The neighborhood where I live has suddenly been hit with a rash of solicitors. Despite the fact that a sign is posted at the entrance to the subdivision, which clearly states 'No Solicitors', they're just piling on in, anyway. As if the daily knock on the door isn't bad enough, they all have the same basic opening line. Last time it was, "Are you the lady of the house? I'm going around the neighborhood giving out free gifts to all the nice ladies today." Right. The gift was a set of tealights, which he actually ended up taking back! Yup, took them right out of my hand before he left. I guess he decided I wasn't nice enough once I told him I couldn't let him in my house to see my 'high traffic zones'. Today's solicitor had a very similar line: "We're giving out free gifts to nice people today. Are you a nice person?" I should have simply answered "No. No, as a matter of fact, I'm not," and saved everyone's time and energy. If I had indeed been a nice person, today's gift would have been a bottle of Palmolive dishwashing liquid. I'm sorry, that's just not a high enough price to get me to be a nice person these days.

Due to my current leisurely lifestyle of eating bon-bons and watching daytime television, I was able to catch 'The Bonnie Hunt Show' this afternoon. (I hope you're reading this, Bonnie!) She had a guest on there who has become well-known for his website. Young guy, possibly a computer geek type, but he's obviously become successful since he was a guest on the show today. His website is called "Cute Things Falling Asleep". He rates each video clip for cuteness, as well as sleepiness. And for this, he has become somewhat of a celebrity and a successful entrepreuner. He said one day he came across a video clip on the internet of a kitten falling asleep and decided to build a website around that. Now, as of today, he has launched a second website, and this one is called "Cute Things Laughing". Imagine that. He has an agent and everything. Huge success. The rest of us are obviously doing something wrong. Well, more power to ya, Nick Malis! I have to admit, the video clips really are cute!

Yesterday I said how I've been living life in the slow lane lately. It's a combination of empty nest, unemployment, penny-pinching, and being new to the area. If I were employed full time I'd not only be meeting a lot of people through work, but I'd actually have the means to go places and do things. I haven't even been going to any parks lately because it's been too cold to really enjoy them. Since I've been here I haven't even been able to recruit any piano students and teach, which is something I've enjoyed a lot over the years. Life has been unusually quiet lately, but it's sort of a nice change for me. I'm sure that, before long, everything will be up and running again and I'll go back to my 'normal' that I'm used to. In the meantime, the pace is like molasses in January. Maybe I should just enjoy it while it lasts.

I hope to update my resume before my interview on Wednesday, and I also have to take that civil servant test that afternoon. We're supposed to get some form of an ice storm, so I hope they don't shut down the city, close the test center that day, and postpone the test. I'm sure there won't be all that much ice, but it doesn't take much around here to cause alarm. The 'brine' trucks (a/k/a salt trucks) are already out doing their job. Good, I can sleep soundly tonight now, knowing it's all being taken care of.

Oh, I have to wrap it up now. Such an exciting day I've had, too, but....American Idol is on! I can't miss that! It's the highlight of my day...! Maybe we can talk about it next time! Until then...