The 12 Inch Italian, Please

I stopped at Firehouse Subs for a sandwich to share with a friend today. I ordered the 12 inch Italian. I realized right in the middle of my order that it sounded rather rude. The cashier, apparently jaded by these orders, just asked if I wanted chips with that. Sure do.

Sometime in the early dawn hours the resident squirrels succeeded in toppling the squirrel proof bird feeder from our tree out back. Pesky things. They pour over blue prints at night and make new attempts by day. Took them 2 1/2 years, but they got it. They ate most of the seed that spilled out. I hope they're good and thirsty now. I also caught them in the act of snagging one of my roses yesterday. A new white miniature that I planted the day before. (I'm a glutton for punishment) I've been blaming it on the deer because I saw a deer track in the garden. I think the squirrels figured out how to make deer tracks. Any way, the squirrels are having an awards dinner tonight for the one who cracked the code to the feeder. They'll probably hit the sack early though. They're in training right now. I have a fig tree - the one with bottles and wind chimes on it - to deter them. They love it! In there all the time. They are measuring the figs daily, and doing their meal planning around the ripening crop. It's a game every year - who gets to enjoy the figs. The usual score is squirrels 287, Muse and the Mister 6.

'Scuse me - I was just interrupted in my chain of thought by the Mister. Letting me know that the current load of laundry is just about dry and since it's mostly my clothes I should get it while it's hot. Skipping over the obvious (WHY SHOULD I GET THE *$%^@#@ LAUNDRY JUST BECAUSE IT"S MINE, %^@#@(* !!!!!!) what may not be so obvious to the reader is this:

I am sitting here in the one room of the house that I can call mine. I've mentioned.... oh, I don't know... maybe just a thousand times that when I'm writing it would be ever so nice not to be interrupted. Yet, even if we have not exchanged ONE WORD all day, he thinks up things to tell me or ask me while I'm writing. Just like the squirrels figuring out the bird feeder. Did you see "As Good As It Gets"? The scene where Jack Nicholson's fiction writing character Melvin Udall is interrupted in the middle of writing? This is part of the dialogue:

" Never, never, interrupt me, okay? Not if there's a fire, not even if you hear the sound of a thud from my home and one week later there's a smell coming from there that can only be a decaying human body and you have to hold a hanky to your face because the stench is so thick that you think you're going to faint. Even then, don't come knocking."

There's more, but it gets way too rude. Anyway, all I'm trying to say is I've explained this to the Mister 167 different ways, and no sooner than I come in here and I'm wailing away on the keyboard I hear the skritching of his sandals coming closer and closer and closer.... to the door and then next thing ya know, there he is with a burning question like "Should I put the chicken on the counter to thaw?" Holy Mama! I'm just sure I could have finished my novel by now, sans interruptions. I could be out on book tours. talking movie rights. But no-o-o-o-o-o. Every time I think about it I imagine the skritch of those sandals coming at me and well, that's why I'm only 78 pages into the thing. Four years later.

The fact that I haven't quite worked out the plot plays into this, but I'd rather blame it on skritchy sandals. When he isn't able to think up a good question he'll just skritch up behind me and say "What are you writing? or " Why dontcha put the 2 of diamonds on the black three." Okay, Okay, so I play some solitaire. It's because I'm passing the time before the skritching starts and then, after answering the burning question of the hour, I can move on.

'Scuse me, the mister just stopped by with another question (bzzzzzzzzz) and I heard the dryer go off. The dryer with MY clothes in it, so before I go off again I'm signing off. More to follow.