Thank goodness it's Friday, it was an unusual week.

Last Friday night sucked, our next door neighbors had a loud party, there was screaming obscenities past midnight. It made Saturday a lazy day, though I did have the satisfaction of asking them to kick out loud party goers in the future. Sunday six year old had a Halloween party and Mrs. Ha went to the dementia ward to see her mom. I ended up with an hour to myself, Mrs. Ha in Buffalo, the kids at my parents, so I brewed a batch of red ale. It's fermenting nicely.

In other home made drug news, I was able to roast a half pound of beans the other night without setting off the smoke alarm. Removing the oven hood fan filter made all the difference, I must clean that sucker.

Monday I took off, it was sorely needed. It wasn't a nice day of lying around with Mrs. Ha either (who doesn't work Mondays), we had a psych appointment with eleven year old (which brings me to the daily health insurance rant, I paid for the appointment with my flex account credit card, and not they want proof it was for a medical reason, and not a latte or something, like what else can you get at a Dr's office? morons), and other errands, though we did manage a half hour at the Goodwill where I scored big! I got two pair of size 34 pants (which oddly fit me well, and my 32's are getting a little snug, what's up with that?), khaki J Crew with the tags attached and cocoa Banana Republic, for $10 total, and an unpunched copy of Acquire, from 1971 for 59 cents. Acquire is a great game, and if it were played with I might keep it and teach it to the girls. Unpunched I may get $30 on ebay for it, which is a very nice profit.

Speaking of ebay, my SSP's sold, for nearly $30, good money for something I considered tossing. I need to list some more stuff while they have 30% off listing fees.

Tuesday I was in training, an abbreviated class exposing us to the curriculum and concepts that the developers took involving a rugby term. At least I can now understand what they mean when they say they can't help since they're in an iteration loop, though I don't know how I can translate that to customer speak, other than promising help next year when we get better engineered.

Halloween was fun, the usual follow the kids around Porsche-family's neighborhood. It was a bigger group this year, which made some problems, six year old felt ignored because her best friend AF_girl showed up, and ended up monopolizing newspaper_girl, who six year old felt she had a special bond with. AF_girl can be an aggressive charmer. I was glad when Halloween was over, carving six pumpkins is plenty.

Speaking of six year old, she was sick this morning so she stayed home from school. My parents were able to come in for the morning so Mrs. Ha could go work. Speaking of Mrs. Ha's work, she's not happy, it's not a good fit for her. I'm stuck with walking the tightrope between sympathizing with her and encouraging her to get into the aptitude testing and training offered by a local agency due to her ADD. Until then, she's reading the want ads and complaining.

We watched a a few movies partially, neither one sucked us in enough to finish. The first aborted movie was Fur, something to do with Diane Arbus. We watched a little bit while our neighbors got rowdy, very nicely filmed but not very engaging, before stopping. The next night we tried the Antonia Banderas film Take the Lead. I imagine they pitched it as Welcome Back Kotter meets Dancing with the Stars. The dancing was nice, I thought Lauren Collins as token suburban white girl was quite cute, but sleep was more enticing than finishing this movie.

Six year old and I rode the trailer bike to the library to exchange videos, and also fill in the holes in our Magic Treehouse reading, which prompted us to skip rereading Hour of the Olympics, where Jack and Annie travel to ancient Greece and meet Plato. Six year old thought the illustrations reminded her of Vacation under the Volcano, which makes sense, they're both in the ancient Mediterranean, just separated by a few hundred years.

In real bike news, I got my oil seal and installed it, but haven't had the chance to take the Kawi out for a spin to see if it works.The Kawi's inspection is also expired, and I don't know if I'll have enough nice days left to do anything  with it until Spring. Another shitty riding season.

I know a fair amount of substance abusers (many of them kinfolk, at least those who prefer alcohol as a substance to abuse), many of whom I consider alcoholics. It's only lately that I've met a few people who call themselves alcoholics, or at least attend AA. It's an odd tidbit to know about someone, I try not to explain their odd behavior by it, and I know enough not to offer them beer or wine should they stop by. I do wonder how hard it is to find a compatible group if they move out of the area.

In an entirely unrelated topic, friends have invited us to their annual bonfire Saturday night. We've missed the last one or two to due illness and such, I fully intend to go to this one.