The day has been long.
It started at 4am, when Elliott and I woke up and I took him to work, because he was leaving early on survey to avoid the peak of the 110 degree day today. This, fortunately, left me with ample time to read the entire california driver's handbook before I went back to the DMV and started waiting two hours before it opened.
The first person to arrvive there after me was an elderly Hawaiian woman. She had an accent, and I hadn't realized that native Hawaiian was still spoken as a first language by some of the state's older citizens. An hour after if opened, I had my provisional driver's license! Fear, for the visual requirement for legal driving is only 20/40 vision. Still, I'm planning on getting new glasses pronto. Always something more to do...
Car is now insured, registered, and totally legit. Hurrah! Does anyone else think it's strange that companies will insure and register a vehicle, without ever seeing it. Now I can finally STOP driving it to work, as was necessary when I had lots of chores to be done 4:30-5:00 every day.

The night before Elliott and I went out to Cabazon Outlet stores and found much loot - Timberland hiking boots for $28 (mercifully they had two different shades, so we aren't matching), cheap belts, and ARCHAEOLOGIST HATS! Elliott was out all day today surveying a dairy farm for archaeological material. Apparently they found a sum total of a decaying cat, several small cow bones, and four metric tonnes of shit. Literally.
Being the intrepid, seasoned archaeologists that they are, they walked overtop a manure pond and didn't realize it til the heaviest member of the group (guess who) sank his new hiking boots 16 inches into decaying cow feces. So, now his boots are more similar in colour to mine again.

He smelled a lot when he came back, so Leshawn (our tablemate) and I kicked him off the island until he left his boots behind.


Unfortunately, it was also a day of things costing a lot. Masha broke the news this morning that my cello is costing $230 to ship - more than $100 over the estimate quoted by the same store a month ago, the bastards. I will forever hate and despise UPS for charging me $95 to tape two boxes together. Fuckers. Additionally, registering the car cost $160. >.< (it's not often something deserves the scrunched up emoticon!)

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In other words, this upcoming Tuesday is my birthday! Elliott's presents for me mostly already came - the D&D v3.5 player's handbook and Freakonomics on CD for the car and for ripping to the iPod. He also got me Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which will be on its way as soon as sales begin! On that subject, did everyone hear about the lucky kid in New York who already has a copy? A bookstore accidentally shelved some copies, and he managed to buy one undetected. I wonder if they made him sign a confidentiality agreement once they found out....

Since two other girls at work, Marina and Leshawn, also have birthdays this upcoming week, the lab crew is going out to a ... karaoke bar ... this Friday. I screamed bloody murder when they decided on there, and am only going with many assurances that I will not be forced to perform. Saturday Elliott and I are going gothing in Riverside (finally, we never quite made it last weekend due to some NWN binging and general resting) and on Sunday we'll be heading into LA to see Saurabh, Greg, and Joanna (possibly Jacob? Or will he be heading to Berkeley by then?). Plans are as yet unformed, but we'll come up with something I'm sure.
Next weekend we'll probably go to a cool all you can eat seafood restaurant near Anaheim with Joanna.

Hmmmm...feels like bedtime for Elliott and I pretty soon, to recover from our variably shit-filled days. Hope everyone is well!