A free half hour reading will be going out to E. H. of San Francisco, who you may realize was the winner last winter, too. I guess Mercury really has it in for her! Any astrologers out there care to comment on how this may be the case?
New: Emily is delighted to say that she has finally gotten away for her long-postponed, goofed-up vacation! And, as promised, at the bottom of this page, she would like to share some of her favorite web links with you.

Here's her winning entry:
1) Right before Mercury stationed, my partner and I spent several evenings discussing our vacation plans. We knew we wanted to go to Oregon, so when we found out that one of our favorite musicians was playing up there, we settled on the last week of August so we could catch a show in Eugene on Labor Day weekend. This meant that we had to spend hours discussing whether to stay in Eugene after the show on Friday night and then try to find a place that would let us stay just one night during a holiday weekend, or camp, or stay in Eugene an extra night and have a much longer drive back to the Bay Area. We decided we'd stay in Eugene one night and then go to Ashland for one night and barrel down I-5 to get home on Sunday.

Then Mercury went retrograde, and our vacation plans were back on the table, because the musician we wanted to see injured herself and cancelled a whole year's worth of shows to recover. So much for the whole Eugene discussion--we decided to go directly to Ashland for two nights instead.

SCORE: MERCURY 1, YOURS TRULY 0.

2) With only a few weeks left of summer, I wanted to get some camping in with my best friends, who are teachers. Several months ago, our friend who works for the San Francisco Water Department reserved the Water Department's bunkhouse at Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park for the weekend of 8/19, one week before our vacation was planned.

Then right after Mercury went retrograde, my friend at the Water Dept. was notified that her reservation had been preempted by some other higher-priority event or guest, so no Hetch Hetchy for 8/19.

SCORE: MERCURY 2, YOURS TRULY 0.

We all resolved to do something anyway, and looked into other camping spots in Yosemite or cabins in the Russian River for the five people who were still interested in doing something. We all set aside that weekend, so we knew we'd do something.

Then, a day before everyone got back into town and the five of us would have had a chance to discuss the possibilities, my roommate informed me that he was moving out of our apartment and moving in with his boyfriend one month later, on August 31. So I could either move then or try to find another roommate for our very nice and not inexpensive apartment in a month.

My vacation was set to begin on August 26 and end the day after Labor Day, so to keep my vacation, I had to drop everything and start working my butt off to get ready. Forget about camping and the other weekend trips I'd lined up for August--time to hurry up and deal with my apartment.

SCORE: MERCURY 3, YOURS TRULY 0.

3) In the four years we've been together, my partner and I have talked at length about moving in together, but hadn't yet taken the plunge. We were getting closer, but I still liked living in a neighborhood in the geographic center of the city with transit lines, restaurants, my gym, my church, and coffee shops all within a few blocks' walk and open late.

My partner lives in a townhouse on the edge of the city, near housing projects. Buses come by every once in a while, but I wouldn't count on one coming on time. To get anywhere, you need to drive or bike--it's more like living in a suburb, only not as green. She'd gladly move to my neighborhood, but she's owned her place for the last 13 years, and if she stays another 17 years, her first-time homebuyer loan will be completely forgiven. If she sublets or sells, she owes a lot of appreciation. So she has a huge financial incentive not to move.

We had gone over how we would deal with living together eventually, how we would pay a percentage of our incomes to a shared account, and over time I would receive equity, etc. We had gone over our different styles of living--mine slow and deliberate and a little bit OCD, hers quick but occasionally chaotic and sloppy; mine a bit cluttered but EXTREMELY organized, hers apparently clean on the surface but don't open a cabinet or you might be showered in maps or other random objects--and whose style would prevail in different areas of household management.

We had gone over my attachment to my neighborhood and the assurance I would need that I could still enjoy my favorite pastimes of urban life, even without my own car (with the money I would save on rent, a cab or two a week would be well within my budget).

