My friend pointed me to a new toy, called the eBook while we were chatting this morning, and I went to take a look. Basically it’s a little electronic thing you can hold in your hand, and it holds books. Up to 10 books in the basic package, and then you can get a bigger memory chip and hold lots and lots more books (up to 190, they say, although I have to wonder how big those books really are. Are we talking Harlequin romance length, or weighty tombs like Steven King’s “It”)

I’ll admit it looks really neat. Hey, the ability to carry that many books around in your pocket without throwing your back out *is*, indeed, quite tempting. But it reminds me of a short story I read, many many years ago. I don’t remember the title, or the author (although it might have been Asimov), but the jist of it was that a little boy found a ‘real’ book in his attic. And he and his friend, a little girl, got very excited….but then were disappointed because, unlike their computer screen on which they read all their books now, it didn’t change stories. It just stayed the same, no matter what.

An electronic copy of a book would definitely be very nice. It’s lightweight, much more portable, and takes up significantly less room on a bookshelf. It wouldn’t have that annoying habit of turning brittle and crumbling after a few decades (see note on moldering below). Of course, this is assuming that you can store these on a hard drive somewhere that doesn’t crash, but I’m being optimistic here.

However, there is just nothing quite like a real book. The smell of the pages – crisp and sharp when first purchased, and then that older, musty smell when it’s been moldering on some shelf in a dusty old library. The sound a book makes when you first crack it open. The feel of the pages as you turn them. I can’t imagine taking an eBook and curling up on a comfy overstuffed chair some Saturday morning with a cat and a cup of steaming coffee….or hunkering down amid fluffy pillows (with, of course, a cat or three) in your bed late one night while it storms outside. No, with an eBook, I see harried business executives scanning documents while waiting for planes, or clumps of nerds checking the actual wording of some obscure gaming rule (Yes, I game. Therefore I’m entitled to poke fun at it. So there). But this gadget does not inspire visions of comfort and relaxation.

I dunno. Maybe I’m just old-fashioned. But I don’t think I’ll be buying one of these new toys. I’ll stick with real books. Even if they *don’t* fit in my back pocket.

A while ago I sent away for the estimated costs to build the house that I really like. Archway Press will, for a minimal fee, do a rough estimate of how much it would cost to build your chosen house in the area you specify. The results came yesterday. I can afford it. Of course, I don’t know how much the land might cost – that might be the clincher, and this *is* just an estimate – but I can probably afford it.

I’m not sure whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. I think part of me wanted it to come back and say it was much too expensive and so it wouldn’t even be an option……but now it is. Right now I’m hanging onto this little piece of paper with numbers on it that state in black and white that my dream house is actually within reach….and I’m just not sure what to do anymore.

I want this house. I fell in love with it from the first time I saw the plans. And that is part of the problem. Because that’s all I’ve seen – the plans. I’ve never actually seen the house itself – just a drawing of how it might look. On the one hand, I have houses that are already built – whether it be a new community or a previously owned house. And I can walk through and visualize myself in those rooms, decorating those walls, walking down those stairs. On the other hand, I have this set of blueprints. With everything that I want in them. Stairs. Bay windows everywhere. A screened in back porch that I know the cats will adore. Window seats in the guest room and a nice big extra room for my office. A huge laundry room and a kitchen with actual counter space (dreamy sigh). And I have, in the past year or two, walked through enough houses so that I at least have a fair idea of what the dimensions represent in terms of room size and space. It’s not like I’m walking into this blind.

I’ve been told that I should just get a starter home. Something I can live in and sell a few years down the road when I get ‘more settled’. I know what that means. People still think it odd that a single woman might want to buy a house. Because inevitably the question arises – well, what if you meet someone? What are you going to do with your house then? And I honestly can’t answer that question. But why should I let some nebulous maybe-man deter me from owning my own home? And the next question is: why should I buy instead of build? What is so wrong with building? Besides the fact that just the thought is unnerving, I couldn’t blame any little annoying idiocyncracies on someone else’s choice of design. I would have to make the final decision on whether I wanted light or dark wood cabinets in the kitchen. If the bathroom tile looked hideous, I would have to accept full responsibility for it.

