Kevin called on Saturday afternoon and encouraged me to sign up for an online game called “Puzzle Pirates.” For all who have gotten hooked on games such as Bejeweled and Tetris–and for all of us Animal Crossing addicts–this game is made to order. It completely destroyed any plans I had for the weekend, forcing me to spend 6 hours yesterday and 4 hours today in front of my computer playing this damn game! All the cartoony characters are pirates and you earn pieces of eight by working on pirate ships playing puzzle games. Bilging (my favorite) empties water from the hold of the ship, carpenting repairs holes suffered during battle, gunning loads the cannons. And there’s also navigating and sailing.

Today Kevin, Chrysoula, Ray and I set sail on Kevin’s boat, visited a couple of islands and got into swordfights with other pirate ships! We won every battle and came away with a boatload of money and other items we pillaged from these ships. I have yet to do much visiting on the islands. There are shops and other areas where you can work playing other games, and you have a house that you can furnish with all kinds of stuff that you buy in the stores. Lots of fun and a huge waste of time!

Saturday was my day for computer stuff. Patrick came over and installed Vonage for me. I now have “voice over ip” meaning I have a new telephone service that gives me unlimited long-distance calling 24/7 for $24.95/month! I could have had it installed on my regular phone number, but decided to keep both my old number as well as this new one for the present time. Only disadvantage is that it runs through my computer, so if my computer or the isp connection goes down, I don’t have a phone. Not ready for that possibility just yet, so will keep the “land line” with no long distance service. Still will cost me less than what I’ve currently been spending for my long distance plan, and I’ll have unlimited calling available all the time instead of just on weekends.

We’re having unbelievably strong winds that began late this afternoon with gusts up to 70 mph! This is expected to continue through tomorrow afternoon. As a result, the shade structure in the backyard in now in the pool. Possibly I’ll be able to fish it out tomorrow on my own. Otherwise, I’ll have to wait for Patrick to get home from work to help out. I think there’s other debris in the pool, but couldn’t really tell in the dark. Not really what I wanted to spend my MLK holiday doing…

And then there’s the flooding…in the garage. I started a load of laundry and then got online playing Puzzle Pirates this afternoon. The wind was blowing and I didn’t hear the water gushing in the garage. 3-4 hours later I went out to put the wash in the dryer…and saw the water. It seems a box had somehow fallen into the slop sink (probably was knocked off a shelf above from the strong winds while the side door was open) and the box plugged the drain. What a mess! Most of the floor is wet and I’m sure some boxes with who-knows-what inside are soaked. The majority of stuff in the garage is stored in plastic crates, so I just have to hope that whatever got wet isn’t that important. It’s all still wet and there’s not much I can do until I can get in there and do a major cleaning. Oh well.

The best part of the weekend came early this morning when Patrick called to say he was on the way to the San Gabriel Animal Shelter to pick up a kitten that he and Veronica were adopting! Jack is absolutely adorable! He’s about 4 months old and is a long haired grey tabby. Patrick and I went shopping for all the cat necessities along with a few toys and treats. Every home should have a cat!

PS – check The Playland link for a picture of Jack.