Phone Home

There are those mornings when you get up -- and by "you" I mean "me" -- and you really can't think of anything to write in your morning pre-coffee blog. Sure, there will be fragments of thoughts, like all the millions of people walking around with cell phones glued to their ears, most of them making turns in their gigantic SUVs that are way too wide, but that's not much to go on. And besides, every comic on the planet has a schtick about cell phones. "What's the deal with cell phones?" So it's better for me not to go there. Trod ground and all.

Which doesn't leave much. It's a crisp morning here in the hills, after what must have been a fairly warm night. The house still hasn't cooled down, although there's a nice cool breeze coming down the hall. The sun comes up later these days, one of my favorite things about September. It just gets too warm too early in the summer months, but this is the time of year I can get up a little later than the crack of dawn and still catch a sunrise.

Outside, we hear the sounds of nature. Nature in this case being all the people rushing down the hill in their gigantic SUVs to hop on to the freeway and drive forty-five minutes into town. Naturally, since there's one to a car, they won't be using the carpool lane. My wife is drying her hair, my daughter is off to school, and in two minutes it'll be just me and the cats. But that's when they're done with their morning routine, and both of them are ready for naps.

Which leaves me here at the keyboard, ready to do battle with cell phones and other half-baked notions.