Five things make a post

[redbird]

• Thanks to minoanmiss/browngirl, I got to try a sweet I hadn't even known existed: candied lilac petals. They're sweet, of course, and they actually taste like lilac: or, since I've never eaten lilac before, maybe it's that they taste the way lilac smells, in a mild way. I like them.



• cattitude and I bought a new futon a few days ago, after a slow shopping process. Slow because after looking for futon stores in the area, we wanted to visit them together, so we could each try out the possible futons. One of the stores is on Aurora Avenue, a couple of miles from roadnotes and baldanders, so we met them for lunch last weekend before looking at futons. After trying that, we went with the other store: more expensive, but it seemed more comfortable, and it's worth spending more to have a bed we are actually comfortable on. The futon was delivered yesterday afternoon, and so far seems quite restful.



• The first night we slept on the futon was not exactly restful, though. The building fire alarm went off at about 1:30 last night. It is very loud, suited to the purpose of waking people from a sound sleep and convincing them that they want to leave the building. We were outside for about half an hour, while the fire department checked everything out and gave the all clear. It seems to have been a false alarm, though whatever set the alarm off also turned on some part of the sprinkler system, judging from the water we saw flowing out of one spout. I'm glad I took an extra minute (in addition to the time I needed to grab my glasses, figure out what was going on, and put on my pants and a t-shirt) to grab a sweatshirt and my leather sandals, rather than the suede pair I use instead of slippers. When we got the okay to come back in, we played Scrabble while calming down enough to sleep again.



• We didn't try to bring julian_tiger downstairs with us, because we'd taken him to the vet that morning, and we didn't think we could get him into the carrier quickly if at all. He didn't like the noise either, of course, but seemed to recover quickly once we were back upstairs and it was quiet. The vet visit itself went well, and he is now up-to-date on his rabies vaccine. He has spent a lot of the weekend napping, but he spends a lot of time napping anyhow, so that may not be connected to the vaccine or the alarm.



• The next step of the furniture plan is to have someone cart off the old futon mattress and our ancient couch. That's tentatively scheduled for tomorrow (tentatively because I made an appointment online a couple of hours ago, and am waiting for confirmation that I don't expect until tomorrow morning). After that, we can have the new couch delivered.