It's been a quiet evening here in Phoenix, my home town. Driving out toward a (relatively) nearby outlet mall, gazing on the hills and valleys north of town once you get past the sprawl, I turned to Mason and said, "Just remember, none of that's really there. Arizona's all flatness and wasteland." Recent rainy spells have left the desert ablaze with color. We then started talking about all the places we love (both of us grew up here, so we admittedly have our biases) ... Jerome, Prescott, St. Johns, the Verde Valley, Flagstaff. Then there's the Grand Canyon (nothing special, just a big hole in the ground) and Kartchner Caverns (again, nothing special, just a different kind of hole in the ground). He has a greater appreciation for beauty than almost anyone I've ever known. It was a pretty cool moment.

So anyway we spent lots of money yesterday, since I'd received my G.I. Bill check for school, which was sufficient to put some towards my saving plan for paying for school and still left us money for various useful household items, to wit: A router/switch so that I didn't have to keep using his computer to access the Internet through our new DSL line (hallelujah for that, incidentally); some music; a new CD burner (48x! Just think, a full CD in 2 minutes, give or take!); and the mother of all purchases, dearly-bought gift for my psuedo-housewife, a Kitchenaid. Now, permit me to be excited by domesticity for the moment, but this thing is truly wonderous to behold. To call this thing a mixer is to insult its robustness, or to elevate the common handheld mixer to godhood. 300 watts, untold horsepower, this thing could probably tow a car if it were harnessed properly. With the attachment thingie on the front of it, it'll do just about everything this side of cook for you. It's pretty cool. It's also very red.

Right, so that was yesterday. Today was occupied by homework, business chores, watching Rat Race (which would've been OK if not for the all-too-evident focus-grouping that went into the filmmakers' decisions as to what was funny and for the frequent flagrant violations of the laws of physics, probability and causality), more homework, and soon bed.

Boy ain't home; he's working, and is presently asleep somewhere in Minneapolis. I feel a little lonely. But all in all, it's an OK end to a decent weekend. All too soon I head back into the fray that is my job, the daily struggle to fit too few nurses with too many patients and keep all of both groups happy.

Can't wait for the weekend after next, when I trek to NoCal for the annual Sebastopol Celtic Festival! I have open time at this point for Thursday night and Friday during the day for my friends, and I intend to make use of it. I may've mentioned before that I'm planning on Friday tea with the #gaysfca group, so consider yerselves warned! And be excellent to each other!

(And a side note to Joseph: Thanks at least for saying you don't think I'm a bad person. Really. It's comforting to know we're making progress! ;^) )