So, the mountain lion issue.  People near here keep seeing big cats in the yard and calling 911.  Then the police come, tell everyone to stay indoors, decide it’s too dangerous to tranquilize the animal and kill it.  Please.  Figure this out.  If everyone is inside, how long does it take, really, for the sedative to take effect?  And as I pointed out to a friend who is really worried about all this, these animals have always been nearby.  The local school even has a cougar for a mascot.   Until some kid gets eaten, that is.  (You know, I’m so karma-phobic I may start having to worry about my own children just for saying that.)

We live in Silicon Valley, on the outskirts of a wealthy little enclave.  It’s an enclave.
Really.  There are no fewer than two places to purchase a ferrari, for
example.  Today I ventured to the post office to mail EVE’S CD (all
caps, because it’s been like, two years since I told her I would send
it) and my step mother’s bday gift (the date was march 8th, and I
didn’t even manage to wrap the thing.  Nice.) and some paperwork that
required me to photocopy Willow’s birth certificate and John’s most
recent pay check stub.  I mailed the
packages, went to the van for change to make photocopies, made the copies, and then headed for home, planning to put the letter in my own box
after I got it all in order.  I couldn’t stay in the post office any
longer, because the girls had managed to pull a bunch of beautiful
mailing envelopes off the shelf so they could exclaim over them.  I
didn’t want to put them all back again, and that mail drop was not as
close as the door. 

While I was in line to mail my packages something funny happened.
Willow was trying to go out the front door to get to the park, the park with a
water fountain, across from the post office.  I caught her and took her
over to the kid table.  A woman then came over to tell me about the
time her eleven month old ran into the street (she said he was eleven
months old many many times) and got "tapped" by a car but was saved by
angels and that she had three kids under three at the time and on and
on and on pretty much making it difficult for me to see the kids
very well.  I wanted to ask her if the angels just hate the kids who do
get hit by cars, because, really, that’s what she’s implying there.
But.  That’s not a very polite or enclavish question to pose to a
stranger. 

So, we went back to the van and headed home, finally, after too long
spent running several errands.  Suddenly, I saw sort-of known actors!
I noticed them because I was eating a bag, a mini bag, yes, but a bag
all the same, of pepper-age farms mini chocolate chip cookies and I had
to stop at the crosswalk so this couple could cross the road.  She had
on the shortest shorts that can still be called shorts paired with a
midriff bearing tank top, you know, for subtlety and for coping with
the horrid 65 degree heat wave.  I’d rather have the cookies.**  But,
anyway, I saw the guy and thought, Hmmmm, know him from somewhere,
but where?  He has red hair.  Date a guy with red hair ever?  Two.  Not
the one, not the other.  Work with him?  No.  He sort of looks like
Dave R., who I went to school with from fifth grade on (and who, I later found out after I was engaged to my ex, is a cousin of my ex, but I didn’t think that then so never mind).
OH, I KNOW!  He’s the actor who looks just like Dave R.  And that girl
with him.  She’s an actress.  Oh shit.  I can’t remember their names.
I’m not gonna sleep at night until I do, and I can tell, it’s too far
back to get to.  Google?  Maybe.  Hmmmm.  Are there more cookies in
this bag?  Will Willow care if I take hers? 

It’s really good that I don’t live in New York or LA.  I’d go crazy
trying to remember the names of people I saw on the street.  I’m going
to google at some point, but I don’t have anything to go on.  Fun.
It’ll be like grown up blues clues.  Remember, by the way, Blue is a
girl.  Don’t forget. 

Um, I think I’m tired.  Anyway, I got home after a longer than ten but
less than fifteen minute drive and started putting the letter together
and know what I realized?  I left the copy of John’s pay stub on the machine
at the post office.  BRILLIANT!  At least I remembered to get the
original.  So, back I drove, and I didn’t see the actors again, but the copy was still sitting on the tray of the machine, and we finally, finally, got back to the van where Sophie announced that she had to pee.  Now.  I made her pee in a diaper and she thought it was hilarious.  I just could not drag them back into the post office to use the potty.  I don’t know if they would even let us. 

I’ll end here.  I’m yawning, and need to sleep.

**Well, look there!  While proofreading for spelling and whatnot I found a big huge bunch of sour grapes!