Afterthoughts

This morning I woke up in a fog. Literally, for once. I couldn't see the garage from the back door. I feared for the invisible squirrels out in the yard when I let the invisible dog out. Invisible birds twittered high in invisible branches.

The drive to my daughter's school was Kafkaesque. Car headlights materialized in the mist like the eyes of humongous animals, school buses were mastodons looming.

"They should've called off class," mused my daughter, then, "music on," and she disappeared into iPodland.

Announcing that she was about to disappear into iPodland was my daughter's way of being nice. She was being nice because it's my birthday. I felt positively giddy with such a reprieve, however short-lived.

Which certainly doesn't describe me. I'm about as long-lived as you can get and still remember that you are. My husband has reminded me that I am, once again, a prime number. I ain't saying which one, jack, only that it is. I'm taking this as proof that I'm still in the prime of life.

Dream on, she mused foggily.

But it's my birthday and I'm trying to think good thoughts. That seems fair.

Except life isn't fair, as we all know, and I'm haunted by images of Norm Coleman and dead horses and murdered pigs and the Housekeeper, who's due down on the first floor any second.

Question: "Is Norm Coleman actually a ventriloquist's dummy?"

The Housekeeper belongs to a church which believes wives should subjugate themselves to their husbands because, as we all know, Eve was an afterthought created from Adam's rib. The Housekeeper had to ask the church for permission to date-and-marry her particular Adam because both of them had been married before.

Question: "Does that make the Housekeeper a sparerib?"

I'm trying a new thing with the Housekeeper, earplugs. It's not about the noise, it's about the invasion of my personal space, namely, my brain. I reserve the right to invade my brain with enemies of my own choosing, thankyouverymuch.

Question: "Who's to blame for the swine flu?"

Answer: "Carnivores."

As far as I'm concerned, if you're going to murder and devour pigs -- or cows or chickens or sheep or swordfish or your neighbor's manservant -- then you deserve to suffer the same. Decrease the surplus population, I say.

So shoot me.

Except, not today. Today I've earned a reprieve. It's my birthday. And I'm prime rib.