hooboy. summing up by bullet points, because i am too damn lazy for anything else.

• had the house inspection on friday. inspector turned out to be none other than h.s., who used to work at my favorite piercing parlor (because it is the cleanest and most careful one i have ever been in). he still has his split tongue but has had all his other piercings (at least, the ones that are visible with clothes on) sewn up.

  so h doesn't remember me, per se, but does remember my friend l, who he used to kiss. we chatted about her, about him, about me, but mostly about what's wrong with the house.

  no surprise, it's got some stuff wrong. needs some roof work (but luckily it's a small, flat roof, so it won't be too expensive), needs the patio broken up and re-poured, to keep water away from the foundation, needs a more permanent solution than what's there to the problem of some of the floor joists not meeting the brick basement wall well anymore, due to deterioration of the brick, due probably to water leaking in (back to re-pouring the patio). but hey, that's about what we expected for an 80+ year-old rowhouse.

  the gas heater is, get this, 41 years old (installed 9/63!), with an original life-span of 20-25 years. but it still works, so we're going with the "if it ain't broke" approach.

  termite inspection was today, but we haven't heard back yet on that. next step: try to get the sellers to give us some money to aide in all the repairs that need doing that wouldn't need doing if they had just kept up on the maintenance all these years. we're hoping for a couple grand, but will buy the house anyway, even if they don't give us anything (shhhh, don't tell the sellers!)

• horse show at the radnor hunt grounds on saturday, for which i had to get up at the inhuman hour of 4am. rode in the pleasure division (not doing that again: random is NOT a pleasure horse) and the novice hunter division. 7 classes, 4 ribbons: 3 5ths and a 6th, all in jumping classes. here's us, looking decent. since i only ever win anything in jumping classes, i think i'm going to stop entering the non-jumping classes, unless there's 6 or fewer competitors (6 being the number of ribbons awarded).

• everyday lately, there's been college students on the sidewalk outside my building, working at their summer job of trying to get people to do something (give money probably) for the environment. now, i'm all for the environment, and do occasionally support environmental charities (nature conservancy, world wildlife foundation, sierra club) but feel utterly like grime in the gutter when they approach with their intentionally worded question: "do you have a second for the environment?" what do you say? i end up saying "no," restraining myself from continuing "and let me just throw out this styrofoam cup right here in the gutter, afterwhich i'll be sure to dump some medical waste into the ocean, buy a hummer, and vote for george bush." damn kids.

• speaking of damn kids, a phrase which makes me feel might-tee old, my car was egged last week, and even 4 days in a row of evening thunderstorms didn't wash it all off. damn kids.

• leaving tomorrow morning (at 5 freakin' 40 am--what IS it with the early mornings?!) on a jet plane to go to the bi-annual family reunion. this time it's in tucson arizona, which seemed like a good idea two years ago when we were all climaticly comfortable in north dakota (the family seat). but now, as i'm facing the 100+ temps (but it's a DRY heat!) and the weather here is just lovely, i'm rethinking the wisdom. feh.

  well, never been to southern az. hoping to see some cacti.