Suzy Says

Megan and I brought blankets, pillows, etc. with us to Lu’s party, in case we wanted to stay overnight. We didn’t, in the end, and my pillow was my undoing.

I brought it upstairs on my way to bed, but dropped it on the landing at the top of the stairs. Bending over to pick it up, I tripped over a wayward cord and fell to the floor beneath, with a resounding crash.

It was about seven feet, and I managed to break the house, though, amazingly, I didn’t break Self.

When I got up, I saw the hole in the floorboards, plus two long cracks. Rob came over the next day and repaired the hole, so it’s even better than it was (he also hid the cord catalyst), and Mark is going to put up a railing to stop any further gravity-related experiments. I honestly don’t know who was more horrified, Mark or me. I felt like the Worst Tenant Ever, smashing a big hole in the floor after living here about a week, and Mark felt terrible for not putting up the railing sooner. We all knew it was dangerous, but we reckoned without the powers of Calamity Suzy.

So other than being incredibly embarrassed and spectacularly bruised, I’m OK. Megan says her bruises were worse when she fell down the stairs at our brother’s old house a few years ago, right in front of his appalled eyes. But now the bruises and pulled muscles are keeping the housemaid’s knees company, I still can’t do much of anything. I couldn’t go Trick or Treating with Jessica, for example. But there’s always next year!

• Housemaid’s knee is receding, but still making its presence known. It has been joined by an unpleasant tingling sensation in my right leg, running pretty much the length of it. I have not yet regained my usual graceful gait, but I promise to be thankful for being able to actually walk once I can. For at least five minutes. And if this is a preview of being an old lady, I’m really not looking forward to that now.
• Besides wishing I could walk, I wish I could unpack. Actually, I’m wishing for Samantha Stephens or Jeannie to twitch or blink the house in order, no manual labor required. Besides being dreary and manicure-destroying, manual labor is what led to the limp in the first place.
• The cats have been getting along surprisingly well. There’s been the odd hiss or two, but no fights that I’ve seen or heard. Yesterday, I found them all asleep on the bed. Henry’s still skittish, but the girls are clearly happy and notably less naughty. They haven’t been racing through the house or breaking things at all. I think they’re enjoying going up and down the stairs and exploring their new house.
• I have no fewer than five doors in my house, but no locks. Today, one of the doors wasn’t latched properly and drifted open while I was out. June and Audrey were outside, but came in pretty easily when I called them. Henry was still inside – I suspect that years of being a stray have made the great outdoors a lot less appealing to him. My original plan was to keep them all in for a week, so they know it’s their house, and then let them out on the balcony from the bedroom, so they get used to the whole outside thing. After a few days, I’ll let them out the door downstairs. I’ll be curious to see what they do, how far they go, and whether I can get them in at night.
  

The road home

Operation Escape Oakland hit a few snags, as many elaborate maneuvers are wont to do.

Rob is an insulin-dependent diabetic, and had some issues with his sugar count early on Wednesday morning. We applied soda and waited for him to feel better. At times like this, it’s great to have your EMS trained brother at hand.

While Rob was recovering, Audrey decided she’d get a head start and escaped from her carrier. The girls’ carriers are cloth and close with zippers that meet in the middle. Audrey must have poked her nose or paw through the place where the zippers met until she made a big enough hole to slip out.

Unfortunately, I had left the car window open to give the girls some air while we completed the packing process.

Fortunately, Audrey ran into B’s garden, which is enclosed, so trapping her was (relatively) easy.

Unfortunately, I had learned nothing from this experience since Audrey repeated the escape, though this time remaining inside the car (with its windows closed).

Fortunately, my brother had a bit of string in his pocket, as boys often do, and tied the zippers together tightly.

It seems that Audrey does not enjoy driving any more than I do, since she did an encore of the carrier poo. When I finally decanted her, she was literally covered in it. Megan immediately put her in the sink and washed her, which Audrey took remarkably well, after meowing for pretty much the entire four hour drive. June had thrown up in her carrier, undoubtedly due to the proximity of the carrier poo. Henry didn’t utter a peep and all his bodily fluids stayed in his body.

I expected a series of boos, hisses, and claw to claw combat when all three cats met, but so far, so good. They have walked past each other without remark, though fights may still ensue. They do seem happy to be here, and are enjoying the view from the glass doors and exploring a new place. This is definitely a much more interesting house from a cat’s point of view.

