**[section deleted for personal and ethical reasons]**

I casually mentioned to Mom that I was going to see 'Pirates of the Caribbean' sometime that afternoon. She lit up and pondered to herself. She reasoned that Scott never drags his ass out of bed except for his son Mike, so she might as well go with me instead of waiting for him. And so, it was set, with even coffee planned afterwards.

I'm not one for movie reviews (done plenty of reviewing over the last year), but I will say this: Johnny Depp continues to capture my admiration and awe as an actor. The roles he decides to choose--Sleepy Hollow and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas to name a few--always have his distinct..oddness and flair for the 'man outside' feel, but it's never the same type of oddness. He brings something different to every role; Colin Farrel does this to an extent as well. It strikes me as a different type of acting style than those actors that cultivate a certain static (but still great) presence by being themselves--Sean Connery, Liam Neeson, Ewen McGregor, Robert Deniro and Al Pacino to name several. In any case, I'm tempted to see 'Pirates' at least two more times just to savor what Depp did with that character.

So of course afterwards Mom and I had coffee. One of the baristas there introduced himself and knew our usuals. It's like that with several of the other baristas. You could say we've become indulgent. I could say in turn we've discovered enlightenment in a cup--with chocolate espresso bits, and ice, and maraccino cherry flavoring, and mocha syrup, and...I digress. All was enjoyable and well.

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But you cry, "you, listing isn't creative! Be poetic and vague!" And unto thee I say..nope.

Thursday was my lesson in paying attention to the date. I'd convinced myself I had to do surgery on friday, that today (back then) was friday--and SHIT, I was near late, it was 10:30am, I had to get there by noon fuck, had to get dressed quick eat protein bar, out out out go!

Traffic was moderately encouraging; parking likewise. It was nice and close: ten 'til 12. Grettle was yaking in Dr. Zivago's office and I went to town. Detergent on the anaesthesia counter, check; same on the surgical operating 'theatre', check; alcohol rub down with periodic swearing that noone was showing up, double check. Finally I was hurrying myself through the lab when out pops Grettle and an undergraduate. Gretel gives me this completely surprised look.

"[name]! What the hell are you doing here?" She asked.

"You remember," I said, "We've got surgery in 3 minutes. I just scrubbed both areas down. Where is everyone?"

"But that's friday!"

"Yeah! It's friday!"

Then, both Grettle and the undergraduate looked at me and said in perfect unison, "But it's thursday."

"What?"

Stereo. "It's thursday."

"....ah shit, I knew someone--I mean several people had said today..and my computer was on the fritz, so.."

I was kicking myself hard and making an ass of myself in covering it up. I mean, it was kinda obvious: the practice surgery was on friday. But somehow I'd convinced myself! Hell, after I talked with Grettle, I still thought I was going to be driving in friday traffic. I had to mentally slap myself a few times to get it to sink in.

----

Just as thursday had a lesson, so did this past friday. That lesson follows thus:

Oh but that wasn't our only problem.

I'll explain. I got in unusually early at 11am. Grettle was sitting at the functional PC. We kibitzed. I bought lunch. I ate lunch back at the lab. We kibitzed more. We mused about getting coffee and talking. We realized the surgery was up and coming. We sighed and got onto task. I cleaned the areas while Grettle searched for drugs. We had a small conversation about how far we should take the surgery: do we want to just practice sticking ear bars in (like I did back in May; do we want to make an incision to expose the skull, drill into it and implant drug administration tubes?"

Well there were several problems with the full monty surgery:

*We had no drill bit. We reasoned there should be a drill bit next to the high-powered electric drills and dental drill in the drill box. No drill bits were found. However, I did find a mechanical drill, which you could use to poke holes in the skull in the same way early humans rolled a stick back and forth really fast to make fire on stuff.

*We had no dental cement to put on the rat's head after the surgery. Grettle didn't recall the formula needed. At this point we nixed the part about installing drug tubes. We'd just do the ear bars, maybe an incision or something, that'd be it.

So with that course of action decided, we scurried to get things done. I'd finished cleaning and Grettle was looking for our drugs. The silence was torn as Grettle asked:

"[my name], where's the pentobarbitol (anaesthetic for to put rat in happy coma land)?"

I came into the surgery room, looked down at her as she pawed through the safe filled with drugs, and scrunched my face in that "Where the hell DID the day go?" way. I had a bad feeling.

"I thought you knew where the pento was..." I replied. She looked up at me. Our eyes met. We sighed and rattled off a few choice words about the situation.

Four undergrads showed up about on time. Grettle broke the news about our not being able to do the surgery. We had 3 month old 'Sunny Delight' and lingered. The undergraduates left. Grettle and I got to talking about our personal lives. Apparently Grettle was a cast member for the Rocky Horror Picture Show in Berkeley. She also confirmed my suspicions that she was pure-bred geek: she liked role-playing games.

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As a nice addition, when I got home and got online, I saw the good captain was about. We kibitzed. We figured we hadn't done dinner and a movie in awhile. I thought how ironic it was that the only traditional American dates I had nowadays were with one of my best friends--given the fact we are both staunchly heterosexual.

However, I have to study, so this will be a cliffhanger moment:

...I'm such a dork...

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P.S. Here's my latest entitledTungsten Falls 01.

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