Jam and Terror

It's been a busy week of working and getting ready for our trip to Alaska next week. Any time we go on vacation I feel like I should clean the house from top to bottom before we leave. I don't know if it's misguided attempt to prevent anyone from finding out how messy we truly are in case we don't make it back, but it's pretty ridiculous.

I spent all day Tuesday dusting and sweeping, pulling out and shaking the rugs and ruthlessly organizing the family room. When I went in Wednesday morning and discovered that Jake had pulled all the Kleenex and paper products out of the garbage can and spread them around the room, I wondered why I had bothered. That damn dog.

Berries are ripening here and I've spent the last two evenings making jam – raspberry in the bigger jar and blackberry/raspberry in the smaller jars. We now have a total of 12 jars of jam, with plans for several more jars of blackberry, which should see us well into our 40s.

In other news, we're trying to decide just how many hours we should plan to stand in line to get through security at Seatac. The newscaster this morning reported that this latest ban on liquids is far more confusing to passengers than the previous ban on knives, box cutters and nail clippers. Lady, I've got news for you. Banning nail clippers still makes less sense. I don't care if they're the gigantic kind meant for cutting the thickest toenails, and have that swing-out thingy for scraping out dirt and whatnot. As Tom said, "I'd like to see someone try to take over a plane with nail clippers."

British airports have basically reduced passengers to getting on the plane naked, clutching a few select items in a clear plastic bag. I'm waiting to see if we'll need to Saran Wrap ourselves to qualify for some kind of express security lane.