Unrelated

1) I somehow fell into watching Syfy's X-Files Lite series "Warehouse 13".. I watched the premiere, and wasn't sold, but somehow wound up catching all 11 episodes thanks to downloading... and dang it they got me caught up in it. There are some truly loathsome elements, not the least of which is the liberal use of early 1990's pizzicato strings in the soundtrack for when they're indicating "they're just being cute here"... plus very unsubtle "backstory setup, backstory relevance" couplings: You know it's tough when in the premiere someone says "yeah, I heard about what happened in Denver" and you set your watch, and sure enough, in two episodes, you find out "what happened in Denver".

But these things aside, the core charm of the show is in these malevolent yet creative artifacts - sort of a whole show about the Weasley Brother's Magic Shop gone loose in the world with just a couple of FBI agents to try to keep it in line. I caught myself caring a bit, and having fun. So there you go.

2) We had some financial stress points these past weeks with the gap in me transitioning from contractor to employee with my new firm and a 4 week gap between paychecks, which I could/should have managed better.... As I've hinted - the past 18 months at my old job had been pretty bad for us, and we're clawing our way out of a pretty deep hole. Even though things have been getting better, we wound up in a bit of a bind this past week... Not bad enough for us to need to reach out to anyone (and there is help out there, I know), but definitely as close as we've got without actually going there. So when the check cleared Friday, it was a good thing, but in that instant, we both just deflated into heaps, not believing how close it all felt... And today we both reacted... Pamela with a migraine, and me with a general grumpiness....

Of course the kids picked up on it and were very defiant and yelling all day, which was extra fun. But by the end of the evening, equilibrium was back in the mix, kids were sleeping happily, Pamela and I had a good talk, and we're set up for a good Sunday.

And yes, everything is now ok.

3) Perhaps reflective of the stress, I had a very strange dream:

I'm on an airplane headed to Botswana (where in the real world, my company is managing the building of a hospital, so that's where that came from), and upon landing I realize I forgot my passport. As I'm walking through the Botswana airport, they have a food court just like any american airport, and so I stop to grab a drink while I work out what to do without a passport. I realize that the language of GOVERNMENT in Botswana is Dutch (which it isn't really) and regret that I hadn't done more work on that language.

As I'm pondering, I look over and see my friend Gene (who was also best friends with Mark Loesch in the real world), and ask him what HE'S doing here. He just shakes his head and his rough-looking friend stares me down. I exclaim "I've known you for 15 years, I see you halfway across the world in Botswana and you can't tell me what you're doing here?" As I say this, I'm on the floor, as someone has drugged me....

I wake up, on a flight back to the states.