Last night I stopped at Menards on the way home to buy a dehumidifier. My basement is damp, and after Mom mentioned it, I agreed it would be a good idea to get all that damp out of the house. I didn't realized the things were so expensive! I wanted to get the cheap one, but after reading up on it, they say that you need at least a 45-pint for a damp basement, which set me back $150. I'm investing in my house, I'm investing in my house...

Dehumidifiers are pretty heavy, too. I mean, it wasn't too bad, but not something I would want to hold while I was waiting in line, so I set in on the floor. The checker (who looked amazingly like Mena Suvari) asked me if I wanted carry out service, and I replied, "Nah. I can get it." As I was paying, she tried to move it, and she said, "This is pretty heavy. Are you sure you don't want carry out?" I said, "I'm sure. I carried it up here." And she said, "Wow. You're a pretty tough girl."

I was kinda proud. I'm not built like a girl. Well, I'm built like a girl, but I'm built like a farm girl. My hips are large and load-bearing, like a Baltic woman. Sorry, couldn't help it. [grin] I've pretty much accepted that I'll never be skinny, but I can take pride in my muscles. It helps me be independent.

Anyway, I got the thing home and plugged it in. The read out said that it was almost 70% humidity down there. Sheesh! I checked it out this morning, and we're down to 60%, which feels much better, but I'll keep running it down to 40%. It's very satisfying to dump out the water.

I had another vivid dream last night. More like nightmare, since it woke me up. I dreamt I woke up in the predawn hours and went to the bathroom. I looked out the window, and my neighbors' side door was wide open. They had been/were being robbed! I went to get my cell phone, and tried several times to call 911, and I saw the burglars outside my kitchen window, and they were just kids, but I tried to memorize their faces so I could give a description. Then I realized my cell phone didn't have 911 service. I went downstairs to check the dehumidifier. The read-out was giving me a message from Butterfly from the WD: "There you are! We were all worried about you! There's stuff all over the news about a terrorist attack there!" I went up the stairs and outside and there were all kinds of people outside in my neighborhood, and they told me that the news was reporting that amphibious vehicles had landed at the mouth of the river, and terrorists were heading upstream to bomb the water treatment plant. For some reason, the water treatment plant had a radioactive core, and if the terrorists bombed it, we would all die from radiation poisoning. I went back inside to watch the news coverage on television, but I got distracted by an episode of All My Children. Then I woke up.