Thursday, April 8, 1999

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• Rash has updated his green online journal
• 6 new ContagiousDreams reviews: The Last Card, Chebache, Tilez!, Cosmic Wimpout, For The Record, and Equate (plus more dreamer and tester profiles)

Spring is here! We spent much of the weekend just hanging out on our deck, enjoying the rebirth and renewal of the world, and eating chocolate bunnies and eggs.

Actually, we've never much liked our deck; it offers very little privacy, and we dislike feeling like goldfish. The only piece of furniture we have out there is a big picnic table that we've also never liked; it isn't very comfortable and anyway, since we're floor-centric types, we'd rather just sit on the floor... except of course that the floor out there is even less comfortable than the table. But this weekend, we changed all that. We gave our picnic table to Joe and Meg, and instead rolled out a small carpet, which we keep in the van for occasional temporary use (we originally bought it for use at trade shows). Then, by bringing out a few throw pillows and a miniature coffee table, we were able to turn our deck into a delightfully floor-oriented, fair-weather-only lounge.

This breakthrough in deck usage has energized us about using our deck, and we've since decided to surround it with vine-covered lattice-work. (This will eliminate the fishbowl effect.) It will still be open to the sky, but the walls will be high enough to keep our indoor cats from escaping, thus creating a kind of a courtyard, where even they may join us. We also plan to build a weather-resistant bench that we can store the carpet and pillows in when not in use. But all of that is a project for another weekend.

Don't forget to play!

This week, we were interviewed for stories by two newspapers: the Daily Record (a Baltimore-based business journal) and the College Park Gazette (our neighborhood's free weekly). We'll be posting those articles here just as soon as they appear in print...

Earlier this week, Robin lost her beloved cat Tash to congestive heart failure. (Meanwhile, our Little Cat Minkoff has developed a heart murmur...)

"Once you've had Extra Krispy, you'll never go back again." - Mono Puff, "It's Fun to Steal Stuff", track 7