As of today, internet at home tentatively returns to our lives. Now I can fill you in on all the gossip. For lunch I had a hot dog and a big fat pickle. For dinner, hot pepperoni pizza. And the first of my tax documents arrived in the mail. Yep. You're caught up.

While we were in Portland, Chiana locked herself in the bathroom for an unknown period of time. Good news is she's no worse for wear. Bad news is she built a nest for herself out of teeny bits of toilet paper. I don't think she was in there long because the litter box is also in there, and Vash didn't leave us any presents... Speaking of Vash, he's learned how to open the accordion doors to the pantry and spends his free time chewing on the dry food bag. He is a cat of many tricks. I think we have foiled him though by removing the bag to higher ground. But then he is wily and it is only a matter of time.

I am reading Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House," and it's excellent -- one of my Powell's purchases. I also bought plays by Neil LaBute, Brendan Behan, and Terence McNally, a Harlan Ellison graphic novel, two Shirley Jackson anthologies, a book on writing software documentation, and a novel by Kathe Koja.

Now I believe you are truly caught up and there is nothing left to say. Please enjoy the photo of Seattle below that I shot on an excessively foggy and strangely striated late afternoon in October. From my balcony.