Hi, I have good news. As of one hour ago my migraine F-I-N-A-L-L-Y subsided. The turning factor being my wonderful neighbor across the street calling me at 8:15 PM. So I lounged in the recliner for an hour, in the duskiness, and mostly listened, even thought the content of her stories was somewhat cream curdling, like her cat Lucky had to be put to sleep unexpectedly. He looked like he'd just gained weight, but it turned out to be some problem with no fix. Lucky was a great black cat, we always knew when he came to visit because he dug little holes in our mulch driveway, they were peppered everywhere, he was a busy big guy. He always loved to be petted and rub on your legs. I'm so happy, I mean that my friend made my headache go away, not about the sad stuff. I'll really miss poor Lucky. He was the kind of cat that was everywhere at once. Oh man, I might cry.

Mike DID have to do my little job this morning, and I never got out of bed until afternoon. And I still felt super crummy, so I said, I'm going to take my vacuum cleaner for service to the vacuum store in Tampa that has the giant gorilla on the roof (because you can't sit around forever doing nothing, migraine notwithstanding, and that sounded tame enough and my vacuum was due). I bought my vacuum there 12 years ago (the Rainbow had long before bitten the dust) and it was a fancy brand and I loved it. Except the motor burned up right off. They "fixed" it a couple times, but it was no use, it kept getting frighteningly overheated. So I took it back to the store and in an unusual act of assertiveness (because I am of the shy, retiring, faded, demure violet-on-the-wallpaper variety) I stated, You need to please give me a new vacuum cleaner. THIS one is a lemon. They looked kind of surprised, but by golly if I didn't walk out of there with a new vacuum. I read in the paper a few months ago (probably years, I so lose track of the time) that someone stole the giant gorilla off the roof, which was a huge disappointment, because he was the main attraction. It was then reported returned, turned out it was a prank. But today I only noticed two lousy little imposter fake fur gorillas flanking the entrance. They cock their heads and wave and smile, without moving, as cars go by on one of the busiest streets in Tampa. They look silly and definitely cordially invite you to come on in and browse and buy a fancy new vacuum. But the giant King Kong gorilla that used to be on the roof, I think he rotated, or at least some of his limbs did, I think he really waved, and he had a marvelous smile, well, no one can take his place, and it's a sad state of affairs to try. Unless of course these two other gorillas have always been there, and I never noticed them because I was focused upward, like on top of the Empire State Building. UH-OH! I think the store really is called, State Vacuum. Okay. So it only took twelve years for this to dawn on me?? I can't believe it. I'm serious, this is truly happening as I type. How dim-witted can I GET?? PLEASE don't mention this to DTD, as it will just be one more piece of ammunition for her artillery. Oh well, if nothing else, I have learned that all good things come to an end. And you have to go find new good things.

So, I did go find a new good thing. It's called a blender. I save thousands of recipes. I have so many TASTE sections saved from the newspaper that I will probably have to host a city-wide wienie roast. But last week's TASTE section was still languishing on the dining table. The front cover showed big hulking athlete boys, and the inside was going to tell you how to keep them fed. So I thought, I'll zip through this edition (I mean, I don't have any hulking athlete boys to feed). But there was a recipe for cold zucchini soup. When I read why the lady wrote her cookbook, to calm her soul after she learned her husband had cheated on her, she learned this after the poor loser died, well, I just had to support her by trying her recipe. Since I cooked a lot last week for my mother-in-law, I just so happened to have most of the key ingredients for this soup. Well. Let's go for it. Except I don't have a blender, which you need to puree the soup. I had given my Magic Bullet to DTD. Well, lurking around in my purse was a big fat juicy giftcard for Williams-Sonoma. And lurking near the Gorilla Vacuum Store is a Williams-Sonoma. Heh, heh, heh. So, I spent my entire card and came home all happy with my beautiful new blender, courtesy of my fabulous, tidy sister and brother-in-law. I had to get it out of the box. They make it such a tight fit, for crying out loud. So, I opened one end of the tall rectangular box and then set that end on the floor and shimmied the box off. Next you remove all this plastic and Styrofoam packing jazz. So, then you get your paws on the prize, and what do I do as I lift it up to admire? I DROP IT. You heard me. BIG TIME. ON THE FLOOR. ON THE TILE FLOOR. THE HARD UNFORGIVING TILE FLOOR. Pooh, pooh, and double-pooh! The motor base hit with a scary thuddish clang, and the pitcher part flew one way and the lid another, scuttering across the tile and gritty grout with great clamor. Silence. I stood there frozen with a glazed expression, like the two small gorillas, trying to absorb this small-scale tragedy, pretending it was an hallucination courtesy of Migraine, and if I stood there long enough, all the parts would magically reassemble in the box and I could start all over. Listen, this could only happen to me. I promise you. I haven't even gotten the thing situated from the box to the counter and it's RUINED!!!! You ask, Why did you do that? 'Cause it's so cottin' pickin' heavy, that's why, and I wasn't prepared for that. I'm used to cheap plastic numbers, not real metal machinery, for Pete's sake. It just . . . slipped . . . out of . . . my . . . weak . . . little hands. And I was in a hurry, too. FOR ONCE I was getting things done in short order, I even stopped by the store and had just enough time to set up my blender and make this soup before Mike had to get to a cappella choir practice. OH BOY, I WAS SO TICKED!!!! And whoever said Haste makes waste, sure got that right. I've been afraid to examine it too closely because I can't face the damage, little wimp that I am, the scratches and dents and bruises. This has to be a record for breaking, literally, something in, I tell you. So, the wind was totally blown out of my sails, but the blender still works, I guess, and the soup was really, really good - one of those recipes where you get a lot of bang for your buck (big taste, no effort, unless you drop your blender, there's your bang). But I would have been better off eating a bowl of rotten cherries for dinner, which I happen to have in my refrigerator :((

