Nifty-cool news of the week is that my mother found a sign-language class being held in town, offered through a local university on--get this--my night off! And the super-nifty part of this is that she's paying for it as an early birthday present! Woo!

However, I've been learning tons from the woman at work who knows sign, and I may be way ahead of the class when it finally does start (in September.) She's pleased to be teaching me since it makes her practice, and so not only is she signing everything she says to me, but she's making me sign everything I say to her, even if I have to laboriously fingerspell it out. Talk about incentive to learn the words!

Other nifty-cool news of the week is that the folks bought a new toy that is being kept in my garage and that I will get much use of. I was at the coffeeshop with my mother earlier in the week and we were talking about various home improvements, and somewhere in there she made a comment about how perhaps next summer a riding lawnmower would be purchased. I immediately thought of the state of my lawn, and thought of the ucky-hot weather we've been having and said, "Why wait?" So, after much shopping and decision-making, a large amount of money was plunked down on a ridiculously huge lawn tractor. Tomorrow my lawn will finally get mowed!

Not-so-nifty-news of the week is that I've had a cold for most of it. Luckily though it was a pretty minor cold with relatively little associated misery, and no need to take time off of work. It started coming on Wednesday, and I'm already almost over it, which is a relief since I'm taking a week of vacation starting in two days.

Which brings me back to very-nifty-cool news, which is that Kent will be coming into town on Wednesday and staying for a week. We'll be hitting DeepSouthCon, as well as doing the tourist-thing in New Orleans. We also have plans to go to the coast and catch Cirque du Soleil at the Beau Rivage casino.

So, needless to say, the rest of this week will be spent in making my house presentable. Zeus is going to be kenneled (with the same person who took care of him while I was in Oregon)while we're in New Orleans, but the rest of the time we're going to make Kent the Source Of All Treats, which will hopefully endear Zeus to him. It should be interesting, at any rate. And, if Zeus feels that he simply can't tolerate another male's presence, then he'll find himself staying outside a great deal in the kennel out back.