One Disaster After Another

Not much has been going on around here, except for chemical plants blowing up and stuff like that. Um, yeah, that's right. I'm talking major explosions, as in multiple.

But the weird thing is I had no idea anything happened until way after the fact—it's okay, I've always been a late bloomer. When I'm in my office writing, I am so oblivious to the world around me. It's like I get in this funk of concentration, escaping into my mind, where half of the world could break off and I wouldn't even notice.

Thankfully, no one was hurt in the explosion, er, I mean, explosions.

And if one disaster wasn't enough, I almost came face to face with another.

See, I had been taking a hiatus from Criminal Minds—excellent show, if you haven't checked it out yet—and then, they had to go and run a two-part series of the show after the Super Bowl. So, of course I watched it and then had to wait until Wednesday to find out how it ended. All was fine and dandy until I saw that it would be airing at the same time as American Idol. How could the networks do this to me? Don't they know I am a technological laggard, so behind the times, who still records with a VCR, which is hooked up in such a bizarre way it will not allow me to watch a different channel than the channel I'm recording? Talk about frantic chaos. I know, I know. I really need to upgrade to a DVR.

Just when I was eeny-meeny-miney-moeing which show to give up, I thought "duh" I'll just watch the TV in the other room. I knew there was a really good reason why we had three TVs for the two of us.

Talk about a close call.

A Novel and a Newspaper

I recently started reading a YA novel by Mary Hogan, "The Serious Kiss." The front cover is adorable, a little yapper dog on the front with a huge smoochy on his cheek. That alone makes you want to read it—well it does me anyway. And within the first few pages, you realize that this is a deeper book than its title and cover let on. So far, the book is good. I am enjoying her writing and how she intricately weaves humor into the heavy matter. I find myself laughing out loud at her clever, witty lines, which I'm sure my husband finds annoying. But he never says he does.

Okay, funny story, about sounds being annoying. Well, not that funny.

Anyway, the other night, he's reading his newspaper—don't ask, it's a new thing. One day, he just woke up and decided to turn into Ward Cleaver, saying "I think I'll start reading the newspaper"—and when he's reading, he makes these sounds like "huh" and "hmm." While part of me wants to know what is so interesting, the other part of me wants to say, "Can you please keep your huhs and hmms to yourself." But naturally, being a good little wifey, I don't say that.

Well, one day, he's holding his newspaper, making his sounds, and then hands an article to me and says, "You've got to read this."

I sighed because I was already reading something, which I'm sure he could see. I read it anyway. And right in the middle of my finding it quite an interesting article, I heard it..."Hmm."

Only it was distinctly a female "hmm." I was like, "OMGoodness that was me. I'm doing it." I tried to stop, but as I kept reading, I did it more, sort of like a hiccup, sporadic and uncontrollable.

Be forewarned, you future newspaper readers, it's contagious. I now wear a mask when I read an article so I won't catch the "huhs" and the "hmms."

No, I don't really. You probably knew that. By the way, the Sudokus in the newspaper are really hard.