Rotate the foodstuffs!

It is 1:50 AM.  It is 62 degrees outside, forecasted to dip down to 57 before dawn.  Apparently there *is* a temperature range where I will sleep with the windows open, but my neighbors' infernal central air unit won't kick on.  I get weirdly bent out of shape about this, as former roommates can attest, so the current situation is pleasing.

On a sidenote, I just realized that Ohio sounds very different from Texas.  If this were Texas, all I would hear would be cicadas.  This being Ohio, it's crickets.  (Yes, if there were a Magicicada brood around, it'd be different, but as I recall Columbus doesn't get much in the way of periodical cicadas, only annuals.)  And I knew this, of course, but I don't normally think about it consciously.

So things here in Columbus-town are interesting, as always.  Last weekend Kevin was in town for my birthday/Mollie's birthday/Liz's move-out/why-the-hell-not, and in a surprising turn of events we ended up moving all his stuff out of the storage unit and into the apartment, thanks to the unexpected opportunity to press a friend and his rented moving van into service.  Now K's back in DC, and I'm left here with this bizarre apartment that's gotten stuck in the middle of a transition.  Which is fun.  On the other hand, Liz's old room has undergone adequate conversion into The Study, so I'm sitting in here at my desk looking out over the sunlit front lawn.  And a shirtless man wielding a wheelbarrow just jogged up the hill.  So that's something.

I should really be working right now, but I spent a little time earlier typing up the poems I've written so far for my independent study of poetic repetition, and in the process discovered that I've written more than I thought I had.  That seemed like a good enough reason to reward myself with a little break.  This, by the way, is the reason the reward system has never worked for me as a means of self-motivation: I'm too good at rewarding myself.  I think, "I'll just reward myself with a half-hour of TV after I read these two 20-page article," and if I'm being surprisingly diligent, I'll decide after the first article that it was really quite dense, and I deserve a reward now (more likely, I'll decide I deserve the reward after about half an article).

I'm trying to puzzle out my new neighbors.  I mean, there's a big PODS thing sitting on the lawn, which is currently being unloaded.  But... the apartment next door isn't really that terribly nice, as far as I can tell.  And PODS, while not super-expensive, just strike me as a slightly higher-budget solution than the next-door apartment signals.  I also can't tell who lives there (as is common, there are a lot of people helping to unpack, but it's hard to say who the actual tenant(s) are).  I'm pretty sure the guy with the puntable dog lives there, but I'm at a loss for the others, if any.  Time will tell.

Elisa and Francis got married down in Nacogdoches on the 28th, which was very nice.  They both looked fantastic, and I felt rather honored to be able to contribute my voice to their wedding.  Although they did make it hard for me by choosing the most emotionally-charged song in the American Catholic repertoire, "On Eagle's Wings," which has been sung at more weddings, funerals, and other major milestone events than I can possibly express.  Nice and easy to sing without choking up.  But yes, a lovely ceremony and reception, all done in-house: no wedding planners or caterers.  I have the memories of making countless fruit skewers to attest to this.

What else is going on... poor Jetta.  The AC died about an hour into my drive from TX to OH, which I guess really makes it "poor me."  It's in the shop right now.  Hopefully Tom (mechanic) will get back to me soon about an estimate, and hopefully said estimate will be less than astronomical... AC repairs aren't really know for their cheapness.

That's most of the news from Lake Wobegon.  And now it is off to Pistachio with the inimitable merodi_no_yami and flohchica!