Today is a day for laughter. Tomorrow my blog will be about as serious as I ever get.

I have to be at the campus today at 7:30 AM to prepare for an 8:00 AM meeting. I am not a fan of early AM meetings, in fact I think they are a crime against nature…they ruin a perfectly serene time of the day.

It’s not that I sleep late, I am an early riser – I typically get up between 5:30 and 6 AM. The problem lies in the fact that I am not immediately suitable for human interaction at that time. There is a process that occurs every morning that allows me to integrate into the human world and it is a necessary process that has no shortcuts. I have no medical evidence, but I am sure it could be confirmed by an EEG that no real brain activity occurs until my second cup of coffee.

When I get up each morning I grunt at the dogs, try and get down the stairs without falling and go directly to the coffeemaker. No one attempts to impede my progress. It is known that to do so would likely result in some form of bodily injury (of course I am without mental capacity during this period and could never be convicted of anything- again, I am sure that an EEG would confirm this).

Then I spend a few minutes looking out my front window at the birds and the bunnies and whatever other creatures happen to be out there. I’ll tell you what, if a peeping Tom ever came to my house he’d get a rude awakening when I saddled up to the window with my incredibly lovely morning look. He’d probably sue me for emotional distress (and win). Sometimes I don’t even have both eyes open by the time I get to the window (but you can bet I don’t spill a drop of the magic coffee elixir – I am a Jedi on that front). The one eye look coupled with the morning Mohawk and the plaid pajama pants – what a vision of loveliness…truly difficult to fully appreciate until you have seen it yourself and had to seek therapy.

At any rate, the “drinking coffee, waking up, being human” process typically takes a couple of hours and even then there are those who might quibble with my characterization of “human”. Today I had to rise early to ensure that by 7:00 AM (when I need to depart for the university) I would be on the right side of human.

So, here it is- just shy of 6:00 AM – and I believe I am making good progress. I am typing and almost all of my synapses seem to be firing. As such, I want to share very briefly this morning with you one funny story about my friend Kat from long ago. Kat and Tam and I were up at the university having lunch and talking about the exciting things they were up to. I commented that compared to their Barbie personalities and lives I felt like a Skipper. Now, for those of you who know Barbie, you will recall that Skipper was her little sister who was far less cool and had less “stuff” than Barbie.

Tam totally got the comparison and laughed, but Kat said after quite seriously pondering my comment a moment – “well, if you feel like Skipper, I feel like Gilligan.”

WHAT???  Wrong Skipper, wrong show, wrong visual, wrong, wrong, wrong!

When she said that I inhaled a piece of food and damn near choked to death; it took a few minutes before I could compose myself and explain to Kat that she was talking about a different Skipper. She was genuinely confused about what we were talking about, but once she got the humor of what happened she just laughed and laughed and so did Tam and I…I love my friends – they are the best.

     

Barbie & Skipper           Skipper & Gilligan

Soon after that discussion I went on the South Beach diet and needless to say, I have never again used Skipper (Barbie’s sister) as a point of comparison. Indeed, I can’t even watch Gilligan’s Island reruns anymore without thinking I should go on a diet. Some other morning when I have an AM meeting I will tell you the story about the jacket with the price tag…that day Kat and I laughed until we cried.

Well, I am off to interact with the human race – have a fab day all!

Day sixteen of the new forty – obla di obla da

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