Denver involves remembering two rules.
1) You can see it, but you can't get there from here; and
2) If you haven't been here before, we don't want you back.