Rich has been feeling guilty about, get this, not doing anything. I don't understand this at all, as he's hardly had a chance to sit and veg at all. He's usually out in the garden, digging. He dug out and filtered the compost pit, getting rid of all the maple roots, and has been planting his winter vegetables. I think mostly he's annoyed that the computer isn't setting up as quickly as it should, but he's not been lazy. None of the "honeydews" are done, of course, but this doesn't surprise me at all. He always told me he'd do the indoor stuff in the winter... but somehow never managed. I suspect this year will be different.

Or maybe not. The windstorm of the weekend took down a lot of palm fronds and about a million of the minidates (leaving only 10 million still in the tree!) and today he was mowing and cutting up fronds, etc. He did help me plant the avocado pit. This stays inside till the spring, by which time it should be too big for a squirrel to ruin. I brought in the epiphytes, though not yet the bromeliads, because it's getting downright COLD out there.

I was going through old clothes and fabric scraps in the back. I like to think I'm getting serious about cleaning up back there. I'm going to only keep the dinosaur fabrics and enough scraps for two long-started projects, and give the rest to someone crafty. I opened one drawstring plastic bag to discover an old black wool dress of my mother's, trimmed with faux-leopard collar and cuffs. I was looking at it, wondering if it should go, instead, into a thrift shop bag or as a possible costume, when I noticed that it had essentially exploded. Under the dress and everywhere else was a huge black circle of wool dust. The decision made, I was going to just pitch it, but I saw the 20 gold buttons. I hadn't been going to do any cannibalizing as much of the problem in the back is all the stuff I'm going to do Someday. However, I couldn't let the buttons go, and while I was taking them off, I took off, ah-choo, the collar and cuffs (though I did at least put them in the scrap bag instead of keeping them.)

It's not all work, though. A couple of weeks ago I saw Pleasantville. I loved it, as one who REMEMBERS 1958! I was a little surprised at the end, though, when 1998 Mom didn't even notice she was missing a daughter. Details.
On Hallowe'en I took the Light Rail downtown to watch Touch of Evil. I'd never seen this one before. (Wowbagger was surprised at this, but in 1958 I didn't like this kind of movie.) At first I thought maybe the obvious villain wasn't, really, and Welles was twisting the plot, but it didn't turn out that way. How interesting to recognize Marlene Dietrich and other people, 40 years ago. I was delighted to see the Dennis Weaver I had a huge crush on (yes, Chester from Gunsmoke! I wasn't a typical preteen!)
Meanwhile, Rich saw the first half of the Jesuit game, but it began to rain a little and the game was its usual boring self. It ended 69-12. They've all been like this. He came home to keep digging out the compost.
I continued the nostalgia trip and went to Wizard of Oz when it opened last week. Beautiful, beautiful. One little girl had come dressed as Dorothy, complete with ruby slippers, basket, and a beanie-dog.

Then last Saturday was The Ring. Oh, well.
Sunday I went over to Davis to see Fiddler on the Roof, one of my favorite musicals. As usual, they did a terrific job with it. When they were in groups out in the aisles with electric candles, singing the Sabbath Prayer, I realized they're in the running for the Elly (local theater award) again. Beautiful.
I planned to bring home pizza when I returned, so I stopped at the neighborhood Round Table and placed my order, and then the guy couldn't get the computer to work. He would take cash or check, neither of which I had with me, but had no way to hand-swipe the card. (I'm beginning to take the Y2K bug more seriously!) I stalked out, and the radio news was about the local shooting. I decided it was dark, even though only 6, and I wanted to go home. Then we tried to order the pizza from the Pizza Hut delivery thing across the street. Geeze. Their computer was also having trouble, but mostly I had a trainee. Every other word was "dammit" and he couldn't remember street names or that we wanted it delivered, or anything for the 30 seconds it would take to input it. The pizza was good and the delivery guy OK, but who knew it was such an epic to get pizza?

We got a videotape advertising a radio station, and it included the Blockbuster dinosaur ad, so I'm keeping it.

And I've been doing some Web-surfing:

• This site recommended by Vicki Jean
• A Useful Device
• Lobsterman
• Anne Lamott's latest column
• And I note that the World Fantasy Con was just exactly one year after Bouchercon!
• When I watched Felicity I decided to see if there really is a noelcrane.com. Yes! This led to curiousity as to who is actually doing it, and I discovered 16 Felicity sites on Yahoo, and 24 in one webring. Netcom crashed before I could check out the other webring, and I didn't see noelcrane.com listed anywhere.

I took the Round Robin and a package of books for my sister to the Post Office and bought some new stamps. Space Discovery! Birds! American Artists! Beautiful.

So, it's difficult to describe exactly what we've been doing, but we're sure busy doing it.