It was 8:30 a.m. this morning. The sun shone through the stained glass piece The Hub has in the back window. It was fairly quiet. The Hub was moving around in the kitchen, making coffee, but he was trying not to wake me up. The dog was lying on the floor below the sofa where I've been sleeping. The back problem has progressed to the point where no longer have to sleep on the floor but not to the point where I'm able to sleep in the bed. I was awake, but my stomach was sending a message to my brain that it was not going tolerate A) any more Naproxen B)food, or even C) motion of any kind.

I have very good diplomatic relations with my stomach. I lay quietly on the sofa and sent a delegation of relaxation techniques back to let it know that its demands had been received and understood and suggesting peace talks, seeing as how the rest of the body had to go to work later, presumabely taking the brain with it. It grumbled ominously, but that turned out to just be sabre rattling. I made it clear that I was ready to table the scheduled run out the door with the dog to take him for his bath if the stomach would allow a bi-lateral move off of the couch and entertain the possibility of some sort of breakfast at a later time.

Conservatives my feel that this was too much work and I should not have bothered working on a diplomatic solution. After all, Naproxen riddled stomachs are often unpredictable, and have in the past resorted to guerrilla tactics such as full scale uprisings in public places without any warning. But, really, all I was saying was give (a) piece (of dry toast) a chance.

Suddenly, talks were interrupted by an incoming bomb!

"Oh, no, there go the parakeets! They're doin' it in broad daylight!" The Hub yelled, "Jeeze, guys, you aren't under the cage cover or anything!"

"Heads under wing!" I yelled back. In our house, that's code for "I'm trying to sleep/ rest here!" and it refers to birds' habits of tucking their head under a wing to sleep or rest. That's the only way they can rest their neck muscles.

The parakeets, startled by all of this noise, apparently broke off their mating ritual with a great deal of chatter, which I suspect might have been parakeet profanity. This awoke the dog, who lauched to his feet and raced into the dining room colliding with his food dish. My stomach, while still offended and grumbling, apparently decided that it was negotiating with a crazy person and didn't push it's luck. Which was a good thing. There's nothing like starting your day with a loud husband, a startled mastiff, two mating parakeets and a stomach in full scale rebellion.

"I'm sorry, honey, I thought you were already awake. I was just surprised. I've never seen them do that before. Though Blondie was on top of Dagwood, so I'm pretty sure they weren't really doing it right." The Hub actually wasn't really yelling. He just has a loud voice, especially when he's surprised.

"It's hard to tell what they were doing." I said. It was too late to get to the groomers anyway. I wonder if the vet could be wrong about their genders? But what difference would it make?

I staggered out to the breakfast table and looked at the mail. I learned that I have a court date to defend myself against my dastardly traffic deeds ( driving with a suspended license - a result of forgetting about a $25.00 ticket for not having my seat belt on) and that our mortgage company thinks we have "abandoned" the house we are trying to sell, and if they don't hear from me right away they'll come after us with tar and feathers and mob of angry villagers carrying torches....or something like that. I don't know. It was early, I hadn't even had a cup of tea yet.

The Hub had done a huge amount of laundry at the old house the night before, which I appreciate a lot, but at the same time, feel very guilty because it's been all I could do this week to drag myself back and forth to work. I pondered the logistics of trying to get one of the laundry baskets into the back bedroom, and thereby feel like I was of some use. He also did all the dishes. "Hey buddy." he said to the dog, "How about some dog food and with parmegean sprinkles for breakfast?"

The insurgency in my stomach made a threatoning move, which I countered with a swig of highly sweetened tea. The phone bill had also arrived, along with an L.L.Bean catalog featuring people who were not sitting around in a ratty bathrobe with their hair standing straight up at 9:00 in the morning. I pushed some cereal around in a bowl, while the dog chowed down, loudly and with gusto. The Hub talked about the painting job he's working on.

After awhile, I went into the living room and picked up the pillow the dog had liberated from the sofa the night before. I can't exactly blame the dog for this behaviour, since, if he has a pillow under his head he doesn't snore as loudly, and for this reason I've given him pillows in the past. They key point here is that I haven't given him the good throw pillows, the ones that are velour, take forever to wash and dry and are cream colored. But you can't expect a dog to tell the difference. The velour one probably fell on the floor during the night. "Oh good!" he thought, and when I woke up in the wee hours of the morning he was sleeping contentedly with it between his chin and the tops of his paws. Naturally, it was completely slimed.

It was only 9:30 in the morning, and I was already exhausted. In fact, I went back to bed, or at least, back to sofa for another hour. Some days it's just like that.