Dotty Parker

a tiny flood

At the end of the backyard, the place where someone else's property begins, is a magical land. In this magical land, know as SprockTown, Sprocket has adventures of the most marvelous kinds.

Lately, you see, she has a monkey. She's been wanting to have a monkey for quite a long time. Ever since that cell phone ad where there was a sick monkey brought in place of something else. Which I don't remember. I think it was for Sprint, too, but I don't truly recall. La la la.

At any rate, Sprocket has her little monkey. The first thing she did when she got it was to eat him. She burped it back up, but he wasn't a happy monkey for quite some time. He ran away to the woods near SprockTown. Sprocket could be seen sitting near the woods looking around in a way that looked disinterested to me. I suppose it was supposed to look placid. A kind of "I'd never eat another monkey" look.

I went back there, with permission from Sprocket (wouldn't want to trespass) with the intention of killing some poison ivy. I think I'm going to have to leave the spot alone, though. SprockTown is too wild for me. Today I gingerly stepped through the leaves and sticks. The moss-covered sticks that looked as though they'd hold me crumbled under my feet--no snappy sounds. These were sticks only in that the contents were held together by bark.

These were not woody sticks. These were would-be sticks. Or would were. Or wood were. I'm sure you understand.

I put my hand against a tree to steady myself and the tree fell over. Have you ever done that? Just touch a tree and Whoops! Sorry, sweetie, but I knocked your tree over with my delicate little self. (batting the eyelashes here doesn't hurt)

It was not my overpowering strength that tipped the tree over. It was very dead already. I was waiting for woodpeckers to come flying out to carry me away.

(Hey kids! Woodpeckers work together to raise young over generations! The kids stay home and help the mom and dad to raise the next set of young. It is hypothesized that the young woodpeckers are too lazy to make their own nest. It is a lot of work to hollow out a tree, I suppose. But really, to wish death on your parents so you can get the house? I think they're going to add a new genus to the Picidae order: Menendez.)

At any rate, Sprocket was not pleased that I'd rearranged her town. She's still calling me Godzilla and Chewbacca. I'm not pleased.

The tree caused a minor earthquake in SprockTown, you see. The monkey was chee-chee-ing at me and I ran away from there through the stream that seems to run through our yard this year.

The monkey is very small, small enough to be burped up by Sprocket who is the size of a large loaf of bread. I saw that monkey jump into a small boat and sail down through the grassy stream. He only went maybe ten feet, but he also didn't drown in the havoc I caused.

Woe is me! What to do?!

Sprocket walked the monkey back up to the wooded part of SprockTown. He rode on her back. He still doesn't trust her, but he's pretty calm as long as he has a grip on her collar. He says he owns her, but Sprocket just sits among the buttercups and lets them blow up her nose while she sniffs and snorts all that she's waited this winter to sample.

bedtime

Today was a long day.

I don't often have days as long as this.

I left at six and got back into town at six in the afternoon. Then I took a class until nine. That's more than I can count!

I'm all tuckered out. Uninspired, you see. But the meeting was full of story possibilites--things that I may have to tell you about. Later.

Goodnight, darlings. You'll hear about the old biddies at the meeting in the future. How they talk in class, don't listen, and frown upon cell phones. For now, I'm going to blame it on their age.

The hubris of the young!

kicked in the butt

Sprocket is lying next to me. She does this fairly often. But she's kicking me. She's got her feet pressed against my hip. She stretches and her feet poke me in the side.

She's kicking me.

And the snoring. She's always been a snorer, but when she snores and kicks me I have to say that it's less amusing to hear her snorphles and snorts.

There is a slight sing song quality to this evening's snores, but still, I actually have to get up in the morning.

I have to leave for Rochester (locally referred to as Rah-cha-cha) at quarter to six.

No!

But yes, tis true. I'm going to learn about embroidery software. Which will be cool. But what kind of sadistic company starts a meeting at 8:30 in the morning? And what seriously cruel company starts the meeting that early when they know people will be driving 2.5 hours?!

The Husqvarna Viking company, that's who.

The early bird (not me) is going to get punched by the cranky cat who was gotten out of bed too early.

Meow!

damn you poison ivy!!

Every year I have a war with poison ivy. This year it seems ironic that I've been beating the hell out of the poison ivy with chemical warfare when I'm begging and pleading the world to stop the war.

