I’ve had a disconnected week. Last Saturday, I missed our friend Michael’s play reading because I thought it was on Sunday. Nevermind that the second invitation he sent me said that it was part of a “Saturdays @ 2” series…

Yesterday, I couldn’t figure out what to wear for spring weather. Neither what clothes nor what shoes were appropriate for 65 degrees and sunny seemed to be in my closet. I grew up in New England. Spring weather shouldn’t be that hard for me…

Today, I just went mildly crazy trying to figure out where a document draft was that I’d been working on had gone to. The intern who’d been looking at it had finished her responses and I wanted to input them. Not on my desktop. Not in my email. Was it on my key drive? The hard drive at home?

Yeah. I never actually had a draft I was working from. I’d joined this project after the document had been laid out once, so I’ve been giving our art director corrections written onto the laid out draft.

This may be why any readers had to wait for a post for three-plus days. My brain seems to have gone on vacation.

I’m hoping that taking my body on a long weekend away and time with friends will help to clear out my head of all the cobwebs and to reunite me with my brain. It could work…

Since our tax materials arrived way back in January, we have done one massive “guests are coming!” cleaning and one mini “new furniture is coming!” Essentially this means that we frantically throw papers into plastic bags and shove them out of sight, or as out of sight as in plain sight can be.

I have finally managed to track down my W-2 and 1099 as well as both my federal and district tax forms.

If, however, you have any guesses as to where I might have hidden Rudi’s W-2 or his federal tax form, drop me a line.

“Travel bans won’t stop bird flu”

Well, of course not. Birds can’t read signs to know they’ve crossed a border…

(We will ignore, for the moment, my feeling that this is the most overhyped science story of the year.)

A year ago today, after giving me the url for my birthday, Rudi presented me with a blog ready for my fingers to fill with posts. And fill it I have: according to the stats, this will be the 415th post in 365 days or, roughly, one post every 21 hours. I suppose it won’t surprise anyone that I have lots more to say.

So, thanks, Rudi, for offering me the means to have a blog.

And thanks to Mum and Dad for the idea to start writing a regular column, even though this hasn’t turned out to be remotely what you suggested.

I am grateful to those whose blogs I read regularly. You provide inspiration and community — and occasionally material to steal and repurpose for my own use.

Thank you to those who have linked to me in one form or another.

And a final thanks for those who keep coming back. I write for myself but it makes it a lot more fun when my soliloquys become conversations — either online or off. I am grateful to those who leave comments — as well as to those who read along silently and who let me know their thoughts later on.

May the fun continue!

ides: The 15th of March, May, July, or October or the 13th day of the other months in the ancient Roman calendar. (From the Latin idus, a possible derivative of an Etruscan word meaning “division of a month.”)

Apparently, the Romans only considered three days a month important: Kalends (the first day of the month), Nonas (the 7th of March, May, July, or October or the 5th of the other months), and Ides. You then counted backward from those dates to keep track of the other days of the month.

The dates were lunar and monetary in origin. Kalends, from which the word “calendar” is derived, itself came from the word Kalendrium, meaning “account book,” and was the day on which debts were due. Nonas was traditionally the day on which the moon was half-full. And Ides was traditionally the day of the full moon.

The difference in dates (5th vs. 7th and 13th vs. 15th) seems to correspond to how long the months were in the Roman calendar. March, May, July, and October were 31-day months, while the rest were 28 or 29 days long.

Spring has sprung a couple weeks early here in D.C. The daffodils and crocuses are in full bloom and the buds on the trees look ready to pop.

Yesterday I celebrated the arrival of warm weather with a bike ride to Eastern Market. The impression I got from many of the vendors was one of joy that crowds were back on a regular basis.

Today I broke out the capris and sandals and walked down to Georgetown. I bought some t-shirts and a set of knitting needles for an upcoming project and spent an hour down on the Potomac with a slice of pizza and a soda and a book. I’m tempted to whip up a batch of iced tea, but since the weather forecasters believe we’ll be back in the 40s later this week, I suppose that might be premature…

Tonight we’ve been invited to a friend’s for dinner, so I’m off to prepare a dessert — chocolate cream puffs.