Just put away money B gave me for TJs food I picked up. Way over reimbursed me. I'll rake his leaves tomorrow in retaliation.

I don't think so, Matt. From what I understand, dogs are really good at identifying different scents in parallel, one doesn't mask another.

I would think they just like it. They can sniff each other from farther away, but why not get in close to the source if you can?

went out for Ethiopian food

How was it?

How was it?

Pretty good. Not quite as good as my favorite Ethiopian place in NJ, but I'd definitely go there again. (It was Emanu in Pleasant Ridge.)

Oh, and my sister said that the cronuts at Happy Chicks were better than the one she had at the place that first made them. They only have them here on Saturdays, and they do different flavors each week. This week, they had orange chocolate chip and blackberry.

So I got a cinnamon broom from TJs today. First hung it on basement door,basement side. Too strong.

I found that the too strong smell went away very quickly, so I put mine in the garage/laundry room for a day or so, and then put them a few different places.

Oddly, I just realized that cinnamon brooms may actually get me to TJs tomorrow, even though the holiday cookies wouldn't have.

Cronuts are those croissant/donut mash-ups, yes? I've never seen one but I picture it like a koign amann (which I only know about because you can buy them at TJs).

I found some good news out of my undergrad. [link] I have a tremendous amount of respect for her.

She sounds very interesting.

So there was this weird thing this year where some Washington grocery chain came and bought out all the Albertsons markets in California and then they went bankrupt and now they are closing and trying to sell them all. So fricking weird. I suspect there was some sort of fradulent, or at least very suspect, business going on but the news reports just present it very matter-of-fact. Anyway personal upshot is that the closest market to our house, which used to be an Albertsons, is now closing and not slated to be bought by anything else, so we will have a big empty box lot instead. Not happy about that.

That would definitely suck, Burrell! Washington like the state or the city? I don't know of any bankrupt grocery chains! But then I mostly go to Trader Joes.

I really need a pedicure. But I keep putting off getting one. Hard to feel the urgency in winter, but my feet are ugly.

Washington state, Haggen is the chain. Are they closing in Washington too or just California? It was just weird because they made a big deal about how they had this ambitious plan to convert most of the Albertsons to the more high end Haggen, and then after like 4 months -- plbbbbt

meara, be sure to get out to Pablo Neruda's coastal home when you're in Chile! It was such a highlight of my trip!