Oh well.

In counting up the patches of poison ivy that I have, we now stand at seven, I have sprayed or removed six. (It's been raining and I'd rather not have the stuff I'm spraying just run into the water that ends up in Cayuga Lake.)

I felt fairly in control of the situation, knowing where the stuff is always helps. I felt in control as long as I was walking on the grassy part of our property and along the edges of the woods.

Of course today I decided to plan the front gardens that have been fallow (if you can call being under a layer of black plastic being fallow) for three years.

(We had the undesireable Japanese knot weed growing there and it's nearly impossible to get out. When you dig it up, the roots split and sliver and you just can't pull all the root pieces out. So we had to just kill it. RoundUp works, but you have to chop down the plant to about four inches above the soil and then it just kills that plant. The roots are still partying for the most part. We just had to keep snapping off the stalks as they came up and spraying whatever was left. We're close to getting rid of it now. Only three years!)

At any rate, I decided that I wanted some more ferns in the front gardens than I had available. I decided that a great place for ferns would be in the woods behind our house. I was scouting them and gingerly picking my way through the undergrowth and was assessing some ferns when I noticed the damned plant caressing my little ankles.

Why?! Why must we torment each other so? I have a tiny spot of it on my right hand, but had nothing else until my ankles were covered in it.

Angry little bastard of a plant.

So I was calm. I went upstairs and took a shower (cool water to start; I didn't want to spread the itch oil around) using Burt's Bath Poison Ivy Soap. It doesn't smell like anything except victory over three-leaf poison son of a bitch plants that tackle my hands and arms and feet! Son of a bitch!

the great dictator

I watched The Great Dictator tonight. It's a Charlie Chaplin movie made in 1940. At the end of this pretty incredible movie, he gives a pretty incredible speech.

I think there are parts that either he copied or the rest of the world copied. Or maybe it doesn't matter just so long as people hear the words.

An interesting bit about the speech is that he quotes from the book of Luke. As far as I know it's always been in the new testament. But Chaplin's character is a Jew being persecuted by fascists in a world of farce for being a Jew. And yet he picks Luke. Why not Psalms? There's got to be some good stuff in there. A very crafty and literary choice, I believe.

Here's the speech. It's beautiful.

Hope...I'm sorry but I don't want to be an Emperor - that's not my business - I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible, Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another, human beings are like that.

The soul of man has been given wings - and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow - into the light of hope - into the future, that glorious future that belongs to you, to me and to all of us. Look up. Look up.

It was really good for me to hear him believe that we have the ability to improve. It was also really good to be reminded that cynicism isn't an option for making positive changes.

I feel like I'm writing to convince someone that the world will get better, that things are never all bad, that there really is hope...and I think I'm writing to convince me.

"More than machinery we need humanity;
More than cleverness we need kindness, and gentleness."

flaming sparkplug

I was looking at the packaging for the sparkplug for the lawn mower.

In French it's a bougie. Which is funny on it's own, of course, just the sound is funny. But it's funnier when I think, "Hey! That's the same word as candle."

I guess there must be a lot of birthday-having mechanics in France. And everywhere else French is spoken and there are mechanic.

politics in the garden

I have this thing about slugs.

I hate them.

Slugs freak me out and I don't know why. I don't know why I hate them, but I have no desire to overcome my fear/hatred/shivery grossed outedness as I suspect that I would have to touch them to change my ways.

I am trying, however, to overcome at least some of my disgust in my own, oh-so-clever way. I'm planning on training the slugs to eat only weeds. Maybe they'll leave my irises and hostas alone if I train them to eat the feral morning glories and the dandelions and the musk mallow and the bedding weed.

If they ate those things, then maybe I could love them from afar. I'd have a bit less weeding to do and the plants I consider desireable would be free from munchy holes.

I don't think slugs are trainable, though. I think they're just slugs. Ewwww. Just thinking about them gives me the heebie jeebies.

yuck

proud to be an American today

Surely you know that I am a tad irritated with the American government. Surely you know that I wish George Bush would get a message from God that sounds more rational than the messages he's gotten before.

Today, however, I might have found out how he feels. It feels like power.

I found poison ivy today. In a new location--under the peonies in the back yard. I went inside to get the RoundUp to kill the stuff.

