Happy Veteran's Day! If you are unlucky like me you are at work. But, fortunately for me this day is conspiring to keep me from getting ANYTHING accomplished. Perhaps I do need to get that bottle of 'Focus Factor' from the GNC. Then again, god knows what's IN that stuff.

Have you ever wondered just HOW all those car fires start? Philly seems to be the land of the car fire. Just this morning I rode up to work and amidst the sirens and screeching fire engines there was a plume of black smoke streaming from the side of I-95. How lucky we are to directly overlook the interstate from our 5th floor office. We also watch the El come and go from the Spring Garden station and ships pass by on the Delaware. I imagined I had just missed a spectacular multi-vehicle chase, Matrix-style... perhaps involving one of the Dragon Buses, that culminated in a horrific, twisted pile of flaming metal and burning motor oil. In all actuality it was probably just Brenda's 92 Nissan Sentra, that she hadn't changed the oil in for 6 years, nor had she done anything to maintain.

Damn it Brenda! And now look, your little car is ON FIRE! All you had to do was pour a can of oil into it every once in a while!

Jeez

The current Post it count is:

Kitchen Cabinet: 8
Kitchen Table : 4
Bathroom Mirror: 1

Dave DID have off today and according to him, on returning home this evening, "I did some writing, but not a lot." There were many household things that HAD been down however - laundry, dishes, cleaning of various natures, and dinner was on the table when I got in.

Food has continued to be good this month.

I told you.

There must be something wrong with the electric in our bedroom. Either that or there is some type of weird Star Trek space/time/distortion/anomaly thing happening. Our alarm clock seems to gain 2-3 minutes per week. Yeah, weird huh. And it's not just THAT alarm clock. We've had three different alarm clocks and all of them have behaved the same way. Although this particular alarm clock is most hated - by me. Its only redeeming quality is that it has a cd player, which is nice if you want to, well.... listen to cds.

Yesterday morning I was awakened by Dave, at 6am, who told me, "The clock is almost two hours ahead, you may want to make sure you get up on time." We hadn't reset the clock after the Daylight Saving jump back on Sunday morning... why bother? Generally not being awake AT ALL before noon, let alone at 6am I groggily dragged myself across the bed and spent the next 10 minutes randomly pushing buttons on the clock in an attempt to reset the damned thing, which was obviously designed by someone functionally challenged. After an eternity spent in what I felt was a tediously boring dream I immediately dropped back to sleep.... only to wake up late... with no alarm.... but at least the clock was displaying the correct time.

This morning: correct time - which is disorienting enough as we're both now used to adding at least 30+ minutes to whatever we see displayed there - but no alarm again. It WAS set. It was set CORRECTLY. But no cigar. Not even a reach-around. I'm tempted to just set the freaking thing to some random time. Perhaps then it will work right?!

Or we could just put that Grateful Dead cd back in. It always seemed to go off when there was a chance to blast Bobby singing 'Sugar Magnolias...blossoms bloomin' - off key. And THAT woke us up.

There is a rule around our house: When there is a deadline of any kind, there will be post-it notes stuck everywhere. When there are TWO deadlines, then... all hell breaks loose. With this approaching party in two weeks there are obviously many things to be done. And if I forget any of them? All I have to do is look at the kitchen table or the kitchen cabinets at any of the handy post-its that have been placed there to jog our collective memory.

Post-it Count as of this morning: Kitchen Table-9, Bathroom Mirror-4, Kitchen Cabinets-0