Those of you in the beach house know I’ve been talking about this all summer — there should be an alarm clock that wakes you up with the smell of bacon.  Guess what —  my birthday’s coming up. 

I was walking home from the subway last night, when I passed by Reservoir.  As I approached, a guy stumbled out and said, "can I ask you something?"  "Sure – quickly." (I wasn’t slowing down my pace)  "Can I have your number?"  "No." "I have money," he offered.  "Great," I replied over my shoulder.  I didn’t stop to find out how much he would have paid.  Sigh.  At least he got right to the point.

I was asked to be the fire marshall for my floor at work.  Apparently this is a very important position which involves jumping into action when I smell smoke or hear a fire alarm — my job is to call a few other key people on my floor.  Hopefully I’ll have time to do this before the smoke gets too close to my office.  Oh yeah . . . and I get a nifty flashlight.