I was very careful around the peonies to keep the spray only on the poison ivy bits. I didn't want to kill my peonies.

When I got to the two other patches of poison ivy, however, I felt the testosterone of a Navy SEAL building up inside of me. There was the poison ivy hiding out among other weedy, but generally harmless, plants. I thought, "I hate that poison ivy so much, I don't care if I kill the stuff around it. The stuff around it might have brushed against it and gotten itch inducing. The stuff around it could be hiding poison ivy under the brushy foliage."

So I killed it all.

I just sprayed that RoundUp all over those damned weeds and poison ivy plants. I may have killed lunaria, which I wanted, but I wanted to kill the poison ivy more. I could get more lunaria.

It seems a remarkable parallel to me with the perceived behavior of the Americans.

Proud to be an American today. Yes, indeed, there's a lot to be said for American power in the garden.

Schindler's List

This morning I listened to the radio. It was "Democracy Now!" which is a leftist radio program. I'm all about leftist media since the rest of it is so far right.

This morning I felt sick because of what I heard. American troops seized tractor trailer trucks. Afghan troops loaded prisoners into the containers on the back of the trucks. Sometimes they shot them as they entered.

They pushed hundreds of people into the containers and closed the doors. People were screaming for air and getting crushed. There was an order given to shoot holes in the containers for air. The troops shot through the people.

A man came upon one of these trucks refueling or by the side of the road and asked a person who'd been there for a while what the disgusting smell was. The person pointed at the truck that still had living people in it but was also dripping blood and urine. That's what he smelled.

A few of these trucks were stopped in the desert for a few days. They weren't given food or water. They weren't let out to use the bathroom. The reports are that people were licking each other's sweat and biting each other to get some kind of liquid.

Some of the trucks were bound for a specific spot in the desert. The men in the truck would be led outside and shot and then thrown in a mass grave and buried. American troops were there watching. They did nothing.

An area of one square kilometer was found to be the gravesite of several massacres. I don't know if it was the same place where the people in the trucks were left.

I came downstairs to tell BrilliantEditor this stuff. My voice was shaking; I had teary eyes. What the hell is going on?

Why the hell am I telling you?

I'm hoping that you'll listen to today's episode, May 20. It's a documentary. There are real pictures and real people, so no matter how far to the left this radio show is, at least they can produce evidence that seems reliable. Talk about this stuff a little with other people and tell them that I think it is absurd and abominable. Tell them you think that, too, if you do. Just get people riled up about how poorly our military is being led. How poorly our country is being led.

Something has to change. More people have to believe that. Just do me the small favor of mentioning to people you know that you don't like what's happening. Be brave! Whisper how much you want change.

back to school

School days!

I went to my first quilting class tonight. I think it's going to be very cool. The woman teaching it is cool, too, although I must admit she reminded me of an older woman who's slightly kooky.

If she is, that's fine with me, because she does know what she's talking about. I asked Florette if I could borrow two overhead projectors for this class. Turns out I didn't have the right stuff to project anyway. Ha ha. I will ask Florette again one day, but not today. That's just crazy.

In other school news, one of the schools called me to ask if I'd consider going into a part time program. Instantly I wanted to say, "No way, no way." Instead, I said, "Um, I'm not really prepared to give you an answer right now. I have your email, right? I'll think about it and give you an answer later today."

I called the people who helped me write my essay and they thought, as I did and do think, that part time work isn't much fun. If I were a full time grad student, I would go to school for two years with the summers "off".

If I were a part time grad student, I would go to school for three and a half years and have my summers taken up with classes.

If I'm going to be a student, I want to have time off in the summer, even if it means I'm working. Working is way easier than school. At least work gets over with. (I know many of you are grumbling that it isn't true, that work never ends. I won't argue with you, although I know I'm right, but in my experience, even the shittiest job is better than school because you don't have any homework.)

So I should know the scoop next Friday, if I'm a student or not. And until then, I will work on my quilt.

ciagarettes and chocolate milk

I'm all caught up in my own brain these days. I've been writing notes to myself when I have an idea that might be useful for the blog as blog topics are best, in my opinion, when they involve external happenings.

Since my world currently consists of gardening, word games, and deciding what I'm thinking about so I can get down to the thinking, I've got to grasp these opportunities when they arise.

"Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk" is a song by Rufus Wainwright that gets stuck in my head with frequency. If you'd like to see if your head is sticky in the same way mine is, go here and scroll down to the samples.

And why is it in this head of mine today? I was craving sweets and a cigarette. For two or three hours I wanted cookies or twizzler bites (the texture is gooood) and to have a cigarette. Not much cigarette, but a taste or two.

So I decided that since I'd wanted this stuff for such a long time that I'd go and get it.

And I did.

Things are so much better now. Mini Chips Ahoy! (who came up with that name?) and mini Nutter Butter cookies saved the day. Two glorious, lung destroying, nicotine filled, pleasure bringing drags of a cigarette didn't hurt either.

So cigarettes and chocolate milk nearly saved the day. An eighth of a cigarette and chocolate chips work for me. It isn't quite as catchy though.

overhead projector, foam core board, natural muslin, soft pencil

I have an extensive list of supplies for a class that I'm going to take. I've got to have tracing paper and an extra fine Sharpie and transparencies of the artwork I want to use and a less-sticky kind of masking tape and regular tape and spray stuff and a whole list of crazy things that I'll have to have.

I'm trying to imagine myself walking into the class after two trips to the car. I'll have to buy a little old lady cart and tote my stuff around. My gradmother has a little old lady cart and it works swell! I'm just getting around to it earlier.

I emailed the instructor to ask if I needed to bring all that stuff that night or if I should do it all before I got there so we could dive right into sewing patches of fabric together.

She said to bring all the stuff.

I need to rent a bigger car.

That's the artwork I'm hoping to use. I'll make a quilt out of it. Yes indeed.

And here are some samples of the stuff she's done. You really ought to see this stuff.

home town sights

In my travels these past few weeks I've seen some mightily interesting things. Although I've not had my camera with me the entire time, there were a few choice sightings that happened to coincide with the possession of my camera.

Although I don't like the reason I was in Moravia, I do like this grocery store sign.

As you can see, it has the charm of some kind of retro chic with the tragedy of actually being truly retro, worn out, and ironic. Nevertheless, it is cool. It's like having a sign for Space Mountain and the Kitchen of the Future. Yeah.

Then, two days ago, I was driving and saw this restaurant.

I suppose I'd never really thought people would advertise their restaurant this way. I was thinking that they'd never get people in there with a name like that, but then I thought, "Who wants to eat food made by some skinny fool?" Also, who's afraid of the Fat Boys? They were a rap group, right? Did one of them die semi-recently amid scandal and confusion?

Given the overwhelming number of while people around here, though, it's highly doubtful that a black, aging rap group would be serving ribs in upstate New York. Yes indeed, highly doubtful.

This one, though, is for BellyRub.

I had just driven by Fat Boys when I saw Homer Wash. I thought, "Oh! BellyRub needs to see this! Needs to needs to!!!'

I imagine Homer Simpson being hosed off and waxed in one of those car wash bays. So sassy! So waxy!

Why the name? It just so happens that the town was Homer, NY. I guess they clean the whole town. They're so good there--wanting to take care of the whole town. So nice.

We love Homer Wash.

mini golf

When I heard about it I thought I was going to vomit. I still think I might. BrilliantEditor went out for beer to cool his head down. I asked him to get me cigarettes, too. He said they were out of my favorite brand, though. Sigh. Another vice averted.

But that's really neither here nor there. The thing that made me feel so sick was that I heard there might be a mini golf course going into a place just a little bit up the street.

No!

I say no in the most strenuous of ways. I say, "No way is that crap coming any nearer to me than it has to." I say, "I will not have pink and green and blue lights shining down on a windmill surrounded by drunken fraternity boys." I say, "I will not have small children drop their ice cream and scream loudly enough that I can hear them in my house!" I say, "No. Please, God. Really. I want to move. This is horrible. It's trashy. They play music over loudspeakers. We'll never be able to sell our house. I might get even crazier than I already am. Please, God, please."

Is it selfish to pray to God for things like this? If I thought there was an interventionist God who had a limited amount of time on his hands then yes, it would be selfish. Instead, I don't know what to believe and so take willpower! I will make it impossible for these people to build!

So what's so bad about these things? It's series of monuments to capitalism and what's made this country great!

Lies.