That's not the first thing I've ever dropped. Well, the cell phone. But once, because I'm overly meticulous whenever I do clean, which we've established is never, but once I was trying to jig the TV around to dust really well beneath it. It was on a desk and it was a TV from the old school, weighing a couple of tons easy and swallowing the room. Well, it was front heavy, for which I also was dazzlingly unprepared, and when I tipped it forward to reach further underneath, it came crashing down to the hard, stupid tile floor. Miracle, thank you, Lord, that it didn't land on my bare feet. That would send DTD over the edge for sure, to have a footless mother. A piece of plastic whizzed across the room, but that's all that appeared to break off. I was afraid to turn it on, figuring it would blow up or worse. And it was way too heavy for me to lift back to the desk, but hey, guess what? The thing works. DTD has it. Now this would never happen to a Normal person. A Normal person would figure no dust could worm its way under that monstrosity and would let well enough alone. And with the cell phone, a Normal person would have zipped her purse. Or at least had a pretty protective cover for her new cell phone. And a Normal person would have cherished her new blender, at least for the first 24 hours. Oh, rats. Well, once my piano teacher had just bought a brand new grand piano. It was delivered and IMMEDIATELY that evening she scratched the finish with her fingernail. In a nonconspicuous spot where no one would ever notice? OF COURSE NOT. We know better than that. She scratched it right where it said, BALDWIN, dead front and center. I forget if she was turning a page of music and was overly beside herself with excitement for her brand new piano, or what. But it was enough of a scratch to shrink her spirit. It took her WEEKS to grieve over that disaster. Another adult student and I grieved right along with her. WE UNDERSTOOD. The other student was 50ish, adorable and had an authentic Southern accent and she kept saying, It's because it was NEUW that that happened, because it was NEUW. So that became our mantra. So this is why this happens to my brand spankin' new blender, 'cause it's NEUW. Well, it ain't NEUW anymore, and now I don't dread the day I stain it, scratch it, drop it, or otherwise pulverize it, 'cause, well, it ain't NEUW anymore.

I forgot to say that yesterday I was making spinach salad and throwing in anything that appealed (meaning, anything I had). I KNEW I had croutons. I stood in front of our closet pantry and cased the joint. Where were they? I looked again. My brow furrowed. Looked more carefully. Frowned and got annoyed. Looked everywhere. Downright scowled. Looked at each individual item. I was on the verge of a temper fit because I KNEW I had those croutons and where for Corn's sake were they?? I asked Mike if he'd eaten them. Naw. I thought maybe I stuck them in the fridge or freezer by accident. The laundry room maybe? How 'bout the bathroom? I was having a Male Moment. You know how men can't ever find ANYTHING??? ANYTHING AT ALL?? Even when you describe the exact location and what the product is wearing? Even when the item in question is engaged in a staring contest with them? We all know this. My Granny used to tell my Grampa he couldn't find a towel in the linen closet if it were eating him. I'd have to say that about sums it up. Well, it happened to me. FINALLY, I found those croutons, stale by now, in a basket in the pantry, and they were in a bag, not a box, thus the reason for my discombobulation. I was studying all the boxes mainly. Well, I've learned that a spinach salad tastes so much better when you put it in a huge bowl and pour the dressing around and then mix it all up energetically AND THEN place it on plates and everything is coated so attractively with high-calorie dressing. We are not civilized, we don't put serving bowls on the table, I usually just scoop up the plates in the kitchen. At boarding school they stressed couth. But my couth has long since been laid by the wayside.

Okay, tootles, I got carried away, which is my norm, so back to our marvelous quote tomorrow,

KEM

PS My new blender really came out of this smellin' like roses, it was spared. I forced a somewhat thorough examination in the end.