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Monday I called my half-sister and got the answering machine. I left a happy birthday message and a promise that I'll send her a package real soon now. Then I tried to call my father. I got a "this number has been changed" message which was my first indication that he'd moved. I called the new number and talked to him for a while. Basically, he and his girlfriend found a house they liked but couldn't get financing. My father talked his mother into putting up the money, and they'll be buying it from her.

All of this worries me because my father's record with women is really pretty lousy. He's never had a relationship that lasted longer than seven years, and most don't last that long. Either he decides that the woman's crazy, or she gets sick of how he treats her. I suppose it depends on how much of the house still belongs to his mother when this relationship implodes.

Yes, that's a cynical attitude to take. I've just learned the hard way that I shouldn't assume that my father will change.

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After calling my father, I called my mother. She was considerably more cheerful. She passed the bar which apparently she had thought she hadn't. She didn't say so, but I suspect that her doubts were the source of her bad temper last time I called. She's considering job possibilities. I have the impression that she's not sure she likes the best one that's offered so far. It's with a law firm that does disability cases. The problem's not with the job as such; it's with the fact that the firm's for-profit. She got her law degree about 1980 and has never since worked for an actual law firm.

I asked her about the possibility of meeting her in Knoxville to get the books that she and my step-father no longer have room for. If I can meet her there, I can select the ones I want instead of getting all of them. I'll also have a chance to look over the knick-knacks and furniture that they can't take to the new place to see if I want any of it (and if it's worth trying to find storage for it until we actually have enough space for it). There are a few things that I really covet but can't figure out how to manage. They're getting rid of some hardwood dressers, the kind with the large vanity mirrors, bookshelves, tables, you name it.

My mother needs to go to Knoxville in order to get the house ready to be put on the market again and to arrange for someone to take care of it after the term ends. They've had law students house-sitting since last summer. If the place hasn't sold by fall, my mother says they'll rent it out. I need to try to find a way down there (preferably not by bus), a place to stay and a way back. It'd be much easier if I could drive. Maybe I can talk my brother into going with me…

Of course, there's a bit of a hitch in getting him to take trips at the moment. The company he's working for will cut his health insurance if there's ever a week when he drops below 40 hours. (They've done this a few times already.) He then has to work at least 40 hours a week for 90 days in order to get the insurance back. The company doesn't give vacation time at all and occasionally deliberately cuts the hours it assigns employees in order to cut off benefits. Our mother says this is probably illegal, but she hasn't been able to talk him into making a complaint to the state office that regulates such things.

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Someone has managed to pique my curiosity. It's a scam, but…

Basically there's a website that lets people send an anonymous message to someone informing him/her that they've got a "secret admirer." The recipient then goes to the site and, by entering their own e-mail address and the address of the person they think sent the original message, can try to guess who generated the original message. What makes it a scam is that each incorrect guess generates an anonymous message to the address guessed telling that person that they've got a secret admirer. This could spiral infinitely and doesn't take into account the fact that some of the people one might consider likely culprits aren't people one would admire at all. Additionally, after one makes a first incorrect guess, the site offers to let one pay $5 through PayPal to find out who one's admirer is.

Now, I'm curious because I got one of these messages. I'm just not $5 curious. I tried my husband's address as a safe guess to see what would happen, and, of course, it wasn't him. I have no way of knowing whether someone thought that I might have sent them a secret admirer message or whether someone went out of their way to send me one. Unless someone tells me, I'll never know. I hate unsatisfied curiosity.

I just hate spending money on that sort of thing more. I suppose, if I were sure I'd like the answer, I'd be more tempted, but I'm not at all sure that would weigh heavily. My curiosity is, at this point, tinged with grumpiness. I don't want to participate in the chain letter.

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We're still trying to come up with a way to solve the odor problem in our basement. We've had a noxious smell coming from our drain for quite some time. We tried bleach, which worked last year, without any effect. Today, we tried washing some baking soda down. We're working on the theory that there's a gas pocket somewhere down there because snaking hasn't helped and because we're getting no flooding at all. In previous years, we also had luck in previous years with simply flushing the pipes every few days by doing laundry, but that hasn't helped at all this time. Hopefully, the baking soda will help; it'll make the whole exercise thing easier if I can stand the smell down there.

