Morning Musings

The community property final is over; the truly formidable one, UCC, is tomorrow! I've reached that point where I care little about how the final turns out, so long as I don't fail and have to re-take the course. ;) Of course later I will care very much if the ultimate grade has an adverse impact on my prized GPA. . .

Dan and I both took off work early yesterday because of the exam. Since we only have one car, Dan rides to work on the MAX (the commuter train here in Portland, similar to the Metro in D.C.) and I drive the car to my office. Yesterday Dan actually beat me home by walking the mile or so from the MAX station to our apartment, instead of having me pick him up, as I usually do. I felt bad that he had to walk all that way in the cold and rain, but he said I could make it up to him by stopping at Starbucks on my way home and bringing him a pumpkin spice latte. *grin* So when I arrived home, pumpkin latte in hand, I opened the door of our apartment only to be greeted (to my great surprise) by a large vase of roses (two dozen!) on our coffee table, a little gift bag and a note addressed to me. The culprit of these crimes was peeking out at me from the back room and snickering at my speechlessness: "Wh-- Honey. . . What in the. . . ? Oh, wow. . . How did you. . ." It turns out the Starbucks request was just a ploy to buy him a little extra time to prepare this surprise for me. He had to walk 12 extra blocks to buy everything and carry it all home from the MAX station. Poor guy! A very sweet thing to do, however--it made my day. :)

I talked to my 21-year-old brother Michael on Wednesday. He's going on vacation next week, to Arizona, to hang out with one of his buddies from ALERT. I am very excited for them because they are going to see the Grand Canyon! I have always wanted to see it but so far haven't made it that far into the Southwest. I asked my brother to take lots of pictures. :) Just as an aside; I have to brag about my wonderful "little" brother (who actually hasn't been littler than me since he was 12). He's the most mature, responsible and dependable kid I know; he surpassed me in the maturity department years ago. I am prodigiously proud of him. O:-)

So today is the Friday before Halloween, as I'm sure you all know. We don't celebrate Halloween--for one, we don't have kids so there's no real temptation to; for another, Dan doesn't approve of observing the holiday, no matter how innocently. It was difficult for him last year just to get used to the idea of me carving a pumpkin, even though I insisted it was a fall tradition, not a Halloween thing. :) Anyway, because we don't really celebrate it, I forget it's so close until I see something that makes me remember. I was exceedingly alarmed when I passed a cat in the hall this morning--er, I mean a woman dressed as a cat. While wondering what would possess a grown woman to go to work in that outfit, I remembered that Halloween is on Sunday. The crazy things people do for fun. :-p