TWO A.M.

As usual I’m lying in the dark looking up at the ceiling fan listening to DH snore. My brain is working overtime distressing over impending doom, disaster, tsunamis, earthquakes, morons in places of power, financial crisis—like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel, never ending or beginning on an ever-spinning reel, like a snowball down a mountain... STOP! Wait.

Last Saturday we traveled 620 miles on Interstate 15, and although we saw a few fools behind the wheel, nobody tried to kill us. I spent some cuddle time with a Very Important Five-year-old snuggled under one arm while a Very Important Eight-year-old drew pictures and expounded on the good guys and bad guys in one of his video games (still a little confused on that one).

When it was my turn to drive, for once, it did not rain torrents or blizzard. And when, in the dark in the middle of nowhere, I saw blue and red lights in my rear view mirror I was cruising five miles under the limit. When the guy with the Smokey Bear hat shined his flashlight in my eyes he had a friendly face and just wanted to tell us our taillights were out and we should proceed with our hazard lights on. A few miles later we pulled into a well-lit service station and, because of a minor melt-down involving pulling too much power from the dash lighter a few weeks earlier; DH knew where the fuses were in our newish car. And there was a new fuse just the right size. We were on the road in minutes taillights blazing.

All was well at home when we returned except the cat demanded we open a can of food. The dry stuff wasn’t doing it for him.

Yes, the hole can get big and dark and scary, but there is still a donut around it.