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Been awake for awhile, after almost being squeezed out of bed by two pushy dogs. I held my own, though...too chilly to get out of bed so early. As soon as I mentioned hot water bottle a couple days ago, the nighttime temperature took another nosedive, and it became necessary to dust it off. Big Jim has this ritual of secretly filling my hwb, wrapping my pjs around it, and putting it in the bed, so that all is nice and toasty when I go to sleep. It really is one of his best features, and I love him for it. :-) Yesterday was slightly less depressing as Big Jim actually received two calls about jobs. Nothing to get too excited about, but it still better than the phone not ringing at all. Starting next week, I am going to post a weekly tally of jobs applied for/calls received/interviews, so that people can get a better idea of what an IT/PM job search is like these days. We're going down to the coast later this afternoon to do some shopping. This will be our first trip since getting the car back from the garage. The Peugeot needed a new clutch plate, which given its relative age and the demands put on it driving up and down this mountain regularly is completely understandable. We also had an overall tuneup done. In the end, the final bill was a moderate "ugh" versus a minor "ugh" or the far-worse major "ugh". Don't mind as long as she continues to well run until at least her ITV inspection next October. No big plans for the weekend. I'm going to do some work and read my camera manual and try to catch up on my book-writing project for NaNoWriMo. I am woefully behind in my word count, but I am pushing on regardless. I most likely will not hit the 50,000-word mark by the end of November, especially with the tendinitis flareup, but I will do the best I can. I am taking off work Monday so that Big Jim and I can go to Gibraltar to take care of some admin stuff. I haven't been there in more than fifteen years, when I traveled there with some friends from my Spanish school in Seville. I don't remember much except for the fish&chip shops and the scary hostel we stayed in. It was called something like Mrs. Saroya's Guesthouse. Mrs. S. was an older woman, pretty pickled on G&Ts most of the time, and her guesthouse had clearly seen better days. The weirdest thing, though, was waking up in the morning and realizing in the full light of day that my bedroom had once been a bathroom. I remember stretching my arms and hitting my hand on a porcelain soap dish attached to the wall. I looked up to see a shower head staring at me and quickly located where the toilet paper once was hung. Weird, weird, weird. My friends and I hiked up the Rock later that day. I don't remember much of that either, except there were monkeys (I believe technically Barbary apes) roaming and fornicating everywhere the eye could see. I felt as though I was intruding at first, but then I realized they were just a bunch of showoffs. Not sure whether we'll have time Monday to check if the orgy on the Rock continues.... Someone has suggested I post my pro/con list of staying in Spain vs returning to the US. I had been planning to do so actually and will work more on this over the weekend. I can think of a couple of things of the top of my head. One, this recent flack over the Monday night football promo. I haven't actually seen this advert, but from what I gather there was some female back nudity. Good god, Americans need to get a grip about nudity and sex in general. Another quicky is the national debt situation. The share of the debt for each baby born today is $86,000. The current administration has incurred a debt in four years equal to that from the founding of the US through 1986. That is insane. But then again America does have bagels a'plenty, so it is a tough call. Have a nice weekend, everyone! hasta luego, mylifeinspain