Truly random weekend

• Alternating washing dishes and doing laundry. The laundry consists of most of the towels in the house, while the dishes are left over from cards on Thurs. We used the good china, and thoroughly rinsed the dishes that night. I didn't want to wash them until I was well and truly fully awake (the china is older than I am; I'd hate to break any of it). Not that I'm really fully awake now, but it's better than the other night.
• Spent a great deal of time at Panera this morning, puttering on little things, doing a few crosswords. But heavens, were there the people with laptops there! Panera has free wifi, and tends to be popular with that crowd for that reason. Unfortunately, they have a limited number of electrical outlets. Got the fish-eye from a couple of people who were peeved that I dared to sit my non-electric-requiring pens and notebooks at a table within four feet of an outlet.
• Through another blogger I've found the unedited transcript of the Sarah Palin/Charlie Gibson interview. I knew it would be biased, from the little I saw of the broadcasts, but holy smokes! The link takes you to a transcript that indicates what was edited out. If this doesn't convince you that the media is biased, I'm not sure what will.
• Accidental vacation day this coming Monday. I had submitted a request a month ago, but my plans changed. I totally forgot that day was scheduled, and accepted a meeting for Monday. About an hour after that I looked at my calendar and realized I should be off. Did you know that Microsoft Outlook does not put up a "busy" block for the hours of the day if you indicate that an event is an "all day event"? So someone scheduling a meeting thinks you are available. At any rate, I need the day. Maybe I'll go out to Genesee and get batting for the five quilt tops that have been sitting here silently shouting "Quilt me! Quilt me!" for the last two years.
• Nothing like price gouging before you even know there really will be a shortage. I filled up last week (Sat or Sun?) at $3.71 per gallon. I saw $3.99 this morning, with a newspaper report saying it is up to $4.09 or more in some areas of the city.
• Leftovers...in addition to the two pieces of apple pie, Cindy did indeed leave the rest of the quart of ice cream. Half of the five pound beef roast was left (after I sent a good chunk home with Hao), as well as a boatload of veggies and dip. I may not have to cook again until Tuesday. That's not a bad thing.
• Watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix last night. I've still not read any of the books. Based on references made in the movies, I'm assuming there is a lot of other descriptive stuff in the books (the markles or whatever Luna thought was taking her shoes, for instance, or more history on the Order or descriptions of the invisible-to-anyone-who-hasn't-seen-death horse/flying things (speaking of which - BIG blunder on the movie-maker's part - how on earth could Ron, Hermione and Neville ride those things if they couldn't see them??? Caught that right away and was inordinately bothered by it)) and I think I'd be bored. Too much description and not enough action that moves the plot forward = me, asleep. While I understand the need to create a convincing alternate world, if you have to take five hundred pages to do it, something is wrong. Liked the movie, though the kids definitely looked too old for the part; Harry references "waiting fourteen years for this" when he is speaking to Voldemort, which would make him 15, maybe 16 in this movie. That's what I call suspension of disbelief.
• Quilting for a bit tonight. Need to finish this baby quilt, as the little girl is now two and a half weeks old. Besides, there are all those other projects piled up. I'd like to finish piecing the Moonglow quilt I began about five years ago. The two compasses (compassi?) I have completed are the middle ones on the left and right columns of the pictured quilt. Mariner's Star or Compass Rose blocks are tricky to piece traditionally. These also finish at something like 10 3/4" - fairly small. The center compass is a full 32 points. A quilting friend who completed this quilt several years go called it the "Moon-bats" quilt. I think she's right.

More coherent post later, on some of the stuff I've been reading.