JEEBUS FRIES!

Last night around 5 my smoke alarm started chirping. You know, the noise it makes when it thinks it's running out of batteries? Yeah, that. Every 30 seconds or so..."chirp." "chirp." "chirp." It's annoying and it was driving the dog crazy.

The reason it was so annoying is because I can't reach the smoke alarm. It's on the wall right underneath my vaulted ceiling, which is about 12 feet up. I can't even get close to it if I stand on a chair.

Since my building manager is often in her office until 6 or 7 on weekdays, I put Sum in her leash and we walked over.

I had forgotten that, on Fridays, she's only in her office until noon. I filled out a maintenance slip and put it through the mail slot, resigned to living with the chirping until Monday.

Oddly, the chirping doesn't seem to be regular. It was at first, definitely. Every 30 seconds. Then, after a couple hours, I realized it hadn't chirped in about 15 minutes. Of course, soon after I thought that, it started up its every 30 seconds thing again. For about an hour. Then it started doing it once every 10 minutes or so.

I wasn't really looking forward to trying to sleep with that going on, but we went into the bedroom early last night and closed the door (which we usually don't do). Summer was still sort of freaking out every once in a while, pacing, looking for the beeping ninja and staring at me with her ears back and a look of bewilderment in her eyes.

Around 10:30, I realized there was no more beeping. Summer was curled up on the floor, sleeping soundly, and I decided to put my book aside and fall asleep as well.

At 2am, I was awakened. Not by a beeping, but by something that sounded like slapping and gulping.

It was Summer, violently and constantly licking her nose. She'd stick out her tongue and slap it across her nostrils, making a popping noise. She did it again and again, while standing my bed, panting. Her ears were tucked back but her tail started wagging when she saw me open my eyes, even if my first words were less than comforting: "WHAT? Dammit, really? Seriously??"

I reacted thus because that's what Summer does when she's not feeling well and wants to go outside and eat grass. It usually means she's trying to keep from throwing up.

I stumbled out of bed and put on some pants and a wool shirt, pulled on my down coat and stuck her in her harness, grumbling the whole while. When Sum gets like that, there's nothing to do but let her eat grass. I know it's not really good to let dogs eat grass, but it seems to help her settle her stomach when she gets like that.

We went downstairs and she immediately went at the lawn like a hungry sheep, pulling up tufts of greenery and licking her nose in between. After about 3 minutes, I made her come upstairs.

I tried to get her to drink some water, but she kept going back to the door and staring at it, then looking at me with big eyes. Then she'd lick her nose again. "Mom, this is the noise you have to look forward to if you don't take me out again."

I'm probably a sucker, but I took her back outside. That time we walked around the building, and she was munching on grass the entire way. When we finally got back inside, I crawled back in bed and she stood beside me. She was still licking her nose, but not constantly, so I knew she was feeling better. I ignored her and eventually she lay down on the floor and I heard her sigh. Her nose-slaps were becoming fewer and fewer.

This morning, I woke up to a chirping sound. Summer was sleeping next to me in bed, but she raised her head and looked around; the ninja was back! It chirped a couple more times and then stopped. We fell back asleep.

A couple hours later, we woke up again. The alarm beeped once, then stopped. It hasn't made a sound since, but I'm not expecting it to hold its silence forever. I'm sort of tired, not because I didn't get enough sleep (I overslept way more than is usual for me today!) but because it was interrupted. I'm spending the day trying to do homework. I forgot just how much I dislike homework! This will definitely take more getting used to!

Summer is fine this morning. She ate her dog food with no trouble, drank some water, and has been alternately napping and bugging me to go play with her. My little angel.

We just got back from Anchorage. Good trip. Yesterday we got to town, dropped Summer off at the kennel, and got to our car appointment about 10 minutes late. Then we waited for Mel to pick us up (as the courtesy van guy wouldn't be back for another 45 minutes) and we went to JC Penney's so I could get fitted for a bra. The lady went zip, zop with the tape measure and then led me around the lingerie department getting me a C and a D of every kind of granny bra there is.

So I had all these bras with me in the fitting room, mom is running back and forth getting me other sizes and stuff, and all the time poor Mel is sitting outside the fitting room trying to keep little Gabe entertained. Then mom went off and brought back the Terror of Plus-Sizes Everywhere, what she calls a Merry Widow and I call a Bulge-Binding Mechanism.

It was like trying to wrestle myself into a slingshot.

I nearly, on a couple occasions, called for mom to come into the room with me to help me get it on and off, because there were some uncomfortable moments when both my arms were raised above my head at odd angles, my glasses were mashed against my face, my hair was caught in the straps and yanking my head back, and I was getting chilly. Luckily, the prospect of letting anyone see me in such a position was enough to give me some sort of super-human strength, sufficient to stretch the slingshot enough to get my arms into a better position for pushing and pulling and yanking and all that good stuff.

