Yesterday, Jeremy and I drove our first rescue transport, and I am absolutely hooked! We got involved when driveforlife was spotlighted a few weeks ago, and I've been waiting for an empty Madison run to come up. I thought it would be something fun for us to do on our one day off together, and a chance to use the Forester for the powers of good!


We drove Mercy, an English Setter, from Madison, WI to Rockford, IL for Above and Beyond English Setter Rescue. Mercy went from Zimmerman, MN to Haverton, PA to a permanent home, which she should reach some time today. She is tiny for an English Setter - I'm guessing some breeder decided she wasn't show material and abandoned her, and there's evidence that she's already had a litter, even though she's only 18 months.

I crept out of work a little early yesterday to get a start on Jeremy's birthday dinner and cake, and then proceeded to turn the kitchen into a sort of culinary World War III. I made wild mushroom pasta, which I follwed up with my cake invention for Jeremy: lemon layer cake with raspberry puree inside and white chocolate mousse outside (otherwise known as Jeremy cake). Our romantic birthday dinner was serenaded by Mr. Peepers howling at the door from the top of Jeremy's monitor. We even opened a bottle of wine, appropriately given as a housewarming gift by our now former friends. For some reason, it wasn't as good as we remembered; high in alcohol content but low on taste. As Jeremy said this morning, picking up my jeans from the floor by the dining room table, "it's not every day I pick up clothes off the floor from random spots in the house." I replied, "we must have had a good time, then!"

Jeremy woke inexplicably at 5:30, and I found him still in his boxers when I roused from bed three hours later. I dreamt that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt were my new friends, though the kids were mysteriously absent. At some point in the dream, Ms. Jolie and I shared a few kisses, but Brad didn't seem to mind. I ate a piece of cake for breakfast and gave our living room rug (dark cherry with abstract  lines) its monthly haircut; it's slowly losing little bits of itself, which come up from the backing and need to be pulled or trimmed with scissors and then vacuumed. This is an incredibly rewarding experience, in the same satisfying way that personal grooming tasks like peeling a sunburn or biting one's cuticles can fill one with a sense of accomplishment.

Ethan was dropped off, and we sped to Milwaukee to go to the Public Museum as part of his birthday, which is tomorrow. We made bets about how hot it was, and of course didn't see a single thermometer on the way and so have no idea who was right (he thinks 102 and I think 97). Waiting for Jeremy to run an errand, we sat broiling in the car and I calculated the number of minutes, hours, days, and years that 1 trillion seconds make up, using a pen and the back of a GameStop receipt. I came up with about 41 1/3 years, but I still count on my fingers and am therefore untrustworthy (you should see me tally Scrabble scores). At a gas station, the overhead radio played Madonna's "This Used to Be My Playground," followed by "Long December" by Counting Crows, which I believe is clinically enough to put any DJ on a suicide watch.

The museum was amazing; a perfect balance between old-school stuffy-and-glass case exhibits and newer interactive media. We bought another disposable camera and took our 27 shots (why not 28? Why not 30? Or 25?), mostly of particularly cool things that will be too dark in the photos and funny poses with large objects that were taken while we were still in the process of posing or composing our photograph faces. I stuck my head inside the igloo exhibit, and found a girl tucked on a bench in the corner, with the soft features and innocently mischievious expression of the mentally handicapped. There was no one else in sight, and the girl looked about fourteen, so I worried for a moment but was equally glad for her secret. As we stood nearby, looking at Inuit tusk carvings and a life-size seal-hunt (with the ice about waist level, showing what was going on below water and above with the hunter poised in mid spear-throw), a couple of women and a young girl came by. "I bet she's in the igloo!" said the girl, who flip-flopped quickly to the opening. A shriek of laughter  echoed from the igloo, and I relaxed, happy to move on to the Living Ocean.

I love museums more than most things; in another life I could have been a museum exhibit creator. A museum is like a private heaven made just for me, with everything I love most inside (except media- books, film, music...) -  natural history, anthropology, archaeology, history...Where else can you see mammoth teeth, shrunken heads, puffins, mummies, ancient Greek coins, carved ivory tusks, a humpback whale skeleton, snakes in jars, giant Chinese star globes, a Ukrainian kitchen, butterflies on the loose, live-sized bison being taken down by life-sized wax Indians on horseback, a leech jar in an old pharmacy, effigy death figures, dozens of pairs of aboriginal breasts with large areolas, a giant Shiva, samurai armor, taxidermied kittens in historic European home recreations, Polynesian grass skirts, stuffed baby peccaries, Neanderthal skulls, a Tuareg tent, a nine-foot-long Amazonian fish that lives 18 years, a Mayan burial chamber, and live walking sticks?

I've been moderately productive today. I'm starting to get the hang of this weekend thing. Once I worked up the courage to tackle the pile of dishes in the sink, my productivity came much more naturally. I'm not entirely sure how making curry and pancakes can use up nearly every dish you own, but somehow I've managed it. I have to dry my dishes on the floor, because the dishrack is too big for my little counter. Eris is fascinated with the dishrack.

Don't let "curry and pancakes" fool you. The food situation is getting a little depressing in the house. I finally decided to play with this bag of "15 bean soup mix" I've had as a last resort in the cabinets. It reminds me of the good old days at the First South Street house when x_pyewacket_x and I would go through the cupboards and try and find recipes that matched our motley ingredients. Five-fried corn fritters were the result of one such night's creative efforts. Ingredients: corn. Maybe a few other things. Instructions: Deep fry in hot oil. Scoop out crumbled remains of fried corn from hot oil, add another ingredient (eggs, maybe. Or more bread crumbs). Fry again. Repeat until a barely edible, crunchy, oily, but at least solid mass is produced.

Hey, sometimes it actually worked.

My month of poverty is almost over. I get paid again on the first, and then a sizeable income tax return should follow. I'm sure I'll spend the entire thing in a frenzy of instability-induced materialism, but at least I'll have things that make me happy afterwards. Important things, like tiramisu, `new Victoria's Secret, a bed, and the first seasons of Fraggle Rock and the Muppets on DVD. Tell me that's not a hot date waiting to happen.

Woe to the man who ever tries to give me diamonds.

It's been almost a month now and I haven't heard from any of the Borders crew. Word must have gotten around enough so that no one felt the need to ask me if everything's ok. I don't know why I'm surprised. Sometimes it's a bit unsettling to know how easily one can disappear.