As we know, however, this country ain't so great and capitalism isn't all it's cracked up to be.

The tinny music being played at 11:00pm and then being started again at 11:00am will be a bad thing. I imagine that I will grind my teeth into flat, stumpy nubbins. And they will hurt.

My fury is slowly fading. It's taken more than an hour for the fury to cool down to gently boiling outrage. In my nightmares tonight I will see baboons playing croquet. I will see topiary in the shape of golf tees. I will see little men handing out ice cream cones with those multi-colored rubbery golf balls on the top instead of ice cream.

I picked out a few websites for you. One's about Jesus playing golf. I have a thing about Jesus on the golf course. I think it's good for him to take a walk and maybe give something a good whack. He might have some displaced anger in him somewhere. So here's the golf course for Jesus.

And of course, to every cloud there is a silver lining. I found this fun game. Note that it's from mobilehome.net. Mobile homes may not always be trashy, but to have the two associated so closely brings them close to being unredeemable, despite the fact that there's nothing wrong with mobility or its having a home. Nevertheless, the game is cool.

off the charts!

So lately I've been all bummed out for reasons that were previously unknown to me.

But! Today I got a call from the doctor.

I went to get my blood taken yesterday and the lab called the doctor today. The doctor called me about the test results. I am, my dears, amazing. When most people settle for average, I refuse to do so! I insist on being about 10 standard deviations from normal. And above average, too.

I have to go figure out what to do about it, but wow. I'm better than I thought!

once upon a time...

I was a scientist. Sort of. I had gone to school to be a scientist. I worked at it for a year and a half or so. Then science and I, we went our separate ways.

This Sunday I was asked if I knew anyone who would want to help with the Varna Science Club. Actually, the fellow said, "I know your husband works at home; would he like to help with the science club?"

It was during the pancake breakfast (which went quite well) and I was in volunteer mode. I said, "Well, I was a molecular biologist for a while, I could probably help you out."

He said, "No, no, no, that's not it; the kids build stuff and they need an adult to help them out, check out their ideas."

"I could probably help you out, if you like. I wasn't sure about the time committment when you sent your email."

"Oh! You do read your email!"

"Yes, I just don't respond. But still, my husband is too busy to help."

"What I really wanted to know is if you have any contact information for volunteers who might be interested. If you might have an email list..."

"No, I wish I did. But now that I know the time committment..."

"I don't want you to say yes right now, when you're under pressure."

He backs away.

"Well, it's really no problem."

"No, you think about it and then contact me."

"Sure."

---

I am so happy he encouraged me to think about it. Oh so very happy. Once I was a scientist. Then I was a pancake volunteer. Now I have saved up enough skills to gracefully decline the science volunteer nonsense.

I have not quite managed to save up enough skills to not be royally pissed off. I suppose he's just one of those arrogant fellows who is quite smart and has maybe not a lot of social skill when it comes to interacting with human beings. That excuse isn't working so well for me these days, however. I do believe folks should have to wear a badge or have some kind of electronic device.

The message should be, "Be aware: I may offend you. It's not because I don't like you. You're just not important."

I'm trying to decide whether the badge or beeping transmitter would be more or less offensive than simply finding out through experience. I'm thinking that it would be less offensive. It might have the negative side effect of causing the person wearing the message to be devalued. That wouldn't be right, either, would it?

(I've been trying so hard to be graceful about all of this. I really don't want the person to be treated badly. I would kind of like to stick a french fry in his nostril. That would be good.)

vacation

Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away!

It's time to get out of town, I say. Out of town to no particular purpose. We're visiting my brother soon and that will be very cool. And we're visiting my parents this weekend and that will be fine.

Still, I want to go out and feel free and happy and all grown up and aimless, too. I want to go away, but not too far. I suppose down the street would be fine.

I've proposed going to this place . They even allow pets. I don't know what pets. BrilliantEditor suggests that they allow goldfish. He's a punk, though.

I do believe that it would be a delight to travel around places I already live. It would be wonderful. We'd be able to get home if we had to and we'd be able to not be home, too. Oooooh la la, I'm such a clever girl.

the genius of driving
For a while I'd carry around a tape recorder to get my ideas down before they vanished. It seems they show up in the car. Maybe because it's a small, enclosed space the ideas get crowded and they come back into my head. They just can't get away.

