happy halloween.

Today John and I spent a couple of hours at Boo at the Zoo, where we saw black bears batting pumpkins around like they weighed no more than styrofoam cups. John took a nice little video.

I also saw Superman screaming while being carried upside down by a man twice his size that, I'm sure, must have been wearing a kryptonite-lined sweater. We also overheard Captain Hook (whose hook, incidentally, was being worn by a Jedi standing next to him) incorrectly identify two large alligators as crocodiles, which seemed more than a little ironic.

This evening we carved our pumpkins. So our apartment smells funny. You can see pictures of our jack-o-lanterns here.

By the way, if you look at the pictures and don't know who Brak is by now, please learn. I love Brak.

i miss sunday nights.

Have I mentioned how much I hate Sunday nights? I probably have. I've probably droned on and on about how much I hate Sunday nights. And that every Sunday afternoon at around 4, my happy, it's-the-weekend attitude crumbles into a pathetic, I've-got-work-tomorrow stupor. (My job isn't even that bad. It's just been stressing me out lately because the sixty thousand ladies who work there all seem to have these crazy scheduling demands that I have to attend to, juggling Ms. Lucky-pants's vacation with Ms. So-in-shape's pilates-or-some-such-thing class, and still remember to do little things...like buy register tape and go to the bank.) And tonight is Sunday night and, boy, does it ever feel like it.

The really sucky part (watch as my verbal skills turn to mush, under "Sunday night fog" and I actually use words like "sucky") is that I used to really like Sunday nights. Because, back when I worked at my previous job at Indie Bookstore #1, I had Mondays and Tuesdays off. Sunday nights were the beginning of happyfuntime. I'd get home from work and John would order a pizza and we'd watch ABC. Here's where that fell apart: 1) I got a new job with a totally different schedule, and 2) ABC Sundays sort of suck now.

Last season, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition slowly turned into "Designers Behaving Badly," in which the so-called Design Team ran around acting like idiots and the actual designs of the rooms in the house get approximately one camera pan each...as the family jumps and screams. And the family should be jumping and screaming. Not the designers, who happen to be playing street hockey with the Mighty Ducks. Listen guys, this is not the kind of behavior that made Britney and Kevin name a kid after one of you! Notice, will you, that their second baby is not named after any of you! Everyone knows that Britney, really, is your target audience and you lost her. And you've lost me.

That's not even going into the Desperate Housewives debacle. Yes, it's true I watch "Desperate Housewives." It was my guilty pleasure. That's sort of the point of the show, actually. But I have issues with the fact that Bree got engaged and married before her daughter even made an appearence in this season. Wait a second. Didn't last season end with Bree hugging Danielle whose murderous boyfriend had just been shot in their house? Yes. Yes, it did. And six months have passed ten minutes into the first episode of the season, so wham-bang all the previous storylines are over! Except, of course, for Mike's coma, which I find strangely boring. Please, please, please, get better and back to being like the first season.

The final blow to Sunday night, obviously, is that Grey's Anatomy has been moved to Thursday. That's okay, really, because the writing is still adorable and it's addictive and I love it. Seriously. I love the "Mc" jokes and the drama and the pretty doctors and the fact that I can't watch it without crying. I'm a big, mushy girlfest. How much does it suck that Sunday mornings still feel a little better than they should because I still feel vaguely like McDreamy is waiting for me on the other end of the day? A LOT! That's how much it sucks!

my new purse.

I finally got to work on this yesterday. I finished it up this morning.



Usually when I make things, I give them away. It's weird to be keeping this. I mean, I made it so it would be exactly what I wanted because I've been looking all over for a new purse and have hated everything I've seen. But still. I never keep these things.

adventures in renting.

Our lease is up in the middle of November and our rent is going up again--from high to ridiculous. We spent Saturday apartment hunting, which sounds, going into it, like success means something will end up dead at the end of the day. And that's pretty much what it felt like, minus the "success" part.

Low point #1: Tiny apartment with carpet stolen from some poor grandmother shown by Mr. ReallyOld and his wife, Cranky ReallyOld, with the fantastic selling point of my being able to choose my own stove. Because it didn't come with one. And we would be buying one.

Low point #2: Being greeted by a brassy manager (in the movie version of my life, she'd be played by an over-tanned Jean Smart) who, upon seeing two people, said, "Oh...is it for both of you? Oh, no. That won't work." She then proceeded to show it to us anyway, while regaling us with lovely stories of couples whose marriages had fallen to pathetic bits at the feet of this teeny hole, which was currently occupied by a sullen-looking artsy lady with a shiny gray leather couch covered with purple velvet pillows and a furry thing that I think was a blanket.

Low point #3: Today I visited a building that is literally in the shadow of a new behemoth of an apartment complex. The new building is gorgeous and contemporary and probably has a pool on the roof. The building I was looking at was short and squatty and I actually worried that the wooden staircase was going to collapse with me on it. Oh yeah and the apartment was #13. They didn't put a number on the door though, so the doors were numbered 11, 12, blank, 14, 15. Surely no one will notice, right?

my back. oh.

I've started a new sewing project. I've spent almost the past three days coming up with the pattern with coloring pencils and a spiral-bound notebook. I actually called my Dad to ask him how to figure out the length of a square's side if you know the diagonal.

(Do you know? I didn't think so.)

Every way I came up with involved finding a square root. I kept thinking, there is an easier way. I barely finished asking before he told me how. This is what my dad is for.

Meanwhile, I would so love to have a craft table. I have this huge, marvelous cutting mat and rotary cutter (like a pizza cutter, but for fabric) that were my grandmother's, but I have to lay the mat on the floor because I don't have a table. So I spend the whole time hunched over and I get all sore and cranky.

When I called my dad, the supergenius, he and my mom were on their way back to TN from here. I think they were in a Cracker Barrel. Not that that is important. Whatever.



On Saturday, they took John and I to this adorable little kitsch-fest of a town called Solvang. It's Danish. In Lauraspeak, that means "almond-flavored pastries." We had dinner in Santa Barbara, which looks nothing at all like I pictured it. Considering my only concept of Santa Barbara was the bits of the soap opera by the same name that my grandmother (the one that owned the cutting mat) used to watch, that isn't surprising. The show started when I was 3 years old and went off the air by the time I was in sixth grade. I don't even think she watched it that long.