It’s been a long day and my thoughts are unwilling to slow down. I offer some of them to you in an effort to get them out of my head and to get something down here, no matter how free-form:

My dad’s surgery went well. As of right now, they plan to send him home tomorrow, which will make him very happy.

It will also make my parents’ dog very happy. She is very much THEIR dog and has been sulking in her bed much of the day. She also suffers anxiety during rainstorms, which means we’ve snuggled together a couple of times, as I have attempted to assure her that I will not let the rain storm get her. She did enjoy the drive to the grocery store, though…

Their cats were far more blasé about my parents’ absence. I mean, they’ve noticed, but as long as I continue to feed them, they’re chill.

I have been up since 7 a.m. How do you people do that on a regular basis? I mean, it just sucks.

I did not get bit by the tick I discovered crawling on my hand after I emptied the cats’ litter box outside this morning. And I did not lose it before I could dispose of it properly. Yuck.

I discovered last night that I screwed up the centering on my shawl two repeats back. I may rip back tomorrow evening in an effort to get back on track, but I may try dropping down just those relevant stitches first, though, to see if I can get away with doing it that way. I mean, the worst that’ll happen is that I’ll have to unravel it, right? In the meantime, I brought two pairs of socks with me…

When grabbing my suitcase to pack for my trip up here, I discovered my pair of jeans had never gotten put away after my last trip. This was a happy discovery, since I had another pair of jeans that had suddenly developed a hole and I was really surprised I hadn’t noticed my good pair was wearing through. I bought a new pair, though, because fall, so now I have two pairs and have found my good belt and the pair of leggings I assumed was hiding in my closet.

I read the first hundred pages of The Librarian and the Spy this evening. It’s cute so far.

I’m enjoying the reboot of Magnum on tv. It’s nothing deep, but it’s fun.

I spent much of the later part of tonight culling emails from my inbox. I deleted more than 10,000 messages, which feels pretty good, although I’d like to get it down just to the important ones. (My apologies to those of you that just gave palpatations to…)

The animals have all gone to bed. I suppose I should follow suit, because it’s another long day tomorrow. Plus, my mother asked me to sleep in their bedroom so the dog can wake me up if she needs to go out, and I haven’t been able to turn off her bedside lamp all day and I should figure that out before I get too tired and just deal with it by unplugging it…

Friday evening, Rudi and I headed up to the Cleveland Park neighborhood for an author event with Markus Zusak, who wrote The Book Thief, which I loved. He’s in the U.S. promoting his new book, Bridge of Clay, which sounds interesting. I opted to forego the signing and will read a library copy instead. Rudi and I considered eating at one of the many restaurants up there, but instead decided to pick up some pizza dough at an Italian shop and eat at home. Yum!

On Saturday, I spent an hour at the garden, where I pulled out dead tomato vines, harvested peppers, ground cherries, cherry tomatoes, and the basil we suspected wouldn’t appreciate this week’s chilly weather, and sprinkled some seeds underneath the remaining vines in the hopes we might still get some greens before the end of the season.

Check out what I found at the garden!

I stopped at the library to return a large pile of books and at the H Street Festival, where I visited Solid State Books and got a warm beverage to drink while I perused the books.

Rudi and I got Thai food takeout and watched the first episode of the new Doctor Who and Saturday Night Live.

This morning, I got up early so I could fly to Connecticut at literally the crack of dawn. My dad is having surgery tomorrow — nothing too major, but still — so if if you could think good thoughts, we’d all appreciate it.

How was your weekend?

I already get to cross something off my to-do list because Rudi and I started our weekend at an author event at the library, which is an excellent way to begin a couple days off.

Other things I’d like to do this weekend:

• Do some laundry.
• Take in some of the H Street Festival, D.C.’s biggest neighborhood festival.
• Check out the permanent storefront of D.C.’s newest bookstore, Solid State Books (They were still at their pop-up location when I visited in the spring.)
• Knit.
• Read.
• Watch a movie.
• Go to the library.
• Spend a little time at the garden.
• Snuggle with my cats and Rudi. (It’s finally cool enough to want to do that again!)
• Fly to Connecticut. (I’m heading back up for a week for some family stuff.)

How about you? What are you hoping to do this weekend?

Today was a special day. Happy birthday, Dad! I’m glad we got to celebrate it together, and I’m especially glad one of your cats gave you the present of telling you where to find the snake alive and well, so we don’t have to wonder if it will suddenly slither out and curl up with us in the middle of the night.

Today I managed to let a garter snake into my parents’ house through their front door. (They live in the woods. This has happened more often than you’d think.) I panicked. The snake panicked. The dog got very excited. The snake slithered over the first door mat, under the second door mat, and down into the air vent along the baseboard. And disappeared.

Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

As I was driving back to my folks’ place this evening, I saw this hot air balloon coming in for a landing near the town of Pomfret.