As for me, I now have proof positive that housework is very, very bad for you.

After we finished most of the packing on Wednesday, we cleaned the house, which entailed grovelling around on hands and knees. Not for the first time, I reflected that cleaning is a job best left to the professionals. I’m pretty sure that this unnatural activity resulted in my knees going on strike. By the time I caught Audrey the second time, I noticed that the inside side of my knees (if you follow me) hurt. By the time we stopped for gas, I could hardly bend them. By the time we got home, Megan took one look at me and put me on her couch with ice packs and painkillers.

So while my family was unpacking all my things and stuff, I was lying on Megan’s couch watching “Gilmore Girls” and whimpering. The guilt was definitely worse than the pain. I feel better today, but have been ordered to take it easy so that hopefully tomorrow I’ll be able to get a few things done around my new house.

It was an adventure, all right. Would you expect anything less from Calamity Suzy?

There’s nothing like discovering a home invasion first thing in the morning. You hardly need coffee after a surprise like that.

It was foggy inside (my head) and outside (the house) this particular morning, par for the course of a Northern California summer (insert Mark Twain remark here). But as I reached for my remaining favorite coffee cup*, I noticed that the teeny kitchen counter was teeming with ants.

I had been invaded while I slept!

I removed them with wet paper towels, shuddering and trying not to scream. How can anything so small be so gross? As I tossed the carcasses into the garbage and hastily removed the evidence to the bin outside, it occurred to me that the Oakland hills may in fact be ant hills.

Think about it.

After a gentle reader gently nudged me to update, I added the latest Covet and then noticed how long it had been since I posted anything. Combining Sloth and Envy! Also that I seem to have been taking the “A picture is worth a thousand words” adage literally, since it’s practically become a picture book around here.

Time to catch up on my non-fabulous life.

The Ant Invasion Day also included:

• A broken glass on the kitchen floor, which I noticed by stepping on the wet remains while recoiling from the ants. I now have two glasses besides the Elvis movie ones which I’m afraid to use with the Commando Cats on the prowl. I have been reduced to acrylic glasses which almost immediately got scratched and now have the look of perma-fog. A minor hardship for the aesthetically inclined.
• Going to the hardware store to buy ant traps, I passed a guy with a cute pit bull. I asked if I could pet her, and he agreed, so I petted her and told her boy how beautiful and good-natured she was. “Yeah,” he observed, “if I could, I’d marry her. Least I know she’d be faithful, know what I’m saying?” He smiled, displaying all gold front teeth. He’d be quite the catch, too.
• On my way home, there was someone being arrested at the gas station on the corner. Again. And when I got home, I noticed smoldering remains across the street. Neighbor B, returned from Florida, miracle-free, informed me that someone had left a stolen car there, then come back later to torch it. Just another day in Oakland.
• The Safeway has been remodeled and improved, which means that nothing is where it was and all the customers are wandering around in there like something out of Night of the Living Dead. I finally located the fizzy Calistoga water among the soda (the non-fizzy water is stored several aisles over), and was putting it my cart when Ray the Safeway Guy held up a bottle of blood orange soda and urged me to try it. “It’s a real screamer! Try it once and you’re hooked, just like Pall Malls.”

Who could resist? And it turned out he was right. After I put the bottle in my cart, the Temptations came on, and Ray started doing the Temptations walk down the aisle. He convinced me to join him on his way back, so there we were, dancing down the soda aisle. Ray may have missed his calling.

Just another day in Oakland.

*It’s a reproduction of the classic New York take-out cup with the legend “We are happy to serve you”, only in ceramic. It’s Number One because of the untimely demise of my irreplaceable daisy mug in the kitchen sink. There may be a conspiracy here.

Much less fun (and harder to solve) than a Nancy Drew mystery. Though, like her, I have had a cute blue convertible and noticed that boys never do anything, so if there’s something to be done or a mystery to be solved, you’d better do it yourself. Stylishly.

You know how some people have something wrong with their magnetic field or something (those of you who are scientifically minded can let me know what I’m talking about here) and can’t wear watches? I think I’m like that with coffeemakers.

The curse started, as curses tend to do, long ago, and continues to this day. Those who are cursed (Me) have no warning, and it is sprung upon them in the early, uncaffeinated hours when they are least equipped to deal with it.

