This Can't Be Belgium

Just for funs, and because yesterday was such a downer, and because I'm still not allowed to have a drink*, I thought I'd tell you a little story that's been kicking around my brain that I couldn't manage to shoehorn into The Project. Mostly because the story takes place in Belgium and since I made a "Don't Like Mondays" joke in the title yesterday, I wanted to make an "If This Is Tuesday" joke in it today

*(That's not a forever-thing, don't worry. Your dear correspondent hasn't gone completely round the bend. It's just a for-now-for-mostly situation, to help her live up to her New Resolve. Because no matter how few beers she has -- and let's face it, most nights Liz Taylor has had fewer husbands -- she's a carbo-swilling, grease-mongering whore the whole next day.)

I thought I'd tell you that story, that is, but then Destructo had a little accident.

I went to do something stupid that I shouldn't have been doing, and knocked over my mug of iced coffee. I've taken to using the regular mug, see, because the travel mug has developed a dribble-drip beneath the hole you drink from. Every time I take a sip, a little drop runs down the side, and I end up with a map of Hawaii on my shirt. A map of Africa on my pants is so much better.

(For the record: I know I said I was a fattie, but that's not the real size of my thigh in relation to my foot. I took that picture myself, shot from the waist. It's called perspective, people. Look it up.)

Anyway, it wasn't the oilpan sludge from yesterday that I knocked over, either. It was the good stuff!

Made fresh this morning! An entire half-a-pot's worth!

And it got everywhere...

I'd like credit for the fact that the camera wasn't the first thing I grabbed after it happened -- as evidenced by the green towel on the floor. No, the first thing I grabbed was this whatever-you-call-it that shoots beams out into the universe and makes it so that all of you can read my secret thoughts:

Also? Someday, some jackass will pay a lot of money for this notebook, mark my words...

Incidentally, that notebook was only there on the trunk to get coffee spilled on it because I forgot to bring the damn thing with me to work today. So I spent the whole commute forcing myself not to have ideas. I had a few anyway, but they were mostly about RVs and bookstores. Not the kind of thing I have to write down to recall.

(For those of you who are inclined towards that sort of thing, the first three notes on that open page are from a conversation I had the other night with Johnny. The first is what I thought I heard him say, the second is what he really said, the third is an expression I'd never heard him use before and am determined to employ somehow if I have to start a noisecore band to do it. The fourth is just me, rambling. You can ignore it.)

I don't know how I got the Cafe DuMonde on the wall...

Wow. It really did get on the wall, didn't it? I didn't think it looked that bad in real life. I keep having to scroll this page up and down to reassure myself it isn't really on my monitor.

Because, oh yes, it did get on the monitor...

You see that silly cartoon on the screen? That's why this happened. I read about it in the New York Times (silly NYT)and decided to watch it, but I wanted to listen to it on the headphones that Dr. One Friend gave me for my birthday, so Johnny wouldn't wander in to see what I was watching when I'm supposed to be in here doing work. (What? This is work. Oh yes, trust me, it is.)

But I'm new at this feeling-around-behind-the-monitor-to-find-the-headphone-plug-hole thing, so I, well...

They're all right. My birthday was ten days ago. You don't think they've been in a cup of coffee yet?

It also got all over, let's see...

My girlie screwdriver! Which doesn't even belong in my office! Johnny borrowed it one day (oh yes he did, don't let him tell you different), and he refused to put it back in my bedside table drawer where it belongs, because he says that's a silly place to keep a screwdriver. To which my answer is: Yes, but you knew where to find it, didn't you? And would you have had to borrow it if you knew where to find yours?

Hang on a second. Let me go put Girlie Screwdriver away...

Okay, I'm back.

It got on the fan that keeps me cool while I work up a mercurial sweat...

...actually it got all over that poor fan, but this picture didn't come out so well:

It got on my printer...

Which for some reason, in that photograph, looks like a toilet.

And of course it got on the linoleum...

...but who cares about that diaper-looking bilge?

It did not, thankfully, get on the dog...

...although he wants to know if he can be of any assistance cleaning up?

Sorry. I couldn't manage to take any pictures of the dog in which he didn't come out looking like an escapee from Dr. Moreau.

See?

And?

And especially?

He's cute, I tell ya, but he isn't small.

Thankfully, the little gift Dad sent along for Johnny's working great!