We've been keeping ourselves occupied since the one rainy, cold day that occurred a week ago. (It is hot here! And that's pretty unusual for the bay area. I am thrilled to wake up to clear, sunny skies and no fog.) We celebrated my grandpa's 81st birthday--just Snark, me, grandma, and grandpa--by going over to their house for pizza, pasta salad, and cake; we learned to play Tripoley (a betting, poker, rummy game) and played with them until midnight! Another day we played Bunko (a dice game) with a group of people at my auntie's house. We visited my friend Evan in Sonoma County, listened to live music, stayed out late; he visited us another day and the three of us stayed up until two, three, five in the morning just yacking.

We have thoroughly uncovered and sorted through the multitude of items marinating in boxes, bags, and filing bins in the family room. My dad really did a fabulous job of getting it down in the last couple of years, and yet it's still a masterpiece in progress that demands methodical prowess--but this I enjoy! We have continued gutting the backyard, uncoiling hidden flowerpots, strangled plants, and statues from the death grip of what I think may be morning glory vines. They have assumed overwhelming power in the last decade, out-weeding the blackberry bushes, knocking the fence askew, and rotting the wooden framework around the garden beds. We started in on the front yard as well, and a little of the back deck: lots of composting of dead plant matter and moving heavy pots and objects.

Today, Snark is painting the bathroom. He will be painting the hallway and the living room as well. I began to help by pulling down the wallpaper in the hallway--not a difficult task since I didn't have to get all of it and I was just participating for fun. But in reaching up to get a strip of the paper from high up, I pulled a muscle in my back and now I am broken. Seriously, I can't even turn. It hurts to move: to lie down, stand up, reach my arm out in front of me. I've been on ice, ibuprofen, and tiger balm all day, hoping it will miraculously heal so I can get back to the business of organizing and cleaning. Or at the very least, grocery shopping. It seems as far as I'm going to get tonight is sitting up in a chair, typing on a computer. That's progress, but not much.