Well, it was not my favorite day in many ways. For one, it was really cold and gray, so not very warm inside, even with the heat on. There was no firewood left inside or even on the porch, so we couldn't start a fire. Art slept in and so did Ray. I had breakfast and thought about making some bread, but it wouldn't heat up the house until later... I woke Ray up at 9 and took the dogs out. I could hear the river roaring, so I took them through the woods to see it. It was awesome--pouring over the dam and crashing down below, brown and foamy. It was a good walk. When I got back, Ray was still eating. We were supposed to be at pilates in less than 30 minutes. I said, "I guess we're not going." He said he still had a headache and was going back to bed. I should have just gone by myself, but I didn't. I made some cookies while Captain and Vanessa went to the dump. Looked at some recipes. Art finally got up while we were eating lunch. Ray got up about 2. I had gotten some wood from the pile by the shed, so we had a fire and it was getting more comfortable, but it is almost gone. The sun peeked out once or twice. Art and I played Carcassonne. Ray worked on the gift cards. About 4, M. called to say she was in town and arrange for me to meet her with Art. We went to the mall and got there a little before her, so wandered a bit. I have to say, the mall was not appealing--quite crowded and I had really no interest in looking in the stores. If I had been alone, I might have looked at some clothes.

After we met up and I handed Art over, I was walking out to my car. There was a woman crying and a lot of policemen. I heard them say, "what was he wearing?" The answer was "a North Face jacket and a green shirt." As I drove around to the other side of the mall, I saw a man wearing that, with a black bag--a briefcase or laptop--going into the mall. I wasn't sure what to do, so I called 911 and told the dispatcher. I had to explain it twice. Like so many things, I will not know if they caught him--or even what he did.

I got home about 5. I had talked to Vanessa earlier about going to the movies. Fantastic Mr. Fox had been playing for a while at the discount movie theater ($2) and we had talked about going. The problem was it was showing at 5:15--always a challenge to eat dinner right afterwards if no one is home to cook it. Ray had gone back to bed. The Captain didn't want to go. He rarely does, which is okay, except my Mom loves going to the movies. She is not very assertive, so it was hard for me to judge whether she really wanted to go or not. After some dallying back and forth, we jumped in the car and headed back where I had just been. We missed the previews and the very beginning, but saw most of it. Kind of peculiar, but we had a good time.

When we got in the car, I called the house. "Daddy, is Ray still in bed?" "Yes," he said. "I need you to put dinner in the oven." He started protesting. "Just listen." I said. "Look in the cookbook next to the stove for the temperature and put the oven on. Dump what's in the pan into a casserole. They're in the drawer under the microwave." "But the topping isn't ready." "That's okay, I will do that part when I get home." "I'll have to preheat the oven, won't I?" "Oh, the oven. To turn it on, push the button that says Bake and then press the plus and minus buttons to ge to the right temperature." "I'll do my best. Hurry home." I can't convey the right tone of voice, that suggests this is a massive undertaking that he cannot possibly accomplish. When we got home, he shows me that the cookbook was in fact turned to the recipe for biscuits, not the casserole. So  he put the temperature to 350, not a bad choice. And he said, "it needed to be covered, didn't it? I put the cover on." I said, "no, but that's okay we'll take it off." He left the room and Vanessa and I opened the oven. He had put a plastic casserole with a plastic lid in the oven...too funny. We rescued it and tranfferred it to another container from the same drawer without saying anything. It was a sort of microwave casserole. The bottom is okay in a regular oven, but the clear plastic top is not. It had started to melt in one corner. It had printed on it, "not for use in conventional ovens." The moral of the story is...? when you think you have been very clear and detailed in your instructtions, you have not thought of everything. I still think it was worth doing. Next time, I will think of more specifics.

Ray got up in time for dinner and we all enjoyed it. I stayed awake until 10, then fell asleep during two episodes of the Vicar of Dibley, which Ray proceeded to tell me all about while we were going to bed. I thanked him for cutting up the strawberries, which we had with cake and ice cream. MMM. I said, "you used both pints?" "Yes," he said. "We can have them on our pancakes in the morning." "No," I said, we are having blueberries in our pancakes." "No," he said. "I ate them. I'm sorry." "I can't believe you did that, I was so looking forward to blueberry pancakes, you know how much I love them." "I wanted fruit and an apple didn't appeal." I won't go on, but I was very angry. Then I was awake for about an hour. This morning, he got up before me and went and got more blueberries...