Within the last week, I have said goodbye to both of the two guys from my Navy Ball pictures. These are two of the people with whom I've been spending most of my time out of my apartment (whenever I wasn't working or sleeping, which was only so often) over the last four months. The other two such people (but for the majority of my time here, not just the last four months) both left in September. This has made me a bit sad, along with the fact that these two recent departurers are some of the ones I was referring to in another post who had partially vanished from my life over the last two weeks or so. Since I can't go out here alone, which is something I GREATLY miss doing, it is that much more important to have friends who enjoy going out to the same types of places.

I do have two new girl friends with whom I spent the evening last night, which was, to make an understatement, a much better way to spend the evening than working as I thought I would be until 11pm. Fortunately, we were able to leave instead and I ended up not going in today either as I was originally going to, because I was sick again, but I actually would have rather been at work today than here being sick. I have lost all the weight I gained back and then some, I think, and the jeans that fit me so perfectly and comfortably when I came here now fall down several inches if I don't wear a belt, and I've had to add extra safety pins around the waistline of all my skirts. Anyway, tomorrow should be a nice day if I keep getting better as I have been throughout this evening, and maybe I'll get to go try out the new camera equipment I just got in (I bought the lenses and some other accessories from my wish-list tracker to go with my D80). THAT is something to look forward to!

Mousey Brown has evaded every attempt I've made to trap her without injury and take her outside, and she has also apparently tried to dig her way to China through my potted plants. So that was pretty upsetting to me, to see my aloe and my wildflower sprouts all disheveled (or is that de-shoveled?) and injured, with soil all over the floor and the back of one couch. The good news is that I think I know where she hides when I'm around, and it just so happens to be in the box in which I am storing my extra soil, seeds, etc, so I should be able to just put a big plastic bag around the whole thing and take it outside to release her far away from buildings, where she can fight it out with the rather large local stray cat population.

Shelley, on the other hand, has become a rather welcome addition to my nightly routine, waiting to hear her starting up her songs, and being able to tell it's still not time to wake yet if she's still singing. (Although the sun rises here very, very early, I keep the thick curtains in my room shut and the neon from the nearby buildings still leaks in, so it's not easy to guess the hour without concentrating too much for early morning)... I doubt I will ever catch her for outdoor release, and she seems content enough as far as I can tell, so I just try to somehow get food close enough to where she stays that maybe she will get over her fear of me enough to reach it. I still have the large paper cup stuffed with some of my old spinach stalks and paper towel pieces sitting there near the fridge, too, so that if she ever does decide she'd like to be released outside as well, I can do so.

That has been my life lately. Oh, and one other thing: