It was a tough day at work, I de-stressed by wasting an hour browsing in a discount store (I had something to return, it gave me an excuse to browse), after picking up 4 dresses, a dress shirt, two t shirts and a pair of shorts, I ended up hanging the rest on a random rack and only getting the shorts (for Matt) and the t shirt (for me). I didn't realize I'd spent an hour zig-zagging the aisles until I looked at my watch while waiting to pay and realized how spaced-out and hungry I was. My lunch salad had worn off a little before quitting time.

After I got home I had an insanely delicious egg sandwich with chianti-flavoured salami and sat down to watch Universal Soldier with a tequila lemonade at my elbow. It sucked SO MUCH that I gave up after about 45min (or less) and wandered back to the computer room to look up sock yarn for my planned Christmas presents. Yes, I said sock yarn. Searching for sock yarn to go with my selected patterns is more interesting than Jeanne Claude Van Damme's butt and a bunch of gunfire. I am all in favour of movies that are so bad they end up being good, but this one has not made the cut. Give me a good cheesy Doris Day movie any day, I can keep track of the "action" without looking up frequently from my hands, which makes it perfect to combine my movie-watching hobby with my knitting hobby.

My first pair of socks turned out to be sock-shaped and wearable, though a little small for my wide feet, so I gave them away. Now my plan is to follow up last year's basic scarves for everyone, with socks for everyone, with the addition of my Granny, who has no need for a scarf, but wears socks daily. I am realizing that growing up in a cold-ish climate has made me inordinately fond of warm fuzzy things, good jackets and pretty sweaters. Matt also comes from a cold climate, colder than Scotland in the winter, we have an impressive and seldom-worn wardrobe of jackets.

Butterball

Marble the bowling-ball-belly is on a diet. She just had a checkup and has gained another pound, almost two, and finally the vet has said "enough".We can't feed both cats the same food any more, the stuff that's great for the boy is making the girl tubby and a little unhealthy. So now when we feed them we have to stay nearby to supervise, keep them each to their own bowl, and remove any leftovers after 15min or so. Last night Tali was so excited to see a new different-smelling type of food arrive, then he was completely bemused when I kept my hand between him and the dish with the new interesting stuff, and kept redirecting him back to his boring old variety. He didn't give me any dirty looks, which was surprising, just sat and stared dejectedly at his dish, and finally ate some once I held the bowl up for him. Spoiled boy.

This morning I think he'd got the message, he made only a few attempts to get into Marble's bowl before eating his own, he was probably hungry too, which will always help with eating what's in front of you. It's a great shame that we can't find a single food that keeps them both healthy and vital, hopefully Marble will feel better pretty soon and that will make up for the hassle. She's very fun to cuddle with her squishyness, but she has to prop her shoulder against a wall to clean her side!

Please note that this photographs is from February, she's at least 10% bigger now. Also note that my index finger has completely vanished in her chest ruffle, the blue ring is on my middle finger, no pointer in sight, her fluff ate it.

GRE-AT!

Tah-dah!

Combined score 1390 (690 verbal, 700 quant)! The average score of people accepted to my Masters program of choice is 1100. HOORAY! Now I can start in my new lab without worrying about studying, all I have to do is write my personal statement and gather references and transcripts (which is still quite a lot), I might even be able to get my application in sometime in August.

unlucky/lucky

Today turned into one of those everything-going-just-a-little-wrong days, lots of tiny annoyances and inconveniences piling up, till I finally said "enough, I am going to get groceries, which will include a beer each for me and Matt, and the crapness will stop". It did too, though trying to buy gas on the way to Trader Joes was a comedy of errors in it's own right: pumps all full but one, much maneuvering to get lined up by it, only to find it's broken, then much further maneuvering to get in line for a different pump.

When I got back, the news was full of cutesy stuff that people are doing because tomorrow is 07-07-07, lots of weddings, people scheduling cesarean sections to pick their baby's birthday (um...shouldn't that be dictated by health reasons, not cuteness?)and I realized that I've scheduled to sit the GRE on The Luckiest Day Of The Decade [TM]. Sweet!

I think that my past week of cramming and mathematics practice will probably make a bigger difference than the accidental alignment of a bunch of sevens on the calendar. I've gone from getting only 15-20% of the maths right, with about 5 questions unanswered, to getting 80-plus% correct, and managing to answer them all, though with little time to spare. I am going to do more of the practice maths sections on my studying software this evening. Exam is at 8.30am, which means hopping on a trolley to the test center at about 7.30. I just hope that the real thing is quite similar to all the practice questions I've been doing!

On Advisement

I think I must hurry up my current "big" knitting project of a shawl and start on my first sweater, in time to wear it in Scotland in August, because the weather, she is sucking this year. Of course, I can always pull out of storage the sweaters that I never get to wear in California.

This does not necessarily bode well for our plans to make our official honeymoon a week in Stornaway. We want to visit the stone circle, and the ancient seat of the Morrisons (Dun Eistein), I suspect it is going to be atmospherically windy and wet.