Fall is coming. It's already dark at 5:00, which shouldn't be the shock that it is. I still associate the long long days that stay light until 10-ish with summer. School is out and that should signal the beginning of these long days. But when I think about it, that's shouldn't be the case. The solstice is shortly after that, and from then on, it's getting darker, not lighter.

I guess this association comes from summers off at the university. Spring quarter ended the first week in June, which would have made late June and early July the middle of the summer session. Summer memories involve working late at the library and walking home in the twilight.

Regardless, school starts again in a few days, and we'll in be September by the end of the week. By the equinox and October, the sun will be rising and setting at 7-ish, the rains will have returned, and the days will only be getting shorter. It just seems too early this year...

The adventure today was the Quilt Show. Mom was interested in having company, and Sister #2 had other commitments and The Girl wanted to spend some time with her grandmother, so it worked out that the two of us met her down in Tacoma for the show.

It was interesting enough. There were some lovely pieces there. I find I'm most interested in the ones that are 1) something I could see using on a bed and 2) the ones that are still being hand stitched. That being said, there were still some lovely pieces. Mom took lots of pictures; me, not so much this time.

I've found that having no place to work and a backlog of projects is a real dampener. I've got Grandmother's cotton dresses that I saved to make a quilt from oh so long ago, and there's an embroidery-based quilt that I also started years ago. One of my books is on lap-quilting, which appeals to me because it allows me to do the hand work on a small enough scale that it is practical.

Having my own space for sewing and whatnot is all supposed to be additional incentive to getting the West Bedroom sorted out and turned into a workroom for me. It will happen at some point. Any day now, right? ;-) Well, actually, it had started to happen not so long ago, but various kids moved back home, and things got rearranged again. So, I've just got to get the momentum back up, and ignore the fact that every time I've sort something out, something else happens to unsort it. But I really enjoyed having the space last time, and I need to keep that in mind and make it happen again.

Once I got all the wrecked-car/new-car stuff wrapped up earlier in the week, I mostly wasted the rest of the this past week.

There's kitchen stuff to be finished. I *did* sort through that nasty cardboard box that was feebly trying to hold all the cleaning supplies that were stored under the sink, so that we've got a pile to take to the hazardous waste disposal and a clean(!) plastic(!) bin full of sorted stuff ready to be put back. Earlier in the week, there was a period of time where there was newspaper taped to the kitchen floor beside the sink area, but no obvious work was being done. The Girl and I got tired of tripping over the tools in the middle of the floor, inquiries were made, and work has resumed. The DH has cleaned out, sanding off, patched and (hopefully) is finishing prepping the under-sink area for painting. This may actually get done (?) in another day or two, at which point the cleaning supplies will be able to go back where they belong. It would be nice if that could happen before it rains, but I suppose we'll see...

The plan for today was to continue tackling that mess, and potentially make the archeological dig required to exhume the front room from the piles of (former) class work that has been accumulating over the last three years. Now that I'm DONE(!) that needs either pitched or filed. But instead, I got a text from the student I'm mentoring (I can not abide the term 'mentee') to tell me that she and her sib had a robot competing in the 'Space Elevator' competition today at the Museum of Flight. So I hied myself over there in time to watch two of their four matches. The first went well, the second was during the Space Elevator 101 presentation in the Allen Theatre, the third was a work in progress. They made the finals (their fourth match), but I had to leave before that to get back to get *some* of the weekend stuff done.

The Space Elevator presentation was very interesting, and gave me a better perspective on where things are now. I'll be taking their monthly newsletter now, to keep up on how things are developing.

So, all in all, it was another interesting day, but another day of inadequate progress on the homefront. But, then again, I can't think about a place I would have rather been to hear about Neil Armstrong...

Beehive Juggernauts opened for Abney Park's Circus at the End of the World again. They opened for AP the last time I saw them, as well, but under the moniker The Tin Can Tobacco Band. I like them and I was looking for their next venue (unsuccessfully; I'm not sure how they get the word out to their fan base yet...) when I stumbled on a previous event of theirs at the Gypsy Cafe in Fremont. Checking the Cafe calendar, I found, not the Juggernauts, but a Russian Open Mic.

The DH was off seeing about The Cabin septic tank and whether we need it inspected, and The Girl was at a business planning dinner with the 3D club, AND, probably more important, the cafe had a hummus veggie wrap that really sounded good, so I headed off there for the evening.

It was interesting, and I enjoyed it, but it wasn't Russian. The best way to describe it: think of karaoke, but with instruments. There were quite of few instances where ones who could play well, couldn't sing, and the ones who could sing couldn't play well. But it was fun, and I'm glad I went alone. The DH would have hated it, The Girl would have been bored, but I enjoyed listening and thinking about Laurette.

Oh, and as to *why* it wasn't Russian? Yesterday was the *23rd*, not the *24th*. Now I've got to decide whether I'm going to head that way again tonight...

