Some days aren't meant to go smoothly, like today, for example.

Let me restate. (Instead of erase! Because erasing would give this entry an unexpected aura of clarity, not in keeping with the Spark and Foam code of customer care.)

Some days go along without incident, reinforcing my belief that objects in motion will tend to stay that way. For example, I woke up this morning at 10, to the sound of a steam whistle blown for no apparent reason by some idiot who lives over in the Ventura Keys*, and who regularly conducts his open motor boat over by my dock, then turns around while repeatedly blowing the whistle, which is very large and wholly unnecessary to the operation of his vessel. Ahhhhh. Morning time!

I got up, and headed up to the parking lot, where I found a large and difficult-to-remove sticker on the driver's side window, reading WARNING! because my parking pass had expired two days day before. Even though the security guard knows my car, and knows I live in the marina, he has his routine, and God forbid he deviate from it for my convenience.

Next, I ran into my friend Lori, who gave me her keys to copy, as I had misplaced mine, and I headed off to the key copying place, neatly avoiding the Danger Dan the Part-Time Stuntman, whom I've been ducking because I've neglected, these past weeks, to draw him a scale model of the Secret Invention he's working on.

See? A perfect morning so far!

A spontaneous trip to the car wash was thwarted by the "WASH OUT" sign affixed to the door of the establishment, so I headed across town, got my car washed at another place, then stopped at the key copying place, where visions of keys emblazoned with lions or shamrocks danced like tiny elves before Sheryl, the key lady, blinked her ice-blue eyelids at me and informed me that the keys I'd given her had "DO NOT DUPLICATE" stamped on their reverse. Damn! Ah, well. I still got to glory in her hangover, one so powerful that I walked away with a slight contact drunk.

Things were going so well that I thought I'd better buy a lottery ticket on my way home, which I did, and then parked my car at the hotel next door, to avoid future warning stickers.

Time to check my e-mail! I was lying on my bed at the 56-degree angle necessary to retain wireless signal strength from the antenna on the hotel, when I opened a message from my friend Mark and found this:

I KNEW IT!!!

Now I have Ceiling Cat to worry about.

It just goes to show, you can be trudging along just fine, lying in your underwear, eating Pillsbury Funfetti vanilla frosting directly from the tub, when WHAM! Along comes Ceiling Cat to harsh your mellow.

But am I going to be put down by this? Only temporarily. I have worked out a system of blankets and pulleys to create a fort, to keep me and my Funfetti safe from the feline gaze. Somehow, I soldier on.

Life is hard, my friends, but it is short, so enjoy your days if you can, and if life brings you Ceiling Cats, make Ceiling Catade. And a fort.

* Ventura Keys = nouveau riche enclave of houses with attached docks, built in a variety of historically inauthentic styles during the Mike Brady era of architecture.

Star of the day. . .Green Milk from the Planet Orange