1:32 a.m. I'm going to rant and rave for a few minutes now. It's the "Just when you thought you were out of the woods ..." version. But first, let me roll up my wet sleeves because they're very distracting as I try to type.

That's right: wet sleeves. And wet knees. It's 1 a.m. and I go into the kitchen to get a glass of soy milk and finally clean up dinner, all the while running the printer so that not a spare minute is being wasted. Just a minute to spare and then it's back to the machines, but first ...

... throw a couple of french fries and some kasha varnishkas into the garbage disposal and run some water and grind them up ... check the printing ... come back into the kitchen and ...

... of course the grinder has exploded! All over the bottom inside of the sink cabinet and dribbled ketchupy slime mess onto the nice pastel (clean) rug in front of the sink and there's no choice now but to start taking every single solid thing out from under the sink --

-- and do you know how many many things I have under there? I'm no different than the average person and I keep the garbage bags under there and I recycle cans and I have cleaning stuff that now has to all be cleaned off and I Don't. Have. Time. For. This.

Not in the middle of the night. Not with a clean printout needing dry hands; not now.

(But at least I have a topic, I think to myself.)

I never had a garbage disposal until I moved to California, and since I've moved here every single one I've ever had has gone bonkers. I hate these things and I hardly ever use them. But just tonight because I was in a rush ... just this one time I scraped off a plate into the hole of hopeless doom, which I hardly ever do ...

Apartment disposal units are very sturdy. I was very stupid when I first moved here and I tried to grind the stems of cut flowers. This is not possible -- not for any machine made. You'll get a swirl of cellulose stringy stuff and then that sound and then the man will come in and berate you. Lesson learned.

The next place we moved to had just housed some members of the band Foreigner*, someone named Dave, I think. They had broken the thing and when the guy came in to fix it, he found bent coins in it. That's what you do when you have so much you don't know what to do with it.

The next disposal I came to hate was at Tina Louise's house, and it was a model we had to baby because it was, let's just say, a very old, very low-end one. It couldn't even handle cooked rice.

And that's basically what I've got waiting for me now. A gooey slimy mess. In the dark place under the sink. It's all part of the plot. Something must break in this house each and every month or we just won't feel wanted. Also, there's no use in lusting after a comfy desk chair if there's some nice rusty plumbing pipe just ready to explode, on schedule, to grind up all your disposable cash.

And of course, they must explode with the maximum of mess in the absolute middle of the night. Not to mention the birds on the roof. I'm convinced they're pecking away the surface and now we've got to invest in many realistic plastic owls to scare them away.

It's always something. If it's not one thing.

Well there. That felt pretty good. A little rant and a little soy milk and I'm almost as good as new. Who am I kidding? I've got to leave this nice little keyboard and go scrub creepy places.

And speaking of stupid things, I apologize to Michael for calling him an Aussie yesterday. He's actually a Kiwi, which is very different. I knew that, really. Sort of. It's an awfully small island to be an entire country, you know. So close to Australia -- it would seem logical that they should hook up --

-- but ok, yesterday was not Michael's day to get hugged. It's every day *but* yesterday. Because he's very cute, you know.

* speaking of foreigners -- my daughter just reminded me that it wasn't a Foreigner who lived in the house before us. It was a Kink. Apparently, there's some difference in quality here, but until I make a determination about whether CD players are here to stay, I have no idea what either group sounds like.

Oh, maybe I've heard one hit or the other. Probably have. But the last album I bought was in 1988. It was vinyl, and I belive it was Caruso. I didn't think CDs were going to catch on -- I could be wrong about this, too.