I cannot blame the planets.

Thursday, the day Mercury went direct, returning us the cosmic normality level of a probability factor of one to one, my car died. This was a normal occurrence up until a few years ago, when I realized that the car alarm designed to keep the car from being driven was so eager to do its job, it didn't know when to stop. After we got a new battery, I never had a dead car again. Which makes this latest drain all the more tragic. There's a button, on the doorframe, which lets the car know the door is closed. It never occurred to me--and maybe you've never thought about this either--that the button could break, and when it did, the car would sit in the driveway doing the automotive equivalent of yelling, "Hey! Hey! Hey!"

The car, however, is soundproof, and I failed to wait the full ten seconds after I slammed my door to see if the interior lights had gone off. This day the button broke, I guess they didn't, because the lights came on when I recharged the car (OMG, my uncle rocks, he gave me a charger 12 years ago and it has never gone to waste) and continued to stay on. The car also kept telling me the door was open. Loud dinging to me is like I suppose being hit over the head with a wet screaming baby who is holding bells and a cuckoo clock that scratches its beak down a chalkboard every second to a person with a severe migraine. That is, I almost shot my car on the way to the service station. This is similar to the reason I don't do well with a metronome, but that's another story.

While the button was repaired--I love my service station so much for all they've done over the years I would hug them but that would be weird and I'd get smudges on my back--my mother and I had to walk to the store I was planning to drive to, because to put it bluntly, we were out of toilet paper. Those who know us very, very well know what an odd, out-of-character thing this is, and now I fully understand why my mother stashes those two rolls that always fall down and wedge in the dispenser. I also learned not to lose my temper with the toilet paper dispenser any more, but that too is another story.

Now, my mother has what I refer to as a bad leg. What it actually is, is a series of hernias that has cut off the circulation so bad that she breaks out in leg ulcers, and this year, she's got two fighting for the title of more annoying section of the ankle. She's eligible for Medicare in three months, and she's hellbent on not doing anything radical like having a doctor check it out and possibly make it all worse until she has coverage. AARP still has yet to send her either package of information on Medicare supplements they swore they'd rush right out to her a month ago. I will not forget this, AARP.

My mother should not be walking, and I actually should not be lifting. I not like to whine, but you all know of my hiatal hernia, and generally how that goes away is if you don't lift anything. Like, say, a 24-pack of toilet paper. So last weekend my mother and I sort of spent dead. My car, upon being picked up by the two of us, laughed. I swear, I heard it. Luckily, the service station did not ask me if I was fit to drive, because had I said more than, "Thank you," they would have detected the slurring. My eye has also been closing lately, and I can joke and say it's my Forest Whitaker impression, but if I was on the road with me, I'd change lanes and get as far away from me as possible as soon as possible.

Monday I drove into a pole. It wasn't a surprise, I mean, I saw the pole, and my eyes were both open at the time, however I didn't see that the pole--holding up the great big light over my car--had a base that extended out far enough that my lovely Empire State license plate got bent. The plastic frame also got cracked, and that is why I choose plain, unremarkable frames for my license plates, because while I remember all the good times we had together, it's not like I'm going to, you know...glue it back together and put it over my computer.

Really.

Being descended from Nan, I know we're not so dainty that little things like hernias and ulcers and dizziness and total inability to carry on a conversation are going to take us out that easy. Nan pretty much does double the amount of stuff Mum and I do, and she still has time to write and make out with the cats even when her legs fall off, which the dog enjoys because she's a maniacal foot-licker. I've convinced myself that everything will be fine. Even if I had trouble swallowing a French fry tonight because my esophagus has that pesky stomach wedged in it.

I also signed up for this year's NaNoWriMo, because I had a book to write anyway, and this gives me a pretty good excuse reason. I have 9,596 words written and not one person has been stabbed in the eye with a beer pretzel, been possessed by a transvestite vampire, traveled to another dimension, or engaged in random sexy hook-ups. Yet. I think it even all makes sense, which is wild.

I cannot blame the planets.