I am not a morning person. Most days, even one minor crisis before 9:00 a.m. can finish me. Yesterday, I had three upsets before 7:30 a.m. but it turned out to be a reasonably nice day. There's a lesson in there somewhere. I'm just not sure where it is.

I was up early. Day had a performance of "The Golden Goose," a children's production she is in, at the local library. The performance was not until 10:30 a.m. but, for reasons no one could explain, call was at 8:15 a.m. Surprisingly, the entire cast of high school girls decided they should get up early for a cast pancake breakfast at 7:00 a.m. FogieKnight, who was tired Friday night, asked how she was going to get there. I informed him that I had told her I would take care of the driving. So, I got up at 6:15 a.m. so I could have breakfast and a shower. Without them, I would be incapable of driving safely. Day got up at 6:40 a.m. and then moved like molasses, informing me that the breakfast really was at "seven-ish." By the time we left at 7:20 a.m., it occurred to me that I could have had an additional half-hour of sleep. I was annoyed, appeased only by the fact that she was contrite.

I came home and picked up the newspaper. I have a nephew who is going to school in town. He probably doesn't realize it but he is another family theater kid. He just believes in performance theater. Unfortunately, he is misguided in his choice of causes and his house was egged. I was annoyed at the egging because I do care about him but I was also annoyed, as usual, at why it came about. As Kat points out, "someone does need to tell [him] that the right to free speech doesn't guarantee his right to have no one respond to his actions and words...quite the opposite in fact." So, as he has become a darling of the right-wing in town, there he was on the front page of the paper. (I'd provide a link but I amnot providing his causes any more publicity.) Later in the day, we offered to help with clean-up but although he apparently has time to call all the newspapers and right-wing news stations in town, he lacks the time for clean-up so he's on his own.

I went from that annoyance to the computer where I read something that alarmed me. As a survivor of two suicides within the family, I am very sensitive to anything that even hints at the possibility that someone is thinking of suicide. And there it was: an online journal entry from one of Kat's friends that not only followed a very depressed sounding entry, but looked like it's author could be thinking of suicide. Although it was very early, I tried calling Kat to check on her. I did not reach Kat but later reached Kat's roommate and had her check on Kat's friend.

With all that behind me before 7:30 a.m., I was surprised that the rest of the day was fairly good. FogieKnight and I had a good time acting as judges for a law school regional moot court competition. We then went to see "The Golden Goose." Despite Day's representation of it as dumb, it turned out to be a cute children's show with enough asides to keep adults interested. The sound effects were wonderful. The overall effect was charming.

And, to top it off, Day showed wonderful commonsense. She had a youth group activity that was supposed to be a sleepover but she decided to come home instead so she would have enough sleep going through the weekend. I would have stayed up to hear how it went but FogieKnight was up. So, bad mother that I am, I went to bed early.

I guess you can't tell a day by its start.

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