The filing crate (a commercial descendant of the milk crate) secured to others with cable ties could be a strong presence in the ways of householdery that I follow. Not for decorative purposes, because it's ghastly, but for something structural and effective and modular, it beats wire-frame shelving of that same general sort all hollow, because it has its own structural integrity that isn't those blasted plastic connectors. There's a three-crate stack behind the head of the bed for the alarm clock and now Allegra; Allegra will be retrofitted with a NIC sometime Really Soon Now.

Yesterday I got two calls, probably both about the same class of thing. One of them was automated with a number to call back as a matter of some urgency. The other was a Real Live Human Being. The Real Live Human Being was looking for Marx. I suspect Bill Issues. The automated one got forwarded to my cellphone the other day, and didn't get answered. I have an address book entry for the bill collectors of other people in my cellphone, now, just so it'll flash something useful with the Caller ID.

Qwest's IVR doesn't know what to do when you sneeze at it repeatedly, and will try to forward you to a Live Human Being.

Performed the periodic "take stuff off bed, put back on" today, because there was much of the falling-off of futon. I'd gone to bed around seven-thirty-ish, and was nicely asleep, but the phone rang. It was Tay-tay. Yay catching up with little sisters! In semi-coincidence, she mentioned a general "hmm, I wonder if hanging out with my cousin would be fun," for values of "cousin" who go to Reed. I have every faith that the results could be the sort of Family Bonding that's truly scary for a non-family onlooker, especially if pink. (And I do have the late-night brain, but trust me when I say that I at least know what I mean. "Get on like a house on fire" is the usual phrase, if somewhat insensitive given that my Virtual Aunt just had a stack fire and lost some roof.)