I Forgot What I WS gOING tO lOOK uP

Morning alarm/lights startled me. I had a pit stop it 5:30 after not being able to fall asleep till almost 1. Managed to do my whole morning routine, this time remembering to pack the artichoke hearts and cookies.

There was no sign of Spook. The treats I had left by her food tower last night were still there. I checked all the possible hiding places, nothing. I am pretty sure she escaped out the carport door last night. I didn't see her at all after dinner. It's always warmer inside than out in the evening, so I open all the doors.  They all have screen doors of the slide-and stick variety, spring loaded. It had been a long time, but Spook has in the past exercised her claws on the screens, and the carport one can pop open when she plucks hard enough.

I wasn't 100% sure she wasn't hiding somewhere, so when I got to work I fired up the webcam app, only to find no signal from the cams or from the smart hub. Tivo app couldn't connect either. Comcast said there was a signal to the home but couldn't find the modem or router. PG&E showed three reported outages across the street, but nothing for the mobile home park.

After lunch I finally called the park, they said there was an outage at about 8:30-10, but it's back. I was able to reset the modem on Comcast's web site, but nothing else came on.

Oh well.

Another huge catered breakfast crowd at work, this time I hung around a bit and perused the eye candy. There was a lot. And there were hard boiled eggs.

The overnight test suite had 3 passes and 97 fails. I ran it again and it got up to 27 passes and 5 fails before the app maker emailed that I was using an old version of the software which links the MacBook to the test device, and a suggestion that I switch the laptop to ethernet instead of wi-fi. It took a while to do all that.

Lunch was turkey tetrazini and orange milanos. And I took a glass of ice back to the hole, because it was getting hot in there.

Left half an hour early - went across the street to cool off and read.

Got to the nails place 10 minutes early, she was 5 minutes late.

After nails, next door to Safeway, to buy All The Frozen Dinners. And ice cream. Lactaid is now $7 a 3/4 sized carton, they have lost my business. I am not *that* lactose intolerant. And Dreyers had a 4-for-$3 each sale. Marie C and Boston Market dinners were also on sale. In fact, looking at my receipt, everything was discounted.

There was a long set of lines for the three open registers. I got into the line with the woman with the nicest butt ahead of me. The other two lines were mostly populated by people with butts like mine. Not a pretty sight, especially near food.

And then a remarkable thing happened. A tall, slender, attractive 40-ish woman with long hair and just a small handful of items lined up behind me and started to chat with me. Turns out she's a teacher in Fremont. I was about to ask if she wanted to cut ahead, since I had All The Things in my basket and she had very few, but instead she put her items on the belt, and asked if she could push past me. And she bagged my groceries for me. Like a pro. She said she used to do this for a living. I thanked her and gave her my card, but I don't think she'll follow up on that. As she put the last bag in the cart, I saw a diamond ring on her hand which is so bright it may show up on the Cassini photos of Earth as seen from Saturn. The band of the ring was set with small but Quality diamonds, the main stone was a marquise (kind of like a pointy football), and must have been 5 carats.

But who knows? She never said "we", and a bunch of sunflowers, a bunch of yellow tulips and a pair of artichokes doesn't sound like married with children. And I didn't see which finger her ring was on.

Regardless, it was nice to have someone be social at me for a change.

Home, unloaded the car, followed the screaming noise to the office, where the UPS, instead of powering back up when the juice came back on, was stuck in the alarm mode. Pushed the button and my router and everything came back on.

Maybe I'll replace the UPS with an always-on power strip.

Did another thorough search of the house, all the closets, cabinets, under all the furniture, etc. and no Spook. Considering how scared she is of me and people in general, I knew I was never going to see her again. But I left all the doors open, left the screen open at the carport door.

Watched an episode of PTI, and then started up the 6 o'clock news, but deleted the recording after they did that stupid thing of sending the reporter to the scene of the event hours after the event was over. Note to news bozos: nothing is gained by having a reporter in a suit and tie speaking from the emergency lane of a busy freeway at rush hour. Nothing. And it was another depressing incident where every cop in the county fired at the suspect. They really need to have a designated shooter, preferably someone who can shoot to NOT kill, and everyone else just stand down.
 
The incident was handled as poorly as it could possibly have been handled. Motorists were left stuck on the freeway for hours, because the police were more about being scared of one man with a gun than they were about serving the other 7,000 people stuck behind them.

Dinner was Marie C chicken fried pork patty, and the last of two cartons of ice cream.

Just after I started writing this, I heard a meow. I checked the open carport door, nothing. Then I saw Spook on the porch at the screen door by the kitchen. As I went to open the screen, she started to run away, but after I backed off she nervously came inside, acting like she thought I would punish her.

All the doors are now closed, she's lying on the rug in front of the recliner. I think I may put out a can of real tuna for her. She probably won't like it, but whatever.

Delivered was a pair of cheap slippers which have no-scuff soles, which I was planning on using when I mop the floor. But when I took the fancy foam sponge mop out of the bucket of cleaning solution, only half of it came out. It had been dissolved by the solution. :-(

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
CHM reception and panel talk