I dunno. I think I’ll go back and stare at those little numbers. Plenty of time to dither about this later.

I was chatting with a friend recently, who was telling about another friend of his, and somehow it came up that he (the friend being discussed) was married to a cat. No, it was that he was married to the microwave and having an affair with the cat. I don’t have the full details of this myself, but he was using this as a method of explaining weirdness. And I said that I’m used to weird. Because after all I come from a family that names most household appliances (including microwaves – single or otherwise romantically attached), and we have a troll in the hall closet.

Yes, I said troll.

I don’t remember what brought about the presence of the troll. He has been there for as long as I can remember. My dad was military, so we did more than our fair share of moving around. And each time we would move, someone would have to remember to put a box in the closet for the troll to climb into. When we got to the new place, the box would be put into the new hall closet, in the farthest, darkest corner, so that the troll could come out when he was ready.

He’s a shy troll. No one has ever sees him, of course. But he doesn’t like to be trapped, so the hall closet door stands slightly ajar. It’s been this way for years, throughout too many moves to count. No one in the family shuts that door whenever we are at my parents’ house, we all know without even thinking about it that that door cannot be closed all the way. Or else someone will jump up and open it again to let the troll breathe.

I suppose every family has its quirks and oddities; some of us more than others. But I’m the only one I know who has a family troll. Even my brother-in-law knows about the troll, and at one point asked my sister what they had to do to get a troll of their own.

Sometimes there are things you have to take on faith, without questioning them too closely. Sometimes there are things that you may never be able to explain because they just *are*. He’s not a bad troll. He’s very harmless, quiet and shy. He doesn’t speak to anyone. I don’t recall that he ever did. It’s not like this was some imaginary friend of us kids that the family incorporated into a ‘real’ creature.

He just….is.

I have a new toy.

It’s a digital camera. I ordered it two weeks ago and waited impatiently, hoping it would come before I left for this last business trip. Of course, this meant that it didn’t show up til Monday, since I flew away on Sunday and didn’t return until really late tonight. Might I emphasize the really late part? But anyway. I’m home now, and it is here. All nice and pretty and fancy with little cords and things to plug it into my computer, and rechargeable batteries, and spiffy graphics on the camera itself to set it up.

This is, of course, assuming that I can figure it out. Now bear in mind that it is currently after midnight and the last entry should have given you a really good idea of why it is that my brain went away on vacation a few days ago and hasn’t come back yet so it’s not that I’m really this clueless, it’s just that….well, okay, so maybe I am this clueless..um..never mind.

It has directions. Of course it does. And normally I would have been a good little consumer and sat down with the book and muddled through all the umpteen steps required to make it all work nicely, but the little book has small print and I’m soooo tired and well, how hard can this be? After all, I figured out how to put in the batteries. That was a no-brainer (good thing too). Then there was this little memory card that had to go into a slot. Hey. No problem here. It only fits one way. In it goes! Um. Gee. Maybe at some point here I should actually read the directions to figure out what to do and not to do. And maybe, just maybe, this little card really has more than one way to fit.

Um. How do I get the little card *out* again?

Another reminder to the sleepy/tired/no functioning brain thing. I decided that perhaps tweezers would do it. It’s skinny. Tweezers are skinny. Hey. It seems quite rational. However, this little card is in there for good. It’s not budging. No. I take that back. It jiggles just enough to suggest that it *might* budge, just maybe, if I beg it nicely. Ha.

Of course once I found the little eject button and the card flew out of the camera and skidded across the bathroom floor (tweezers, remember? Where the heck do you keep *yours*?), then I felt really stupid. But at least now I know that this camera has a secret weapon. Oh yes. I have no fear now of being accosted, because all I have to do is open the tiny flap over the little card, wave the camera in the face of Evil Mugger Person, and exclaim “Stand back, or you’ll be hit by my projectile memory card!”

Hey. It could work.

