Have a nice day, Tess

This is where Tess spends the day while I'm at work. She doesn't seem to mind a bit: when I say "Get in your cage" she runs around the corner and goes right into her cage. When I come home she's sitting in her cage, watching me come in the door. Lots of times Chances will sleep in the cage when I'm at home. It used to be Chances' cage and before that it belonged to Dexter The Very Bad Dog.

It's 70 degrees and sunny outside. A wonderful day. I can't believe April is nearly over. I have yard work to do and housework to do. Book group is meeting at my house on Sunday and I need to clean a lot before they can come. Even if they are my good friends there's still a limit to just how much mess I'm willing to expose them to.

Last night Ken told me that Friday night Rush showed up at his house with a handful of ice that was the last ice on the lake and a bottle of bourbon. They put the ice in glasses and poured the bourbon over it to celebrate Ice Out. The ice went out on 4/14/06. That's a little early. I saw the lake in the morning of the day it went out. You all saw a picture of it. Ken was very excited to have me home. He knew exactly what time I arrived in Hawkeye on Monday because his neighbor had seen me drive by. This was not good because I was planning to tell Ken I got home too late Mon. to call him, when I really got home at 4:30. Instead I told him I was really tired and that's why I didn't call. Well, that was pretty much true, but I still feel guilty for not calling him. Not very guilty but a little.

I took my car to the dealer this morning so I could pay them $340 to check the belts and hoses and top off the fluids. I suppose they'll do some other stuff, but this is the 30,000 mile check up and it seems to me they don't really do much to it. Rotate the tires. I asked them to get the caked on mud off of the bottom of the car. He said they'd wash it for me, and he wrote on the work slip "remove caked on mud." Then this really nice but extremely talkative kid gave me a ride to the library. I know pretty much his life's story now, and he's coming to pick me up when my car's ready this afternoon. He has a 13-week old chocolate Lab named Duke. And an aunt named Christine who lives in Arizona. And two beagles. I don't know their names.

I had a dream last night that the ex-husband of my cousin Elsa changed his name to Sergio and liked to be called Serge. He was managing a CVS (drug store) and was doing very well. In reality he's a photojournalist who does marginally well and lives either in London or Germany now. I really wonder where this dream came from, I haven't thought of her or him in a while.

What wonderful and zany things will I catalog today?