I’ll take Potpourri for $500, Alex …

This and that around the Hill household …

• We needed to stop by Home Depot yesterday — there were a couple of things on the list, and Margie was being FD-weekend-indulgent. However, she then made the mistake of mentioning that there were a couple of plants she wanted to pick up. So we swooped by the garden section, and she got the opportunity to make several jokes at my expense regarding the three little pots she’d selected and the dozen or more that I’d grabbed.

  Ahem. Well, I’m the one who planted them this afternoon, so there. Mostly drought-tolerant ground-cover type of stuff, for the front yard. The columbine and (Marn-inspired?) hostas that Margie had selected went to the maple-shaded patch in the back yard.

• Margie’s come down with the creeping crud. Dammit. Spectacular timing for my business trip. She spent this afternoon napping. The Testerfolk were coming over for FD food, and I asked her several times if she wanted to cancel, but she wanted to be social, especially since I’m going to be away.

  Well, on her way upstairs, she registered a 102F temp. Dammit.

  If she’s still running that sort of fever by tomorrow afternoon, I’m rearranging my trip.

• Whilst I was planting, and Margie was napping, Kitten was busy playing computer games. Her current favorite involves Maisy, a crudely but charmingly drawn mouse. She sat there, entertaining herself, for a good 90 minutes. I was astonished.

• The day started with a Happy Fathers Day portfolio of art from Kitten. Very nice. Nothing I have to put on my desk or bureau or anything like that. Yet.

• For my own dad, a DVD triple-feature: The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, and Forbidden Planet. They don’t make ’em like that any more, folks. (My father, in gushing effusively about the discs, noted that he recalled seeing War of the Worlds in the movie theater. Good Lord.)

  Anyway, Happy Fathers Day, Dad. And thanks.

• Yesterday was Flag Day, which I missed. (It was also Bastille Day — no word whether the labor unrest in France was greater or less in the face of such a holiday). Today was Fathers Day, and, ironically, Trinity Sunday down at the church, when priests desperately try to get the weekend off so they don’t have to explain about that how triune God thing. (The irony being, of course, that makes it Father-and-Son-and-Holy-Spirit Day. Okay, so that’s rather weak church humor. Get over it.)

• As mentioned before, we got a new rug for the dining room — replacing the old, never-quite-lay-flat Persian with a rather modern one with some bold geometric designs, largely in blue, but with various other primary colors, too. Lots of fun, and a real double-take inducers, at least so far, but I think we’ll be very happy with it. I’d take a picture of it, if I knew where the camera was — the house is, I fear, something of a disaster area.

• One definition I’ve heard given of introverts versus extroverts is that it costs introverts energy to socialize, whereas it energizes extroverts to do so. In that case, I’m a serious introvert (no great surprise there), because socializing burns energy for me at a furious rate, especially with under stressful circumstances.

  Thus, while I know there is a fair amount of socializing — going out to dinner, for example — that I ought to be doing with the folks I’m meeting with in Sacramento and Oak Ridge this week, I’m not sure how much I’ll actually do. Less than I should, but all that I’m able.

• When we were test driving cars, the Subaru Impreza we drove was a creamy yellow-orange color, akin to but less sharp than a lot of the school bus yellows you see in vehicles this year. We dubbed it the “Cheesy Mac” car, to Katherine’s delight. It’s not a color I want — way too attention-grabbing, especially to the gendarmerie — but if that’s what I ended up with, it would be pretty funny.

• Katherine still answers to Katherine. She doesn’t show any sign of wanting to change her name. However, if you ask her what her name is, she says, “Lydia Hill.” I think that’s because she’s heard her full name — Katherine Lydia Hill — so much, that she’s simply elided the front end and kept the last few syllables. It’s pretty funny, though, hearing her introducing herself to others — especially since her enunciation isn’t all that hot.

And that’s that. Gotta clean the kitchen, then call it a night.