mostiquo bites on my ankle

 mostiquoes are jerks. everyone knows it.

sometimes at night my feet are hotsy totsy. i seek relief in the cool grasses. the cool mostiquo ridden grasses... other times i fill a tub up with cold water and when i submerge the feet it's like sticking a red hot brand into a bucket of water. sizzles.

beirut is very curious of the tub of water. he relentlessly sought access and the other day despite my best goal-keeping attempts he jumped in. and he jumped right back out. i thought he would make more of a fuss, but he just dealt with it.

this morning mohammad wasn't around. mornings without mohammad are not right. his dad is coming into town for some medical reasons and i know the next few days he will be taking care of him. he worries about his parents and i worry about him.

at work i have been puzzling on some bureaucratic messes. it has been days that i've been teasing apart the knots of requirements and passwords, and id's and  today i had 2 major wins. it's not completely worked out but i taste victory.

i called a plumber to fix our urinal. it keeps running and running after it's flushed. the plumber was a nice guy but had no sense of direction. i had to go meet him on the street and around the back. he was on a totally wrong street. poor plumby.

i had a call about our benefits and sick leave. i found receipts for joyce the bookkeeper. i cleaned up the overturned orchid that was left upside-down all weekend. i had a 'quick word' with a number of people. i bought some knives for our kitchen from a member. emails. phone calls. texts. signed karen up for my social on thursday. and suddenly the day was over.

i bbqed some chicken thighs for supper today. it went well except i put tinfoil on the grill because the guy that sold it to me said to do that. but we just had cheap tinfoil. and it stuck to the chicken a little bit. i know how to say 'a little bit' in arabic. smug look. but the chicken, despite leaving some of it's bits behind on the tinfoil was tender and we liked it.

mom and i had some garage sale-ing fun on saturday. mom has been yearning for garage sales since moving to richmond. "richmond just doesn't do garage sales," she'd moan to herself and anyone else who'd lend a sympathetic ear. so she found 3 and we went to those and got some free garden tools that i hope someone put out for us to take... mom was sure of it--but i wasn't. i bought an apple tree and an old-timey camera. and we were supposed to be done. but i googled garage sales and found an annual neighbourhood garage sale so we had to go to that, and with glee we discovered it was a veritable garage sale bonanza! it was in a townhouse complex and we walked from house to house buying steals and deals with much glee. i got a circular saw from an old man. his wife seemed relieved to be rid of it. her response to burt demoing the saw for me was an alarmed, "burt! where's your cane?!" almost every place had an item of interest. i cleaned up.

it satiated mom's garage sale yens.

oh yeah, and today when i got home beirut had trapped himself in the bedroom. poopies in the sheets.