You asked, I answered.

On my morning off today, I woke up to Sadie in bed next to me, crying that Mark was not there to play with her in the morning. Daisy wanted to go out right away, and Sadie did not. I sent Sadie next door to Gran Fran's, and Daisy and I walked the alley for 10 minutes while Sadie colored at Gran Fran's house. We talked to Daddy on the speaker phone to learn that Granddaddy, who was released from the hospital yesterday after a week there and moved to the nursing home in their assisted living community, was taken back to the ER at the hospital last night for his heart.  Got Sadie out the door to preschool, and went for a 7 mile run. The sun was shining and my run was strong and fast, both rare occurrences for this 3 day a week jogger now. Home to shower and change, took Daisy out for a short walk, threw some tennis balls to her in the alley all the while checking my blackberry. Hit Tropical Smoothie Cafe, which is my Wednesday lunch spot, on my way into work, and met a man who described himself as wearing a blue and white striped shirt at 11:45, at our appointed spot.

My meeting with said man was set up by a call from him to me last week. One of our former neighbors who lived next door to us for a year or so, 3 or 4 years ago, was applying for a Top Secret Security Clearance with the U.S. State Department, and he listed me as a character reference.

This would be fun, I thought. I used to have a Top Secret Clearance when I worked at the State Department back for the summers in college. My brother, my sister in law, and my brother in law also all worked for the Government and all had Top Secret clearances for their jobs. I know what goes into these labels, and I thought it would be neat to be on the other side of the questions.

I met the man at our appointed spot and he shook my hand, promising that our conversation would take between 10 and 15 minutes. He started with his questions -- they were not simple yes or no questions, and I had to think back hard to remember things like what year did I meet our neighbor, what was his job then, etc. I made sure that the interrogator knew that my meeting our neighbor came at the same time as the birth of my child, so I was sleep deprived. I can't remember if I ever knew what he did for a living. He had a dog, we had a dog, he had a child, we had a child, neither child was sleeping so we often talked a lot when we were both drew the lucky straws to walk the dog.

At the end of the interview, the interrogator leaned closer to me and said "Mrs. Webb, I am going to be honest with you here. You seem to be hiding something from me... I have asked you numerous questions and many times, you diverted your eyes from mine and answered by looking away. Is something on your mind? Because this is a matter of national security."  OK, he didn't say that last part, but he clearly insinuated it.

"Is something on my mind?" I answered him, looking straight into his eyes. "Yes, I have a great deal on my mind. But none of it has to do with my old neighbor Albert." 

- My daughter has parent observation at ballet today and her other parent is not going to be there to observe. We did not warn said daughter about this occurrence, which might very well mean that said daughter will refuse to perform or storm out of the room. Neither will look pretty.

- My father in law is in the hospital again, and my husband is very torn between being the son that takes care of his elders and the parent that needs to care for his young one, especially when his wife is tied up at work. I am torn with guilt and resentment. And I am scared, because if it hurts this much to go through it with someone else's parents, how will I survive going through it with my own.

- And I am hungry, because I haven't eaten my smoothie yet. Because I thought it would be impolite to have the smoothie in front of you while you had nothing. But there it is, tucked in my tote bag, melting away, and this makes me very sad.

- And I have to get to work, because I have a memo due that I haven't started on. And while this time last year I was a partner and had people working for me, this time this year I seem only to work for someone else, and no one ever wants to do work for me, and at almost 42 years old, I am not very good at working for someone else and I was actually pretty good at managing people, and this sucks.

- And it is Wednesday, again, which means that the cleaning lady comes tomorrow and I really dislike Wednesday nights cleaning up for the cleaning lady and why oh why oh why cannot I not for the life of me keep our house picked up so I don't have to go through this every freaking Wednesday night. How can I both love Wednesday mornings and hate Wednesday nights. I feel like it is a bipolar day.
- And my sister is probably going to get married, to a guy who she loves, but who lives in Denver and has 2 young children who live in Denver which means we will not see her for Christmas like we always have and she won't travel as much like she always did and will this be our last year at the beach together, and if so, a professional photographer would be nice,  and while I can understand this and be happy for Sadie, I hurt for Sadie, who I really wanted to grow up seeing my sister a lot.

- And speaking of getting a photographer at the beach, I need to price bike rentals down there because we are so loving the bike right now. And why didn't I write that down on a list, that has been something just in my head for the last couple of weeks. And where is my list anyway? Mark's birthday is this weekend and I have done nothing for him. Actually, I did do something, come to think of it, and ordered two batches of things from the internet and they haven't arrived yet. Which means I need to call and follow up on shipping date. What a pain. Why can't anything be easy. And the cake, I need to make a cake. Come to think of it, I really just want to eat cake.

So this is what goes through my mind during this interview. So I divert my eyes to his questions? Yes, I guess I do. I so crave order, and I have relatively none.