1:59 p.m. Maybe I should stay away from deviled eggs. Or stop trying to have a sane party. Maybe it can't be done.

Last night I successfully completed the total construction of about a hundred million egg halves stuffed with some kind of paprika-ed delight. Salmon, if you want to know -- I was getting quite fancy in my delusional hours. They seem competent enough and so I tucked them in and tucked myself in ...

... only to wake this morning to an unwelcome, a most unwelcome visitor. I'm not a big egg fan, and I am terrified of loose birds. Ten thousand people are due to descend on my humble abode in just a few hours and there is a bird in the rafters. He's frightened. I'm frightened.

He came in through an open window, but the window is a slanted one and he can't figure out how to go back out. He's bamming and blamming himself against the glass and his family is mournful outside the window. I've put bread on the sill to try to lure him to the thin sliver of escape that's there for him, if only he'd get his wits about him and use his tiny birdbrain for something other than sheer, useless panic.

I've been cleaning up his nervous mess all morning, as if I didn't have enough to do already.

More later -- she said, grimly.

1:49 a.m. This calendar is always accurate and it always knows. Eventually, the bird was rescued. It involved a man from Australia, a long pole, a kettle drum, and an open window. All in perfect coordination.

So, all's well that ends well. And this one ended quite well, she said, with a satisfied sigh.