This and the precepts I want, to hang on my wall. (You can buy them on the second page of the gifts section here.)

It's been a short day, since I didn't bother getting out of bed until noon; and now that I'm done for the night hassling with my printer trying to print out my tax forms (printing is one of the many reasons I don't generally recommend Unix to people--it's like they have to do extra work to make software this bloody stupid), and I'm wiped out from aikido, I'm going to go to bed soon (it's shortly before midnight). Since I have to get the paperwork to the Massachusetts Department of Revenue by the 28th, if it doesn't work tonight I'll punt and print the stuff from Windows.

My grandmother fell and broke her hip and wrist some weeks ago. She's otherwise okay, but forced into physical rehab and extremely cranky. (She lives out in the woods in New Hampshire, probably 90 minutes from the highway [forget about how long it takes to get to that part of the highway]; I don't really know why she lives there, or why she wishes her kids and grandkids would visit more often at the same time she refuses to move closer to civilization. That said, she's extremely cool, doubtless the source of much of my own...quirkiness, and can be a lot of fun if caught in the right mood. She's just a bit weird.) Being the distracted and not-quite-on-the-ball grandson I often am,

he said, thinking of his other grandmother living 3 hours north of where he lives, whom he has not visited since at least before the summer,

it's taken me this long to call her. The conversation follows:

    "Oma? It's Chris."

    "Hi, dear! How are you?"

    "I'm fine, how are you?"

    "Well, I'm...heheh...well, you know. Just slowly waking up. Having
    breakfast. What are you doing?"

    "Well, I'm eating lunch, it's 3 o'clo--"

    "Oh, boy. So when are you visiting up here?"

    "Probably not until Christmas."

    "You should come up here."

    "Well, plane tickets are expensive and I'm unemployed."

    "Oh, I'm sure you won't have a problem."

    "Heh, I hope s--"

    "Okay, I'll see you when you get up here. Bye, dear."

    *click*