Right now, Scott's playing Babylon 5 with some of his friends. They've planned this as an all day marathon and say they're playing out the Shadow War. So far as I can tell, they're having a lot of fun. I'd planned to be out this afternoon, but those plans haven't come to fruition (LunarGeography's mother and sister were planning to visit, but, since I haven't heard anything, I'm assuming those plans changed due to her having been with them up through Friday). I'm just trying to keep busy and out of the way and not to laugh at the guys; they'd take it wrong.

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We've decided that we have to replace our refrigerator. Scott's been looking online for information on energy efficiency and reliability and the like. I think he's reached some sort of conclusion, but I'm not entirely clear as to what it is (he told me last night, but I was too tired to register it). We talked about the idea of getting one with side by side freezer and refrigerator compartments, but we realized that that would mean we couldn't thaw a turkey or store anything large. It's not worthwhile for us. We don't do large things often, but they're important when we do.

The New Year's Eve turkey dinner is one of the few traditions we've got at this point, and I'd hate either to scale it back or to cancel it.

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LunarGeography was visiting her parents Monday through Friday. I had to run my Wednesday game without her. We had a guest player, and Laura'd really been looking forward to having him play or I'd have been very tempted to cancel. Things seemed to drag a bit without her character. I can generally count on her to keep things moving while I take a moment out to think. I'm not sure that the other players noticed, however, so most of it may have been in my head. That happens some times.

I spent time yesterday talking to Scott about where that game is going. We bounced some ideas off of each other, and I now know where events will go for the next couple of sessions. I have no idea what the players will do about it all, but I'm looking forward to throwing a few curves at them. LunarGeography has made some assumptions about what the npcs are up to that aren't necessarily warranted, and her certainty has pulled the other players along with her. I'll enjoy seeing some of those assumptions shattered.

Matt and I ended up getting together without LunarGeography on Thursday. We tried to watch a couple of movies, but it turned out that both of Matt's VCRs were badly in need of cleaning. Neither tape we tried would play right. (I suppose it could have been the tapes, but I'm really hoping that it wasn't.) We ended up talking and watching an episode of a sitcom that Matt likes. We mostly discussed various games and the difficulties that Justin's departure creates for us as GMs. It's kind of amazing how far that sort of thing can stretch.

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Friday, I finally went in to see my doctor. As I informed her when I arrived, it was mainly a bookkeeping visit. I needed her to refer me to the nutritionist and physical therapist again in order for my insurance to cover them. I also needed refills on my standard prescriptions and wanted a referral to the rheumatologist I've seen in the past. It's been a bit more than a year since I last saw her, and I want to check in.

I actually managed to get in to see the nutritionist with a same day appointment. I suspect I got lucky with a cancellation. I'll be seeing the physical therapist some time next week, sooner than I would normally. My therapist said that he didn't need the first appointment back to be more than half an hour since he already knows me and my case. I'd have had to wait till May for an hour long appointment, but they could get me in much more quickly for a half hour. From my point of view, the down side of the earlier appointment is that I've let my exercise program lapse over the last four months and won't have much of it going before I see Andy next.

I had three hours between appointments, so I went to visit a friend at the Graduate Library. I returned several books that she'd lent me but didn't stay long because she was in the middle of training some new employees. I did a little poking around in the on-line catalog and made up a list of call numbers for books that might be helpful in researching the Egypt LARP. I looked at a couple of them but didn't spend much time because I didn't have anything on which to make real notes.

I need to find out if I can check out books or not given my status as an employee on medical leave. I should have asked while I was there, but the building still gives me trouble. Being there increases my anxiety levels to the point that doing something like asking questions that I suspect the people at the counter can't answer is more than I can handle. I seem to be okay in the stacks, and I can handle visiting Judy in room 100, but beyond that… I can't visit any of the places that I used to work, not Serial Cataloging, not Monograph Acquisitions and not Exchange and Gifts (the latter holds no real temptation since I don't know any of the people who work there now). I'm too afraid, and knowing that the fear is irrational doesn't help at all.

