Glad it's not swimsuit season , , ,

because sheesh, do I have a bruise! :P

I swear, my mare can hear my eyes open. I slept like a log until 10:23 a.m. Woke up, glanced at the clock . . . and immediately Pixel let out her, "FEED US, DAMMIT!" neigh. She does the talking for the rest of them.

My samurai later made me breakfast. :)  It's school vacation week here.

I've been fretting that I haven't sent out the Emily Dickinson' World brochures to the people on the existing mailing list. Called the church about something else, and learned that even with this delay, reservations have been coming in! I did get press releases out to other places, so someone's paying attention. This is good.

But I do have to get the town newsletter done... 

In an earlier thread,   teal_cuttlefish        agreed with comments made by Becca, a RL friend, that my samurai might benefit from a past life regression to resolve some guilt feelings about the death (or at least, disappearance) of her daughter centuries ago. I mentioned it to samurai yesterday, and she shrugged it off. Today she said it might be a good idea....

Meanwhile, samurai has an appointment this afternoon with a more conventional therapist (she checks in with him monthly; originally it was for depression, now it's for misc. teenage stuff). So we'll get lunch somewhere on the way.

Beautiful day out. Wish I had the energy to garden. but I even have doctor's orders not to lift heavy things just now.

Worried

The cat in my default icon, Fancy, didn't come in this morning when my husband got up to go to work. Because I slept in so long, I didn't realize this. Just came home with samurai to find husband in kitchen, sorting mail. He asked if I'd seen Fancy today.

I hope she's simply off on a hunting expedition. I sort of recall that in springs past, she's done this.

I just called the Toyota dealership with a question. The manual isn't clear on why one wants to use the "engine braking" gear (B) on the Prius... something about hills and the brakes recharging the battery. But I was still confused. Found out that the "B" gear (which should only be used going downhill) is like putting the car into a lower gear. Doing this slows the car a bit on the hill, recharges the electric battery, and also saves gas, because the battery (even as it is recharging) is also doing more of the work than usual in powering the car vs. the gas engine. (Contrary to what most people think, she said, in the Prius, it is not a case of the car running on either the battery or gas, but variations of both running at once. Except -- I think -- at stop signs, because when the car is completely stopped, the gas engine stops, too. First few times it happened, I thought I'd stalled.)

Anyway, this is really nice news (about saving even more gas -- and for me, it's about the environment more than about money), because guess where we live? On the top of a f-king big hill! Everywhere we go is downhill from here!

Another bit of car talk: After I picked up the Prius last Thursday, I picked up my samurai at the high school to take her to her flute lesson. We had some time to kill, and we both were hungry. (I hadn't had lunch.) We went to a pizza place. We sat so we could look out at our shiny new car. When I paid the bill, I explained to the owner that I'd had the hybrid car for just four hours.

"A hyrbid?" he replied. "Thank you from us." I thought that was sweet.