Sunday was spent doing laundry at M&G�s house. They�ve been taking C on pre college shopping extravaganzas saying that he absolutely needs sheets that have a higher thread count than 180 because he�s used to 300, he needs fancy headphones because his roommate likes Insane Clown Posse, and things of that ridiculous nature. M&G are also designing flyers to post up around town so that they can see if they can hire someone to be Nigel�s afternoon companion. I am not kidding here. They are going to hire someone to play with their dog for an hour in the afternoons. That is one of the most asinine things I�ve ever heard in my entire life.

Yesterday, we cursed the landscapers when they started work at 8 in the morning during our sleep and I seriously considered hurling the now disposed chunk of rotting watermelon that had been in the fridge directly at some unsuspecting lawnmower operator�s head. Either unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, I was too groggy to actually carry out my nefarious plan. We lazed around the house for a bit with me reading and Luke doing puzzles before going to the grocery store with $15 to spend. We managed to get plenty of stuff to last us the week on less than $10 and had enough leftover to get gas into the jalopy.

Upon arriving home, we found that the cat had climbed up onto the tops of the cabinets in the kitchen and we spent several minutes trying to get him the hell down. Luke decided that he would then put strips of packing tape sticky side up in that area, so he jumped up onto the counters while I was trying to get some dishes done. We cleaned out the refrigerator, something we really had to do, and discovered that some of the oldest things in there smelled just as they had the day they went in, while some of the things that had been in there the least amount of time had really taken on a funk. The black beans (estimated fridge time: 2-3 weeks) were something awful, but the almost two-month-old meat from C�s graduation party still smelled viable, even though neither of us was willing to risk hugging porcelain for an unknown portion of time to test the theory.

We had some time to kill before heading off to the anxiety inducing (for me) civil service exam we had scheduled, so we had some lunch and hit the road. I was really grouchy on the way because of the aforementioned anxiety and things were made worse by the fact that Luke parked where we had to pay when there was free parking available, very far from our destination, and I was not wearing the appropriate shoes for walking. The exam was pretty typical: simple math, spelling, grammar, inferring things from paragraphs, and a typing section. A trained monkey could have done it. Everything but the typing was done on paper, Scantron sheets to be exact and you had an hour to do 160 questions. Luke and I and one other girl were the only ones to complete the entire thing. Luke first, me second, and the girl we don�t know just under the wire. I skipped two questions not because I didn�t have the time or the capacity for figuring them, but because I just wasn�t motivated to work them out. They were math, which is my weak point to begin with, and it would have taken me too long to get into the right frame of mind to do them. Besides, they don�t grade on whether you get them all done, they grade on how many you get correct out of the ones you manage to do. The typing was irritating, to say the least. The keyboards were noisy and the keys on them much harder to press than need be. They were also unlike the only other typing test I�ve ever taken in that they were on paper, as opposed to being piped through a set of headphones. I suppose I did well enough. I�m not a slow typist by any means and having the extra thing to slow me down probably didn�t hurt me too badly. We won�t find out for 3-4 weeks how we did, but we�re already quite certain that we passed with flying colors, hence the trained monkey comment. This is going to sound really pompous, but giving hyper-intelligent people tests like that is a joke.

As soon as we got home, we left again. Andy had called and we went over to his place. He took us out to dinner (hurrah for free food!) and I argued with him about his ideas about what he wants. I yelled at him for saying that he aspires to be extremely famous, that he wants everyone in the world to know his name and that he doesn�t see why he shouldn�t have everything. I simply don�t understand why people can�t see that it�s the simple things that bring happiness: a warm bed, someone who loves you, a bowl full of one�s favorite soup. Fancy cars, yachts, and houses so big you can reach every room in a day are vessels of loneliness, bought by people who need to fill some hole in their lives because they push people and other living things away with their horrifying, maniacal, dangerous aspirations. I know it�s all based upon a value system and that it simply boils down to his and mine being essentially antipodes.

I also read a book over the weekend: The Summer Country. It was a decent book, if a bit clunky at times. I find that such a thing is often true when a man tries to write about a woman from an internal standpoint. The only book I�ve ever read that really managed to do well at such a thing was Memoirs of a Geisha. If you like sci-fi weirdness, though, I can safely recommend it. Like I said, it was awkward in places, but over all a very engaging read. I had trouble getting into it because the beginning seemed to move very quickly, but after the initial introduction it smoothed into a cohesive tale. I�m hoping that Luke brings me home American Gods as I�ve been asking him to. That is a book I can recommend to anyone (as long as you�re not a huge Jesus lover and think that all the old gods of other cultures are �false,� as a former coworker had the gall to say to me).

Now, Luke thinks that he is solely responsible for my enjoyment of sci-fi, but he is mistaken. I have been reading such tales since at least 9th grade, when my best friend handed me a book and told me to read it. My love of all things whimsical, though, that goes as far back as I can remember. I was devouring the Greek myths at a very early age and fanciful creatures have always gamboled through my imagination. I suppose that delving into sci-fi was a very natural progression from that. Movies like Willow and Labyrinth have always ranked high on my favorites, not because they are examples of cinematic mastery, but because they satisfy something in my imagination.