Tuesday's Orts

This is the second edition of my new feature, wherein I list some of the little things that accumulate in my head! 

• I love seeing The Boy so often!  Nick's been around a lot since he is getting ready to move back in very soon.  I didn't realize how much I was missing him--he didn't come around much the past year and especially since he got a steady girlfriend about six months ago. 
• Also I enjoy a personal concert.  My husband Grant's band is practicing downstairs for an upcoming gig at the Ventura County Fair this Friday night (Backtrack: Seabreeze Stage, 8 and 10 PM).  So far I have heard "Rock and Roll Fantasy", "American Band", "Born on the Bayou", and "Summer of 69".  They sound great as usual!
• On the subject of the fair, Job #2's location is within a quarter mile from the fairgrounds, which charges $10 to park there.  Naturally all the nearby street spots are coveted to avoid that fee.  Tomorrow is another "Dollar Day" entry so I fully expect it to be horrendous to park.  We have scheduled patients only for the mornings during the 10 days of the fair.  It's kind of nice break not to have afternoon patients despite the parking hassle.  This morning our little lot was stuffed with cars! 
• Remember those cheap plastic puzzles where you slide tile squares up, down, and sideways to make them align into a pattern or spell something?  Grant and I played that game for a great deal of Saturday, trying to rearrange the downstairs so we can go back to sharing the family room for our hobbies.  We decided the piano had to move to the living room and we had to move two couches, two tables, two chairs, three lamps, a huge rug, a lawyer's bookcase and a desk to make room.  When did we get all this furniture?  Here's what we found underneath the desk, which has not moved for _____ number of years: 

That would be a couple dozen cat toys--our cats love foil balls.  And, ew, the grout looks pretty hideously dirty in this picture! There was a lot of cleaning going on at the same time of the furniture shuffle, believe me.  The vacuum and dustrag and broom were out in force.

• I told Grant I wanted to order a sewing desk, one of those portable ones like this but he wanted me to order something lots nicer and more permanent.  He shared with me that a few years ago several of my siblings and my parents gave him money to help get me a desk at Christmas but they could never find quite the right one to surprise me with!  Wow, I was surprised.  It is exciting to give up Grant's childhood metal desk I have used for about 20 years for one actually made for a sewing machine!  I am thinking of this one.  I will feel spoiled indeed when I finally get it here.
• When your kids move out, you miss their friends, you ever notice that?  When Elaine moved in with boyfriend Chris last year, even my vicarious knowledge of Caitie, her best-friend-since-elementary-school pretty much ceased.  We were happy to have her to dinner Sunday night at my invitation.  Elaine remarked about how nice it was to have "just the family" there, meaning the immediate family with no grandparents or uncles, etc.  Caitie said, "Um, wait, you invited me here! Awkward."  Of course she IS family, we quickly assured her, especially because she lists Elaine as her sibling on her Facebook page!   
• Last night at the meeting of The Orts, my quilting circle of three, I taught my friend Tanya to make "a 9 square" from a "fat pocket".  This was Debbie's malaprop when she was trying to remember the names of things at the beginning of the night. Too funny!