I'm a careful shopper anyhow, but today, with the prospect of having to carry any groceries I bought the full quarter mile uphill to our home, believe me, I weighed my purchases carefully--both literally and figuratively.

Welcome to Mud Week, eh.

This is the week when the road to our home has melted clear of snow so we can no longer snowmobile up here. It's also the week when our road is just too soft to take the weight of a vehicle. If we give it just a few more days to dry out and harden, all will be well. If we horse the Marnmobile or Paul's truck up here, we'll leave huge ruts that will take hundreds of dollars in gravel to fix.

It's a no brainer. Walking makes sense.

So I whittled the groceries and sundries down to eight bags. Some were light, and I figured it could be done in two trips.

Okay, so I loaded up with the first batch of bags, locked my car because it was down on the main road and hoofed up the hill. I was tired, but not too badly. Got the groceries put away and walked down the hill back to my car.

My locked car.

The keys to that locked car were sitting up at home on the same keychain as my house key. The house key I had neglected to take out of the front door when I went in the house to put the first load of groceries away.

Fine.

Muttering words that left the air around me tinged with blue, I plodded back up home, retrieved the keys and then headed back downhill to my car.

Two trips as a grocery packhorse would not have been too bad.

Three trips ... well, let's just say I bitterly, bitterly regretted buying those ten ears of corn which were tantalizingly cheap but insanely heavy. The spousal unit better savour EVERY nibble, eh.

Speaking of the spousal unit, I have begun campaigning heavily for the two of us to show up at Andrew's proposed First Annual Diaryland Shindig in Toronto over the Canada Day weekend.

There could be hotdogs, potato salad, AND MAYBE EVEN THREE LEGGED RACES!

I am mental with excitement at the thought of this. I am working on growing a third leg even as we speak.

I just wish Andrew had given me a bit more time to concentrate on growing the extra limb, you know?

There are a few obstacles to getting the spousal unit to the shindig.

First, he HATES big cities and Toronto is Canada's biggest city.

Second, the spousal unit HATES to drive and this would be a 900 km. drive for us. I could handle the less busy bits but once we get into Toronto's 138 lanes of traffic it would have to be Paul.

Have I ever mentioned that he is prone to road rage when he's in big urban traffic situations? Oh yes, he most certainly is. You know, I've heard at times Toronto traffic is pretty terrible, eh, so I'm more than a little concerned that there's a distinct possibility he could get so ticked off that the top of his head could blow off or something.

Think of the mess THAT would make.

And last, but certainly not least, the spousal unit thinks anyone who keeps an on-line diary is probably more than a little wacky (heck, he KNOWS how wacky I am) and he's not sure he wants to be anywhere in the vicinity of the level of wackiness that would be generated by a large concentration of Diarylanders.

I, on the other hand, am loopy with happiness at the thought of that.

Jeepers, I do hope Andrew can pull this off.

--Marn