No one has ever accused Pokey of being the sharpest tool in the box, but she did surprise me last night.  Every day after she ventures out of her crate I clean it out, and if it's early enough in the day I turn off the light.  Usually I remember to turn it back on by 4:00 when the sun dips, it starts to cool off, and she heads back to her warm igloo.  But yesterday I forgot.  Last night Tom commented that Pokey was at the back door, trying to get in.  It was almost as if she was saying, "Hey, remember me?  I need a little heat here!"

This morning when I got up I started a pot of turkey soup.  At Alex's suggestion I used a box of chicken broth in addition to water, and have to admit it was the tastiest batch I've ever made.  I enjoyed a bowl for lunch, and of course there's plenty more!

Talked with Andy this morning for quite a long time (yes it's COLD there, and they had a roaring fire going.)  He answered a lot of my questions, and I won't be quite so clueless when I touch base with Josh next week.  Always handy to have a lawyer in the family!  At the end of our conversation we talked about the Evidence class.  He'd just gotten the student evaluations, and his descriptions of the answers were quite funny.  Once he forwarded them to me I had to agree.  But one comment stood out from all the rest: “I love that he told us his parents' dog's name is Cactus and I shall name my future dog Cactus”!

While on the phone with Andy I missed a call from Marcela, so first order of business was to call her back.  She had sent me the pix from Steve's memorial on New Year's Day (they were wonderful), but it was hard for me to tell how many people attended.  Turns out to have been over 100.  (Once she sat down and made a list of probable attendees, she ended up ordering more chairs/tables than we had originally specified - and twice as large a tent.)  The weather cooperated perfectly, people brought way more food than was needed, and she felt surrounded by everyone's love. 

I did a little yardwork and swept porches before I trekked to the library to pick up the book that had come in for me. It's one a friend had spoken of highly, so I'm looking forward to reading it.  On the way home I stopped at the hardware store and picked up some mouse traps and a rat trap (and boy did Tom and I have difficulty setting them tonight!)  Made a number of phone calls, including setting up the tree trimmers on Friday, and Bill to install the shower/tub grab bars and stove hood on Thursday.

Then I tackled the garage.  I've made somewhat of a dent in it, but of course there's WAY more to be done.  Hopefully I'll continue that progress tomorrow, so eventually I'll be able to pack up and move all of Lisa's stuff out of her closet shelves... and then have some place to stash it!  (She's basically been gone since she left for college 10 years ago, but of course she has no place to store her stuff.)  We need her old room for a guest room, and since there's no dresser in there we could really use those closet shelves!

Took a very welcome break when Marcie and Latina walked over (she got a first taste of our yummy grapefruit), and another when Linda returned my earlier call. (I didn't know today was her birthday!) She and Rick are pretty frazzled with Zahn, so hopefully once the testing (eventually!) gets done they'll have some answers - and some solutions?!

This evening Tom is catching up on the football games he taped today (before tomorrow's games) and I just finished watching an excellent documentary from Netflix titled Birders: The Central Park Effect.