Insulated ~

A sparkling Friday morning here in the Burg, as the sun finally cuts thru the clouds and highlights the water droplets still clinging to everything. M has headed up to DC for a conference but we've got the termite guys coming back to re-hang and replace some insulation under the house, so I'm on Reception Duty.

On the same duty yesterday, I was here to sign for the delivery of the carpet runner we bought in Turkey. I waited for M to get home and in a moment pregnant with trembling anticipation, we unrolled it in its new front-hallway home to see if it looked as good here as it did in Kusadasi. It did. Whew.

Today will mark my re-entry to the World of Fitness, as my cold abates and I resume the jogging and biking so necessary to shedding the waistline souvenir of my 28 days of shameless culinary indulgence aboard the m/s PRINSINDAM last month. I was pretty good about exercising aboard ship, which is the only reason my task is within reasonable, if not easy, grasp. With the Holiday Season looming ahead, this a matter of some urgency.

Actually I was doing pretty well this week, down a pound or two already, when Someone in this house broke the seal on the bag of FoodShouldTasteGood brand multigrain tortilla chips from Costco that we had on hand for "entertaining." That was day before yesterday, and that bag is now gone. Tortilla chips of any description are right behind the snack before which I am utterly, completely helpless: trail mix. Then there were the redskin peanuts at the Club functions the past two nights. Bottom line: my bottom line remains Expanded, right back at the poundage of my first day back.

Unusual News dept.: Caroline e-mailed a picture taken by her roomie's fiance of their condo/apartment building with a Chicago firetruck smashed surprisingly deep into the corner of the building.

I continue to figger out this new blog site -- not that it's that complicated, umfortunately. It looks nice, I think, but in some ways it seems inferior to even to AOL's clunky system, as I can't figure out how to re-enter a posted entry to correct the mistakes that inevitably escape my proofing. And when you post pictures, they appear in reverse order of selection, and I haven't been able to re-arrange them. Hopefully I'm just missing something.

I'm contemplating posting all of my Cruise Reports, which originally went out as BerryMails to a number of selected luckless family & friends. That would enable me to post a few of our 845 pictures (and even a few videos, it appears) in a context that would make more sense. Raise your hands if you'd like this. (hey hey, THAT's not polite!)

Looks like the insulation guy is here. One good thing about the Downturn: it seems there's little waiting to get someone out to your house.