Just as I was thinking this would be a rather glum and gray Thanksgiving, I received an email from Derek Powazek. My story Things Given is currently appearing in Fray.

Thank you, Derek. And thank you Claire for the amazing, and right-on, illustrations. I'm very honored.

And Happy Thanksgiving to the whole lot of you!

My neighbor put his dog to sleep yesterday. I ran into him this morning on my way to my car and he hugged me and showed me Bogie's old leash while his other dog, Maggie, ran circles around our feet. It was cold and I could see my breath as he told me how he sat in the room while they gave Bogie the injection and then watched as the great big golden lab fell 'asleep' for the last time.

One of the guys who works for me stayed home today to put the cat he'd grown up with to sleep. Yesterday afternoon he was trying to decide if he wanted to be in the room while it happened.

Continuing the grand list of things that aren't fair in life, add the fact that cats and dogs don't live as long as the people who love them.

Sage advice from a friend - "You don't want a guy that carries around a third sock. If he's got a hand puppet, run the other way."

If it helps clarify any, we were talking about The Sims: Hot Date.

But I think the advice applies to many things in life, actually.

Hey Corey? I'm not ashamed to admit I covet your TiVO. If that, you know, helps...

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After stopping briefly for a donught and a nice no-fat mocha, Winter arrived in Austin today at roughly 10:38 AM. It took the temperature down to 50 degrees with a flick of the wrist, and whipped up a nice little nippy breeze just in time for bed. My feet are cold and my nose is colder and the cats are perturbed that I'm not in bed sharing out my body heat yet.

I'm just curious how I'm going to survive London if I'm wimping out at 50 degrees in Texas.

For those checking in - the house is intact, the cats are relatively intact, I'm still fairly tactless.

Oh who am I kidding? I'm really very tactless.

I'm at work, and currently there is a 'rotation' over my house. The storm has already dropped a few funnel clouds, taken out phone lines, tv signals, etc. In addition to hoping that it keeps rotating it's windy ass away from the house, I'm also thinking it would be nice if no trees fell, and hopefully the cats aren't too scared and are safely hiding out under the nice, heavy bed.

I was gazing at my website this morning... because, much like my navel, sometimes I must gaze upon it and reflect upon the wonders of nature, man's place in the universe, my ultimate destiny, and various other deep, cosmic things.

Or perhaps just because it was in my browser history and I couldn't remember if I'd updated recently.

The point is, I realized that this current design is a bit flowery. Well, extremely flowery. Which is rather inappropriate considering I'm not the most flowery girl in the world. My intention with this design was to create a series of black and white top images with just a moment of color in each. Images that help describe me to the four or five people who drop by here on a regular basis. But I keep forgetting to take my camera out on a weekend and find new images.

Which leads me to wonder... what image defines procrastination?

After being enticed with promises of a 4000-year-old pile of rocks, I could no longer resist the lure of breaking in my passport and so yesterday booked a trip to England. Yay! So in a few months, I'll be boarding a British Airways flight to London for 11 days of.... well, I suspect freezing my Texan butt off in an English winter. But that's alright because I'll be in England!

I'm under strict instructions to figure out what I want to see (Colin Firth, naked) and do (Colin Firth....err..) between now and then and the wonderful and amazing Lizzie and Karl are taking time off work to show me the small island. Since my best suggestion so far has been... Colin Firth, I'm open to ideas. Have any? Let me know!

Someone down the street is buring leaves - an offense that I'm sure is absolutely and completely prohibited within the Austin city limits. I'll contribute to the cost of their ticket, though. I love the smell of burning leaves. Growing up in the midwest, that smell is one of the surest signs of Fall, and served to remind me that despite my protestations, I still miss having four real and defined seasons.

There is also a darling little calico cat prancing about on my porch at the moment, teasing Chet and Dante into a frenzy. Poor boys. They're falling all over each other on the back of the couch, trying to get a good glimpse of her. I feel somewhat guilty in the knowledge that even if they managed to get outside to catch her, they wouldn't have a clue what to do with her anymore once they did...