I thought the curse would go along with that coffeemaker, as I merrily tossed it into the trash, but no. It was passed onto its successor, a coffeemaker version of Fallen. The second one lulled me into a false sense of security for some time before going suddenly and stubbornly on strike in the French manner. Also ? la fran?aise, it would mysteriously start again, only to stop with no warning later on, sometimes while in the middle of working.

I hauled out my old French press, the one with the plastic ~shudder~ carafe because the cats’ romping keep breaking the glass one, making for some extremely hazardous waste.

I will just say here that I used to use one of these all the time, but my love has turned to hate.

I hate:

• Having to wait for the kettle to boil, then attempt to pour said water onto grounds without spilling or scalding Self (no easy task when you’re Calamity Suzy);
• Having to wait again for the coffee to strengthen sufficiently to jumpstart a cold and Grinch-sized heart;
• How there’s always a certain amount of sludge in the bottom of my coffee cup; and
• Having to scrape* out the grounds, but yet have enough left over to get into everything I wash and leave a sad ring-around-the sink in its wake.

I think I hate that most of all.

So I ordered another coffeemaker, a pretty red one, one that I could just throw in the coffee and water and the coffee would appear like magic. I took it out of its package, admired its cuteness, plugged it in, turned it on, and – nothing. The warming burner was cold to the touch, always a sign of deadosity, whether in people or appliances.

I called the company and they agreed to send me one that works and to have UPS pick up the body, which is waiting on the front porch and dreaming of speeding hearses.

In the meantime, I had to resort to the French press again. Although it worked this morning, the grounds-trapping screen holder was cracked, so when I pushed it down, it exploded all over Self and the kitchen floor and anything else that was in its way.

When I took out the screen part to rinse everything out, the plastic holding the screen onto the stem fell apart in my hands. So it’s yet another Oakland homicide**, though a purely involuntary one.

If the replacement coffeemaker doesn’t arrive today, I face a coffee-less birthday morning tomorrow. What could be more cursed than that?

*Sometimes this procedure gives me heretical thoughts about the bad old days when we were all unenlightened and just threw everything in the garbage. Things were so much easier and less stinky then. It really isn’t easy (or pretty) being green, which is why, you guessed it, I don’t enjoy it.

**Oakland: its not just for homicides anymore! Apparently, we also specialize in carjackings!

My boss observed recently that “nothing works anymore” (I hasten to add he did not, at least at that point, mean Me), but rather the world in general, and he may be right. The evidence is certainly piling up in the chaos I call my life:

Cable & Internet
You guessed it, more fun and frolics with yet another utility company. In this case, the internet has the work ethic of a particularly lazy and capricious sloth. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes, just to make it interesting, it stops working in the middle of something. This is especially effective when the user has been lulled into a false sense of security by the internet service actually working for a day or days at a time*.

The service itself is bundled into the phone and TV cable, and though my understanding of such esoterica is extremely limited, I will just say that when the cable guys come to “fix” the internet, nothing works for the duration. The phone unexpectedly cut me off during a very important conversation with the fabulous K, which is how I learned this hard way.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have seen more of more cable guys than I have of my friends and family. One visit lasted more than three hours, during which they changed all the cables, climbed around under the house, and had incomprehensible consultations with still other cable guys by radio.

The internet remained unmoved.

On the most recent visit, I was still in my pajamas and just waking up in the living room (see “Bed” below) when the latest guy in the series appeared. They are supposed to call first, but this guy didn’t get the memo, since he just turned up, peering in the door at PJ-clad Self. It was quite embarrassing. Or like the beginning of a porn movie. “Did you call for…service?” “I certainly did!”

Bed
Somewhere between here and there, the salt flats of Utah and the Donner Do Not Pass Go, my bed was mortally wounded. I did not become aware of this important fact until I got into bed, having been fully preoccupied with checking off the list of my earthly possessions as they were unloaded from the giant truck into my tiny house and wondering where I was going to put everything.

So the movers put the bed back together here, as they taken it apart there, and either didn’t notice or didn’t care that the center beam, which supports the whole cheap IKEA thing, was broken. Possibly they thought it would be funny for me to learn this the hardwood floor way after nearly a month of inflatable bed hell.

