I'm a Leo, did you know that? Some people think I'm an Aries because of this diary's title; not so. Aries is my rising sign, the first house in my chart, and the moon was in Aries at the time I was born. The sun was busy flirting with Mercury over in Leo. Yes, this means I am a bit on the fiery side. Leo women are queens of their universe, prone to drama, addicted to talking about themselves in an intelligently funny manner, unquestioning believers in noblesse oblige, and very partial to compliments. My birthday is Saturday so I hope you hordes of groupies and fans will send me a congratulatory email. I'm giving a party, too. John and I are both prime numbers this year so it seemed like a good time to get off our duffs and celebrate. It's sort of a housewarming party as well, although it's mondo tacky to call it that 10 months after we actually arrived, I suppose. At any rate, we need an excuse to thoroughly de-fur the house and actually put away the last of the boxes.
Okay, I'm kidding about the boxes. We're going to have boxes decorating the spare corners until doomsday. My ideal living conditions conflict with John's normal laissez-faire approach to kipple. I long to live in the serene luxury of an interior design magazine photo, and John not only doesn't mind heaps of books, papers, pop cans, newspapers, dirty socks, old mail, and empty boxes lying around but he doesn't notice them at all. Well, until one of the cats plays too hard and knocks into a big pile of them. Then he roars, and both cats go skittering away, greatly amused by his perturbation, and I scold everyone for being noisy and untidy.
We'll make an effort for the party and move the most egregious collection of book boxes back into the hallway. I can't honestly make myself unpack all my books, though. I have this recent moving experience which has scarred me deeply. I'm still looking for the first three Lindsay Davis books, the last three Gerald Durrell books, and my Franz Lanting book on the Kalahari. I really did try to pack for a cross-country move in some semblance of perceivable order, but by the last week I was just hurling things wherever they'd fit and cursing anything breakable which had to be carefully, tediously wrapped. Books got short shrift as they could be crammed in alongside almost anything. This means, of course, that every single box has at least one book in it, and I refuse to unpack absolutely everything until the day we move into our very own home. I reckon I'll be wondering about those books for at least another three years.
Meanwhile, it's time to think about the weekend and make the public areas visitor-friendly. I hope no one minds that there's only room for four people to sit down at any one time. We really should get a sofa one of these days, if only so the cats have something new to fur up.
