So I heard we had an election or somethin'

Did you ever have one of those times in your life when you feel like you've been sucked out of the space-time continuum and you're like Homer Simpson the time he got sucked into a black hole and ended up in our world?

My life has been kind of like that since July 12, when I got the notice that I would be laid off the end of August. The last six weeks at my former job seemed like both forever and a minute and a half. Then I spent two weeks job-hunting almost full-time, got the offer for my current job, had two weeks off, and I've spent the last six weeks stuffing so much new learning into my brain that by the end of the day, there are words actually leaking out of my ears.

As if 7 AM conference calls with people in China and driving New Jersey highways weren't enough to get used to after nearly eight years of a cushy 20-minute drive on bucolic suburban back roads, we were supposed to be having a conference in Europe this week that was canceled due to budget considerations. One is not supposed to be glad to be relieved of an all-expenses-paid trip to Europe, even if most of it was to be spent in presentations, but frankly, I needed the time to work on my first project. Add to all this a compulsion to Get Everything Done That I Need To All At Once, and I'm finding that Thanksgiving can't come soon enough. Since August, we've replaced the water heater, bought a new washer and dryer after our old one that came with the house gave up the ghost, had the front steps fixed, and today Maggie the Idiot Cat finally had her dental work done after putting it off for five years because I am phobic about anesthesia.

But Maggie seems to be fine, if lighter of three teeth, one of which is one of her upper front fangs, and possessed of a strange swelling behind her left foreleg which I think is a repository for the subcutaneous fluids she was given. She is quieter than usual, and hungrier (if such a thing is possible), and she doesn't seem to want to jump on the desk and warm her feet on the DSL router. And she seems about as confused as I am about how it got to be nearly Thanksgiving already, we had an election, and wondering where the hell August went, let alone the entire fall. It all, even the endless campaign, seems like the blink of an eye.