ah sweet summer

i've been having a relaxing week since school got out. i've seen a lot of people that i haven't seen in a while - dan and gabby are here. dan (jim's best friend from high school) and gabby eloped and are expecting a baby in october or september. they just moved back to knoxville from utah, and they crashed at our place on thursday night. we spent most of thurs night and friday with them. saturday, i worked at the iroquois steeplechase in nashville drug testing the winning horses. it was a flawless day - 80ish degrees, with a strong, cool breeze that kept the day tolerable. it was a gorgeous day for horse-racing - and perfect perfect weather. the track was dry, it wasn't too hot for the horses - it was perfection. no horses were permanently injured and none had to be put down (unlike my first experience at a steeplechase, during which TWO horses had to be euthanized for broken legs).
it was a lot of work - because the iroquois has the biggest purse on the east coast - so the testing was especially stringent. they tested not just the winning horses (standard) of the iroquois itself, but also the 2nd and 3rd place horses, which meant that there had to be three of us working that race - and three of us was all that were present. the first five races also had more tests than usual. so we were kept hopping all day. in between races, i amused myself by eating all the prime rib and hor d'oeuvres that were located in the hospitality tent.

at the end, the lovely bartenders gave me a bottle of unopened korbel champagne to bring home. haven't drunk it yet, but i have plans for it:)

i've watched some movies too - since school got out - woody allen's new movie 'match point' - which was NOT what i expected. well done, but i didn't love it. also 'dancing at the blue iguana' - which is about strippers. i have a whole bunch more rented to watch...but i'm trying not to see everything in one day. i've downloaded new music - including some minus the bear and royksopp, and started reading nabokov's lolita. my first time. kind of a dense and odd read.

unfortunately, i haven't been able to unprogram my sleep schedule. i wake up around 6:45 every morning, like clockwork. i go back to sleep, but i've been getting up by 8:30 (at the latest) every morning since school got out. i kind of like it. the morning seems more peaceful than later in the day. i got up this morning at 7:45, cleaned up the house a bit, took titus to school so that they could pull a bloodfeather he broke, did some minor errands, and that was about it. i find waking up early seems to help me get more out of the day. but i also fall asleep earlier at night (11ish).

yesterday, we spent in gvegas, visiting our respective mothers. it was a nice day - i ate too much. but it was fun.