Oh, now, as if I didn't have enough responsibilities to not live up adequately to now I've found an extra day on the front porch. I forget where it was we even found the porch. But the day was just huddled up there, protectively camouflaged so it appeared to be a digital picture frame and making that noise like the nagging sensation of having to be somewhere Tuesday that normally nags you awake forty minutes before you had to get up. With a sight like that what could you do but take it in?

There's no telling what sort of a day it is, of course. Even experienced day-keepers have to tell days apart by touch, and at that it's not obvious until sometime a little after lunch. I've known all sorts of days that felt like Thursday which turned out to be Mondays (separate Mondays in this case), and would-be Mondays that felt like a Wednesday early on, and the result of all this is a sensible choice to ignore calendars altogether. Naturally I'd like it to be a weekend day, but I suppose the odds run five to two against that. It can't be a red-letter day: there aren't any letters on it at all, red or otherwise, and it's mostly vaguely tan with a spot of midmorning on its forehead.

Folklore is you can influence what kind of day one's going to turn out to be with properly applied music in its youth, but that doesn't work. If available songs affected the day it was we wouldn't have the present shortage of Saturdays, while there'd be so few Wednesdays or Thursdays you'd never know what to do when you came across one. They'd become special events by virtue of their rarity, and songs would be composed to celebrate them, creating more Wednesdays and Thursdays until the balances were all distorted again and we were looking desperately for a Tuesday. As it is I'm pretty good with Mondays, but they don't turn up so very often, so clearly the available music doesn't affect things too much, or else maybe days have a general reluctance to either the Mommas or the Poppas or both.

You'd think it might be an escaped pet day, but it's really more of an indoor cat neighborhood, with a couple of mixed bunnies which gather around car headlights so they have something to hop away from and make you think they were plotting about you. There's no collar, naturally, and I took it down to the convenience store to wave around by those price tag readers to see if there were a microchip inside. I think the day figured this was some sort of game and it squirmed cheerily, but the scanners there are laser things for barcodes and all I got out of it was the direction by the guy working the cash registers to leave. Probably there was no saving the situation by claiming it was a seeing-eye day.

Nagging at me after getting it cleaned up and set up by a small clock to nibble at minutes and build it strength was what if it wasn't alone? Surely there's more than one day per litter or week or whatever the arbitrarily devised group noun for days is supposed to be. It's kind of lonely watching the day try sneaking up on nautical twilight times or weather systems and trying to catch one for itself. It hasn't succeeded but what would you expect at that age, climates?

Still, it needs company and could use its own week to learn how to socialize. The cats have taken to it, but do you want your day growing up to have a cat's instincts? Just imagine waking up and finding the day starts out nuzzling against your legs and then leaping up onto your shoulder, claws extended and hissing. Come to it, being feral or barely socialized would explain some days I've experienced. Those wounds can be taken care of with liquid skin or hiding under the covers until nightfall.

I know I'm not up to this, but on my salary where am I supposed to find decent daycare?

Trivia: In 321 the Emperor Constantine decreed that all citizens other than farmers were to abstain from work on dies Solis, the Sunday. Source: The Calendar: The 5000-Year Struggle to Align the Clock and the Heavens -- And What Happened To The Missing Ten Days, David Ewing Duncan.

Currently Reading: Understanding Physics: Motion, Sound, and Heat, Isaac Asimov.