Here we go a-erranding

I'm writing this while sitting at the laptop, conveniently set up on the west end of the kitchen table. The east end houses my Kitchen Aid, huge cutting board, recipe binder and assorted paraphernalia for making my wonderful doggie cookies. Trust me when I tell you, it makes for a far more interesting day when you can bake from morning until night while watching seasons of Buffy on dvd. Or Angel, or Firefly or Corner Gas.

Except right now I'm checking my email and paying my bills. The only good thing about doing those chores at the same time is the depressing bank account balance evens out the depressing 'thanks but no thanks' responses to my many job applications. At this rate, I'm going to have to call Cindy at the temp agency and tell her I'll take whatever she's got rolling around at the bottom of the temp barrel. If I can put this lovely hell off until January 7 and if The Boy and my parents actually get me the 20GB iPod I've been aggressively hinting at for months now, I'll consider this only a moderate failure.

One good thing about all this time off is I get to spend time with Mom. She's got tons to get done and with me chauffering her around she gets it done in about a third the time it takes with Dad at the wheel. I drop her off at the door and wait outside, working out the quickest route to the next place on the list. In return, I get a pretty damn good lunch at the newest pub in my old hometown. It's the creation of my friend Cass and her boyfriend who are majority owners of the joint. Their Pub Burgers kick ass and they have Guinness in cans for .75 less than in the Big City. And since she's a Fine Art graduate of the local college, the ambience is understandably impressive. It's so nice to see friends succeed, especially when they invest so much of themselves into it.

While we got a ton of stuff done yesterday, I was ready to put 'build an ark' on the bottom of the list. It rained cats and dogs (where the hell does that come from anyway?) for most of the day, making me regret wearing my leather coat. After lunch I actually got to ditch the coat while running from store to store because the temperature reached a balmy 12C. If 10C is 50F, you can do the math from there. Mostly because I cannot.

One last note for today: Eartha Kitt does the best version of Santa Baby.

Posted at 8:49 a.m.