It was a good thing that what happened on Monday happened this week, but all my plans for this weekend also flew out the window. You see, because Independence Day is a Federal holiday and falls on a Saturday, I had Friday as a holiday. But Friday was my compressed day off. Ergo, I got Thursday off, too. I had pie-in-the-sky plans: changing the bed, maybe driving into Buckhead on Friday to go to their Barnes & Noble. Something different. Thankfully, I had two days to decompress.

Since I couldn't do laundry on the usual day (Tuesday), I had to do it all on Thursday. It ended up being five loads. Urgh. When I got up the internet was down, so I spent two hours just figuring out what was wrong. I called up Earthlink tech support, which is always a bad idea, and had already done everything tier 1 support suggested I do: (1) turn modem off and on, and (2) unplug modem. Neither had worked, so they turned me over to tier 2, who had me reset it. That didn't work, either; finally he asked if I could plug the phone line (we have DSL) into a different jack. I did, it worked, and he told me to keep it like that for a day. Oh, sure, leave a phone cord stretched across the highest traffic path in the house. I changed it back ten minutes later and the DSL was again working on the proper phone jack. They refuse sometimes to believe it's their problem.

I did get to work on one of my web pages (so long, in fact, that I forgot to start dinner until twenty minutes before James got home) and my story, so, minor yay. Plus this Thursday night Turner Classic Movies was running "Treasures from the Disney Vault," so we watched Johnny Tremain (nice shorthand version of the book, but the book is oh-so-much-better). I recorded "The Liberty Story" for later so we could watch Doctor Who, skipped Living Desert since I have all the True-Life Adventures on the DVD sets, and recorded Treasure of Matecumbe and Rascal to watch later.

Friday it was dark and gloomy, and I got a few things done, but not enough to satisfy me. During lunchtime I watched Rascal (another movie that is not so good as the book, but which is good-natured and suitably nostalgic). James got home early, so we used the opportunity to go out early as well and have supper at the West Cobb Diner. Took half my dinner home, as did James. We also went up to Barnes & Noble at West Cobb, where I picked up Laurien Berenson's newest mystery (in paperback). James had coupons and was going to pick up the new "1632" book as well as an S.M. Sterling anthology, but he decided to put it off until tomorrow when he could use his Barnes & Noble credit card and get five percent back. They were having Doctor Who trivia, but James was so tired we didn't stay. Later on we watched "The Liberty Story," the Disneyland episode that was a promo for Johnny Tremain, and included the cartoon "Ben and Me." The "Ben and Me" story was different at the beginning from the cartoon that was released to the public as a short; instead of the "tourguide" sequence the short begins with, there is a longer narrative where Amos Mouse talks about his ancestors and the great things they did.

In any case, Tucker needed us. Around us fireworks have been popping all day, and Tucker has been completely upset. He went out that afternoon with his tail down and looking woebegone; by the time I took him out at nine o'clock I practically had to carry him down the stairs. The "pops!" were in the distance, but it made no difference to him.

Saturday morning was even worse. Usually we open the gate at the top of the stairs and he bounds down four steps at the time. Independence Day morning he had to be coaxed down the stairs, and I barely got him to do his business. He was all alert for firecrackers and didn't even care to sniff one of the electrical connector boxes on the street that is a magnet for all the dogs in the neighborhood. Later when I took him out he was so nervous that he completely missed the rabbit sitting in the middle of the next-door neighbor's lawn.

Just to get out and get some moving around, we went back to Barnes & Noble after breakfast; I had another coupon and got the newest Manor House mystery, and James picked up the two books he left behind last night. I also found a cool-looking book called Oregon Trail, which I ended up ordering with a digital-only coupon I had. Since we were across the street from the West Cobb Kroger, we just went in and finished the shopping. At last, a store which does not over-bake its sandwich buns!

After we got home, we put the new Blu-Ray copy of 1776 on. It really does look as if you are sitting in the theatre, watching it on stage, the picture is so vivid. We watched the extended version, with the longer versions of "Piddle-Twiddle" and "Lees of Old Virginia" (and a few lines that I don't even remember). If we want to watch the new commentary, however, we have to watch the director's cut. We got the receiver to work, finally, so the music sounded great.

For supper James grilled the ribs we bought at Publix on Friday; they were buy one, get one free. I rubbed them with salt, granulated garlic and onion, and ginger, and he basted them with a mixture of "Smack Yo Mama" barbecue sauce, mostly Big Kahuna (sweet) with a bit of Georgia Gold and the other molasses-based type. We had them with a cucumber and tomato salad, watching the rest of 1776, the news, and finally the Boston Pops streaming online. The latter was a little rough at first, partially, I think, because they were piggybacking a Twitter feed on the live stream. I finally quit using my browser, but even that didn't help; when I finally turned the wireless off on the laptop it finally settled down. Great concert, and good fireworks, except they were lost a bit in all the smoke! They ended up looking like a Monet painting.

Following the Pops I put on A Capitol Fourth and we watched that until bedtime.

Pretty much the entire evening one of us was holding Tucker in our lap. He stayed with me for a while, trembling, then wandered around, then slept on James' leg for over an hour. I can't say I blame him: they passed a law that you could have fireworks in Georgia (folks have been buying them illegally from surrounding states for years) and our neighbors down in the cul-de-sac apparently bought out an entire store. It was like a freakin' Civil War skirmish out there.

Today was quiet. Tucker just stepped outside like nothing had happened, but he had to catch up on a bunch of his pee mail. We had breakfast at IHOP off the senior menu, then went to BJ's for mushrooms. Well, initially for mushrooms, anyway. LOL. Bought more omeprazole and various other things, and James gassed up the truck, then we dropped the things off at home and got gasoline for my car. James took a nap when we got home, I sat blogging while listening to Christmas music, and we had our leftovers for dinner while watching PBS.

And now some numbskull is shooting off firecrackers again. I haven't been able to get the dog to go out since five o'clock. ::growl::

Labels: books, computers, dogs, events, food, holidays, music, pets, shopping

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 9:24:00 PM

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