Thanks�

2002-12-03

Had a really nice Thanksgiving. Spent a lot of time cleaning. I clean my patio the way other people clean house.

Never let anyone tell you that cement makes a maintenance-free yard. For the last two weeks I've made a career out of sweeping. First we had fires, close enough that everything was covered with a layer of ash. Then we had strong winds. Then we Then we had three days of rain (hallelujah!). What we ended up with was black sludge. I did my anual hosing off of the patio. I felt guilty about it all the while I was doing it. It's such a waste of water. But I did it anyway. After I was done the whole patio looked brighter. Now if the surface was stepping stones and ground cover then I'd just sweep the dirt into the ground cover and call it mulch. We thought about breaking up the cement ourselves, little by little. But the stuff's over three inches thick and we don't know if it's been reinforced at all.

Spouse helped so much with Thanksgiving that we were done early. It doesn't actually rattle me too much to cook a turkey anymore. It used to scare me just to be cooking anything that big. This year I made the turkey, mashed potatoes, a few other odds and ends and that was it. Family brought the rest of the stuff. Spouse did the stuff I was thinking about doing before I started to do it. It was great.

The next two days I pretty much layed around and was comatose. Played computers games, napped. Was useless in general. 'Twas a lovely way to spend most of the weekend. It rained three inches starting on the night of Thanksgiving and on into the next day. Good reason to stay indoors and do nothing.

Of course on Sunday afternoon I had to go into work and help with a software upgrade. They upgraded our whole system. Even that wasn't bad. We've been practicing for months. I think the best part of the job that our IT department did was to make us practice using the new system. The upgrade happened as smoothly as I've ever seen one go. We finished early all the way around. Only two hours of double time. Ah well, I'd rather have one hour of time at home than two hours of double pay at work.

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