That’s the only explanation I can come up with for the way my house looks right now. The pool table is covered with boxes of decorations, boxes of just-arrived gifts waiting to be wrapped, wrapping paper, and lights.

The dining room table is covered in gifts waiting to be wrapped to go out and the contents of care packages waiting to be boxed and shipped. Mailing deadlines? We don’t need no stinking mailing deadlines!

The tree is in its stand, leaning slightly to the left, in the Florida room (what the rest of you might call the sun porch), still unlit, still unadorned. The menorahs and dreidel lights, too. See the first paragraph re: boxes of decorations.

And through it all, MJ has a new morning pattern. Used to be, I’d get up at 5:30 or 6:00, and he’d stay in bed, snoring away, until about 7:30. A couple of weeks ago, I made him get up at 6:00 twice – only twice! – to go with me to the mechanic (once to drop off the car, the other to pick it up again), and now he’s up at freaking 6:00 a.m. every morning! I set a new pattern for him, he says. Damn! How the hell am I supposed to smuggle in his presents and wrap them, now?!? I’m going to have to drive to work again today (instead of taking the MetroRail) and wrap them in the parking garage in the trunk of the car. And he’s taunting me by having my gifts wrapped and sitting off to the side, waiting for the tree. Pig. And I mean that in the most loving way.

Oh, and P.S. – We’re finally going to have that South Indian dinner to give our friends their wedding present (note the date on that post!)- a year and a half after the fact – this Sunday evening, so all surfaces will have to be cleared by then. Hah! I am so glad it will be dark by the time everyone gets here. I really wish I could get away with candlelight…

I normally take the MetroRail (local commuter train) to work in the mornings. I do, occasionally – believe it or not – enjoy driving in from time to time -and No, I don’t feel guilty about it — I drive a Toyota Prius Hybrid. So there. Anyway, I felt like driving this morning. I’m in a great mood — we had two wonderful playtest sessions of the new Tamil Nadu boardgame this week, things are clicking right along, the brain is functioning close to normal again, and hey! it’s Friday! What’s not to like?

Ordinarily, you have to be driving like my 88 year old mother (15 mph below the speed limit and a football field’s following distance) to make me change lanes more than once during a typical commute, and after finding myself in that position several times this morning, I was finally able to settle down behind a black Honda Accord.

Now, to digress a moment, one of the pet peeves of my good friend, Miz Shoes, is women who apply makeup and perform other personal grooming processes in public – on the MetroRail, in their cars while driving, etc. Frankly, for myself, not so much, unless they’re driving and they’re doing it while the car is moving. As far as I’m concerned, you can brush your teeth and tweeze your eyebrows and accomplish a full change of wardrobe in the car if you like — at Red Lights. Don’t do it when you’re doing 45 mph on U.S. 1 and try to change lanes at the same time – intentionally or un.

After several minutes of even, uneventful driving, I could now let my attention wander (just a tad) and focused on the driver of that car. A man. That’s important. Mind you, I can only see him from the back, but I was behind him fully half my drive in, so I had plenty of time to observe and extrapolate (have I ever told you that I’m very good at reading upside down, too? Upside down writing - not upside down me. Twit.)

His head was shaved, billiard ball bald, and he was doing this: At traffic lights and slow-downs, the man was studying himself in the rearview mirror, smoothing eyebrows, etc. And then — The man pulls out a bottle of moisturizer and begins slathering it all over his face and head. And when he’s done, he puts on his tie, adjusts his mirror, and ties it in a perfect knot (I could see the reflection of that process in his mirror).

The tie part didn’t really affect me, truth be told. He got me at the moisturizer. All over his head. That’s just such a weird thing to see in public. But I’m sure he didn’t think he was in public. He was in his car. He is among the legions who believe that once you’re in your car, you are in a private space and no one can see you, right? I am firmly convinced that he was no more aware of the people around him than a q-tip…. and probably picking his nose as we headed onto I-95.

I’m just sayin’…..