Cranky, cranky, cranky. Car insurance stuff, new car decisions, sister's husband's health, twisted ankle, and a lot of my time redirected from what I planned to do to stuff I "needed" to do.

So, I've been to the Antiques Roadshow now. Sister No.2 was supposed to go with Mom to this, but the BIL was ill; it was at her incentive that I put my e-mail into the random draw for tickets. Wouldn't you know I'd be the one to win? Do I watch it? No. Will I start watching it? No. If you do, when the Seattle episodes air, I'm the one with the long hair in the background during the segment discussing the two Rodin-esque stauettes.

We found out some interesting things. I didn't know that the ceramic jar that Mom calls the Ugly Woman was a tobacco jar; great-grandmother used it to hold match sticks. Mom's little charm bracelet made of Cracker-Jack prizes is actually collectable, although in a less-than-$100 way.

In the catagory of very useful things: Mom's "bookstore" necklace* is an 1890 pate de verre pendant and had the beading added in the 40s or 50s (much to the appraiser's disdain). Presumeably it wasn't specifically done by Almeric Walter (I'm sure he checked the back for a maker's engrave), but it is very much in his style. It's a pretty piece with its own merit, and it's nice knowing what would need to be done to restore it to its Arts and Crafts glory.

Was it worth missing La Belle Storm's ballet performance? When I step back and look at it, yes, probably. But it's taking some time and perspective to come to that conclusion.

Now to find the car title...



*Dad found it in a KC bookstore in 1954 or 55.

Independent of car insurance claim research, I spent yesterday crawling through the stuff on my backup disk, consolidating the three backups that I had of The Boy's computer into one so that I could (finally) get another backup of my computer made. The last one was back in April, and I'd started getting nervous.

I've got three similar 'copies' of my computer(s) that I need to go through and condense as well, but now that I have TimeMachine working again, the urgency is reduced.

I knew I forgot something I was meaning to do yesterday. The post. I spent yesterday afternoon chasing down more information regarding the value of the Saab 2000, and then shipping it off to the newest insurance person. This is the 4th person I've dealt with, if you count the first fellow who took the initial claim information over the phone. Next there was the gal who was supposed "own" my claim, but that only seemed to last until the field agent went and inspected the car. We received the initial settlement offer from him Tuesday, and it was much too low compared to what the various websites like Kelly's Blue Book, Edmonds, and NADA Guides reported it to be worth, by at least $1000. So he had to turn our claim over to this last guy, who discovered for himself what I've been telling the previous agent; there aren't comparable cars out there to assess our car against.

This most recent fellow got involved yesterday, and to both of our amazement, he has already heard back from the dealers that he contacted to provide value estimates

. They're also giving values that are about $1000 apart, but to his credit, rather than average the two, he's just going with the higher one. His current settlement offer is about $800 higher than the previous one, and I don't really think that I can do better than that, even if I still think it is a little low. I'll look over the details tonight with the DH, and I'm assuming that we'll release the car to them tomorrow. Monday, we'll bring the title into the office and presumably walk out with a check. When all is said and done, it's effectively cost us about $100 a month plus maintenance to own this car over the past year, so I suppose that might be considered reasonable. The irksome thing is that even with the insurance check, it's going to cost us over $3000 to replace it, if we go with the 2001 S-5 that we're considering. Blah. But it could be worse.

Well, after the effort to push The Boy out of the house, yesterday was pretty much of a do-nothing-type of day. I chased down what I thought would be a reasonable settlement for the totaled car, and contacted both of the insurance agents to see why we hadn't heard anything Friday about that as expected. The good news on that: we did receive the settlement offer today. The bad news: it's about $1000 less than I expected and about $2000 less than what I found to be justifiable. (It's also $4000 less than what we'll wind up spending to replace it, but that's a separate issue.) I've sent my counter-proposal, and been told that I'll be dealing with yet another agent as a result. Sigh.

The house certainly feels empty, now that The Boy has headed back to the Sinusoidal Desert for school and isn't involved in the dramatic demolishment of one room or another. The kitchen is torn up because he got the sink pulled out, cleaned up and (mostly) reseated. The Back Room is in pieces because of his rushed departure last night, and the West Bedroom has achieved a different level of chaos because we had to move enough things to let him dismantle the bunk bed set, to take off to the new apartment. We're still missing one set of bolts but he'll either find a suitable (metric) replacement or sleep on the mattress on the floor until I unearth the correct ones.

Now the challenge is figuring out which displaced pile of stuff to tackle first. The DH has already tackled most of the dishes that had accumulated while the sink and dishwasher were out of commission (a mixed blessing by itself), and finishing the kitchen is the logical place to start. Lots of work ahead, but it is nice to have a sink that isn't detaching itself from the counter any more...