So we pretty much knew how we would do it, but since we both got along great with our roommates, we figured we would wait until next summer, when her roommate finished his Ph.D. program.

Ooops, now we had to quickly review all our discussions of the unacceptability of leaving food on the sponge after you do dishes, water on the bathroom floor (wet socks! ARRRRGH!), etc. If we were going to move in together, we needed to give her roommate notice, and if we weren't, I needed to find another place or another roommmate. So we did, and agreed that we would go ahead and move in together. Bad news for her roommate, who really liked living there, and who we both will miss--if there were just a little more room, we probably would have asked him to stay with us, he's so great.

4) D'OH! A box of checks I had just ordered with my current, soon-to-be-old address on them. Let's see, at maybe 2 or 3 checks a week, a box of 150 should last me about a year. Did I mention that I have a touch of the OCD? Kind of makes me want to pay for every single purchase with a check so I can get rid of the damn things.

SCORE: MERCURY 4, YOURS TRULY 0.

5) OK, so, getting ready to move--when you collect everything and get rid of nothing, this is no small task. I have my high school notes, I have my college notes, I have my grad school notes, I have VHS tapes of years of "The X Files" and "The Simpsons" and a few other seasons of shows I liked; I have hundreds of DATS; I have hundreds of tapes; and as a former student and teacher of literature, I have a boatload of books. Time to sell stuff! Here are just a few highlights of the sales:

a) My partner told me her coworker really wanted to buy my mattress and dining set, so don't sell it to anyone else. The coworker just moved to town and also wanted a bed for Burning Man. OK, fine. After a few rounds of phone tag, we settled on a time for her to come by. She didn't. I called and she had basically no excuse other than wanting to do something else. OK, back on the market.

b) I thought, "Why not sell that backpack? I can always just rent one from REI and not have to store it. Plus, everyone uses internal frames these days, right?" It's a nice pack, so I found a buyer very quickly--all we needed to do was agree on the price. So I did some research. The more research I did, the less I wanted to sell the pack. I put the guy off for three days, first apologizing for the delay and telling him I just needed some more information before I could propose a price or agree to the one he'd offered, then later saying I was having second thoughts about selling it. This is not like me! I never flake out like this, but I guess Mercury retrograde took hold of my own brain, too. I ended up deciding not to sell the pack, and the guy found another one. Phew!

c) People who bought my dining table agreed to the price, came over right away to get it, and then harangued me to lower the price. The wife called her husband's cell phone after he had the table taken apart and half the chairs in his car already, and was trying to guilt-trip me into taking $20 off the price. Um, no.

d) A few weeks ago, posted that I might be selling my television, DVD, and VHS--I'd decide soon and let everyone know if they were available. Several people are interested in all three items. Weeks later, I still can't decide. They're replaceable, and we have a larger TV and better DVD, so why not sell? On the other hand, the VHS my partner has is terrible. On the other hand, when is the last time I used my VHS? On the other hand, what if we want to have these items in the study/guest room for the guests to use? Ai yi yi. Well, the movers are coming on Saturday, and if I haven't sold them, they're moving with me!

e) Three other items have been sold and unsold more than three times each:
Coffeemaker: "I want it! My girlfriend won't let me buy any more kitchen items I don't need." "I want it! Sorry, just bought my son an Ipod so I'm tapped out." "I want it! Oh, I'm going on vacation until the 21st, but hold it for me until then." "I want it! Oh, I thought it was free." Then, the other day, my partner, who doesn't drink coffee, decided she wanted to use this monstrous coffee/espresso/cappuccino thing to steam milk for chai. OK, I guess it's not for sale after all!

Mattress: flaky nurse wanted it and didn't show up; guy who broke up with his girlfriend wanted it, but needed it NOW and I am still sleeping on it; guy in Ohio wants it but I am not sure he's legit and since no verifiable payment has arrived, as far as I'm concerned it's not sold yet.

