I arrived home this evening to find a note with the word "keys" on it, lying on the sidetable next to my chair. I asked my mom about it.

"Oh, I need to get the mail key back from you," she said. "We've got the one, but the other one with the house key isn't there."

"I don't have the mail key," I told her.

"Well, sure you do," she insisted.

I got up and checked the key hook by the garage door. There were my mom's car keys, my car keys, my extra car key, the key to my grandparent's house, and the spare mail key, but no mail key/house key. You can't miss them: they're on a Winchester Mystery House souvenir keychain!

'Well, now, that's odd,' I thought.

We ended up nearly tearing the house apart looking for those damn keys. I checked every hiding place I know - in my bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen, the den, my car, my mom's car, the pockets of every jacket I've worn in the past six months, the pockets of every pair of pants I've worn in the past two weeks (even the ones that had been washed and ironed, I was that desperate), and was just about to dig through the garbage, I was so frustrated at not finding the keys.

We sat down and calmly went over the last time the keys had been used - it was this past Saturday when I went up to spray WD-40 on the lock of our mailbox because it's been sticking. (It doesn't stick anymore, by the way; WD-40 rocks!). I remember coming home with both the can of WD-40 and the keys, but couldn't remember what I did with them afterwards. The WD-40 was back in the cupboard, so I would've automatically hung up the keys, right? Right?

Then why aren't they there?

"Did you leave them on top of the box?" My mom asked.

"No," I said.

"Did you leave them in the lock?"

"NO! That would be retarded!"

When we'd exhausted every possible place the keys could've been, we gave up. We sat down and watched The Biggest Loser, and I ate my. I thought about those stupid keys the whole time. When there was a commercial, I was up rifling through some part of the house. Mom and I were both completely baffled by their disappearance. It was annoying as hell! I knew I wouldn't sleep tonight; I would lay there wondering where those damn stupid keys were.

Despite all this, mom and I weren't too upset. 'The keys are either here or they aren't,' we figured. 'No big.'

Such is the beauty of Zoloft and Paxil (or whatever it is mom's taking)! In the old days we would've been freaking-the-hell-out, yelling at each other, and basically going insane. Now, we don't stress over stuff. We figured, 'Well, if the keys are gone, it's no big deal. We can just change the lock on the front door, and call the post office to see what we need to do to get a new lock on our mailbox. No big.' We even laughed about the absurdity of it all!

I can't tell you how nice it is to be this chilled-out over something that is really, if you think about it, quite serious. If I had left the keys sitting there (which I would totally never do!) and someone picked them up, they could be stealing our mail - our checks, the pre-approved credit card applications I continuously get (and shred) - or they could break into our house. Although, technically, would it even be breaking in if they used the key? Whatever.

Five minutes later, it all became moot. After the show was over, I was in the bathroom getting ready for bed; mom already retired to her bedroom. I was flossing my teeth (like the good little Dental Diva I am!) when suddenly she was there at the door, a huge grin on her face.

"Guess what I found?" She asked.

'It can't be!' I thought. Aloud I said: "The keys?"

She nodded, barely suppressing her laughter. She held out her hand, and there they were: the mailbox/house keys on the Winchester Mystery House souvenir keychain!

"Where did you find them?" I asked.

"In the pocket of my raincoat," she answered.

"But, you looked there," I protested. "I saw you!"

"No," she said, "I looked in the other coat - the navy blue one - not the teal jacket."

"Bloody hell!" I said.

"Thank God!" She said.

We laughed hysterically and heaved gasping breaths of relief for a few minutes, then we once again retired for the evening. I'll be able to sleep now, knowing the keys are once again hanging up where they should be. And, knowing I hadn't done something stupid to lose them! What will keep me awake, for a while at least, is the fact that my mom didn't remember where she'd put them. It's not the first time she's done this sort-of thing. She's been forgetting stuff lately. Just little things. Where she puts stuff. But, it's no big deal, right? Sometimes people forget stuff. I forget stuff sometimes. It's no big. I hope.