Either way, I was summarily dumped like a first wife when the trophy wife rears her cellulite-free rear. I propped up the broken beam with bricks, but this was a band-aid on a fatal wound. Since I now had all my all-too-many belongings, I got out the inflatable bed I kept on hand for guests. It features a sort of stand on which the inflatable mattress resides. As I unpacked it, I noticed that the stand

has a disturbingly bier like appearance.

I should have realized this was a sign, because the inflatable bed died a thousand deaths. At least it was already on the bier. All I had to do was give it a proper burial.

The dead IKEA bed, on the other hand, got an improper non-burial. I had to pull it apart with a hammer, and discovered that it was cardboard inside. It’s always upsetting to discover that someone you’ve been sleeping with is not who you thought they were. The remains of the bed remain in my driveway until I can figure out an inexpensive way to get them to the dump.

I went bed shopping, and discovered that they are surprisingly expensive (like children’s clothes, where the amount of fabric is in inverse proportion to the price). I actually ended up buying one from Wal-Mart. While I was waiting for it to arrive, I slept on the pull-out couch in the living room like the early Mary Richards, hence the close encounter with the cable guy (see “Cable and Internet” above). On the bright side, it has yet to collapse, but I still can’t believe I resorted to Wal-Mart.

I have the worst bed karma ever.

Car
The car itself is fine, despite the ticket, but I still haven’t received my license plates. It’s been three months since I bought it, so this may be a record. I finally made an appointment at the DMV, and and when I arrived there and saw the line and its huddled masses quality (I?m sure they were all yearning to be free of the line), I was glad I did. I eventually learned from a girl named Brazil that the dealership didn?t do the required smog check, or, if they did, failed to report it. I checked my bill of sale, which indicates the smog check was done, and, more importantly, that I paid for it. Brazil suggested that I call the dealership, so I did. They said they’d call me back.

They didn’t.

I called the dealership twice more. The last time, I refused to hang up until I got an answer, any answer. Eventually, I was assured that they?d submit the necessary paperwork to the DMV and I?d receive my plates in two weeks. Now, where have I heard that one before? I?m hoping that it just slipped through the cracks at the time I bought the car and that they really will do the paperwork this time. I?d hate to have to go to Fremont and wait for it. I?d rather wait at home, even if I am waiting for Godot.

*Great. Now I have that One Day at a Time theme song in my head. As if the constantly barking dogs next door weren’t enough.

Now, that looks dangerous.

Your average, drugstore-bought round brush doesn’t, does it? But in the hands of Calamity Suzy, I assure you it is.

In a foolish attempt to recreate the hairstyle my stylist* gave me a few days before (much like that sported lately by the lovely Reese), I managed to get the brush hopelessly entangled in my hair. Within seconds. Faster than the gunfight at the OK Corral. It was like, turn on hair dryer, wrap hair around brush – SNAG!

Uh oh.

I tried to untangle it, looking in the mirror from every conceivable angle, pulling hopelessly at various tufts until the inevitable became apparent.

I had to cut the brush out.

This is not what a girl wants to hear after dropping some serious change on a fabulous haircut and highlights. All I can say is thank God I’m moving or my stylist would kill me. Or run me out of town on a rail** for destroying his artwork.

So, yeah: SNIP! And SOB!

Fortunately, like Meg in LIttle Women, I am only bald underneath. Unfortunately for the brush, my hair was so wildly entangled in it that I threw it out in horror and embarrassment. Enough for about a million DNA tests on any given CSI, so I better keep my nose clean.

And my hair unbrushed.

*Oh, Sandy and Didi…I think I’ll miss you most of all!

**Probably still more enjoyable than your average airport experience. Or mine.

Well, venturing from the house really didn’t pay off for me.

1. I took Rita for quick tour of the alleyway (yes, that alleyway) before running (and falling) some errands. No fiesta evidence, but the following: yoga pants; sports bra; hoody, abandoned, as if someone petite had just stepped out of them (and walked away in her panties?!). No body, just the clothes. Go figure. I can’t. Neither can Rita.
2. A guy with a heavy Scots accent asked me where the nearest coffee shop was. Outside a Starbucks. His accent was so strong I had to ask him to repeat it. Which of us looks dumber* in this particular anecdote?
3. A Jamaican cab driver earnestly asked me if I spoke Polish. I don’t know what about me exactly broadcasts “Get your Polish translations here” or why this guy was in such dire of need of same, but there you have it.
4. On walking into a store – or attempting to do so – I stumbled and fell, embarrassing Self and breaking a nail. It’s always the innocent who suffer.
5. A visibly (across the shoulder and up the neck and onto the face) girl asked me if I knew where to buy a bathing suit. My immediate, unspoken response was “Do I look like someone who knows where to buy a bathing suit?” I look like someone who should be heavily sedated before even thinking of buying a bathing suit.