6am: The alarm clock goes off. The only radio station I was able to get to come in reliably was the gospel channel. Call it a really good incentive to wake up and turn it off quick. The phone rings almost immediately. Do I know that there is a conference call at 7am? Um….no. I guess I do now. Half awake, I’m pulling things out of my suitcase. I grab the shoes that go with my outfit and hear bells. Tangled in the shoelaces are two bright pink pompoms tied together with a short length of leather and a bell in the middle. It’s Azrael’s favorite toy, and just picturing my little black puffball wrestling with toy and shoe makes me laugh.

7am: Conference call. Those of us in the room together are bleary-eyed and half-awake. We go over issues that were already closed. Mmm. Productive.

8am: I fire off urgent messages to the DBA back home. Someone escalated an issue that never should have *been* an issue in the first place, and so on top of everything else I have been doing this week I was dragged into long and painful discussions of why it was that IT made this decision. The DBA replies. Our decision stands as we recommended. I admit I’m feeling smug. I don’t doubt the issue will resurface again. I don’t doubt that it will get any less time consuming to discuss it either.

10am: Groups are separating to deal with final design issues for this project. How did my name get dumped into the globalization group? Was anyone going to tell me, because seeing my name on that list was the first I’d heard of it. I’m scheduled to go to Singapore to babysit a database next week. Now they’re debating whether I should go. Call me cynical – I hadn’t bought tickets yet.

1pm: Back to normal meetings. How many times will one thing come up and have to be explained? We’re all tired. Eyes are glazed. People are repeating themselves. We’re supposed to be in meetings til 7pm Friday, but people are on the phone, changing reservations, figuring out how to escape early.

2pm: Singapore is on again. Yes, I can buy tickets and be certain.

4pm: Ah, it resurfaces. Yes. This time to a different group. Was this a good decision? Is this the best approach? It is done. It is over. The poor horse is dead. Why do we keep beating it?

5:30pm: I reconvene with my fellow coworkers from IT. There’s something comforting about the fact that they, too, are bleary-eyed and drained. Tired to the point of being punchy. Our manager tells us that we’re getting more work, and at the same time, people are being temporarily reassigned to work with other things. It’s funny. No, really. We’re all giggling so hard we’re practically in tears. People walk by and give us odd looks.

7pm: Escape. Dinner. We eat Thai food and avoid discussing work. We pretend we’re not exhausted. We decide to go shopping. Baby stores are too much fun to avoid when you’re an aunt.

9:30 pm: Back to the hotel. Check email. Stare blankly at the screen and ponder attempting to decipher the notes from the day.

10pm: Give up. Go to sleep

I have to admit that – despite the fact that I am on the road one hell of a lot and I can never make long range plans because I never know when or where I’m going to be sent, and I quite often am required to give up what passes for any semblence of a life that there is a certain perk to being a consultant. I’m not talking about the frequent flier miles that accumulate to astonishing numbers in my mileage accounts so that if I really wanted to I could fly myself and several of my friends or family members to Europe first class (even though after all the travel I do, my vacations usually end up a backwards version wherein I take time off so I can guarentee that I can stay *home* and you have no idea how marvelous that can be. Trust me). Nor am I talking about the fact that I now know how to program most lower class clock radios that exist in hotels, or that I have learned the dozen different locations in different rental cars for the defroster, windshield wipers, and lights, as well as the fact that I can guess with remarkable accuracy which side of the car the gas cap will be located on as I drive up to the gas station without actually checking first. No, I’m talking about the fact that I get to find out just how weird places really are.

As I was heading through the cubicle maze on the third floor today, trying to find a conference room that was empty and had a phone, I saw something that made me do a doubletake.

You know how some places will have emergency things posted on the columns between the cubes? Fire extinguishers, or sometimes first aid kits? That’s everyday, run-of-the-mill things. You never give them a second thought. This is the first time I’ve ever seen a temporary defibrillator on one of those columns. No, I’m not kidding. In fact, enroute to yet another of those oh-so-fun and lengthy conference calls I made it a point to find that column and check it out again. It is there, with a little picture of how to use it.

