I never made it up to the dome yesterday, because my mom is sick. She somehow has this thing that's been going around.

Which is odd, since I didn't go up there last week specifically to avoid infecting them. It doesn't mean she didn't get it on some other shopping or Kaiser-related visit (they kind of live there), but if I was the source, it means the thing has a near two-week gestation period, not to mention being quite infectious a week before any symptoms appear.

Far from unheard-of, and something to keep in mind.

This also means that Beth will be providing dinner next Saturday.

Anyway, I had dinner at On The Border at something like 7:00pm, then headed up to IKEA, to look at potential tip jars.

No luck. Everything of about the right size and shape was made of glass. Which is environmentally sound, unless your environment is a bar.

But I had a fun time walking through, considering things to get (I also need some CD storage), and enjoying being a contrarian.

I'd wanted to look at pitchers and vases first, so I went in through the exit, then browsed my way through the maze to the beginning of the store. I'm such a rebel.

In reward, I ran into h2ocrazyguy, who was just going on break. We talked for a while, then I went back forward through the ride, and ended up buying another little square end table, to match the one my printer sits on. It fits nicely under a corner of my work table, my punch/binder machine is much more accessible, and I've got more paper storage area. All for $14. Gotta love IKEA.

Then I headed home and dealt with DB concepts/napped for a few hours. Around 2:30am, I thought grabbing a snack from Carl's would be a good idea, so I headed that way - only to notice, just as I was about to get in line, that I had a mysterious text message proposing food at the Mini. The mysterious message turned out to be from genuine_snark, so I filled up the gas tank, which was pretty close to empty, then zoomed on down.

One definitely fun and looong conversation later, the sun was rising, so we each headed home.

Mostly since then, I've slept, though some online tip jar shopping has been involved as well (Can you say "Almost completely useless distraction from what I should be doing?" I knew you could!). Right now, I think yet more sleep is in order.