I have an eight-hour layover in London Gatwick Airport. Eight hours seems like sufficient time to reflect upon my previous 72 hours, to push them into "past," and to psych myself out for my arrival in Rome. But first, in my defense, and in defense of my writing, dear readers, I've been awake for nearly 24 hours, with the six previous hours spent thinking about sleep... but never actually sleeping.

Today is Tuesday. On Friday I left work early, hoping to be really productive. I had to run errands in The Woodlands, about 40 miles from my garage apartment downtown. Just as the productivity was about to begin and I was turning the corner to reach my first errand, my car hiccuped, and then it died. The car gods had not abandoned me altogether though; I was able to coast into a parking lot and even found some shade in the hot Texas summer. I waited an "hour on the outside" (direct quote from the AAA dispatcher) for about an hour and fifteen minutes escaping the heat in the southern hospitality of a nearby pediatric hospital. By the time I had my car towed to a shop, it was too late to do anything... there were other cars that were more diagnosable and treatable. It was automobile-triage and I was that day's fatality.

The lovely and accommodating Deanna rescued me. She deposited me at Adam's house where I waited for him, tallying up the unproductive, non-errand running minutes until our evening activities, when he would take over as chauffeur.

Saturday started out promisingly. I woke up early enough to feel a bit self-disciplined and late enough to feel a bit self-indulgent. I packed my things to store in my attic for when my subtenant arrived. When Deanna arrived on her white horse (I mean, in her Land Rover) again, we set out to run the errands that were attempted on Friday. My first task was to find a distributor for my car for less than the $380-something the mechanic wanted to charge me, which we did. We delivered it to the shop and, not without some substantial effort and the batting of eyelashes, made sure I was getting the best deal on labor charges.

The rest of the afternoon managed to transpire without sucking. But the suckage began when I was returning from getting my car and called Katie to find out about the status of the boxes that were going to be brought over to my apartment. I was informed that they were not, but that I was free to come pick them up. I added that to my list of crap I hoped to get done before I left. So Deanna and I return

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