I'm trying hard to get excited about the First Day of the Month, but a headache interferes, and I keep forgetting whether I've taken aspirin for it, so I keep taking more. At least I think it's more . . .

The real problem is that I'm coming down with a cold, something I usually combat with a heavy dose of martinis. Unfortunately, I am out of gin. It's going to be a long weekend. It's only Tuesday, you say?

Happy news! I found my missing New England Oyster Cracker wrapper. I had given up hope, and when I returned to the place where it had turned up missing it was not to look for it, but to smoke a cigar and drink some wine. You know, the usual front porch activities. But, while sitting there, it came to mind, as things do, and I looked around a bit. It had, apparently, blown out of my book, but had not escaped the confines of the porch. I found it wedged in the southwest corner, among some leaves and dirt. I found a safe place for it.