When I was a kid, I loved making obstacle courses in the yard, setting up things to jump over, climb under, and all that. Being that kind of girl, we nearly always had to ride our stick horses through the obstacle course, having points deducted for mistakes and for excessive time, as if it were a show jumping event. It was a blast.

In my old age, however, I am less interested in going through an obstacle course to get to work. Stupid drivers and The Worst Semi Truck Driver Ever are bad enough, but then getting from my parking place (which is suddenly much farther away in the first place) to the door of my workplace is completely ludicrous. It involves dodging very large holes in the ground, skirting huge mounds of dirt, trudging through dust several inches thick, and hoping the drivers of various backhoes and semis see me stumbling through their worksite and let me pass, instead of plowing me over or knocking me into the very large hole. And for this, I pay $340 a year. Have I mentioned this before?

Everyone else in the office is irritated because they must drive through this area and soil their cars. Poor dears. I cry for you as I dump the dirt out of my shoes.

It�s not pity I demand, simply justice. I want my new parking tag, and I want it now. No, I want a new job, and I want it now.

Of course, I�m not having much luck demanding and receiving of late. Last night the power was off when I got home, and it didn�t come on for several hours, in spite of me calling and demanding action. And let me just take this time to thank the power company for their little automated call to let me know that power was restored. Next time, do you think you could call within 3 hours of the restoration? Maybe not wake me up to give me the news that was really quite obvious hours ago, when appliances started running again?

This is my call for common sense, people. Sigh.

In light of that plea, I must admit that I watched the very end of �American Idol� last night. And I watched the 48 Hours or Dateline or whatever about the plane that crashed in PA last year, instead of the White House. These choices lacked entirely in common sense, or really any sense of morals, I think. But I couldn�t stop myself.

What a day. I�m pleased Hamid Karzai made it though the assassination attempt. I can�t even imagine where we�d be without him. And I�m terrified of what our �leader� will do about Iraq. But evidently we�ll solve all of the U.S.�s woes with the help of a marketing executive. I�ll go out on a limb here and say that I don�t really think there�s any way to improve the country�s image, given the plans and policies under consideration by the President. Listen to Salman Rushdie, people. Arab countries won�t be swayed by sugarcoated American pop songs and pro-U.S. commercials. Not everyone is a vapid American teenager.

Not that they�re all vapid. Of course I didn�t say that. But there are reasons for things like boy bands and trashy pop pseudo-divas. That�s all.

Please join my on my fancy new frigate for dinner and dancing this Friday eve.