"He'll turn up..."

We moved into this house seventeen days ago with at least a hundred boxes. On just about every one of those 17 days I looked for this little water buffalo from India who lives on our coffee table. Dana even went through the empty boxes full of paper in case he accidentally got thrown away. This morning as OilMan was working on the last of the boxes in the garage I was trying to organize my desk and, lo and behold, there was my little water buffalo carelessly tossed into a basket. I'm happy to have him in his rightful place again.

Our old and talented friend Chris arrived today with the reinvented headboard and nightstands for our bed. Not only will we happy to take our reading lamps off the boxes they've been somewhat precariously perched on, but we're happy to see Chris. He makes beautiful furniture and whistles rather than muttering while he works. He's going to build some library shelves for us so we'll get to see him again.

Today I bought some coho salmon for dinner. The local grocery store has color coded signs on the seafood to help their customers figure out what kind of fish is politically, socially and environmentally acceptable to buy. Hmmm...if it's marked with a red sign, which means it is NOT any of those things and shouldn't be purchased, why do they carry it?

There are a lot of "cut your own" Christmas tree farms around here--many of them in Sebastopol. It is a common sight to see cars with trees on top or hanging out the back. We broke down about five years ago and bought an artificial tree, mainly because it comes with the lights already on it. OilMan does not think it is charming to tramp around through the mud looking at live trees, nor does he enjoy disentangling the lights, carelessly thrown into a box a year ago. It has been a good solution except for the fact that it doesn't smell like a fresh tree. Hence, the perfect opportunity to buy some fresh garlands from Will's baseball team...

We'll put up the tree on Friday. I'd say we'd have the grandkids over to help decorate it, but they don't even like decorating their own tree! Dana and I will go to S cut a tree.ebastopol and