Surely there must be some reason why this is there. I’m not sure which disturbs me more. The fact that someone thought it was necessary, or the thought that someone might actually use it. Okay, bear in mind the fact that I’m tired and this week has been extremely long and draining and it’s only Wednesday, but I can just imagine it. A man clutches his chest in the midst of doing copies and keels over. Someone notices, snatches the defibrillator from its handy wall pouch, first checking the picture and directions, and then proceeds to shock the hapless victim back to life, whereupon he (the shockee, that is, not the shocker) gets up and resumes his copying with a hearty “Thanks for the jolt, Joe!” And meanwhile as the lights flicker in the building, somewhere on the other side of the cube maze, someone looks up and murmurs “Oh, they must be jumpstarting Bob again”. Then she resumes typing – back to business as usual.

Am I the only one who thinks this is just the teensiest bit strange?

I finally found Girl Scout Cookies. Back when I was a Girl Scout, we sold them door to door. Now, you have to find a coworker with a daughter, or track them down in front of a supermarket or something. It’s been quite a challenge to find a Girl Scout to buy cookies from these past few years. But driving to dinner on Friday I passed a little stand on the corner with two little girls and their rather tired mom. I screeched to a halt and bounded out of the car, begging for them to tell me that they still had Thin Mints left. They did. Ooh, bliss. I got my stack of boxes and they’re in the freezer now, where they remain as I slowly dole them out, one by one, in my yearly attempt to see how long I can make them last.

Today I went out looking at houses. Oh, I’ve done this before a time or two – gone into a new set of model homes and wandered around, playing the ‘if this was my house I would do this’ game with friends. But it’s always been for fun, with just a little wistful wishing thrown in. Not so anymore. I had to gather up various financial paperwork to determine what level I might be preapproved for a loan. Seems a bit odd to be turning over personal information like that, but I understand why they need it. So it’s no longer looking just for fun. Now I’m looking with purpose.

I couldn’t have picked a better time to go house hunting. No, really. NOT. Sigh. Apparently in the last six months or so the market has swung sharply around. Houses now go on the market and are snapped up in a matter of days. What happened to that nice buyer’s market we were having there for a few years? There’s very few houses out there that are for sale. And I’m just not willing to settle for anything – I have in mind what I want and I’m in no hurry.

But it was a little depressing to realize that this is what I have to work with. Maybe if I wait a while the market will swing back again, but for now…..well, let’s just say I’m not holding my breath I’m going to be a home owner any time soon.

On the plus side, and a completely unrelated topic, my friends returned from Paris, and brought me chocolate. This is not your average, ordinary chocolate. This is the kind of chocolate that you savor slowly – because when you put the little piece into your mouth your eyes close and all you can focus on is this incredibly rich and sensual taste. I admit I’m a chocolate addict, but not for just any chocolate. Oh no. The darker the better. And my friends knew that, so what they brought me is so dark it’s almost got a bitter taste to it. I’m in heaven. This is pure bliss. You can’t get chocolate like this in this country. What we produce in the US pales in comparison to what Europeans make.

I need friends who travel to Europe more often. Hmm……

I was on my way out the door to head into work for a 7am conference call this morning, when I was paged with a call number and passcode. The call was starting an hour earlier than anticipated. So I took it at home instead of at work, since it takes me nearly an hour to drive there.

This was both good and bad. Good because I didn’t have to drive while half asleep and in the dark. Bad because when I’m at home, there’s way too many distractions. Since I’m not involved in all the conversations that occur on these conference calls, my mind starts to wander, and things come up. There was mail that needed to be sorted. I could actually get breakfast, if I ate it really quietly (since I had intended to grab something on the way). And then, of course, there are the cats.

Sebastian is about 17 pounds of pure muscle covered in short white fur that sheds like you wouldn’t believe, with about 3 working brain cells. He’s always seemed to be in his own little world, which is never exactly in sync with the rest of us. And he has this odd thing about me being on the phone. When I am on the phone, I am suddenly the most wonderful creature in existence. He must be near me. If he can at all manage it, he must actually be *on* me. This was one of those really good examples of why it is that teaching your kitten bad habits is just not a good idea. See, when he was tiny, we (my college roommates and I) would bend over and he’d hop onto our backs and cuddle in, purring happily. It was cute. It was adorable. We (idiots that we were) encouraged this. Fully grown now, he doesn’t wait for anyone to bend over, he just jumps. When seventeen pounds of purring cat hits your back with all claws digging in for better grip, you bend over really fast. Add to this the whole phone attraction. My friends know that when I suddenly make a strangled yell while on the phone with them, all they have to ask is “Sebastian?” and when I whimper, they know. They accept this. They understand. And I usually try to remember to keep an eye on him when on the phone now, or at least talk with my back to something so he just can’t get to me.

