I honestly don't know how the week flew by so quickly.  Maybe the breathless Hurricane Gustav coverage?  Or my total inability to not watch all of season 3 of The Wire in one sitting?  Anyway, it turns out, if you're not paying attention, time passes.  Not such a profound observation, really.

I set up my voice mail on my work phone this week.

And I was chased by a dog on a run.  I've been chased by dogs once or twice before but they were, well, they weren't particularly fierce.  Mostly they thought it was a game and kind of jogged along with me, yapping their happy bark, wagging their happy tails.  This one though was on duty.  Like, I really needed to get out of there.  Granted, his little dachshund feet weren't going to get him anywhere fast but still, sharp, angry bark=deadly jogger assassin.

In a flurry of domestic I-don't-know-what, I erected a chicken-wire structure that can easily function as either a compost heap or a chicken igloo.  Then I went crazy trimming back our trees and shrubbery and tossed all the yard waste in.  Hedging shears are just about the most fun yard tool (the garden hose will never win because its such a pain to wind up, those aerating cramp-on shoe-thingies though... a close second).  I did some magnificent work with the hedges here.  Or at least up until I disturbed a wasp nest.  Mean fuckers.  Ruthless.  They're the like the Ancient Assyrians of the bug world.  I find obscure references like this funny because I know the tiniest little bit about Ancient Mesopotamia now/give college lectures on the subject.

I'm madly in love with my compost heap.  I may or may not mutter quotes from Macbeth when stirring it, my magic cauldron of organic waste.  My roommate pointed out that I was going to start gaining weight because I seem to be eating more just for the glee of adding rinds and stems and uneaten hummus to my heap.

Status of my battle with the printer: Ongoing.  I went to the ITS help desk to ask for the admin password necessary to load the software.  They told me there to email the ITS help desk and they'd get back to me.  This does not bode well for a quick and bloodless resolution.

Status of my battle with the university textbook store: A tenuous peace has been negotiated.  I unintentionally roped the Vice-Provost into the mess which I think gave my saber-rattling some legitimacy (it always helps to have NATO allies) but I think I may have shown my hand too early.  This will put me at a disadvantage in the anticipated flare-up when I need to order textbooks for next semester.

And NOW I am off to the first MSU home game.  Or, actually, the tailgating of the first MSU home game.  BrrreaaAAAAGH!

p.s. Diesel, I will be back in LA for a visit in December at the latest, but possibly earlier.  There are a lot of ins, a lot of outs, a lot of what-have-yous.