I'm gearing up to be able to attain "escape velocity" (well, for one day, that is) next week. Both Barrons and Stitches N Stuff (my two main destinations) live still (Which is a real consideration, given the economy, and the distance I am driving to get there - the loss of one or both would reduce or eliminate my desire to make the trip, and I've been burned before with stores capriciously closing).

I also took my car in today. It needed an oil and filter change, and I suspected the battery was due to be changed (based on its age. I didn't say anything to the mechanics figuring that it was better not to instill the desire to replace it via power of suggestion. But yeah, they tested it without my asking and found it was going down, so I figured it was best to take care of it now, rather than wake up next Thursday and find a car that wouldn't start - or, more likely, come out of work on the first cold November evening of the year and have a car that wouldn't start).

Otherwise, it's in good shape, especially considering it's a 10 year old car. So that's a go.

I'm really looking forward to next week. I managed to purge the butthurtiness (that's my new favorite "immature" word, courtesy of CPAaG) from my life (hopefully) by sitting down with the upset person and talking it over with them. So hopefully I will not be putting out any more fires brought on by upset people.

I do need to spend some quality time with my knitting books and recent issues of magazines and contemplate just what I might want to look for when I go.

I do have one specific task: we are having a "Cajun lunch" the week after mid-fall break. Not being a particular fan of Cajun food (and certainly not knowing how to make it), I offered to do dessert. Originally I thought of buttermilk pie, which is sort of my fallback "I don't know what to make" dessert but then it occurred to me, I could do "Bayou Cake" - bake a plain chocolate sheet cake, frost it with bayou-tinted frosting (well, I may just do blue, for water, bayou-colored frosting might be kind of gross) and plop a little plastic alligator on it. (The idea being that, like king cake, the person who gets the alligator has to make the cake next time. No, this is nothing traditional or with precedent, it's something I totally made up. But I'd rather make chocolate cake than buttermilk pie, especially late in the day on a Tuesday before the lunch. Besides, cake with an alligator on it amuses me.)

So I have to find a small toy plastic alligator - like, maybe 2" long. I'm thinking Michael's - of which there is one in Longview - should have them; they carry all kinds of crazy stuff for kids making school dioramas.

(Or even better, if somewhat more involved: if they have a PACKAGE of the little alligators, I could make cupcakes and put a 'gator on each one. Party favors! Yes, it's stupid, but there's no POINT in working in academia if you cannot get away with doing something kind of stupid once in a while.)