However, try explaining this to a group of people with whom one is having a conference call. I was sitting at the dining room table. I leaned forward to write something down. He saw his chance. By some great miracle of effort I managed to *not* scream out loud and got him off and onto my lap. I’ve learned after years of experience that he won’t quit until he gets what he wants, which is attention. And besides, I was wearing black jeans. This in itself was enough to make him happy to curl onto my lap and shed, purring away.

Conference call finally over (three hours later), I drove in to the customer site. And found out that today was “new hard drive day” and true to form, my computer decided that cooperating was just no fun. Let me back up a moment here. Last week, I started my computer and came upon what is currently my favorite error message: “Warning: Failure Imminent.” It went on to state that basically my hard drive was hosed, and I had better back everything up and soon. I found this all very amusing, simply because of the fact that this computer has already established that it is stubborn. I think the poor computer support guy probably cringes when he sees my name on a work ticket because no matter how easy it *should* be, on this computer, it never is. Whenever someone has to come in and work on it, I usually end up going over to work with someone else on something, and occasionally popping back to my desk to see how things are going. Invariably, the poor person who’s been sent to fix it is mumbling to himself and shaking his head. About two weeks ago someone came into the little room they’ve stuffed this development team into and went from computer to computer to partition drives. He had no problems til he got to mine. Of course. Ah well. When I left this evening the computer was up and running again, with no error messages. So far. Of course my browser seems to be malfunctioning, and there may be some issues with drivers or something, but hey, at least failure isn’t imminent anymore. That’s definitely an improvement. We’ll see how long this lasts.

Thursday and Friday I had to be at work much too early for conference calls – which mainly consist of me sitting on the phone adding in an occasional “Uh huh”, but I have to pay attention because every once in a while they ask me a question. I live about an hour away from the project site so that means getting up even earlier. And just because I really enjoy driving while half awake, I drove down to meet with friends for dinner both nights too. This was about a 250 mile round trip…..which is always fun at night when one is exhausted. It’s a struggle between my brain and me as to whether we drive or sleep.

BRAIN: I’m sooo tired.

ME: Yes, but we’re driving now. You can’t be tired. You have to focus.

BRAIN: Why? Focusing is boring. Check out what the road looks like when your eyeballs dry out.

ME: Hey! Quit that! Here. I’ll turn on the radio. Really loud. And sing. How’s that?

BRAIN: Boooooring

ME: Okay. How about this? Look left. Look right. Tap the foot. Open the window. LA LA LA LA LA LA!! Look left….hey, pay attention here. I’m trying to help. You think I’m not tired?

BRAIN: And who’s brilliant idea was it to do all this driving and no sleeping?

ME: Oh, shut up.

And so it goes. The good thing is, I haven’t crashed yet – or else maybe my cats have taken over and are posting journal entries for me, but I have a sneaky feeling that if that indeed were the case somewhere in here would be the mention of tuna and a job posting for someone with opposable thumbs who could scoop litter boxes and work the can opener.

I wish sleep was something that you could save up, like pennies in a glass jar, and then dip into whenever you didn’t get enough. I would get an huge jar and label it “Emergency Sleep Fund”. Then I could sleep extra late one or two Saturdays a month and somehow make up for all the sleep I’m not getting the rest of the time. The problem is that even when I *can* sleep late, I can’t sleep late. I feel guilty. There’s all these things I should be doing, you see. So I do things like set the alarm for a certain time that’s later than I usually get up, so just in case I sleep later than that, I won’t be overdoing it.