   I told this story to my fabulous friend K, who said we should invent a place where women could buy bathing suits and not want to kill themselves or the nearest supermodel. In our imaginary (but wildly successful) store, you’d get valium and a cocktail of your choice before even approaching the dressing room. The dressing room would be lit by candles, which we all know are the most flattering, as opposed to the hideous fluorescent bulbs favored by most department stores, which make one look like a cottage cheese avalanche. I think we might even go as far as those fun house mirrors which make you look really thin, as opposed to those completely un-fun mirrors in department stores which scar you for life. We’re thinking of calling it Suit Yourself. Investors, apply to me.

Well, that’s what happens when you leave the house.

*Years ago, one of my oldest friends was rooming with an Australian guy. I came over to visit my friend, who hadn’t gotten home yet. The roommate did his best to entertain me, but I was completely unequal to his accent. After a few rounds of “Excuse me?” and “Can you repeat that?” I subsided into agreeing with everything. Am convinced that as soon as I left, he told my friend that I was just about the stupidest person he’d ever met. “I aked her if she was a cannibal, and she said yes! She agreed to have 19 children with me! She thinks Ronald Reagan is a genius! Ronald McDonald, too!”

Saw the cardiologist on Thursday. He had not received a copy of the ultrasound I had done, so couldn’t give me a diagnosis. But he did say that my heart skipping a beat or going fast isn’t a symptom of something really bad. I had the ultrasound done again, & will have to do the 48 hour heart monitor thing again on Jan 5 (happy new year!) since I’m now off the anti-depressants, which may have skewed it. So as usual: no answers, more tests. Why did I expect anything different?

The ologist’s office is located next to a hospital. Across from the hospital are a funeral home and a party supply place (The Balloon King!) – in the same building.

Tried to get a taxi in the pouring rain, to no avail. I did, however, have some guy pull over in his car, open the passenger door, and ask me if I wanted a ride. Sure! Drive me off somewhere and kill me! Why not? It was hard to persuade him that I wouldn’t consider his offer, whatever his motivation, and eventually, he gave up.

As I trudged damply homeward, somewhat unnerved by both the ology and the offer, I spotted a homeless-looking guy approaching, apparently talking to himself. I’m sorry to say that despite the season of goodwill toward men, I really wasn’t in the mood for a panhandling crazy at that point. He walked right up to me and demanded, “Are you afraid of me, princess?” I shot back, “Should I be?”, and he said no, then meandered off, swearing.

‘Tis the season.

When I checked my mail, I discovered, among other things, the keys to my old apartment were off the old ring. Now there’s just my house key, the keys to my post office box and gym locker, and my father’s dog’s ID tag on the new one. And notes from my sister in the change purse part.

I guess my heart finally caught up with my mind and I realized that I don’t live there anymore.

It was an unusually embarrassing day for our heroine, whose aliases include “Calamity Suzy” due to her amazing talent for being accident prone. Not to mention that in addition to the usual fights against gravity (boobs’n’butt), she ends up wearing part of every meal. Her eating style is probably comparable to Mike’s beautiful daughter Marina (though far less charming). I hasten to add that despite being a messy eater, our heroine does know what fork to use. The food just might not stay on it.

The day started out reasonably enough, with a cup of black coffee and a completely perfect peach, but deteriorated rapidly. I went to water the flowers so kindly planted by (but not maintained by) the Mystery Gardener. While walking out the door, I managed to trip and fall forward, smashing the pitcher of water and falling onto my side. My shoes had fled inside, and I lay there winded for a moment, hoping that no-one would see me. They would be all too likely to jump to the wrong conclusion based on the contents of my recycling box, against which I was gracelessly arranged.

When I was finally able to get up and breathe again and wash off the blood, I went to the doctor. Not because of the watering incident, but because of my oh-so-tenuous mental health. I burst into tears in her office. She increased my dose of happy pills.

