If someone asks you why you are cleaning before the person paid to do cleaning comes to do the cleaning, you just know even if you answer the person, he isn’t going to get it. Your best bet is just to pretend you did not hear the question and go get some gelato.

Saw a bill board that asked, “Are you going hell?” Then it said, “Open your heart to Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” Frankly, it just did not make sense to me. You’d think they would simply just give out the exit number and mention how many more miles you’ve got to go. Maybe mention an attraction or restaurant that you might want to take in while you are in Oklahoma.

It is near impossible to be morose when you sit down with a stack of cookbooks, unless of course — you are just naturally, genetically morose and you hold tightly onto your moroseness even if you just won the Publisher’s Clearing House sweepstakes.

Just so you know, the odds of winning the $10 million dollar prize is one in 1,750,000,000 billion. Morose is shutting the door to the prize patrol clustered on the porch with balloons, champagne, flowers and a big check saying,  “Go away, you’ve got the wrong house.”

Back in the kitchen, Morose picks up a cookbook to look for a potato recipe. “These are the best garlic mashed potatoes you will ever make, your guests from here on will ask for them by name.” Morose is not to be moved and slams the book shut.

The second suggests roast potatoes, “These are as crisp and brown as if they were deep-fried and their flavor is ambrosial.” She grabs a third book without blinking an eye. “Sautéed tiny new potatoes make this simple dish superlative.”

Bam. Slam. Flip.

“Potatoes have great affinities with butter, cream in any form, cheese, chives, dill, onions, parsley, chervil, rosemary, sage, oregano, bacon and mushrooms.” Morose mutters to herself as she moves to the oven, pops in a few spuds and with painstaking precision sets the timer.

And that is, I swear to God, the origin of the potato bar.

Winter has finally lost its patience. It stood silently by through the December holidays, skipped the festivities on New Year’s, even passed on the feast of the epiphany January 6th. Which is a bit of a surprise since what better time to show Up!

Speaking of revelations, I discovered that a sleeve on the front of my cpu slides down. Underneath it are all kinds of ways to attach devices — USB ports, memory cards, speakers. Who knew?

Every time I uploaded pictures, I’ve wrestled the CPU tower out of the armoire, and unplugged something to connect my camera. Then I would jam the whole thing back, disturbing the tricky nest of wires and just hope for the best. 

So. Now I don’t have to do that anymore. Makes me wonder how many other things I am making harder than they have to be? 

I had breakfast at First Watch this morning. It is a breakfast franchise named after the first shift in the nautical world. It’s squeaky clean, furnished sparsely with a cup and a water-glass positioned on every table to send a message of, ” Sit down, we’ve been waiting for you.” 

I ordered 2 poached eggs, an english muffin and a grilled ham slice. The eggs were perfectly poached, the english muffin nicely buttered and the ham slice predictably thick and rubbery. I had the paper, it was a sunny morning and without anything else scheduled — I had a fine time. 

I was idly eavesdropping on nearby conversations when I looked at the bottom of the check and saw, “One cannot think well, love well, sleep well if one has not dined well.” (Virginia Woolf)

Oh my goodness, I thought. Woolf, as you may well know, is an all-star literary muse, an English writer and feminist born in 1882 who had an Extraordinary impact on fiction before she committed suicide at age 41.

I pictured Virginia sitting opposite me, grabbing the check , saying that she’d pick it up, then looking down and seeing her quote.  

“What the f—?”

“Yeah, ” I shrug — “Wait til you hear about the Kindle.”

If you call me you will probably hear my phone man. He was packaged right with the phone amid the foam packing material.  He went right to work without so much as a word to anyone. In the beginning quite a few people asked when I was going to  personalize my greeting. But after four years, no one mentions it much.   

Some believe he is a little dry and mechanical.  But, hey I say — he’s a pro and pros do not go about encouraging one and all to have-a-nice-day.   

I’ve come to like the sound of his voice as he manages those annoying calls from siding companies and iffy charitable organizations. He also does an excellent job of buying time when I am hurrying to get ready to leave the house and cannot slow down for any kind of casual chat. He never breaks down and says, ‘Oh, hold on,  here she is —!” 

He records prescription information, lets me know when my orders have arrived and is always on top of the date of my next dentist appointment. Frankly, I cannot for the life of me — understand why people don’t use him more.

I’d love to invite him and his family to dinner but when ever I think about doing that — I remember that every time you ask him anything, he says, “I’m sorry, we can’t come to the phone right now.”  

Well, I guess I could leave a message.

So here it is. After Halloween and before Thanksgiving, a holiday vortex. 

I put away the giant pumpkin head with the sideways glance that looks like he is staking out the neighbor’s house. I took the mini skeletons from the mantle where they were practicing their favorite yoga positions.

I put the plastic bag over the dusty hag and moved her back to a basement rafter. I took down the Happy Jack door wreath, and wrapped and stored my collection of grinning pumpkins, pumpkin people and pumpkin-shaped candy bowl.

I put away the Halloween postcard that my sister sent me in 1983.

It only confused Sig anyway, he told me a postcard had come but had no idea what Shawn was talking about and maybe I could make sense of it.  It dawned on me he thought the 27-year-old postcard was current.

I hadn’t paid any attention to what was written on the card since I had only saved it for the illustration on the front. It was a breezy message about goblins, costumes and pumpkins with a mention of what was up with the family.

It is a curious thing to read something from long ago as if it were written today. 

It’s as if the cat is out of the bag.

 Instead of  “Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday to meeeee.”

John Philip Sousa aka The March King is 156 today. I, on the other hand, am 64.

Liam Freely is a data collection machine. At 2 1/2 months, he spends his waking hours looking for the new, the unexpected and the unpredictable. And it keeps him very, very busy.

He looks to the right.  

He  looks to the left.

 He looks straight ahead. 

Let’s get going— mooother! There are miles to go before I sleep.