We had a plan. Or rather, Bob had a plan, and I was going along with it. The plan was that we would go out tonight and catch the 10:45 p.m. showing of Harry Potter, then drive out . . . somewhere -- western Kansas? Somewhere, in any event, that was far enough from the city lights that we could see the Leonids meteor shower, which is supposed to be spectacular this year.

The original plan had been to get up at 4:00 a.m. Sunday morning and drive out somewhere to look for shooting stars; the movie only entered the picture this morning when Bob was reading the paper.

While I'd really love to see a bunch of shooting stars, and I definitely want to see Harry Potter, I wasn't terribly excited about either plan, mostly because it's almost impossible for me to stay awake much past 10:30 anymore. I wasn't sure I could stay awake for the movie, let alone stay awake driving anywhere in the middle of the night. Which really wouldn't matter, but I'd really hate to fall asleep in the movie.

I heard some people talking while I was out shopping today; they were saying that all the showings of the movie were sold out, and that they had bought their tickets on the internet. So I called Bob and asked him if he wanted me to do that, and he was horrified that it might be that crowded. He said he thought we should just drive by the theater, and if it looked like it was sold out, we'd just skip it.

Then, this evening, we talked about it again, and got to thinking that since it's opening weekend, and it is Saturday night . . . we're going to wait, maybe see it on a weeknight after work. I really hate to see movies in sold-out theaters, and I despise sitting up close to the front. I once went on a date with a guy to see Tora, Tora, Tora and ended up in something like the second row. There's nothing like reading subtitles when you have to actually move your head from side to side . . . That, plus the planes screaming toward me made it a night to remember.

So anyway, the plan is now to just drive out somewhere and try to see the meteors. Bob thought I should take a nap, but I'm going to try not to. That could change at any minute, though. He said we're leaving sometime around midnight. It's 10:20 now. We'll see how long I last.

I did some Christmas shopping online today. I was beginning to panic a little as I realized that when we get back from Florida, it will be less than ten days before Christmas. It's three weeks until we leave on vacation, only two and a half weekends. Next weekend is Thanksgiving weekend, the dreaded day-after-Thanksgiving shopping weekend--certainly, I'll be out, but I hate to count on buying a bunch of stuff then, everything is so crowded. The next weekend, I'm getting my hair cut on Saturday, and we've got at least one, possibly two, parties to go to that night, so I doubt I'll get anything else done that day.

So basically, I'm screwed.

I know I should do more ahead of time, and I always swear that I will, but it's just really hard to make myself spend money before I actually have to.

So what else did I do today? Got a battery put in my watch, took the black polish off my toenails and repolished them in blue, ate too much cheap Mexican food for lunch at Taco Via, finished the book I was reading, Dead Until Dark, by Charlaine Harris, wandered around the Hallmark store and bought some cards, wandered around Border's and bought a couple of Christmas presents--oh! And a hardback copy of a Nina Kiriki Hoffman book that I didn't know existed: A Red Heart of Memories. On the clearance table, no less, for $2.99. A great find.

There's this whole genre of books that I love. Accessible, light, i.e., fairly easy to read, but with deeper overtones. Fun. Dark, sometimes, but fun. Sort of difficult to describe . . . Dead Until Dark was one, sort of a Southern romance/mystery/comedy/Vampire novel. That's the kind of thing I want to write. Not the romance/mystery/comedy/Vampire thing, necessarily, but something like that. Fantasy, but not the elves on a quest kind of thing. Unless the elves are rock-n-roll elves, like Melisa Michaels or Emma Bull write about.

And that's sort of what I'm doing, or at least, what I'm trying to do. No elves, though, but angels. Or, an angel. So far. There may be more later . . .

I can't remember whether I said that I hoped Dinah would learn her lesson after getting stuck on top of the laundry cabinet. Of course, she didn't.