I thought it would be too embarrassing to be seen on public transit, weeping and sniffling, so I treated my beat-up body and psyche to a cab ride home. Waiting at a red light, a loiterer on the street corner winked at me. I smiled politely. He said, “Meet you at the next traffic light, baby!” I just shook my head and looked away. Then he started knocking on the window of the cab, saying, “You can’t even look at me now? Aaaah, you’re blushing!” Which was true. This was the longest red light in the world. The cab driver was supremely unaware or superbly uninterested, since he appeared not to notice a thing. He has probably seen far more interesting things in his career.

I finally got home and decided to have a nice long bath, complete with a Lush bath bomb. I ran the tub, applied the bath bomb, which fizzed deliciously, and went to get my silly, fluffy novel and a glass of wine, which I set on the edge of the tub. While leaning forward to turn off the taps, I managed to slip on an errant piece of cinnamon from the bath bomb and knocked the entire glass of wine into the bath. The glass didn’t break, but I sat there thinking of an old commercial: “You’re soaking in it!”

Now is the summer of our discontent….

A construction worker, talking on a payphone (how retro is that?):

“And that’s why this city drives me crazy. Honest to God!”

Two guys on bikes:

Guy One: “That’s the kind of bullshit I’ve had to work with here.”
Guy Two: “it’s all bullshit here.”

Maybe I should move.

I already have two summer-related stupidity injuries (Calamity Suzy did not stay in Florida):

• A scrape on my left elbow. This was due to breezily informing a friend and hammock owner that I knew all about getting into and out of these summery contraptions. I may have gone so far as to boast that I had “skills”. The hammock promptly dumped me on the ground in a graceless heap to prove that I was just as wrong as I could be. That’s the “mock” part of the hammock. Yes, it mocked me for being such a ham.
  
• A burn on the fingers of my right hand, incurred while attempting remove skewers of shrimp from my barbecue unassisted. I discovered that you really shouldn’t hold onto the barbecue with your bare hands (or fingers). Kids, don’t try this at home.

Calamity Suzy Rides Again…

…or not, as the case may be.

I’ve taken the accident-prone talent to a whole new level. Now I don’t even have to be awake. Yesterday, I actually woke up with a scratch on my face from an errant feather in my pillow. I’m beginning to think the birds heard that I was considering getting rid of them and acted first. While examining the scratch in the bathroom mirror, to the triumphant cawing and shrieking of the flock of conspirators outside, I discovered a whole flock of zits inside. They are a less than charming counterpoint to the scratch. Now I look almost as immature as I am.

While talking on the phone and stepping outside, managed to hit my still-wounded knee against the aluminum doorframe, re-wounding it. Note to self: don’t talk while walking. Or walk while talking.

Not that driving is much better, in my case. Faithful readers may recall my automobile adventures just three months ago. Apparently, I learned nothing from that episode, since I managed to lock my keys in the car yet again.

Bad news: As usual, I did not have my cell phone, because I was using a very tiny, but very cute handbag (patterned with Marilyn Monroe magazine covers) that could barely hold my wallet.

Good news: There was a payphone! So I called the towing company.

Bad news: “That’ll be an hour, ma’am”. Also, $60 worth of stupid.

Good news: I was at Walgreens, so I bought a bunch of trashy tabloids and caught up on my Bradifer, Charles’n’Camilla, and Wacko Jacko news. They even had a bench outside. And unlike the last time I locked my keys in the car, it was 70&deg outside.

Bad news: It took an hour and a half for Rescue Guy to appear, pleading traffic.

It took him about two seconds to get the car door open. It just goes to show how quickly someone could steal your car. He wisely wouldn’t leave until I had actually started the car, and when I thanked him, he said, “That’s all right, sweetheart.” I love how everyone calls you “sweetheart” and “hon” here.

Good thing I’m flying home.

It’s Calamity Suzy!!

Yesterday I:

– Fell and scraped both knees, which are now even less fit for public viewing than usual, being red and puffy. I hasten to add that this was sun-related and not alcohol related: I was blinded by the sun and tripped on a huge crack in the driveway.

I did this in front of the two cable guys, who were unlucky enough to be sent to fix the cable. They ended up being here for more than three hours and had to replace pretty much everything. They couldn’t really laugh at me, though, because they were calamity cable guys, one cutting his head on an open window and the other cutting his hand along with the new cable.

