Chase this light

I'm still in the process of cleaning out/clearing out areas of my house and today I made the switch and have the orange room mostly done as the music room now. As I was going through various and sundry cabinets and cubby holes in various pieces of furniture I found the box my camera came in with all instruction books and, the most amazing find of all: an extra lens, sun shield and remote for the camera! So I'm trying to figure out how to use these things and decide whether I want to take them to South America or not. I would like to, but I'm also kind of harping on this idea of packing really lightly. I don't want to lug suitcases all over creation down there. I have a backpack, but it's just a bit on the small side to be able to work as my only pack, I think. I'm willing to give it a go and stuff it full of things, but I'm not that optimistic about this travel light idea. And if I keep cleaning and finding more things to take along, I really won't be traveling light.

Beatrix's "cat sitter" came by today to meet her and get a key for while I'm gone and she and I used to work together and are friends. I saw her last month at a party, but we always find more things to chat about when we get together. And sure enough, we stood around and yammered away at each other for nearly an hour and a half. It was really nice to get to visit for a while. But, it's sort of the awkward kind of visit, when someone stops by for one purpose and then you start to talk about other things and before you know it, an hour has gone by and you're still standing around talking. And that's cool, except my legs get tired from standing in the kitchen for an hour talking, but there's no place to sit in the kitchen and I tried to move the conversation to the living room, but my couches were covered in things because I'm moving the rooms around, so it was still like we were stuck standing around and talking. She didn't seem to mind, though. She's cool like that. As soon as she left though, I shoved a pile of stuff down the couch and flopped down for a bit.

I need to take down my Christmas stuff. I wanted to do that today, as well as move the rooms around. I still plan to get that tree down this weekend. I tried to take a bunch of books that I had into a trade-a-book place in town today in the hopes of freeing up some bookshelf space. Well, I ended up buying a bunch of other books to fill the space, so I'm right back where I started. I know better than to expect to have any free space on a bookshelf. I did notice though that the trade-a-book place in town is carrying more genres of books than they used to. It used to be mainly romance novels, but they've got some decent fiction and historical fiction and even branching into young adult books, too. I saw a cookbook section, too. I was surprised. I'm sure they have some other types that I missed, as well. Anyway, I have plenty of reading material to make up for the lack of assigned readings for school. It's starting to begin to sink in that I won't be going to classes this semester. I'm seeing people arriving back on campus each day and they're carrying their bags of text books and talking to each other about what classes they're taking this semester, etc. It's both cool and a little strange to work on a college campus and not be a student. It's like you belong, but kind of have outgrown parts of it, too.

Okay, am going to watch a couple of episodes of "The Tudors" (I'm on the final season),having dinner, and then I am definitely taking down the Christmas tree.

p.s. Have you heard the duet of Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett doing "The Lady Is A Tramp"? Bennett's entire duet album is great, but this song is extra fabulous, I think. You should hear it.