Feeling sluggish, it’s 4pm and by finally putting my Laundry in the machine I’ve begun the first productive task for the day. Unless you count finishing a re-reading of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy, eating lunch, or watching an episode of Futurama, this could be the single least productive day of human existence.

Liz, who has been staying with us since last Thursday, just walked into the house and informed me that she’s received a parking ticket. Normally, the reception of a parking ticket in the Los Angeles area isn’t news unto itself, it’s an unpleasant side effect of the area, one that’s equivalent to somebody from a sane part of the country stepping in a mud puddle. But Liz doesn’t live in the Area surrounding Los Angeles, so she responded the way any level-headed, non-Angeleno would: She acted like somebody drove by her car in a little circus car, grabbed $50 out of her cup holder, and kept going. Which… …now that I think about it, is pretty much what happened. Except instead of grabbing the money, they left a bill, payable to a group that has one hell of a collection agency.