Daily Report: Busy-Lazy

I was up nice and early today. I really should stick to my stop-smoking pills because of how well they work on my sleep (or need thereof) and work (or amount thereof). I had stopped taking them (I do only smoke 1 or 2 cigarettes per day now, and have for a year or more) for a couple of weeks and my sleep and work both suffered as a result. I went back on the pills and voila, my work production went back up by about a third, and the amount I was sleeping went down by 2 hours. Funny though: The drug is "Zyban", which is the same as "Wellbutrin", which is a psychoactive drug. But it honestly has no discernible effect on my mood or emotions that I have ever been able to detect.

So I spent the day preparing and sending out Epril's I-129F. (I left the "F" off the last time I mentioned it, which — as Sgt Mike pointed out — is a different visa application, leading to his asking if I was sure what I was doing.) The I-129F was actually quite similar to the I-130, if not even a bit easier to assemble. The excellent website visajourney.com, recommended to me by a reader here, helped me calculate that Epril will have her interview at the American embassy in Manila in the first half of September... 7 months away from today to be exact. Sigh. I miss my wife. I figured 120 days or so that I'd be gone, but instead I've decided to stay here and that stretches things out a lot. Well, hopefully Epril will be here for our anniversary on September 27th.



The new microwave above
the stove. It probably will
hold 2 turkeys.

"Here's flat rat. Now where's
my treat?"I helped Paul install a monstrous new microwave above the stove today. I also taught Gracie how to dance around on her hind legs, and how to fetch "flat rat", a toy of hers that looks like roadkill.

After that, I watched a bit of Top Gear. That show is starting to wear thin for me: A lot of the comedy is a bit contrived and some of the childish behavior and archness starts to seem forced and formulaic. But I still love watching the cars.

We went next door for cocktails tonight... pretty much everyone who lives on the cul-de-sac was there. (About half of the retirees are from New York State, the other half are from Massachusetts.) Puppy Gracie (and her aunt, Martini, belonging to Uncle Bob) ran around the yard frolicking, while we humans talked mostly about living in Florida, real estate, and stuff like that.

Then mom cooked an excellent chicken breast dish, we watched the news and Jeopardy, and then it was off to work for me.

I actually, at the end of the day, felt like I had wasted the day in a way: I never took the time to sit down and read my novel or study my anatomy terms, which was definitely on my list of things to do. It felt a rather incomplete day because of that.