– Tore side of dress in the process of falling on the driveway, revealing pale pink satin bra to an unsuspecting public. Failed to realize this until after the cable guys had gone and I had talked to the mailman and a couple of my friend Paul’s neighbors. Belated blushes.

– Hit head getting out of car.

– Melted into tears in front of Paul. Very, very embarrassing.

– Burned my hand on the pot lid while making dinner. Note to self: don’t pick up metal handled lids from boiling pots with bare hands. Really not a good idea.

– Cut the other hand while cutting a lemon.

At this rate, I’m going to need the services of Rico from Six Feet Under while I’m still alive in order to remain at all presentable.

I’m Sick Suzy. And not in a fun, pervy way, but a sneezing, coughing, drippy-nosed, whining-even-more-than-usual way.

It seems especially unfair, since I just had that sinus infection last month. Last month! I know the illness season, hand in hand with the holiday season (no coincidence there), is upon us again, but even for someone as known for excess as Me, two illnesses in two months seems a bit much.

I’m convinced it’s a parting gift (or insult) from the plane: “Here’s a little bug for you, and thank you for playing our game!”

One of my neighbors took pity on me, though, and brought me a care package of popsicles (for sore throat); grapefruit juice (vitamin C!); Campbell’s Chicken & Stars soup (childhood remedy); and a copy of the new Eminem CD (for boredom).

Almost as good as room service! I feel better already.

I haven’t seen or heard Mr. Mouse since his stunning d&eacutebut, but though he is out of sight, he isn’t out of mind. Despite being pre-caffeinated this morning, I immediately noticed that the loaf of bread I had unwisely left on the kitchen counter last night had been broken into and feasted on by none other than Mr. Mouse – unless it was one of his partners in crime, given the Never Just One rule. He must not have heard about the Atkins Diet.

I think I’m going to have to break down and get a trap. Maybe you Never Get Just One, though. Also, where do you put them and what do you put in them? I wonder if my mouse is like Nick’s and I can bait the traps with bread, though surely a mouse sophisticated enough to plague me would have more extravagant tastes, expecting croissants at least. I like Kathleen’s idea of filling the entry with steel wool, thus avoiding becoming yet another domestic murderer, but can’t find it.

Mice are much less adorable in real life than in Beatrix Potter stories. I don’t think I’ll ever read them quite the same way. On the other hand, I might find mine cuter if he were wearing a waistcoat and cravat.

Also, if I’m going to start killing four-legged creatures just for having the temerity of co-existing with me, I feel like even more of a hypocrite not eating them. No virtue there, I’m afraid. Next stop: fur coat.

I wake up slowly in the morning. Very slowly. I put the kettle on, grind the coffee, pour the boiling water onto the perfectly ground perfectly Caffe Trieste mocha java, and take it back to bed to read, drink my coffee, and contemplate the horror of being (technically) awake. Do not talk to me. I do not exist in a pre-caffeinated state. Disturb me at your peril.

This morning, I was happily reading the latest in Lemony Snicket’s delightful Series of Unfortunate Events – I love these books, because they are visually very appealing (important for the shallow among us), charmingly written, and the central characters have lives that are actually worse than mine – when the bulb in my reading lamp, conveniently located behind my left shoulder, suddenly exploded. It not only exploded for no apparent reason, it flew right out of the lamp and apparently vanished.

Not even Caffe Trieste wakes you up faster than that.

I had barely recovered from this unfortunate and shocking event when I heard the distinctive and horrifying sound of one of the Feline Five throwing up. However, when I tried to find the source of the cat creation, it was nowhere to be found. Undoubtedly, I’ll step in it with bare feet in the middle of the night.

Is it too late to change my mind about dogs?

Apart from work and family, the eternal but metaphorical headaches that they are, I have had a real headache since Thursday. This is a very long time to have a headache, and it’s beginning to interfere with what passes for the workings of my mind.

At first, I thought it was just the stormy weather, including unaccustomed thunderstorm. Then I thought it was spending weekend hours, the most precious kind, with my mother. But both of these have passed and I still have the headache. I have tried every remedy known to Suzy from both sides of the Atlantic, and to no avail. I am beginning to wonder if a girl can get a permanent headache. And not only that, why do people say, “It’s all in your head” like that’s better than something attributable to the physical? I mean, if it’s in your head, how can you ignore it? It’s right there, all the time. And as easy to overlook as an elephant in a studio apartment.

So it’s all in my head. But how can I get it out of there?