you're just a boy who's afraid of the dark

I'm beginning the painful process of packing up in preparation for my drive back to California in a few days. True to form, I mysteriously now have four boxes of books instead of three; I also know that, thanks to two Des Moines shopping sprees, I have a lot more clothes and approximately seven more pairs of shoes. I also have a Wii and a Wii Fit. But, I'm leaving behind some winter clothes, a desk, a lamp, and some pillows, so hopefully this will all even out. But I hate packing -- and I of course wasn't as fast as I could have been today because I started with the books, which meant that I read snippets from a couple of them. Luckily I'm done with the books, so the rest should go relatively quickly.

I didn't spend the whole day packing; I also went into town to get a Cherry Coke Zero (my new addiction -- worth driving eight miles for, which is a bargain compared to the 180 miles I drive for a latte). In town, I ran into Abby and Rachelle, who were in the class ahead of me in high school; they were in town to do a charity walk in memory of a local woman who died of cancer several months ago. They both seem to be doing well, and it was great to catch up with them. It's too bad that I won't be here for Old Settlers this year since I would probably rather catch up with their class instead of going to my own ten-year reunion next year, but c'est la vie.

Later this afternoon, Aunt Dee and Uncle Scott, with Eli and Jordan in tow, came up from St. Louis for the weekend. As we were sitting on the back patio looking out over acres and acres of hills and pond, Uncle Scott asked how I could leave this to go back to California. It's a valid point, but as I said, paychecks and friends (not necessarily in that order) are nice things to have, so I guess I'll trade the space for the security, at least for awhile. We had a delicious supper (steak, hamburgers, hot dogs, Mom's world-famous baked beans, and potato salad), followed by some general chatter until they left for their motel around 10:45pm. Then my parents and I watched latenight reruns of 'CSI: Miami' and 'Without a Trace' before deciding to go to bed.

Even though we had family visiting, I still managed to catch part of the men's diving and women's gymnastics Olympic trials. Shawn Johnson, the favorite in women's gymnastics, is from Des Moines, so she's been getting significant coverage here -- KCCI (the Des Moines CBS affiliate) is even sending one of their sportscasters to the Olympics to cover her. Watching the trials is helping to get me even more psyched for the Olympics than I already was, especially since NBC is apparently using Bela Karolyi as one of the commentators for gymnastics -- Tammy, I don't know if he can rival Dick Button's skating commentary, but I have a feeling he's going to give Mr. Button a run for his money.

47 days until the Olympics! I added a countdown gadget to my iGoogle homepage so that I can know the remaining days. Now I'm going to bed; when I wake up, we'll be at least eight hours closer to the opening ceremonies! It's like Christmas, only with more doping scandals and less turkey. Yay.