My Lovelies:
Tonight is one of those nights where I plan to stay up a bit late and just veg out here in my beloved DISLand. Please pay no attention to the fact that dinner is still cooking and my husband just spent WAY too much cash on a stereo system and new/used speakers. I imagine there will be a fair amount of noise going tonight. (No, just stop.)
So, I thought I'd share a bit of DISPlanning with some Dis and Dat about my day. Let's take a peek into the world of Queen Steppe and Her Day, shall we??
Steppe was rudely awakened WAY too early. This made for a massively grumply start, but it was quickly forgotten (and made up for) with breakfast out at a new place to us. Coffee properly infused, things began to look brighter. Or was that the sun who makes a very rare appearance after mid-September around here? Which is significant to some minor drama later...
After a successful breakfast at a new place to us where I had a delicious Mediterranean omelet (and coffee), we toddled off to The Toilet Store. Well, it's actually a hardware store that sells toilets and toilet parts. Which is what we needed on this particular day. Just the parts. We may be hillbillies, but we DO have a toilet. I chose to stay in the car. Which was decidedly the most tragic mistake I've made all week. Maybe all month. Possibly even all year.
This guy comes walking down the street towards the Union Gospel Mission, the homeless place next door to The Toilet Store. He stops and starts to cough. A lot. Like he has TB a lot. He coughed even more, then leaned against the wall. I knew deep down what was coming next, but somehow was frozen. I couldn't take my eyes off of what was about to unfold. As if in slow motion, this poor guy starts to barf in Fountain-of-Nations-amounts. Clearly, he has some serious practice with this, as he actually "broadcast" his sidewalk giftings in large arcs making sure to grace about 20 square feet of prime downtown real estate. The last eruption landed 3 feet from my car. When he was done and saw me gape-mouthed and horror stricken, eyes popping out looking at him, he gave a oopsie grin and continued off to the Mission. It was one of those moments like a car wreck happening before your eyes in slow motion. You, as much as you desperately want to, can NOT drag your face away. My omelet was suddenly not as good as it once was.
The rest of the morning was spent ticking a bunch of packing and trip things off of the long list. It always comes back to MY GRADUATION CELEBRATION TRIP doesn't it? There is not one single day that I don't do something trip-related, no matter how miniscule or huge. Today was a day of scratching off a butt ton (you do know that's a REAL word, right? Look it up.) of little things, but I feel SO much more ready after my day. Because you've stuck it out with me this long, I'll assume you are either nutso, have nothing better to do, or actually care that I bought Q-tips today.
No, no, that's not all Queen Steppe did. Let me give you a literary tour of a few more of the mundane, but extremely important things I accomplished today.
I:
1) Repaired my Graduation Cap that I'll be wearing to at least the FF dinner (possibly more)
2) Bought some clip on sunglasses. Dweeby as it is, I deliberately chose to go that route as the thought of changing out glasses over and over all day long wigs me out. Nope. Ain't gonna do it. Flip 'em up, flip 'em down. Just don't flip 'em off. I was reminded that I really had to take care of this because the sun was so bright I thought I was having laser surgery in my car today.
3) Bought 5 more 2 GB SD Cards. Here's my rationale: I could either buy a storage device AND take my laptop or just switch out cards every other day or so. My laptop has been cast into the Load-of-Dung category, so taking it isn't an option. It won't even close anymore. So, I had to go with option #2- taking my SD cards; that makes me nervous. Just not enough I have 4. With 9 cards over 14 days, I can switch out every other day, or a bit more, and be worry free of losing photos. Of course there is always the very slim chance I could lose the entire case I bought to store all my cards in the other day. But I would have to shoot myself, and it wouldn't matter anyway. So, I went with the extra cards and am hoping that the Card-Eating Gremlin doesn't devour my library in the dead of night.
4) Bought some Q-tips, a glasses repair kit, and some more bandaids.
5) Did all my laundry, BECAUSE TODAY IS ASSEMBLE THE OUTFITS DAY!!!!!
6) Assembled each outfit and came up with 9 combos of capris and tops, shorts and tops, dresses, blah, blah, blah. Everything is paired up and I've decided which bottoms will be worn twice - again with a different top. I then realized I don't have enough capris or shorts, so bought a couple more. Just to be safe. Never can be too safe, right? (OH CRAP, just realized I have to figure out jammies.) My ditty bag is now completely packed too, having received the last additions of the Q-tips, bandaids and Tylenol.
7) The first set of MBs are in the park back, which will be inside my carryon, which is also mostly packed.
8) I looked for our suitcases. And couldn't find them. While I'm aware of Card-Eating Gremlins, I was not aware of the Suitcase-Eating variety. So, I borrowed a large bag from my neighbor and will get one of Bek's this weekend. Which makes 3. (I did find a medium-sized one that will work for one of the kids.) I need a mega-sized one, because I have all the "extras": window decorations, 4 pairs of shoes (Why, no. No one has actually ever told me I'm paranoid.), DISMeet gifties, etc, etc....
9) I made another emergency run to the Toilet Store for an un-anticipated item (why do DYI plumbing projects ALWAYS end up needing more flanges and bolts?), and asked if they were the ones who had to clean up the earlier.... stuff. But, they said they had a better sort of entertainment around 10:00. Some other downtown character tossed a cigarette butt down a storm drain and it roasted some dry leaves in there. The Fire Dept was there for about an hour. Apparently, they have at least 1 or 2 forms of "entertainment" every week.
10) I went to buy the speakers with The Hubs and came home to cook dinner which we finally ate at 8:00. I am now suffering with 4 billion decibles and earplugs.
11) Lastly, I also found out that Cynthia had changed her mind (actually, her son changed his mind) about checking OSU out at this time. I don't blame him, the Beavers suck at 1-2, about as bad as the Blazers every year since 1977. So, I won't be getting to see her tomorrow afterall. I've put it out to her that we'll be taking the Red Eye out of SeaTac on the 9th, and invited her to catch a nightcap with me there. We'll see...
12) Now, The Queen is resigned to not moving one inch from this perch until bed. She is tired and not really packed yet, but completely satisfied with her day.
Tomorrow will be the day, in which Queen Steppe finally actually packs and gets to take a nap. Be jealous. Very jealous.
BOOOO! So, this weekend I'll be hitting that up hard. I have to shorten the sleeves on a couple of my tops that I'm taking, so when I alter Anara's Alice costume and have the machine out, I can quickly fix those and get them packed. 
The makeup and the accessories make the costume a million times better.
That's too bad that Cynthia changed her mind, she is one cool lady!
?I
Oh, who am I do second guess your, in my opinion, very legit excuse(s) to beat the heat? I mean, who wants to get burned or risk heat stroke? 
And all strange comments for the next few days will get a pass. 