Keep in mind, also, that when I went to bed on Wednesday night, I was developing a sore throat, and by the time I got home from work on Thursday, I was feeling ickier than that. I had the chills Thursday afternoon, and almost didn't go to my painting class (my first in 2 weeks). I didn't get dressed in anything presentable (stained gray sweats and a gray shirt and a knit hat) but I did go and showed my teacher my painting so far, and she said was was very impressed. I didn't stay for the entire class, but I at least went, so that was good. When I woke up on Friday, I took some Dayquil, and that worked well enough for me to drive from about 48 mile to Chikaloon or thereabouts, which is when my eyes started blurring.

After I had finally decided on a couple supportive, comfortable, lacy (granny) bras and sufficiently comfortable slingshot, we met Mel in the food court, where she had taken Gabe to feed him. We had smoothies and then it was time for mom and I go meet our cousins for dinner, which made us feel bad. We hadn't meant to use Mel as a chauffeur. Anyway, she took us back to pick up our car, and I rode with her to her apartment and mom came by a few minutes later to pick me up, and we were on our way.

We got to Jim and Sally's and hopped into their car, whereupon they took us to Little Italy. Where we...needed a reservation. So we went to Mexico in Alaska instead, which was very tasty. By the time we got back to their place, I was feeling more craptastic than I had been, so we all sat in the living room and the three of them talked while I slumped in Sally's very comfy cushy chair and stared at the cat, who stared back at me in between bites of his live potted catnip. I could see his pupils dilating.

I got ready for bed and took a couple Nyquil, then just kind of lay on the chair and felt my head get lighter and body get heavier. Right around the time everyone dispersed to get themselves ready for bed, I noticed a spider on the wall. I waited for someone to walk past so I could point at it, but no one did, so in a mighty feat of strength I sat up, grabbed a kleenex, and killed it (and only almost fell off the chair once).

I don't think I slept at all during the night, I think I was just dozing.

This morning we got up and had breakfast (Jim made a sourdough quiche) and then mom called Mel (as my voice was completely gone) and off we went to meet her at Michael's. I got some painting stuff I needed, then we walked over to Border's where I got a book I didn't need but wanted. Then we went to Walmart to get me some Dayquil and pajamajams, and Mel had to take off for an appointment she had, so mom and I went and picked up the dog, dropped by her CPA's office to say hi, and then went to find someplace to park for Cats. We rolled the windows down a little and parked in a garage, and left out some water for Sum, then we went to the performance. Our seats were in the balcony, which means we were quite a ways from the stage, and we only had one pair of crappy binocs between us, but we were in the middle section and it was very fun. Good show.

Then it was time to head home. We got to Glenallen without anything eventful happening (though we did see a cow moose on the side of the road) and by then it was twilight but mom asked if I was up to driving anyway, and I said yes, because she'd been driving for 3 hours.

The best part, though, happened about 15 or 20 minutes after leaving Glenallen.

A particularily unimpressive spot of light flickered in the sky. Mom said, "Aurora."

It's been a while since I've seen them, and I've definitely seen better than that, but I kept my eye on it anyway. It got brighter and turned into a ribbon, so I pulled over. It still wasn't very bright, but better than I've seen in years. It was just that whitish-green color they usually are, but it was brighter and undulating and pulsing, so I got out of the car and stood in the wind for a few minutes to watch it. Nice.

I got back in the car and we drove on. Next time it started to flare up, I just pulled onto the side of the road.

We probably sat there for 10 or 15 minutes. Everytime I thought it would die, it pulsed up again. Then it was two ribbons, and it wasn't just white, it was green and lavender too. It danced and flickered and raced through the sky, going right above us several times so I could stick my head out the window and look straight up and watch it. It looked really close.

About the time it was starting to die again, Summer started getting antsy and running around in the backseat. I can only assume the solar dust was making her nose twitch or something.

Then I almost hit a fox coming off the pass, but eh.

Now I'm home and I'm going to bed. Yes.

Today, neither Keels nor I subbed, because we were attending Direct Instruction Math training. It is hard to explain what DI is, exactly, so I will spare you, save for saying that it's usually used with the learning disabled, and has multiple levels from (roughly) 1st grade through 6th grade.

It was an interesting class, and the lady who taught us (there were 13 or 14 of us, subs and teachers) was very nice and informative. She kinda reminded me of my Aunt La Vaughn.

But I am so tired, and still sick, and have a really bad headache. Tonight is TV night at Justin's, but as soon as I'm back from that, I am going to sleep right through noon tomorrow (I'm taking tomorrow and Friday off because I'm ill and because I have to take my car to the vet all day Friday. AGAIN.)

But I think we get paid the same for the DI training as we would for a full day of subbing. So that's nice.