Khowaga is having a bit of a rough Monday morning.

I woke up from a bizarre dream in which I was in the company of Lisbeth Salander (the anti-hero and “girl” referred to in the titles of Steig Larsson’s best-selling novels The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire (and next year’s The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest)) being pursued around Stockholm (a city I’ve never been to) by the police.  And, yes, and one point we did go to IKEA.

On my way out of the house this morning, I grabbed oatmeal and a couple of things that I needed for work, among them a Tide pen (I had to throw out a Brooks Brothers shirt over the weekend because I finally had to admit that a stain acquired at work was just never going to come out).  And I’ve managed to misplace both.

It’s frustrating, because I have pretty clear memories of putting the oatmeal in my jacket pocket, but it wasn’t there when I got out of the car–nor did it appear to still be in the car.  As for the Tide pen–God knows.  I put everything down on the antique card catalog file outside my desk (which bears absolutely no resemblance to the collection that may or may not be on the reading room shelves).  When I went back, it was gone.  I checked the drawer in my desk where I intended to put it and it’s not there.  What did I do with it?  Beats the crap out of me.

Am I starting to wonder if there’s a connection between the shell-shocked heroine I dreamt about last night and my newfound forgetfulness?  Yeah, just a little.

On another note.

My silly post liveblogging the “blizzard” on Friday earned a lot of hits, thanks to the newfound power of the Twitter.  I went from my usual 50 or so readers each day to over 600.  Nice for me!  Sadly, my attempts to popularize my Egypt theme for Windows 7 were not as successful, and there was scant interest in my crop of habanero peppers, so I am back to my handful of dedicated, loyal readers who hopefully aren’t there just because they haven’t gotten around to clearing their newsreaders of the feeds they don’t actually look at in a while.

Last but not least in this Monday morning roundup of things before I set my sites on worthier (and more work-related goals): Ray and I watched Brüno on Saturday.  While it was cringe-inducing, as I had suspected that it would be, a good number of the cringes came from people other than Sasha Baron Cohen (and I’m not talking about the obvious ones).  There’s an extended scene of Brüno attempting to cast a baby photoshoot, and the parents of the babies who are auditioning are just freaking insane.

“Your child will be in an SS uniform, holding a wheelbarrow containing bodies in front of an oven,” Brüno tells one mother.
“Great!” she says.
“How do you feel about that?”
“I’m happy she got the part,” the proud mommy says.

If The Daily Show hasn’t picked that up as its moment of Zen … it ought to.

And on that note … happy Monday, everyone!