I'm supposed to be cleaning the fridge according to the list I made last night. I'm supposed to be cleaning the bathroom and tidying up. Ugh. After spending the morning running around doing errands (thank goodness I rented a car for today) I'm ready for a nap. However, the phone keeps ringing and since I've been playing phone tag with a couple of people, i have to keep answering.

This is the last minute dash to the finish line. I've packed up my sister's things (all except a few odds and ends that I will have to leave in a box. I've arranged to drop off our keys with a neighbour. Cat food has been picked up as has D's poster money (finally! I panicked when the store was closed during it's open hours and we couldn't reach the guy with our posters and we'd yet to be paid). I loaded up the car with one more drop off to Value Village. Goodwill wouldn't answer their drop off door so I scooted around the corner to Value Village. I don't have to lift anymore boxes of books. Someone is coming to get the bed this evening. While I've been running around, I received the results for Svetlana's thyroid and the levels are high, meaning new medication to be dispensed. That I will have to pick up????later today? Hopefully my vet is phoning it in as I write.

Last night I said good bye to more people. Three very talented women who I went to graduate school with. They're all doing such interesting things in their lives and keep moving forward. It really inspires me to be around them. Very cool women. I'm glad to know them and will have to keep in touch. Hopefully they'll visit the blog. I know julia visits regularly. Hopefully the others will stop by too.

Coincidentally, I just got an email from another incredibly talented woman who was also in our program the same year. Last night we were trying to recall people in our program who are still in the city. I think just the few of us seated around the table were the only ones left in this city. We wondered what happened to several other peers from those two years we spent in the program. We forgot all about this woman who moved back to India after finishing her degree. She's a fabulous filmmaker and had just sent notice that she's returned to India after spending a year in England. (It just occurred to me that we would have been in England at the same time last year. Oh well. It's a big place and i was there so briefly). I haven't heard from her in ages and now this. So, I will have to contact her.

Now, the after school stragglers are making their way through the alley. One last time I have to listen to their screaming voices. I won't miss the noise at all. I hope our new street isn't too noisy. The house seems to be set back a bit so this may help.

Oh yes, that reminds me that I also won't miss whoever has been dumping their garbage in with our garbage. This happens after hours either very very late or very very early. We've always suspected a neighbour across the street who is absolutely crazy obsessive about his house and car looking perfect all the time. My sister even caught him once crossing the street to leave a garbage bag next to our house. She confronted him and told him if he ever did it again she was going to dump garbage all over his front yard (which you should see it's hysterically bizarre with figurines and pruned shrubs that are shaped into little round balls all over the place. It's weird landscaping. I don't know who offers such a service...). Anyway, he stopped for a while and then occasionally another bag would appear. This morning I saw D. move two bags across the street to buddy's house where there was no garbage in sight. So it happened again. Then when I left the house, the bags were back! I dragged them next door. It was yard waste in big heavy garbage bags. All of our yard waste is in the paper bags as required. I went out, came back, went out and came back again. Our garbage had been collected, but not those bags. I was ready to dump them on his yard, but when I went out again, I saw that they were gone. I don't care who took them as long as they're gone. What kind of disorder is that? Anywho...I'm not going to miss him, his ugly house and his stupid car that he cleans with windex and paper towel. Okay now that I've gotten that off my chest....

I'll write again from the other side of the country.