25 April 2002

Diamond had a Friend.

At least, that's what we say when there's another cat somewhere in the yard. Diamond goes berserk. He races from window to window, trying to get the best vantage point and keep the other cat in view. He yowls, he cries, he hisses. Sometimes, if the other cat gets too close, he puffs up. (The puffing up is especially funny if Diamond has wedged himself between the blinds and the window, because these little spikes of black fur emerge from the blinds. No, really, it's funny.)

Just about the time Matt got home from work yesterday, Diamond found a Friend. We tried to ignore him for a while as he sat on the sill of the dining room window and yowled, but it was driving Matt bonkers.

He called to Diamond - who actually came, believe it or not - and petted him soothingly. "It's okay," Matt said, in the voice he has reserved for the cat. "The other cat is not going to move in, I promise. I've peed all around the house..."

When I got home last night from K.T. and Kevin's, Matt's car wasn't in the driveway. That didn't especially disturb me - sometimes he picks up Colleen so they can watch West Wing together.

So I went inside and put down my gaming books and got on the computer... And no one was there, either. No Karen. No Jeff. No K.T.

It was eerie. I'm not used to logging in and finding no one online, except first thing in the morning. I sent K.T. a plaintive phone message, wondering if I had walked into the Twilight Zone.

(Speaking of which, it's nearly 8 already and no one has come in and turned on the hall light in my office. That's a little unusual, too - usually people start trickling in at about quarter 'til... Oh, there's the light. Whew.)

A couple of minutes later, she called back. Kevin had asked her to help him with some E.Q. thing. Which is more or less what I'd figured, really...

While I was talking to her, Matt pulled into the driveway, a whole ten minutes before I'd planned to call him and ask him whether he was coming home. And then I got e-mail from Karen only a few seconds after that!

An embarrassment of riches.

Speaking of embarrassment... (See how nicely that segued?)

While I was reading my journals yesterday, I came across this snippet from Never at Noise: "I believe I can unequivocably state here that no matter how attractively a man might be built, baggy pink swim trunks are never, ever a smart fashion choice."

I mentioned it to Matt and Kevin, with whom I was chatting at the time, and we discussed fashion faux pas for a while.

When I was at K.T. and Kevin's last night, K.T. looked up at one point and said - altogether out of the blue - "You know, I keep thinking I should call Oded Fehr up and ask him to try on some baggy pink swim trunks so we can see if that journal chick is really right."

A mental image presented itself immediately.

My first thought: Nope. Baggy pink trunks are definitely Wrong.

My second thought: ...Which really just means I want to get them off him that much faster.

Really, my mind's been in the gutter lately... I blushed, and they noticed.

Just in case you were wondering: Teasing does not make a blush go away faster, and may in fact cause it to last somewhat longer.

K.T. is starting to ramp up her plot for Loria's quest - we've had a few sessions for it already, lining up the dominoes so she can knock them down. Several more are planned over the next week, and I think the official kick-off is going to be a week from Saturday.

Expect me to complain a lot next month about not getting any sleep.

All this preparation has Kevil firmly in the forefront of my brain. He's pacing, alternately demanding to know if this is really necessary, and insisting that we hurry up and get on with it.

I love Kevil, I really do, but sometimes he needs a good smack upside the head. He pulled a stunt during a session yesterday that - without going into too much detail - made it look for a moment like he'd been possessed by the bad guy, or something to that effect. Scared the hell out of Loria, and at a very bad moment, too. I'd tried to stop him, but he insisted on plowing through with it...

And then, a bit later, when she told him not to scare her like that again, he was surprised and shocked and demanded to know why I hadn't told him he was about to make an ass of himself. I swear, I'm going to go change his stats page and drop his Wisdom to about six.

The good thing, as K.T. pointed out last night, about ramping up the new plot, is that it's giving us a break from the Scum. Not that the Scum aren't fun, but all the cursing and swearing was, I admit, getting a little tiresome.

--Liz