Good things: calls to Andrew and Joy, watching movies with Jeff, cuddle time with the cats, and oh yeah, code-fu.

Notice I didn't say that it was my code-fu. In today's case, it isn't. More correctly, it would be a large bit of whimpering on my part and twenty minutes' worth of code-fu on Gareth's part. Never mind thef act that I spent multiple hours tracking down a code problem that turned out to be a correctly named variable in the wrong scope.

It's the kind of thing that'll drive you to drink. Questing for missing parentheses I can deal with, but this was sheer and utter madness—and all this for multiple log files! Oi, the things I do…

So what got accomplished today? Not much, in truth. The big part was getting the pesky variable problem solved (and, as I check the scoreboard, I see that the current score is Gareth 347, domesticats zero). I did, however, finish up my first full page of the admin section today.

I usually try to stay off of bandwagons. They always seem to have large amounts of scratchy, smelly hay, and you come away from the bandwagon trip just wishing that you could get a shower and not see any of your bandwagon mates for a while; a few hours with 'em and you realize that you really need something else to talk about.

But I'm jumping on this one—Verisign sucks. Sure, there's the whole thing about hoopla.com and Verisign totally fubaring things and not being willing to undo their mistakes…but I've got my own gripe to add.There's a domain I've wanted to register for some time. (Some of you can probably guess what it is, but I'm not going to repeat it here so that I don't inspire others to go questing for it as well.) I got disappointed when I did a search—turns out that .com, .net, and .org for this particular word were all taken.

It's official: not only am I an adult, I'm also really, really boring. Upon discovering that I would have the house to myself for all of Wednesday (due to Jeff's attending a conference out of town) I felt that I should do something to celebrate.

So what do I do? Do I go wild, dance naked in the streets, party until the cows come home, stage a wild drunkfest at my place, and frantically run around that evening trying to hide the evidence of the day's debauchery?No.

Your task from Friday: given the photo of the kitty in the laundry, determine both a) the name of the cat in the laundry and b) whether the laundry was dirty or clean.

I still remember the book I was reading at the hospital; I never finished it. I remember the position of the chairs in the room. Leatherette. I wore combat boots for most of the time Dad was in the hospital; if I couldn't actually combat death I could at least look as angry as I felt.

Part of me will always be twenty-five, bracing my current spot in A Confederacy of Dunces with my left thumb while I reached out to Dad with my right hand. Knowing that a touch or a voice would soothe him. Knowing that it didn't matter a damn how uncomfortable I was; I had to do what was necessary.

I hated touching Dad in the hospital. It felt…wrong. At least around me, Dad was not the kind of person to reach out and touch people. Only after his aneurysm surgery did he ever reach out to hug me; he probably had the same unusually-large sense of personal space that I have.

It's that time of year, when friends start magically appearing from far corners of the country, gathering for a weekend in which we really don't have a lot of stuff actually planned.

I picked up Gareth tonight at the airport, fresh in from the other side of the planet. The Atlanta->Huntsville flight was early, as usual, and Gareth actually arrived at the Huntsville airport before I did. He was at the baggage claim counter, calmly speaking with an attendant."Where will you be staying while you're here?" she asked. Gareth turned to me, and I recited my address.

"Lost a bag, eh?"

"Yep."

"How many?"

"Only one I checked. I saw it in Atlanta, though, so I know it at least made it to the States." A bit of a relief, that; always nice to know what continent your luggage is on. "I did pack things like a razor and whatnot in my carryon, so it's not like I'll be desperate in the meantime."

Me: "Kinda weird. We're having a geekfest on the second anniversary of domesticat."

Jessica: "Oooh. We should have a cake!"…and so year three of writing for this site begins in much of the way that years 2 and 1 began, with me sitting in front of the computer in my pajamas.

In television, it's customary to wrap up a season with a nail-biter of a plot twist, to keep the viewers hanging until the beginning of next season. While online journal writing is often a lot like screenwriting (how does one present the daily events of one's life in a fashion that's both interesting and compelling, even to those who don't know the players involved?), the idea of 'seasons' is a big difference between the two.

Close the door. No need to be quiet; for now, there is no one else here.

The lock on the door slides home with a satisfyingly solid click. Two sets of whiskers slide cautiously into view from behind the divider; they are followed moments later by four cautious, reddish-golden feline eyes.

Welcome back from the rather suddenly-imposed hiatus, everyone! Glad to see that a few of you are still around and kicking. We at casa domesticat are doing the happy dance, now that our web server is back online.I'm pleased to report that you've missed virtually nothing in the meantime. The cats are still rotten, the house is a bit cleaner than it was last week, and everyone (except Gareth) has gone home (alas, geekfest is over…).

Most of the regular readers of this site know that domesticat's web server was down for a few days due to a very bizarre set of circumstances. Fewer of you know that I maintain a Hotmail drop box, which I use to protect my real addresses from spam.

Since I had a bit of warning that the server was going down last week, I sent out an email to friends saying that they should use my Hotmail dropbox until my @domesticat addresses were usable again.