This morning's conversation:

Her: Do you want some breakfast?
Me: No thanks, I don't care for anything right now.

Her: Would you like a bagel?
Me: No, thanks

Her: Would you like a biscuit?
Me: No.....Thank you.

Her: Would you like a muffin?
Me: No.

Her: Do you want some coffee?
Me: No, thank you. I told you that I don't care for anything right now.

Her: Well excuse me.....Fine.

IS IT ME??????

Just a quick entry to illustrate those little lapses of thought that we all have, and that I tend to have with distressing regularly.

The basement is finished. Carpet, drywall, suspended ceiling--all that stuff. The yellow dog sleeps down here, and she frolics about the room regularly.

The boys spent the night down here for the big sleepover. At some point one of the guys broke out a bag of "Bertie Botts' Every Flavor Beans" and they sampled them. As I was picking up the other night I spotted one of the beans on the floor. In a moment of supreme absence of thought I picked it up and popped it into my mouth. I can tell you what flavor it was. It was Labrador Retriever flavor. Hair and all.

It took a good four fingers of scotch to rid myself of that taste.

Brutal weekend, but I may have discovered the ultimate gadget.

The weekend started at 5:30 Friday morning. Spent the entire day mowing, trimming, raking, cleaning--you name it. Got out of the shower and was buttoning my shirt as the first of the boys arrived for the sleepover birthday party at 6:00 PM. Partied, fed them, kept them busy--hit the rack at 1:30 while they slouched watching Harry Potter. Thought they'd wind down. No such luck. They passed out around dawn. Got them up a few hours later, cooked breakfast and eventually sent them on their way. The rest of the day was a blur, though I do seem to remember cooking chicken for supper.

Sunday was Student Ambassadors. We all gathered at a mall close to the city and the group took a dry run getting on the metro and going down to the harbor. Meanwhile I'm stuck in the mall for three hours. Being somewhat tenuosly housebroken this was not fun. Although I did get an Orange Julius, a real treat since I probably get one every three years or so. Eventually found a Brookstone store. Toys for big boys. Bunch of crap mostly--hammers that unfold to become screwdrivers, that sort of stuff. But the massaging chairs were sort of fun. And there I found what has got to be the ultimate gadget.

A steak pager. Yep. Stick the probe in the meat, put it on the grill and clip the receiver to your belt. When the meat hits temperature, it pages you.

What's next?

Just a few miscellaneous ravings.

I’ve tried two different methods of sidestepping reality over the last two nights. The first was hitting the rack at 7:00 and the second was getting completely wasted. Of the two, the second is vastly superior in terms of just not giving a damn, but I don’t think it’s a particularly good idea for long-term usage. Flopping on the bed as soon as you get home eliminates the need to deal with people, but it provides way too much time for brooding. Both leave you feeling guilty in the morning, though.

I’m making iced tea in my cubicle by making tea in the lunchroom and dumping ice in it. The Chinese woman in the cubicle across from mine is giving me dirty looks. I don’t think she approves.

Looking at the paper I see that Liberia wants us to intervene in their problems and that Iranian ex-pats are demonstrating in DC, asking us to intervene for regime change in Iran. I guess everyone wants us to solve their problems so they can get back to hating us. I remember that when we went into Haiti, some guy appeared on TV saying it was about time the US intervened in Haiti, why did it take us so long, the whole thing. The guy was Haitian, of course. He was well dressed, articulate, obviously intelligent, and living in DC. This guy couldn’t even stay in his own country and work on its problems, yet he found it perfectly fine to go on TV and excoriate us for not dealing with his country’s problems sooner. To the whole lot I say “Screw you”.

The concept of free speech has gotten quite a workout lately. Lots of misperceptions out there. If Susan Sarandon and the Dixie Chicks say things that people don’t want to hear, people don’t have to listen. Dropping the Dixie Chicks from your playlist doesn’t infringe on their right to free speech. They can still run around and say anything they like. They just won’t make as much money as if they had kept their mouths shut. And that’s their real problem. Now we have Barbara Boxer calling some radio executive a “nazi” for pulling the Dixie Chicks’ songs. Well, no one has ever accused Barbara Boxer of being intelligent, so one isn’t surprised.

Now that the left is running around boo-hooing about their right to free speech, let’s discuss the right to keep and bear arms. Oh, they don’t want to talk about that. They want me to keep my mouth shut. But what about my right to free speech?

Why does the right thing so often have to be painful?

Lots of happenings, from the wild to the depressing.

On the wild side I came home the other day to discover than an industrious bird had built a nest in the paper box over the course of the day. Thing is I didn't discover it until I stuck my hand in the box and the bird came exploding out. Don't know which of us was more startled.

On the depressing side, I learned that a girl I dated in high school died the other week. Cancer. Now I haven't seen her in 25 years, it's not that emotional a thing, it's just that this death isn't as abstract as someone I never met. Another young person goes down to cancer and there's a connection, no matter how slight.

This brings me to one of my favorite rants. The people out there just demanding a cure for AIDS, an optional disease if there ever was one, and yet people die of cancers every day for no good reason.