I have this alarm clock that I bought because it said it was extra loud. Something that makes little noises just doesn’t cut it. The cats make little noises. I needed an alarm clock that scares me awake. This one does. So in the morning I play games with myself. Only ten more minutes won’t matter so much – I can get away with swatting the snooze button. Of course then as soon as I hit it I can never fully go back to sleep. Questions start whirling madly in my head. Did I accidently turn the alarm off? How many times have I hit this thing already? How fast am I going to have to drive down the highway to get to work if I hit it again? Why is it that whenever I am just about ready to get up, all the cats swarm me in extra-cute and snuggly mode and make me feel guilty for getting out of bed? What is that noise down the hall that sounds like someone hacking up a – *hairball*? Wait! Not in my……..slippers. Sigh.

And having cats doesn’t help. Whoever said that cats walk on marshmallow feet never was owned by cats. Sure, cats are quiet when they are sneaking up on your dinner plate or dashing up from behind you when you are carrying something heavy to flop down in front of your feet so that you fall flat on your face in a vain attempt to avoid stepping on them, but at three in the morning after a particularly long day, they tear up and down the hall in some obscure cat race training, sounding for all the world like elephants in steel-toed boots. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I love my cats dearly. But for some reason they always have the worst possible timing for when to keep me up all night.

I’m going to sleep late tomorrow morning. Or at least try. That jar of Emergency Sleep has been pretty empty these last few weeks and I’m beginning to realize that if I don’t try to remedy that and soon things might get unhappy.

But first I have this sudden, unexplainable urge for tuna.

There are ants in my bathroom.

Again.

Each year they come trooping into the house when it rains. I assume to stay dry, although there doesn’t seem to be any collective memory in the ranks because each year they get the same treatment.

First I try to ignore them. Only one or two here and there. Easy enough to sweep down the drain and tell myself that some venturing scout got lost and wandered into the wrong house. But eventually, they invade in force, and some morning when I am in a real hurry, or some evening when I come home extra tired, or some day when I’m not even here and the poor person who is stuck with feeding my cats that day walks in, there they are. Sometimes it’s the kitchen, but more often than not it’s somewhere else. The bathroom in the master bedroom. Or all over the cat food dishes.

It was just this scenario a few weeks ago when I came home and found the kitchen floor crawling with them. They hadn’t made it to the counters yet – just the floor. I’m not sure if I should be glad, or embarassed because what the heck was so fascinating about the kitchen floor and just when *was* the last time I mopped it anyway.

So I dutifully tromped outside into the pouring rain and sprinkled poison around the perimeter of the house. This usually works. They all disappear within days and everything goes back to normal…..at least until next year. And aside from the fact that I have now mopped that floor twice since then so there should be no trace of Raid anywhere left, I still find dead bodies. My kitchen floor has become the place where ants go to commit suicide. I can see it now – the little ants gathering around. “So where is Mel? I haven’t seen him in days.” “Oh, didn’t you hear? He went to……-” here the little ant pauses and beckons the others closer. ” – the Kitchen.” Gasps of horror and shock from the rest of them.

Except that this time it doesn’t seem to have worked quite so well. Because there are still ants in my bathroom. About 30 of them. And this is the weird thing. They have formed a little line directly in front of my sink….but I can’t quite figure out where they are going or where they came from. They are just there.

And I’m starting to feel guilty. After all, I can just imagine the little ants screaming “Can’t we all just get along?” when the Mighty Can ‘O Raid comes into their view. And I have to wonder if this is a little rebel group, cast aside when the Poison Ring Of Death was laid down outside….and they just haven’t figured out how to get home yet. Or maybe they don’t want to. Maybe they’re glad to be inside where it’s warm. I think perhaps it’s a testament to how tired I have been since I got home from my business trip that I have really only half-heartedly tried to remove them. In my sleep-deprived brain I ponder what it can hurt to just let them mill around in their little line – and then I actually try to avoid stepping on them. Well, sometimes I forget and then I feel a bit guilty when I see the smashed bodies and the rest of them scurrying around in a panic.

So here I am, stuck between ant murder and ant tolerance….and starting to realize that maybe if I got more sleep or at least more caffeine the choice would be easier.

Or maybe I’ll just get lucky and they’ll all make the choice, like lemmings, and go to die on my kitchen floor.