I did run into one of my other friends just after I left the library. She was on her way to lunch and spotted me. I was glad to see her since we haven't been good at exchanging e-mails and she works in one of the places I can't get myself to go. She seemed to be doing pretty well. I'd wondered because the last I'd heard her husband had had to have surgery for esophageal cancer. Apparently, he's recovering fairly well. They're pretty financially strapped because he's not been working, but with help from (I can't remember which) her father or his father they're still paying their bills.

After I saw the nutritionist, I made a brief stop at Borders. I ended up buying a few romances for light reading. I hadn't meant to because I've got a lot of books at about that level of fluffiness that I haven't started yet. Sigh… I don't think I'm capable of leaving a bookstore empty handed. I'd mainly wanted to see if, by any chance, Bujold's newest, Diplomatic Immunity, had come out a little early. As it turns out, the Science Fiction Book Club is already offering it. Scott's leaving it up to me to decide whether or not to get it that way. We're not sure which will be faster. The SFBC would be slightly cheaper, but we're a little more concerned with getting our hands on the book as soon as possible.

I overdid a bit on Friday with all the walking from place to place. I'm still very sore. That brought home to me, more than anything else, just how badly I've let my physical condition deteriorate. I'm going to have to get myself properly back to exercise as soon as the pain recedes enough that I'm sure I won't do any permanent harm. It'll be probably about five minutes at a time at first.

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Scott and I canceled our normal Saturday games because many of our players were involved in the Smithees and so wouldn't be available. (The Smithees are rather mind boggling. Four guys, two of them here in my town, spend the whole year searching for the worst movies they can find. There are about a dozen categories and 3-5 nominees in each category. They pick a 2-5 minute clip from each nominee to show to the audience to demonstrate why the movie deserves the award in that category, and the audience votes after watching the clips. (I don't go because it's large screen, and I'm not willing to court a migraine.) The categories include things like "Worst Cover Copy," "Worst Science," and "Let's Up the Rating to R." They do one show here every year and then redo it at Origins later. The "winners" are selected based on votes at both locations. For some reason, none of the film people who are aware of the Smithees are at all eager for the award.)

We ended up going to visit Scott's sister and her family. We got there a bit after 4:30 and were greeted with the news that Brendan, our three year old nephew, hadn't really napped at all. Suzanne predicted that he'd be grumpy, but what we really got was him being fairly hyperactive. He's gotten into doing jigsaw puzzles, and he ended up dumping about half a dozen of them at once and insisting that we work with him on it. I had to work to slow myself down. For the most part, Brendan bounce back and forth from one activity to another, and Scott and I took turns focusing on him and paying attention to his little sister, Kayla.

Kayla woke up just after we arrived, and Suzanne fed her. Then Suzanne settled both kids with us in the basement playroom and went off to cook dinner. She commented afterward that it's a pleasant change to cook dinner alone. Kayla's not yet able to roll over, but she's quite able to wriggle around, and she did so. I looked over at one point and said, "Oh, you moved her, didn't you?" Scott shook his head and replied, "No. She did that herself."

I sat next to Kayla at dinner and fed her a rice porridge sort of thing. That kept me busy enough not to feel the lack of things I could eat. I had a bit of chicken and some broccoli. Everybody else had some corn as well, but I tend not to digest that, so I skipped it. I had more servings available for the meal than there was stuff on the table that I could eat. It seems very strange to go out for dinner and then come home and eat, but that's what I ended up doing since I'd saved most of my servings not knowing what would be on the table. We all had strawberries for dessert; the others had ice cream with theirs. Suzanne had intended to make a pie but couldn't get the jelly-like stuff she needed (and didn't know how to make it). I was just as happy to have plain strawberries.

We stayed later than Scott had expected but about as long as I'd predicted, about four hours. After we got home, Scott focused on his homework while I knitted and watched tv. There wasn't really much on, sadly, but I haven't really figured out a way to make reading and knitting work properly yet. I need my hands too much for holding the book open (or on a computer, moving a the cursor or mouse or whatever).