10 20 pm pdt [ and her generous smile ]

I dreamt last night about Rita, whom I met at Berkeley. She looked as stunning as always, tall with smooth skin, long, thick, dark hair, and her generous smile. I dreamt we ran into each other and she was in the middle of some sort of world travel adventure. At first she seemed stand-offish, unwilling to give me any sort of contact info, and in a bit of a hurry. Then her mood dissolved into a wonderful friendly delight in seeing me and a hearty attempt to reestablish our connection. I'm sure this dream was in part caused by a recent e-mail from my former roommate Desirée, whom I haven't seen over two years. She wants to get together before the end of the month, when she leaves for the east coast to attend grad school.

Matthew had to wake up super early to make it into the city by eight. As he emerged from the shower, one of our three smoke alarms began its high pitched beep. It was five in the morning and it was making a steady series of beeps. Matthew finally yanked it down and pulled the battery, which the handy man said was brand new when he put it in yesterday. I don't know why the smoke detector decided to die this morning, but I do know that the three in this apartment are uber-sensitive.

I was reminded of my mom's house. She took down one of her smoke detectors at some point, and managed to lose it in the detritus of her house. Eventually it began to die, and emit its warning beep. For many months it would beep once every half hour, not often enough to locate it directionally, but often enough to drive me a bit bonkers when I was there for extended periods of time. We never found it.

I took a break from my web work today, and sat in our garden at the back of the building with my current book. I got distracted watching the butterflies flutter around the various flowers. I've added a single pot to the outside garden -- two little trees that managed to sprout themselves in my bag of potting soil. I am irked by my feeling of awkwardness here. I don't want to mess up anybody's system, so I try to make as little impact as possible, instead of just doing whatever I want to. I need to relax.

The sun was a bit too hot for me, even in the late afternoon, so I crept back inside, after meeting another of my neighbors (I've met about a quarter of them). There is a baby in the apartment next door, and I can hear her crying at various times, but it doesn't really bother me. There are two strollers parked under the stairs, and I saw a very pregnant woman waddle into the building today. I am tempted to dub this building 'the maternity ward.'

I am quite enamored with the wind-chimes I hear tingling outside.

This weekend we have to do our final move and cleaning of all the rest of Matthew's stuff. He seems very overwhelmed by the project. I don't have a good sense of what it will entail. As for my stuff, I am flying down to LA in a week, then driving up with my stuff and hopefully my sister. Then we'll drive back down a day or two later and I'll fly back up a day or two after that. Then will come the Great Unpacking and Rearranging. I'm really excited to spend all that time with my sister...

Instead of working on client sites this afternoon, I redid Their Green Song -- my plant section of this site. It took a while, but I enjoyed it. I love the idea that I can get all of the pages in place and then just post new photos and updates.

I wish I had some sort of record of my thought process when I moved into my first apartment.

We must do something about the squeakiness of the bed...

[ 3 years: ]

three years ago today: It is slightly disconcerting to hear about her Monday morning while it is still Sunday evening here, but I am getting used to it.

two years ago today: The little girl, crumpled into a chair at her desk, was exhausted. She had had a pounding migraine headache since noon, and she was finding no relief.

one year ago today: I am excited about going. I've never been to new Orleans. I have no doubt that it will be sweltering at this time of year, but we'll have fun nonetheless.