Blood Oranges.

The blood oranges have arrived at my local grocery store. Cost be damned, I’m going to have my treat. They’re sweet, with fruit so red it borders on purple. I had heard when I was young that they have to be grown in the countryside around Sicily to get the best red color. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I still look for the imported ones when I buy them. With luck, the vitamin C boost will help with this nasty cold/bronchitis I developed over the weekend. If it doesn’t, well it’s still good-for-the-soul food.

I’m back posting again to The Professor’s forum. My old handle “The Elf” is officially retired though. I don’t feel like “The Elf” any more. It’s too lighthearted a name for how I feel. I’m posting under my real life nickname. I’m not sure that many of the crew have figured out who the hell I am yet. The Prof seems pleased about it, though, which was my main motivation for doing it. I’ll simply avoid interacting with anyone who gives me heartburn, and try to enjoy the rest. We’ll see how it goes.

The Ex picked up the wicker furniture early Saturday morning. I shouldn’t be surprised that he once again couldn’t say “no” picking up something for nothing, though I really thought he was going to be able to resist this time. I never thought he even liked this stuff, but I guess taste can be dependent upon price and availability. My new furniture has not yet arrived (this past weekend was the earliest I could expect it) and the living room has a vast, wide-open feeling to it that I’m not used to. The cats aren’t used to it either. All their under-the-furniture hiding places have vanished, and they are being forced to confront each other far more frequently than any of them would like. The Prof vacuumed Saturday afternoon, and by Sunday afternoon the area was littered with little tufts of cat hair indicating where the fights had all taken place.

I’m still looking for a coffee table to replace the painted washtub stand that I’d been using with the wicker (the ex took that off my hands as well). The Professor wants something very modern looking, preferably of black and glass. I’ve tried to explain that dust shows up on black and glass better than on any other background, and it’s going to be a pain to keep something like that looking clean. We ran into something that would “do” in a store over the weekend, but I didn’t want to just up and buy it without looking around first. We stopped into a “Contemporary Furniture Gallery” (that’s what they call these places when they want to justify selling things for obscenely high prices) and there I found exactly what I want. Unfortunately, the table I fell in love with costs as much as the sofa and loveseat I just purchased. It’s beautiful, it would last a lifetime, it would fit well, but I don’t know if I can justify the expense. I’ve decided that I’ll wait and see what I’m getting back in taxes; the size of my refund will help me decide what I can afford to spend on furniture.

I’ve got the shivers. Must still be running a small fever, I guess. I think I’ll go crank the heat up in my office.