I finished the top for Pentagon papers tonight. I don't have any photos, because it's dark and it's late and it's Friday and ... do I really have to make more excuses here?

... yeah, thanks.

I need to flip the quilt top over, trim any seam allowances that are too large, and then press it ... but of course, pressing it means re-filing all of the fabric that I've pulled out this week to finish PP. It does seem like every round of tasks comes with seventeen codicils these days, but it is what it is.

It had to happen eventually, but it took a bottle of mead and a late night and finally signing off of work to realize it.  I am going. I am really going. I have this sleep, the one that's coming for me fast even as I type this entry, and one abbreviated one more, and that is it. A little over twenty-four hours and I am gone.

I am lying on the guest bed next to a surprisingly small pile of items that must go with me. Is this all I need of life for two weeks?  Really?

Tickets are booked to Paris; tickets are booked to San Francisco.

We will be six in San Francisco, with tagalong extras depending on the day and the inclination of our local friends.  We have nebulous plans:  look for us in the cheap seats at the Giants-Astros game on July 4.  I'll be the one in the bleachers with the beer; that's all you need to find me in the crowd, right?  We'll do a night tour of Alcatraz and I'll relearn the San Francisco bus system and pictures, pictures, pictures!

A dozing moment of insight brought some of my photos back to me.

I have been on a photo hunt for months now. The goal: find as many of my photo originals as possible, and lodge them on flickr. I was unhappy with storing them on domesticat, and decided it was well past time to archive them in one place.

I had considered the originals of my Sedona photos lost. Not any more:

The fortunate part about not knowing what lies ahead of you is that sometimes, not knowing makes it possible to muddle through a difficult situation. Sometimes foreknowledge only makes what is coming more difficult to bear.

Whether or not what I have could be correctly termed "Martian Death Flu" is somewhat irrelevant; anything that forces you to sleep for over eighteen hours a day - while you're on vacation, no less - counts, as far as I can tell.

For those of you who hated the sunny, cheerful phone calls I made from the beach, revenge is yours. I have spent the last 24 hours huddled up on Noah and David's couch, under blankets, alternately sneezing and snuffling, and making the blindingly-obvious statements that I always make when somewhat feverish.If ever there was a hint that perhaps it was time to go home, this is it. True, I need sleep, as I also need hydration and probably a few calories (hard to get interested in eating when all food tastes like unsalted cardboard), but what I really, really need right now is some kitty ministrations.