The people at the dentist office will see me first today – officially, in my capacity as a public persona. They are lucky. It is after five am now and I am a mess, having mowed the lawn and sweat under my hat and then plopped down on my sofa of pain. My hair has been “set” as we used to say in the days of rollers, into a Medusa-look.

My nose is stuffed from pollen. Der Bingle mentioned the yellow stuff down at the Ohio Redoubt and at the Sturgis Cemetery I looked at the flat area on my grandfather’s tombstone and saw it was coated with yellow. Oh, great. Age has made me more allergic. Actually, sitting in a slouch with my computer on my protruding tummy, my head is at an angle to allow my nose to drip, drip, drip. That is not something you wanted to know, but cut me some slack here, okay?

I am one big complaint at this hour; I have a little over two hours to make myself acceptable to go into the dentist office. This is not exactly like having two hours to make yourself presentable to go out and buy a Hummer and head for the Pacific. The enthusiasm seems to be missing. No,it definitely is missing.

Oh, and while I am bracing for the dentist, I need to clean the kitchen lest the electrician be shocked, shocked I saw. I really didn’t mean that to be a pun; I was thinking of Claude Rains in Casablanca.

Then the Internet man is coming, we hope, because the outside connection is flaky. There’s a better word for it, but flaky just falls off my fingers right now.