1:00 AM – Arrive home from work. Begin reading a book on the couch so that I don’t disturb Irish Woman while I wind down.

2:00 AM – Crash into dreamless sleep on the couch

6:00 AM – Phone ‘gently’ awakens me to tell me I have a doctor’s appointment downtown at 7:30.  Stumble about the house getting ready, without coffee or breakfast.

7:15 AM – Arrive at doctor’s office.  After check-in, am whisked off to see the bone bender.  After much questioning, poking, prodding, pulling, and whimpering, she congratulates me on losing weight, accepts my confession to being a bad patient for not coming in to see her sooner, and pronounces that my hiatus of arthritis treatments needs to come to an end.  After having six vials of blood taken, she prescribes steroids for short-term relief, a new anti-inflammatory to take the place of the one that’s not working, and a new self-injectable arthritis treatment that uses an auto-injector with a 17 inch needle.

8:00 AM – Arrive back in our neighborhood, and go to the grocery store.  Consider hunting down the engineer that ‘designed’ their parking lot and using him to fill in a couple of pot holes on the Bluegrass Parkway.

8:45 AM – Leave grocery store with fruit, milk, eggs, bread, and breakfast fixings.  Forget coffee and beer.

9:00 AM – Arrive home, make breakfast for Irish Woman and myself.  Have long discussion with Crash and Koshka on whether or not they truly love spicy pork sausage.  Take first six pills of steroids (not a joke, and yes, that’s the correct dose), and eat a good breakfast.  Neglect to make coffee.

10:00 AM – Lay down on couch to read again.  Start to dose.  Set 30 minute timer on phone.

10:30 AM – Wake up.  Notice that steroids are beginning to work because I can move both my knees and my jaw freely.  Also have an impulse to wash the basement.

1:00 PM – Finish washing the basement.  Get shower.  Talk with Irish Woman, who is trying to work on her, you know, job.  Get accused of creating a hostile work environment and threatened with HR action.

2:15 PM – Leave to pick up Boo from school.  Have nice chat with teacher about how Boo has to learn to keep his hands to himself, but that he enjoyed the discussion of Christopher Columbus.  I refrained from asking her if she also talked about Leif Ericson, although the thought did cross my evil little mind.

2:30 PM – Arrive at drug store to pick up my new anti-inflammatory.  20 minutes of shopping for Halloween stuff and looking at toys later, succeed in purchasing my medicine.

2:35 PM – Go to pharmacy down the road because they’re the only local place that sells Boo’s morning vitamin.  Spend 20 minutes looking at Halloween stuff and toys before completing purchase.

3:00 PM – Arrive home.  Spend a few minutes contemplating a cup of coffee and considering a cat nap.  Instead, draft a blog post about some minor plot element in movie that’s almost as old as I am.

4:00 PM – Girlie Bear calls to tell me that her JROTC activity for the afternoon is over and that she is ready for pick-up.  I advise her to mark the LZ with yellow smoke and prepare for me to utilize the jungle penetrator for extraction.

4:30 PM – Pick-up Girlie Bear and return home.  Daydream on way to house about a good strong cup of midrats coffee.  Consider calling someone I knew who served in the Navy to see if she will make some for me.

5:00 PM – Arrive home.  Make dinner of Bolognese sauce with italian sausage and onions, weird tied together like a Gordian-knot pasta, whole grain bread from the bakery, and fruit.

6:00 PM – Serve dinner.  To my surprise, Boo actually eats it.  Have rousing discussion of local personalities and politics, after which I can still proudly say that I’m not from here, so it’s not my fault.  Notice during dinner that I can hear very well. For instance, using echo-location from the quiet sounds a human jaw makes when it chews, I can tell that Irish Woman has 32 teeth and may have a loose filling.

7:10 PM – Clear table and do dishes.  Put away dinner.  Irish Woman puts Boo into tub and Girlie Bear goes back to homework.  Start to hear colors.  Not sure if that’s because of the steroids or if I’m just that tired.

7:50 PM – Read “Fox in Socks” to Boo as fast as I can.  The experience, for those of you who have not read this book to a child, is the literary equivalent of being in a kung-fu fight with Bruce Lee and 20 of your closest friends.

8:00 PM – Put Boo to bed.  Consider going straight to bed myself.  Boo begins nightly ritual of “I’m not tired!”.

8:15 PM – Irish Woman is up in the attic, pulling down Halloween stuff.   Assist her, but consider curling up for a nap right there in the hallway.  Get into a ‘discussion’ with Irish Woman after I suggest we tone our decorations down this year.  Last year, families with small children refused to come down our driveway.  Remind Irish Woman on several occasions that Halloween is a children’s holiday.

8:30 PM – Sit down to do a little surfing, and am assaulted by Crash, who needs a little attention before he starts his evening round of “Let’s Jump On The Other Animals and Make Them Growl!”.

8:35 PM – Noises from Boo’s room have ceased.  This is either because he’s asleep, or he’s chewed through the screen on the window and escaped.  Moonshine attempts to French kiss Crash while Crash still has all four sets of claws on my lap.  Hilarity ensues.

8:55 PM – Wake up in my chair and realize that the last 8 hours in which I was in a motorcycle gang on Mars was a dream.  Decide it’s time to go to sleep.

9:10 PM – ZZZZZZZZ