Blanket Statement

I haven't been posting actual updates in a while and I don't know why. Here's what's been goin' on:

* Slappy went back to the Sloans on Sunday night. I woke up on Monday morning and suddenly had all this time; I was 15 minutes early to work. I miss that little weiner dog. Sometimes.

* I've been terrified to actually start laying the tiles. I get this "Holy crap Jane spent a lot of money on these and you better not screw this up, Spooner" feeling and then I freak out. But I finally got over that and thus the tiling has actually begun. It looks really good so far. Hopefully all the full tiles in the hall and dining area will be laid by the weekend. Gulp. Since I've only been working on this project for what feels like, oh, 9 years.

* July 4th: best one ever. Hands down so much fun. BBQ at Clark and Nancy's (luckily missed the water balloon fight) but ate lots of grilled American awesomeness and drank from a small keg of Pisgah's Pale Ale, which is the best of the local ales (though French Broad's 13 Rebels is the best ESB and Green Man's IPA is off the hizzy) before they had their own little fireworks show. Right before dusk we headed down to Adam's warehouse/shop in downtown where we all climbed out onto the roof and watched the fireworks. We were so close the booms were setting off the car alarms around us. After the fireworks most people cleared out but Margarita, Johnny, Yeatman and I stuck around til way too late, playing darts and talking over each other.

* The night before Johnny and I had headed out to Black Mountain to watch "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" as it was screened in the backyard of a mutual friend's house. Sitting in lawn chairs, drinking a Sam Adams Summer Ale, watching a favorite movie: priceless. Then we went to a campfire with friends and stayed up much too late laughing and eating roasted brats.

* Quizzo on Monday: I got in an argument with the MC about Martha Washington's maiden name. Seriously. And I won the argument. If only Mr. Gillespie could see my mad US History skills now he would have just given me a blanket A in AP History all those years ago. (By the way, it's not Custis like everyone thinks. That was her first husband's name. It was Dandridge.)