TGIF

Chilling out and half-watching HGTV's "Dream Home."

The give-away house this year is in Sonoma, California. I was there a couple of years ago with B., on a tour of the wine country, with one side of my face swollen out the size of a grapefruit. I'd woken up that morning with an abscessed tooth but wasn't about to cancel the tour. Afterwards I went straight to a dentist next door to our guesthouse on Castro Street (just north of Market) (the "Inn on Castro") and was prescribed some penicillin and a painkiller (Vicodin), which made me nauseated. I stopped taking that--I didn't need it anyway--and enjoyed the rest of our vacation.

It was a really nice tour, in a minibus, narrated by the driver. Not a lot of people. The bus left early in the morning from Fisherman's Wharf. Too bad I wasn't in the mood for much wine-tasting, plus I was very self-conscious about the way I looked. I'd never had that before. B. had a nice time, however. I hope he remembers it. (And he did pay his half of the vacation).

So they're using Silestone quartz for the kitchen counters in the Dream Home, and not granite. I used Silestone here.

Bootsy and Lucky were playing rough tonight. Actually, Lucky was going after Bootsy, right for the throat. I broke it up a couple of times. I felt bad for Bootsy since he's getting older and appears to be put off by it. Bootsy will counter-attack, however, but mostly he prefers to lie at my feet these days. I felt bad tonight when I stepped on his tail, but I couldn't see it against the black throw rug under the computer.

Lucky has sharp teeth (and so does Bootsy). I've refrained from rough-housing with Lucky myself, as I'd rather not go to work with bloody bite marks on my arm.

The illustration is of the Inn on Castro. B. and I stayed there twice, both times during the week of Labor Day. There was no smoking allowed in the guesthouse, so I spent a lot of time sitting out on the front steps at night, and it's nippy even at that time of year. No air conditioning needed, which is great, but then there's the street noise at all hours of the night in "the Castro." B. and I stayed in a room with a window facing the internal courtyard and slept well. Also they supplied earplugs.

See how steep Castro Street is in front of the Inn? There it's declining southward toward Market Street, not even a half a block down. We got a lot of good exercise.