But it's a mechanical tape recorder--the kind with actual tape. This means that it is not a voice recorder, you see. And tape recorders are heavy creatures. And they hide things, like my wallet, underneath them when they're in my purse. I have a little book to write things down in, too. But that's hard to do when I'm driving.

Oh boy, life is so difficult.

And this has been a bit of a dry spell for ideas. I'm sure that I've written some down somewhere, but even then I think I'd suck all the humor out of them. I do believe I could be talking about the exploits of my brother and of mine and it wouldn't be funny.

Thinking about it now, though, there is a bit of a funny. I checked our voice mail and heard BellyRub's voice saying something like, "Huullloooooooooo, hulllooooooooo. Dotty? Hullllooooooooo. Hi. Hulllooooooo." All in a lugubrious, nasal voice. And then in a relatively normal (how normal can you get with us?) "Hey, I wanted to talk to you about mother's day." "Caaallllllll me," with the lugubrious voice returned.

I actually called him. At work.

He doesn't use that voice there.

the infamous pancake breakfast

Mother's day is coming up. I think I have my gifts in order, but there is one thing I don't have: volunteers.

That's right, kids, it's the pancake breakfast time again and I'm rounding up the troops to cook and serve and smile. We generally have the same folks come in and help us, but I'm always wanting to get some new friends to call on. I've got a letter I'm going to send out that I believe might make some people help.

Or make them vomit.

But I'm willing to risk both.

Varna Volunteers!

We're having a pancake breakfast this Sunday. It's also Mother's Day!

We do, of course, need volunteers to set up, serve, and clean up. The Varna Community Association would love your help.

I was thinking about the quandary of Mother's day gifts, and I believe I have an answer for you.

What better way to show your mom that you love her than to show her that you learned how to share with your community? Invite her to the breakfast, have a tasty meal, and then lend a hand in clearing your places and putting on an apron. Imagine how proud she'll be!

Or, if you have children who don't know what to get mom, how about augmenting the marigold in a styrofoam cup with a show of kindness and devotion to the ideals imparted by the most influential woman in their lives?

I'm encouraging you to think of the women in your life who've made you the tender-hearted person that you are. Think about honoring them by showing affection for your friends and neighbors on Sunday.

Email me if you're interested, and I hope to hear from you.

I read it to BrilliantEditor who looked at me as if I had lit a fire in front of his face. "It's good, Dot, but it might be too much."

He's right, of course, but those of us who sometimes get our feathers ruffled (to say the least) with our mothers may need a little reminding of who has acted as a mom to them and what would make them happy. Sure some expensive chocolates from Belgium might be nice, but how about those chocalates and the reassurance that your baby listened to you when you told him to be nice?

Of course, to insert some of the patent pending Dotty Parker irony, I called my mom to invited her. Rather than saying she didn't want to come (and she later admitted that she didn't) she skirted the issue by making excuses for someone else and how tired those people might be.

Sigh.

I was sure she'd come. Last Christmas she told us that she didn't need anything for Christmas because BE and I had spent the day taking care of a woman with Alzheimer's. She said that it made her feel so good that we cared so much about people. She was proud of us and proud of herself.

Now that it's mother's day, of course, she's still proud, but she's taking care of herself by staying home. It's bizarre, isn't it? I was hoping to make her feel special and proud by having her come by and see what BE and I do in our community. Instead, she's staying home and doing what she wants. And I'm kind of ticked off.

I'm trying to remind myself that mother's day is for her, not me. I'm trying to remind myself that I do this stuff because I want to, not because I want her to see me doing it.

Then I remind myself that I do want her to be proud of me.

Maybe mother's day is more stressful for mothers than I thought.

At any rate, she's getting some beautiful fabric out of the deal.

dreams of breeds

I had a dream about my customer. In the dream I triumphed. Ha!

I went out to plant the cosmos I bought. I realized the place I had planned is too shady and that the cosmos are dwarf cosmos and will thus be only two feet high. I must plan again. Tra la!

I had a really good conversation with Pollytyranna about the customer in my dream. We decided that I did my best and that's all she can ask for. Furthermore, we decided that my best is pretty good. And that's a pretty good thing.

Today was made up of many odd, disjointed tasks that add up to hours and those add up to days.

This day was pretty good. And that's a pretty good thing.