fluff, fold, weapons, wildlife

Schedules be damned, I went to bed at 8:30pm last night. I fought off the forces of Milo (who usually spends a minimum of two hours knocking things over and walking across Ted to get my attention in the middle of the night), and I slept for eight straight hours. I don't know the last time I did that. In any case, I was up at 4:30am, and it was after sleeping instead of before. I will be seriously screwed up tomorrow. Oh well.

I took Ted to work at 5:00am. I came back home and tried to fix a stubbornly uncooperative application on my computer (still unsuccessful). I watched part of a cool Nova show about Alberto Santos-Dumont. I caught up on news of the presidential debate and other such events. At 7:00am, I went back to the store to pick Ted up. We went to breakfast before delving into chores.

We've discovered this wonderful cafe that makes great breakfasts and lunches. Everything is so fresh! Not to mention delicious! Since initially testing the waters, we've been back probably 8-9 times in the past few weeks. Today, I went mainstream and had French toast, sausage patties, scrambled eggs, and fresh squeezed orange juice (with a ton of pulp, as it should be). Their breakfast specialty seems to be variations of Eggs Benedicts. Thus far, I've tried Basil Feta Bene (tomato slices in lieu of Canadian bacon, and feta cheese and basil on top of the Hollandaise sauce) and Eggs Chartres (a spinach/artichoke heart spread in lieu of Canadian bacon). They occasionally have Salmon Bene on the special menu. I had that once in Chicago, and it was wonderful. I'll try it here eventually. With the exception of twice having the Basil Feta Bene ('cuz it's reeeaallally good), I've not yet duplicated a menu selection, and everything has been delicious and fresh. Did I use those adjectives before? Must mean it's true. Oh, and they have an in-house bakery that makes scrumptious blueberry muffins. Delicious and fresh. (Now, I'm just being silly.) And I haven't even mentioned their lunch menu. Another time, perhaps.

After breakfast, we headed to the laundromat. This is usually a one-person job (and that person is usually Ted). But because I was awake and functioning, I decided to pitch in. This also allowed us to catch up on washing some larger, bulkier things because there were two of us to haul stuff up and down the stairs. We used four regular washers and one big capacity front-loading washer. The best thing about laundromats (other than the warmth and singular aroma of fabric softener) is being able to wash and dry all the loads at once. Makes the process much faster. So, it was 22 minutes in the wash, and we transferred everything into two of the massive dryers. Given the volume of wet items in each, we pumped in 54 minutes worth of quarters, and decided to go on a short adventure.

Without reason or agenda, we ended up quite accidentally at the Great Bay National Wildlife Refuge. Now, I knew this place existed, but we didn't know anything about it and hadn't made our way there before now. Turns out it, too, was part of the old air force base. We wended our way around the far end of the incredibly long runway (11,321 feet or 2.14 miles if you're counting), we found the entrance to the park. The first thing we noticed was a large chain link fence with old, rusty barbed wire and a series of gates. The sign read "Former Weapons Storage Area." Nice! Then we found an information board with the title "Weapons to Wildlife." I didn't get a true idea of how big this former weapons storage area was until I came home and Google-mapped it. See above aerial photo. The end of the runway is on the right. The weapons storage area is at the bottom left (shaped kind of like a Christmas stocking!). We made it as far as the parking lot, which appears to be a small, white block at the top right edge of the stocking.

As interested as I might be to wander around a lush green wildlife refuge right on a big bay (a bit of which is seen in the upper left corner), it's difficult not to wonder if there might be any sort of contamination there. This is what happens when I hang out with conspiracy theorists. One of the people in my office thinks that the mysterious pipe tops in the field next to our building are caps to underground nuclear waste tanks. And Ted suspects that everything in the vicinity contains nerve gas.

Anyway, we zipped back to the laundromat to retrieve our stuff and headed back home. Some more chores ensued, a nap, a telephone conversation with a friend, and then we decided to go to a movie. But first, we headed to Kittery, where Ted exchanged a pair of jeans I gave him for three shirts and two belts. But the true purpose of the trip was to stop at Yummies to get some treats to sneak into the theater. Said surreptitious snacks were procured, but our master plan was foiled when we were unable to find a single parking space anywhere near the theater.

Subsequently, we abandoned "National Treasure: Book of Secrets" (or any of the movies that we might have seen today) and headed back home to view one of the DVDs we'd received for Christmas. After fiddling with the DVD player (it's been powered up but not connected to the TV since we moved in August), we settled in and watched "Meet the Robinsons." We hadn't seen it in the theater but had heard good things about it, so Santa was nice enough to provide us with a copy. I really enjoyed it, and look forward to future viewings, during which I'll undoubtedly pick up more of the details that zoomed by so quickly! I was proud of myself for correctly identifying Jamie Cullum as the voice of Frankie the Signing Frog. I haven't completely lost my music touch.

All in all, a productive-yet-simultaneously-fun day. How often does one get to say that in life? Tomorrow won't be as fun. I may blog the specifics on Tuesday. Or you may just never know.

Good night.