It snowed this morning. First snowfall that actually laid, this year. It was 41 degrees and misty at 7 a.m., and twenty-five minutes later it was 37 degrees as I drove Veruca to school and chunks of wet snow started falling. There were 200 black birds in the tree next to the driveway, all shouting at each other in an agitated way, like a crowd queued outside the mall on Black Friday.

Todd has been on the phone for the last 2 ½ hours, shouting at some poor soul 8,000 miles away who isn’t very good at customer service. It seems somebody screwed up our account update and we can’t listen to Sirius XM on the Mac anymore. This was an accidental discovery occurring like a series of dominoes falling, after I tried to log on to continue listening to Howard interviewing Ed Sheeran when I got home from errands yesterday.

By the way, Ed’s girlfriend is an old classmate of his. Which is really cool. I love stories like that. He seems pretty secure and I enjoy the self-deprecating commentary. Makes him seem more accessible and down to earth.

While we’re talking romance, a friend who is a very big, extremely huge, incredibly lucky fan of Pat Monahan and Train, recently became engaged while on the cruise that Pat was singing on. He sang Marry Me and then broke from lyrics to introduce his friend – her fiancé – who had a very important question for her. Un-effing believable. And she SO did not know this was coming, and she got the proposal of a lifetime in front of a hundred people. I saw the video, which I’ve now watched exactly four times, and cried right along with her every. single. time. And I’m gonna do it again.

Veruca went to her first school dance yesterday. A boy asked her to go, and she turned him down. She was excited to go with her bestie, and didn’t want to be pinned down to some boy she doesn’t even like. That’s my girl! Of course, I felt a little pang at the thought of this poor kid who got up enough guts to ask and then to get turned down. L

Opac changed deodorants and now he’s fumigating us with Old Spice… Swagger. Which is really funny, because he comes into the kitchen the first morning and asked me how I like the smell of swagger. Actually, it’s quite nice. I’m a sucker for nice smelling men’s products, I will admit.

Speaking of scents, my mother-in-law asked me a while back if I like candles. Sure I like candles. She wanted to give me one she got somewhere that she didn’t care for. I asked her what it smelled like, and she said – I don’t know, what does Celebration smell like?

The things parents say. They’re getting sillier as they age. My dad was telling me a story about dining out with friends when he was suddenly hit with a wave of nausea and had to exit the table quickly. The details are unimportant. What matters is that he was trying to explain what he did with his napkin, which he called a … are you ready for this? … a lap towel.

I hate cat diarrhea. Yeah, I’ll just throw that in, right here. It wasn’t the best segue. And neither is this…

I’ve been going to McDonald’s too much. That’s what Todd told me, when I mentioned some recent observations. First, the cashier in the drive-thru had a giant hickey on her neck. On the drive-thru window side. You’d think she’d plan better and have him aim for the side furthest from the window. Then, I noticed the regular lady that hands you the food bags was sporting a very raw looking open wound on her face. I wondered who decided not to suggest a bandaid. Which we all know looks ridiculous, but what would you rather look at when you’re picking up your Large #7?

At this time tomorrow, I’ll be on the West Coast for the first time in 22 years. There will many tales I expect to gather on this excursion, if by no other means than pure observation of humans doing their thing. I can’t wait.