Wrinkles in Time

This old tarot card looks like a French advertisement for Skittles.

How is it already Thursday? Dear witch women and forest-faced wizards, what did you do with my week?

For the third straight day upon awakening I have guessed the time exactly, right down to the odd minute. I don't use an alarm. I wake with the light. I guess the time. I check my phone's clock. I'm right. Repeatedly. Still, the Powerball eludes me, as does the purchase of a Powerball ticket. These things are connected.

Is it that the mind runs off with time and makes weird, melting babies? Clocks perhaps? I like the sound of the words "dime" and "disco." Once upon a time, those two words had meaning and value, but never to me. Where does the time go?

I recall the Diet Pepsi jingle from 1984, yet I do not recall a single element of Madeleine L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time. I recall a mock presidential vote in first grade, 1980. I recall three candidate photos: Reagan, Carter and...Gary Hart? Can Gary Hart be correct? I voted for number three because of his hair. I recall that distinctly.

(A quick Google check tells me that I probably voted for John C. Anderson, a scorned Illinois Republican who ran independently for the "National Unity Party." But he didn't have the Ted Danson dome of hair I remember. And I'm sure it wasn't Reagan I voted for.)

That same year Mount St. Helen's erupted in Washington State. Mrs. Cantwell--greatest name for a teacher, ever--asked us if we'd heard about it. I raised my hand and cited some fact about the ash cleanup, something I'd taken from the caption beneath the photo in the local Herald. She asked, "Why Chris, do you read the newspaper?" Shyly, totally fibbing, I said, "Yes."

My mouth has always been middle-aged.

Either that year or the one before, the Herald carried a photo of people shoveling. The caption was the most brilliant they ever ran, if only because someone was asleep (or quite drunk) at the switch: "Last night, a shitload of snow fell." That's a fact, jack.

I do not remember a single bit of the Narnia books, save for the title of the first, a few names and Turkish Delight, and those memories are tied almost exclusively to the film.

My mother used to make Danish Delight until the red food dye was banned. I think you can purchase it again, but I haven't had Danish Delight in years. I miss it.

Perhaps Mrs. Cantwell, if she is still with us, would be eyeing the news from Indonesia. I encourage you to visit this story. This proves yet again why it's time to clear that island of anyone. Just leave it for the dinosaurs and god knows what's roaming about the jungle there.

I don't know Lost, I confess--sorry Lol, I know this has dearly disappointed you and Ray-Ray--but I suspect it's set in Indonesia: earthquakes, tsunamis, mud slides, guerilla warfare, radical clerics, suicide bombers, volcanoes, and roving gangs of produce-armed jailbirds.
-cK