Random Friday Thoughts and Things I Read.

How I learned to stop worrying and love the recession. I am into my 5th month of unemployment and the housing market here has tanked so badly I may not be able to afford to sell my house (now that's a concept I hadn't dared consider). I will compromise in many ways, but I sure as hell won't bring a check to the closing table to get out of a house I've had for 12 years. Of course, thanks to my fascinating Lifetime Miniseries of a life I couldn't bring a check to the closing table, so that makes the decision easy, doesn't it? So I did get what the author was saying - there is a certain amount of comfort in hunkering down and lowering one's expectations, and focusing on what really matters.

Even if you are among the rich and privileged few still able to take vacations and go to spas and consider Botox, the commenters provided some great bean soup recipes you can make when you want to pretend you're like the rest of us in the frightened mob formerly known as the middle class. Something for everyone.

I saw the sweetest, saddest thing on my morning walk. A squirrel had been hit by a car, and next to it another squirrel stood, paced, sniffed, stepped back, and if it's possible that a squirrel can look puzzled and anxious, this squirrel did. It was keeping a vigil by its (friend's? mate's?) body in the street, and I must be hormonal because the sight of it made me want to cry. It was very touching, and though my phone was in my pocket and it does have a decent camera, I felt like it would be intruding on a private moment of grief to take a picture of this pacing, upset squirrel. Scratch journalism from career change option list.

I do need to invest in shorts with major cargo pockets for my morning walks. Yesterday I saw a 4 ft. black racer sunning itself on the path in front of me, and it was quite unconcerned with my approach until it thought I might be dumb enough to step on it. It languidly, calmly, retreated to the grass. A few minutes later I spotted one of our resident red-shouldered hawks on a low branch of a tree in a patch of dappled sunlight, and both times I kicked myself for not having my camera. I already carry my phone (phone camera wasn't up to the job) and iPod and of course house keys because I am too lazy to make an extra key for walking purposes. I need shorts with bigger pockets.

I want to make this skirt. I have been obsessed with knitting a skirt for a long time. It's between this one and this one, and at the moment I am leaning toward the Louet pattern, because I do have this sick obsession with Euroflax. (The Suggestive Shrug is coming along fabulously, but if you know what unfinished linen looks like, you'll understand the lack of photos. It makes a wad of unblocked lace look good.) I leave for a seminar (2.5 days of freezing my ass off in a hotel conference room! Oh, joy!) on Wednesday, so I do hope to have it finished by then, along with the report I've been dawdling over but now must bang out this weekend. When your weekends and your weekdays look alike, working on weekends loses its meaning. So yeah, I am working, sort of - I am living the life of the consultant, wherein you work on a project, turn in your bill, and wait around for a check, and the company paying for this is a notorious slow pay. I want a real job.

Which is still out there, and since we didn't get closure today, I am hoping for closure Monday. Tuesday, tops. Or Wednesday.

There is no connection between my life circumstance and my score on this quiz. I attribute this to my encyclopedic knowledge of a variety of topics, including varieties of booze I have not actually tried, because my tastes run to beer, wine and the occasional margarita, which is a fine source of Vitamin C. Though if I ever did get on "Jeopardy," you just know "Potent Potables" would not be on the board. I'm pretty sure both my kids would outscore me on this, Boy because he did tend bar while in college, and Girl because she went to FSU.

92%DRUNKARD