Oysterbed frame: friend said "YES! We want it!" then "oh, it costs money? Maybe I should check with my girlfriend first." then "YES! We want it! But don't hold it for us if someone else wants it." Then someone else wanted to come over and look at it and probably buy it. Then the friends said, "YES! We want it for sure!" so we had to tell the other woman sorry it was gone.

Laundry cart and camp chairs: Sold to a guy who promised he'd come in on Thursday and didn't. Then he said he was going out of town for the weekend. Well, I wanted these things gone, so I told him they were going to the thrift store. Then he said he wasn't going out of town after all; could he come by on Saturday? Yes, I told him, if it was before 9:00. OK, 9:00. At 9:20, he called and said he had a few things to do but would be in by 10:30. I told him I was waiting to go eat breakfast until he arrived, so the sooner the better. After a few more misunderstandings, we met by 11:30. I should have just brought the things to the thrift store.

You get the picture. Almost everything else has been like this, too.
SCORE: MERCURY 10+, YOURS TRULY 0.

6) Remember the musician whose concerts were cancelled. We got a refund for the local show, and were waiting on a refund for Veneta OR. After a while, I inquired and learned that instead of cancelling the show, the opening act added four other bands to the lineup, so we needed to choose whether to get a full refund or go to the show and get $5 back. And if we went to the show, we would need to get from Eugene to someplace near Ashland afterward, maybe a 4-hour drive. So scratch the idea of having two nights in Ashland; now we are most likely going to Eugene after all, unless we change our minds again and request a refund.
SCORE: MERCURY 11+, YOURS TRULY 0.

7) I was on the waiting list for a low-fee clinic for months, and finally got an appointment on one of the two days when I am in the city rather than in my office in the East Bay. Last week, the provider I see there told me that schedules are due to change next week, and he will only be at the clinic on the days when I am in the office. So I can switch providers or I can have an appointment after work at 8:30 p.m., at which point I will have been at work for 11 hours and will not have eaten dinner and will need to get to bed to get up at 5:40 the next day--exactly what I wanted to avoid by specifying which days I am in the city. Oh well.

SCORE: MERCURY 12+, YOURS TRULY 0.

And then I received this on Monday:

Oh, of course I forgot one key part of the story I sent you last night--it wouldn't be Mercury retrograde without some revisions, right?

On Wednesday before the first weekend i was scheduled to start moving non-essential items to my partner's house, the car's Check Engine light went on. I took it to the oil change place, even though it wasn't due, just to rule out anything related to the fluids. No improvement. So instead of having the car available to help with moving, I had to spend an hour and a half bringing it down to the shop and then walking and taking transit back home. Diagnosis: Oxygen sensor, $340 total parts & labor. They fixed it, and I picked it up right at the end of the day as they were closing for the weekend.

On the way home, a few blocks from the repair place, oily smoke started coming from the hood. I pulled over and opened the hood. It wasn't the radiator. Nothing seemed amiss, except that there was smoke. $!@#! Called the repair place, and they said, "oh yeah! We forgot to tell you, we put oil on the new parts. It'll burn off in a few minutes; don't worry about it." OK, false alarm, and only a slight delay.

Fine, then the following Wednesday, the Check Engine light was on AGAIN. Filled up the tank and hoped it was just because the gas tank cap wasn't on tightly enough, but no, the light stayed on. I had reserved the weekend as a retreat from moving, so this time my partner dropped it off, expecting it would be under warranty since clearly it wasn't fixed. No, this time it was the OTHER oxygen sensor, which cost more to replace because it took more labor to get to. $400-something, plus more time spent schlepping to the repair place and waiting for them, talking on the phone with the repair people, etc.

Thank you one and all for your votes, your hilarious comments, and your wisdom - for as one person said in her email:
"May Mercury remind each one of us slow down, smell the lavender, and read a good book with the flashlight handy. Life's moving WAY too fast when you gotta microwave Minute Rice."