In which Diana is Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

I'm sitting here at work, trying to breathe through a stuffy nose, and I'm hoping that it's stuffy because I was out walking tonight, and inhaling dead leaf mold, and not stuffy because I'm getting a cold! Rich has a very bad cold this week, so bad that he didn't go to Tae Kwon Do classes or his Wednesday night meetings, so you know that is bad! I don't want to get sick! I have too much to do!

For one thing, I have company! Diana got here last night, and I drove to the bus stop in Rockford to pick her up all by myself! RA is out of town, and she doesn't like to drive late at night anyway, because her night vision isn't good, Rachel had to work, and Rich was too sick, so I had to pull up my big girl pants and go by myself! It went okay in spite of the construction on the highway and also, my Garmin is apparently a big fat liar who told me to take a turn that sent me the wrong way when I was almost at my destination.

In spite of everything, I got Diana back to our house, and she had to go in and clean the boxes of yarn off of the guest bed herself while I went to work! Because all of the days she is going to be here? I have to work them. Kathy, the other night operator, is on vacation for the exact same 10 days that Diana is here!

Diana is really here to visit with Maddy, and she got a great start this morning when Ash had to go help a friend with something, and Rachel worked last night so she needed to sleep in the morning, so Diana went over early in the morning to play with Maddy! They had a lovely time together!

When I woke up today, I had a call from work, telling me that we were having a disaster drill, and if I came to work as a responder, I could get my flu shot as well as education credit for showing up. I brought Diana to work with me and gave her a tour of my department, which was thrilling for her. Rachel came to get a shot, too, and then she and Ash took the baby to do some shopping.

I had someone coming over to have a little knitting lesson, so Diana and I just had time to grab some lunch and then go back home. While I was helping Summer knit, Diana decided that the piles of DVDs on top of the entertainment center looked messy, so she organized that area (and dusted - hey, maybe that's why my nose is stuffy! All that dust that was floating around!)

Sometime this afternoon, my phone died, so after supper we had to go to the cell phone store to get help! That was an experience! The people watching was entertaining, the young man who helped us was charming and had beautiful eyes, and my phone wasn't dead, it just needed a new battery. When he took the phone apart to look at the battery, the cell phone guy said it looked like it had gotten wet, and smelled like Dawn dishwashing soap. We laughed and assured him that me and my phone do not go near dishwashing soap! That is not my job! He replaced the battery and it's all working just fine now.

Tonight we went for a walk with the dog, Rachel and Maddy, and I spent the entire walk trailing behind eveyone, talking on the phone, because while my phone was dead I had gotten several calls that I needed to take care of. Diana and Rachel took advantage of my phone-calling to make me walk through the cemetary with them, in the dark! I was too busy talking to have more than a moment of misgiving. I didn't get possessed, so it's okay.

After the walk we went back home so I could get a nap and Diana could watch some cable TV. She's enjoying it because she doesn't have cable at her house right now, and so for 10 days she can watch all the Food Network and E! she wants to. When I was leaving for work, she was reluctantly getting up to go to bed, and she was sorry to have to turn the TV off. I told her to get some pillows and sleep on the couch - she can leave the TV on all night, and I think she might be doing that.