Yesterday, after I'd taken cookies (not the ones in the lovely basket from my chiropractor) and candy left by one of our Service officers [that's like a sheriff, not like a cleaning lady, which my office doesn't have] to the food bank, I went home and asked my mom for her car keys so that I could bring her car to fill her gas tank.At the pump to my left, I saw Brian Reilly. Once the hot guy in high school (with his bi-level haircut and black leather trench coat, back in the day when he wouldn't be searched for guns), then a patrol officer (he was the one who came to our house the day my dad broke his hip and the kids playing hockey in the middle of the street wouldn't move their nets for the ambulance), he pretty much made his career when he was net-surfing and wound up making, along with similar arrests, the biggest child porn bust in the City. (He also, in theatre camp I believe, dated a lady who would be one of my bosses at Yale.) Brian, it seems, has worked his way up the ranks as a detective in the Special Victims Unit, which tracks, among other things [and I'm using "things" on purpose] the child abusers, the rapists, the child molesters. I, being I, begged - yes begged - for a job doing data entry. It's confidential, he said. I responded that I'd sent my resume to volunteer to do data entry for the Megan's Law list, which isn't confidential but, rather, public.

"That was you!?" He got the email but not the resume. He also doesn't get a secretary. I'm to re-send the resume on the off-chance they get an OK for a volunteer. [There's not much I can do, but I'm a good secretary.] I also, mid-sentence, offered my hand for that child-porn bust, because, not that it's my right to have pride in him, I did, indeed, feel pride - I was proud of him.

We chatted about block watch (I gave the name of our local officer, and mentioned that I've got kids older than these cops) and we went our separate ways. I guess I have cockles, because seeing him warmed the cockles of my heart.

It's snowing. My boss called me at 9:30 and told me to stay home. Good; I'd have to change into grownup clothes after dressing quickly to snake the toilet and, frankly, I was already exhausted.

My dad asked my mom if I was going to work. No? Then I could take him to the barber. After I phoned to make sure that Joe was there, I put chocolates in my car, moved my still-undone holiday cards out of the passenger seat, and loaded in Dad. I showed him that the tacky license plate frame that's on Barack's rear plate is the bejeweled one he got me at Caldor over a decade ago. (Yeah, I only just found it, but there was no way I wasn't going to put it onto my car after he got it for me.)

By the time I'd finished dropping off cookies at my bank and got back to the barber, Dad had shown off pictures of his granddaughter, given Joe his box of chocolates, and had his hair trimmed. It still hadn't started snowing, so I dragged Dad on two more errands.

Chocolates for the lady at the cigarette store, who hides the "deals" so that they're there when I stop in, and who gives me nice-smelling incense. My dad asked me to get him a pack; No, your oxygen will blow up. [le sigh] I did grab all the change out of my ashtray (not going to work, I didn't get a paycheck, yet, either) and bought him a donut in the same plaza. Then to the chiropractor, to bring chocolates for them and to apologize but their thank-you card is on my desk at work. (Oh - Doc sends me a basket for being the legal secretary in an office with which we have mutual clients/patients, not because I'm his patient.) His rockin' office manager Renee gave me a hug, Doc gave me a hug AND said my face looks thinner and that I look great. All in all, a good visit!

My dad likes to go home via the beach, along the same route I ride my tricycle, and to stop at Driftwood, the boat dock. When we were little kids, Dad - pre-Alzheimer's, back when he was my Daddy [he earned my loyalty in those days, which is why I do my best to remember that he's sick], would take us up there to look at the water. We only stopped for a minute; even though I didn't take him out of the car, except at the barber, he was tired.

The rest of the way home was weird. Our street is only three blocks. I turned onto the first block, showed him where a neighbor had put in a small fountain with a lighthouse [he loves lighthouses]... he asked what street we were on. (I turn 39 next week, and we moved into this house on my first birthday. 38 years, shy a week, and he didn't know.) On the second block, he recognized Joe's house, and I had to repeat why I don't talk to that gossiping shit anymore. I pointed out, at the end of the block, Melissa's house, and told him that Meliss' had just had a baby. He doesn't remember Melissa, or the wrong name he called her [Maureen] although we've been friends since the 1970s.

A beige car pulled up in front of our house as we pulled into the driveway. Now, when I was fighting for Workers' Comp to pay the medical bills when I busted my wrists at my last job, they followed me home and watched my office for several days. (When my boss walked out to the office porch, they took off. Not my imagination; the other secretary saw them, too.) I really thought that this might be someone either following me (I mailed my application for assistance with my medical bills, yesterday) OR that it was, again, an insurance agent harassing the lady in the house next door to ours. I walked up to the car, and the aforementioned Meliss' in the back seat was next to her bundle of joy. We yelled at her husband for saying that I can't see the baby because I'm not family. [Her husband isn't really horrid. They're good neighbors and friends. We got into it at the block watch merely because we sat next to each other - much to Officer Moscotto's amusement. He changed my tricycle tire. I made sure that, even though they're not quite on our block, they were at our block party this past summer.] We talked about important stuff for a few minutes until my mom got a hoodie, ready to yell at me for not getting my dad in - Dad was heading to the car to see the baby - and came out to meet Isabella. I was sorry to see them go, but Meliss' looked drawn and we all thought she should go in.

We never made it to get our nails done - I'm sick of the festive hand-painted design I've had for two weeks, and want the pale pink I usually wear - or to Trader Joe's one plaza away. This means that I really don't have any ingredients to make nice dinners for my Mom :( Oh, we'll make do! but she seems to not hate my cooking.

Quiet weekend. I need to finish the heat neck pillow I'm making for Tad (the first project I've nearly finished with Eddie the Sewing Machine), and to activate my new cell phone. (Yay for free-after-rebate!)

I just changed my sheets to my favorite Wamsutta satin weave. I'm going to post, and then I'll curl up with The Visitant. When I'm done with that, I've got a whole bunch of Traveling Pants and DVDs from Monica.

No candles upstairs (oxygen tanks), but Samantha got me one that she put with the mojo bag that she gave me before we went to lunch (!) so I'll sit down and enjoy the gentle flame with Hugh.

Unless I'm lucky enough to get to hang out with the ever-mentally-stimulating Tad, I'm curling up and reading ALL weekend.

Books or Tad will make my brain happy.