My best friend E is coming to visit for the weekend, making the drive alone from the San Diego area. I'm thrilled to see her! She plans to arrive this evening and will be leaving on Monday. This morning I'm making experimental bread for her visit. One is a whole wheat french loaf kneaded with garlic and chives and the other is a french loaf (all white flour) made with coffee and kneaded with cacao, sugar, and cinnamon. I've heard that additions of sugar or garlic can throw off the equilibrium of bread (or whatever it would be called), so who knows what will become of the final product.

Since Snark's been in WI, I've been mostly making and eating raw foods. For whatever reason, it's easier to do this when one is alone and not as easily tempted by the daydreams of buttery, sugary, greasy food that are encouraged by my own imagination, as well as by my partner-in-crime, when we're together.

My overall free time has been filled by knitting a blanket with size 35 needles and four to five strands of varying brown-hued yarns (it is coming together unusually quickly), making raw food creations in my food processor with toilet paper stuffed in my ears to muffle the sound, and listening to a British woman read the nonfictional , historical account of Katherine Stafford and her relatives and acquaintances, which is simultaneously dull and fascinating to hear. I'm at the very end of the book and still don't understand exactly why Katherine had a whole book written about her, except that she was subtly but greatly influential to many people (including the author Chaucer, who was apparently her brother-in-law) and because she was the mistress of John of Gaunt who was a head royal dude of the time and after twenty years of their love for each other they were finally able to marry, which was unheard of at the time. I may have missed the main point though...

(I've only been knitting it four days and it is already from my waist to my feet!)

Two Bible loving women of the earth stopped by the house today to offer me a pamphlet about working hard and Judgement day. I'm not ever clear or confident on how to respond to people who are trying to do good, but are passing around literature that is grossly incongruent with my own philosophical beliefs. I tried to stop the conversation early on and told them I was an Atheist, but she wanted to continue to learn about how I came to that belief and to share what the Bible has to offer and how it is aligned with science and probably my own beliefs. Yeah, right. They went away, V-dog was disappointed that she only got to say hello to them from behind the screen door, and I felt frustrated that I am not more articulate. I really wanted to say that I think the Bible is bullshit and people who want to follow it are finding a guide that works for them but most definitely will not work for me and that they most likely think my lack of Bible-love is bullshit as well, and/or unfortunate and maybe I'm even going to hell in their minds, so let's just be kind to each other and not approach the subject at all. That approach seems a bit rude, though, with the whole "bullshit" part, so I refrained. I don't want to dissuade them from following what spiritual guidance works for them, but it's not relevant in my world and it's exasperating having people trying to inform or save me. Blegh.