January 3, 2005
Reading List 2005

Because I know you've just been dying to find out what classic novels my friend Jewel and I will be attempting to read this year, here's our list:

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

The Divine Comedy by Dante

Watership Down by Richard Adams

Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

We used to try to read one classic book per month, but never quite managed it. We're hoping this slightly reduced list will enable us to reach our goal, as well as giving us time to read other books for fun. I already have a long list of "Fun Books to Read" (otherwise known as "Books I've Been Buying for the Past Few Years but Never Got Around to Reading."), but here's the short list:

The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants by Ann Brashares

The Better Part of Valor by Tanya Huff

The Quartered Sea by Tanya Huff

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling

That's good enough for one year, don't you think? Besides, you know me, I'll probably buy one or two more books this coming year that will need to be added to the reading list. Such as, oh, I don't know . . . maybe the one I bought tonight? That's listed over on the sidebar, now? Ummhumm. Like that.

January 2, 2005
Lazy Day

Today was a wonderfully lazy day! I slept in till 9 a.m., had coffee and made yummy fluffy omelets filled with cheese, mushrooms and peppers, and cooked up some bacon. Mmm. Unfortunately, I was craving milk like a mad fiend for some odd reason, and drank nearly a quart before breakfast, so I only managed to eat half of my omelet. It was still good, though!

After breakfast, mom and I took our Christmas decorations down. As we did so, we went through them, and got rid of the ornaments and trinkets we don't want anymore. We probably should've done this before the holidays, so other people could've used our stuff to decorate their own homes, but I guess there's always next year! Or, rather, this year. Later on this year. Gah! Anyway, it felt good to purge the Christmas stuff; to get rid of some of the uglier ornaments (i.e., crap I made as a kid) we'd always just kept for sentimental reasons, but never put out because they were hideous. No point in keeping them if they never see the light of day, right?

Once that chore was done, I retreated to my room to watch football. Or rather, have the TV tuned to a game, but doze through most of it. The regular season is over, and playoffs start next week. I haven't really been paying attention to the playoff picture, so I'm not sure if any of my fave teams are in playoff contention or not. Not sure I care. I was just really tired and unmotivated today. Sunday is a good day to feel that way, though. I gotta short week ahead of me (I'm taking Friday off), so that's something to look forward to.

Oh, and my birthday on Tuesday. Hooray.

January 1, 2005
It's 2005!

Amazing! I'd swear it was just last week we were all dancing like it was 1999, and freaking out over the Y2K bug we thought was going to obliterate all the computers, screw up everyone's banking and investments, and basically shut down the whole world. It didn't, of course, and a lot of other stuff has happened in between then and now, but it still doesn't seem possible that it's 2005 already!

I stayed up till midnight, but didn't do anything special; just watched one of my Starsky & Hutch tapes - the eppy was called Bloodbath, which, strangely enough, I didn't remember having seen before. (I'm sure I'd seen it, though; I watched that show faithfully every week when I was a kid! I crushed mightily on David Soul and Paul Michael Glazer! Mmmm. Hunky boys!) I heard someone in our neighbourhood shooting off firecrackers, and looked at my clock to see it was 12:01 a.m. Er, happy new year. Yeah, whatever.

Today, it was nice and mostly sunny, thank goodness, and the Rose Parade was able to go on without any trouble. I love watching the parade! All those gorgeous floats, covered entirely with organic matter! Impressive! And, the bands are great, too! And the equestrian units! Although, I must admit I really felt bad for those kids marching up after the horses! There's nothing worse. Trust me: been there, done that! I remember many a time marching at the Palouse Empire Fair, sometimes in the rain and mud, and always after the horses! Gah!

This evening I remembered the SciFi channel was doing a marathon of The Twilight Zone eppies. I was bummed that I'd missed most of them, but I was able to see my all-time favourie: "The Dummy"! It is by far the creepiest one I've ever seen! I'm going to have nightmares for a week! Yay!

for what it's worth,
lmj (alias hez)