I don't like to write before 10, for obvious (to me) reasons, but then I don't like to be up before 10 either and that seems to have fallen off the menu, long ago.  Sadly my sleep cycle lately has been like that of someone who serves 10 year old hard candy in a dish from the depression and calls everybody by the one family name she can remember.  

There just aren't that many things to do this early in the morning. I don't know what some people see in it. 

The Dinner Party last night did not end in us feasting on the flesh of anyone.  Not literally, anyway.  There were not enough people to really work the course, so to speak, so Carlos and I worked the pens.  We made fun of people and suggested that they talk to other people about things that we made up,

"Grandpa," Carlos told Charlie, "Ellie already got her elk.  Yesterday. You should ask her about it.  She wounded it first and had to track it for a couple of miles then club it to death. Have some whiskey."

Ellie is a nice person whose footware would never allow for  'getting' an 'elk' in any except boise city zoo type circumstances, and even that is unlikely.  Of course "clubbing" has an entirely different meaning in her world.  She probably weighs 93 pounds and accessorizes.  I know some women hunt. Plenty of women. Dianne has hunted. Still, Ellie could shoot an elk the way I would be twirling on Dancing with the Stars with an Osmond.  Carlos' grandfather was hunting all week and will be hunting again all next week.  Ellie will be getting some hidden part waxed and her nails 'done'.  Charlie went immediately over to Ellie, who was sipping white wine with Chuck's wife, the doctor, who drinks diet ginger ale. (Organic. She's a vegetarian.)

Ellie nodded initially, probably in greeting, then looked confused and shook her head, then looked at Carlos and I in horror. She was shaking her head so vigorously that I feared for the contents.  We looked away.  The doctor went to stir something in the kitchen, probably Chuck. 

"Cindy," I greeted my friend, who showed up late, "The Doctor was just telling us that the new secret H1N1 vaccination is getting people HIGH for days. It's a weird side effect, but now people are going back for more, lying and saying they weren't yet vaccinated.  She said that they are running out of vaccine…the line around the clinics go for blocks, people camping out….demanding the shot…"

"NO FUCKING WAY!" Cindy bellowed, "What kind of high is it?"  She was already going back for more in her head.  Strong-arming old ladies and babies aside.  If there is anything Cindy loves more than a flu shot and getting high, it's elbowing the weak out of the way.

CIenna, meanwhile, told everyone that I was trying to break into a sad aged internet arm of the adult film industry. Which she didn't tell me until after we left.  And which explains why Curt kept asking me about my job and why my standard shrugging non-answer wasn't enough.  And why Carlos' grandma pressed 10 dollars into my hand and told me to buy the children ice cream. 

"Spend time with them. NOW." she said, making way too much eye contact.

Cienna is just not right. I'm going to wake her up now and make her run with me.