You ever have one of those mornings where you get to work and just cannot remember a single detail about driving to work? Then after a minute it dawns on you that you rode the train to work today because you forgot to pick up your car at the mechanic in time on Saturday, and they closed at noon and you didn’t get there until 12.30? And this makes you sigh in resigned acceptance of the consequences of your being able to see into the future but not the past and you see yourself standing out on the street in front of the office later that day, at one minute after five PM wondering where your car is parked and why the keys aren’t in your pocket? And you consider writing yourself a note, Dear Self, take the train home, that’s where your car is?

Anyway, train was great. I got to sit next to a pretty teenaged girl, my daughter, who was studying for her French test, which this time focuses in part on giving directions. Like:

Q: How do I get to the hospital?
A: Walk backwards into the intersection with your eyes closed and turn in circles.

(© Beta 2004)

Had a nice anniversary. Alpha and I sat at the table, with the kids, and looked at our wedding photos. “Who’s that guy? “Daddy.” And all the guests: “They’re divorced. He’s dead now. She’s dead now. She’s also dead now. They’re divorced. That little baby there was in jail in Mexico last year.”

Alpha gave me a very nice belt, which I needed. I gave her an IOU for a nice evening out. We’re too busy at the moment to go out like that, not to mention broke.

Weather was cold so we left the tortoise in the kitchen all day and she didn’t “make a poo”: big plus day-wise.

Also, I read a good book I bought on Friday while waiting to pick up Alpha at the airport, before buying her some roses at the florist there, which is not only a little shop with so many great flowers I can never make up my mind, but also this chubby, charming guy — he’s just really nice and proper without being stuffy; the book is called “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime” and it’s a fictional novel about a kid with Asperger’s syndrome and I recommend it, even though it won a prize and says something along the lines of “cracking good read,” on the cover.

A cousin of mine is convinced that the males in my family, on my mother’s side, have Asperger’s to varying degrees. After reading this book, and that article linked above, I have to say she has a point. I would put myself at the mild end of that scale, but still on it, although you must realize this is pure speculation as none of us, I don’t think, has been actually diagnosed with it. Except maybe her son who knows all the Disney characters by heart and can tell you about them at great speed. He also knows a lot about computer games, I found out last time I visited. There is also my uncle, who just turned 80, and whom I called on his birthday and for laughs asked “how’s the weather” knowing full well he’d know, and would tell me in meticulous detail: 56 degrees Fahrenheit, light S-SW wind. History, and weather are, among other things, his specialties.

And so on. My brother knows the Latin names of most plants. I don’t think I have any such superpowers, although I usually do okay at Trivial Pursuit, just don’t ask me any sports questions…