Procrastination in the form of errands

Traci called this morning in her usual no-notice fashion and said she needed a ride to the airport, which totally messed up my plan for a lazy morning and breakfast. I dropped her at the airport at 11:15 and by that time my brain was filled with things that should be done that had nothing to do with math. The chief of all these things, now that I was driving the car again, was to get it cleaned out. The trunk was still filled with rejected shoes from our trip to Buffalo Exchange and the passenger space was too filthy to bear thinking about.

So I altered my plan to do homework all day and instead sorted all the shoes to be sold at Rerun consignment shop into two grocery bags—my limit for my appointment on Sunday—and stored the rest in the garage. Then I put on latex gloves and cleaned the rest of the garbage out of the car. I spent more time than I meant to running errands, but I'd read the first few pages of Traci's book before she left town and gotten hooked so I went to Barnes & Noble and picked it up with a gift card that had been a birthday present for mom. Then I returned some vitamins left over from the reign of Grammy. I had to have the book before I went to the car wash, to make the waiting around bearable.

I finally got home just after 2:00 and spent a few hours reading and then forced myself to do some math before it was time to go to JD's (again!) with Carmen. The first night, the show was so good that I was determined that one of my friend's should see it. Danette wasn't available so I called Carmen and offered her a ticket and she was free. She was coming from the other side of town though so I took the bus downtown in a rain so hard I was wishing I'd brought my umbrella. We met in the lobby and enjoyed another good show. I could tell the kids were really tired though, as well they should be after four high energy shows in three days.

After the show, we went to Rimsky's for dessert and I had a pot de creme, which always makes everything seem better.

On the way there, I called Jess to say goodnight and she confessed that she had needed entertainment and so had watched our tape of Grey's Anatomy without me. I told her that was OK. She offered to watch it with me again. I know I should have fessed up, but it didn't seem like the time to admit that I had watched it the night before. I knew I'd get in trouble later. Jess finds out everything eventually, and usually sooner than later.

Couch madness & Jefferson Dancers

I got a small crew together and we met up at mom's house to move the rest of Traci's stuff into storage. It all went fine until we tried getting the couch out of the front door. After about 45 minutes of struggling with five different people working on the problem, Traci decided that maybe she didn't want to move the couch and matching recliner across the country after all. That's great, but it was still stuck in the doorway. After nearly taking the whole door frame apart, we finally managed to shove it through and then just left it on the porch.

We tried craigs-listing it but when that didn't work, I sent a quick email out to the network and had people emailing me the next hour. My friend Lauren was the first to ask, so for the price of a nice lunch, I told her the set was hers. I'm glad because I totally love Lauren and I'd rather give it her for free (especially now that we totally scraped it up shoving it through the door) than sell it to some stranger.

After we left all our blood sweat and tears on the front porch, we took the recliner back out of Meredith's car and into the house. On the way in, it came apart in our hands. Which is to say, the little switch that you turn to make the top come off, got pushed and so we carried it back in two pieces.

“I wonder if the couch does this too?” asked Meredith.

“If it does, let's just keep it to ourselves,” I said. She checked and sure enough, said she found similar latches on the couch. But in the end, it all worked out because there was no way the couch or the chair would have ever fit into the storage space. Not to mention, Traci would have to make friends pretty fast at law school if she wants someone to help her get that behemoth into her new apartment in August. No, I think things are better off this way.

Once that was done, I took Jess out on a date to see the Jefferson Dancers in their spring concert. I thought it might be emotionally hard because it was such a tradition for mom and I to go see shows...and then Traci once she graduated...but it turned out it was more upsetting because I hardly saw anyone that I or mom knew. Over the years we slowly have less and less connection to the new crops of younguns coming through until now we really don't know anyone except the director and the choreographers. What used to practically be a family reunion is now just a really good dance performance by some talented kids.