elfs | Saturday: Cleaning, Blackberries, Shopping

We're going camping next week, so today Omaha and I dragged out the tent and supplies only to discover that a cat had gotten into the garage and urinated all over our tent. That gave us all an excuse to get into our bathing suits and the three of us proceeded to give the tent a complete wash down. Kouryou-chan, being the smallest, had much fun washing the inside of the tent while we washed the outsides, but eventually it came to Omaha and I to pick the tent up and wash its underside.

Kouryou-chan and I went blackberry picking up along the drainage ditch on the east side of our subdivision and man, the picking was ripe. We came home with at least a quart, maybe more. I washed them and put them into the freezer for later use, but not before Kouryou-chan ate a whole bunch. Last year, I reported getting nettled on the hill next to my house, where there's a good patch of blackberries. This year, the hill is much harder to get to and the blackberries and being overwhelmed by bindwind, but I saw a good collection high up and climbed to get it... and got nettled again. Just a little bit on my right arm, but OW! that freakin' hurts!

Oh, and I saw the saddest thing today. Omaha and I stopped by one of those retail closeout outlets where all manner of strange things are sold. I once scored a solid stapler whose only fault was having instructions in Spanish. Nifty place. We bought a cheap ice-cream maker there; it was something we'd wanted for a while. But what made me feel sorry was a whole rack of Franklin-Covey planners complete with instructions and a year's worth of any-year filler, for eight dollars. Those things used to go for a hundred dollars each, and the PDA has just killed them.