So yes, I had an excellent and happy weekend, with lots of good food (including eggplant tofu curry!!), hiking, meditating in the woods, and eventually, watching football. Couldn't have possibly been better :)

There was one bizarre moment when I looked out the car window on a very random stretch of road (not in SB) and realized that we were being passed by my ex boyfriend, the same ex who's coming to visit this weekend. You'd think in a state the size of California with the number of cars there are on the road that you could easily avoid seeing people you know, but apparently that's not the case.

We did stop by SB briefly. I thought I was ready to be back there. I'm not sure that I was. It probably didn't help that Spikey now lives in what I affetcionately like to call Neighborhood of Ex Boyfriends :)

And then, of course, I came home. Flight was good, got home early. Walked in my apartment ready to fall immediately into bed. And found a dead mouse next to my nightstand.

I was pretty feaked out, I must admit. Somehow I don't mind sleeping in a cabin full of spiders or outside in the desert with snakes and spiders, but when I'm in my own apartment I do not want creatures invading my space. And since I had never even found a bug in my apartment, the appearance of a mouse was a tad unsettling. I remember seeing a sign before I left saying that there would be exterminators in the building over the weekend and that we could request their services. My guess is that the mouse was poisoned elsewhere and struggled into my apartment through the heater to die (its body was right next to the heater).

Anyway, I disposed of the mouse after an inspiring pep talk from Laz, and I slept on the couch Sunday night so as to be far away from other possible carcasses, which I was too tired to find. When I got home yesterday I went on a mad cleaning spree (not difficult in my small and already clean apartment). I found no other dead mice and no signs of mouse life in the apartment. I *think* it was a freak occurrence. But I have asked the maintenance people to come look at my heater and ensure the absence of other dead mice before I turn it back on. Ewww.

Anyone want to lend me a cat? :)