For almost two years I've tolerated the 'radioactive squash' paint in the bathroom. A severe and enduring case of bronchitis followed that painting endeavor and I was reluctant to tackle the task until I felt confident about a new paint choice.

I was also waiting for the temperature to drop so we could have the windows open without suffocating when I painted. (It's been unseasonably warm in the desert this autumn, 90 degree high again today.)

It turns out the only true motivation I needed was a new shower curtain.

Hurray and hurry: orange be gone!

My husband stepped in with this handy-dandy gadget to deal with the fumes. While it did make a huge difference for my lungs, it also threatened to push my glasses into my eye sockets.

After two coats of paint the bathroom is once again a sedate color and the new shower curtain looks fab.

The clock in the car began taunting me within the first hour of our road trip.

Over the past three years the clock has been consistently six minutes fast. (I always thought it was five minutes but now I know it's six minutes. Always. Six.)

Sometimes I’d remember the clock was fast, other times I’d be standing outside a store thinking, ‘why aren’t they open?’

Anyhoo, long road trip, plenty of time in the passenger seat, lots of daylight hours for perusing the owner’s manual, perfect opportunity to reset the clock. All I had to do was align it with the correct half hour, press and hold the SOUND button, then press Preset 6, and the clock would jump forward to the start of the hour. Under this magical spell of my creating, 1:06 would reset to 1:00, 1:52 would reset to 2:00.

We had crossed town and were headed west on the interstate as I prepared to push buttons at 7:06 a.m.

The clock blinked in acknowledgement.

Nothing happened.

8:06. Blinking. Nothing.

It was mocking me: ‘I know what you’re trying to do but I’m here to guard the time and there will be no messing with my preset thank you very much.’

For my husband’s amusement and my own annoyance, I periodically pressed the buttons throughout the trip, hoping for a different outcome. If I’d been one of those test rats in a maze I’d still be pressing the lever hoping for more cheese. At least I’d have good upper body strength. And probably six minutes to spare.

There was another woman in the car with us during our recent cross-country odyssey.

I'd been oddly resistent to the addition of our newly acquired, refurbished GPS, maybe because I knew it had been purchased with me in mind.

I have an uncanny knack for getting lost. Urban, rural, a large department store in Paris, I generally get where I'm going, but there can be a startling gap and a big dose of anxiety between departure and arrival.

My husband programmed the GPS to determine the shortest route for our trip and was pleased with the outcome until we turned for home.

"Denver?! Denver?!" My husband refused to accept the selected route.

Why would the shortest route west differ from the shortest route east?

We were tired, we were punchy, and we were engaged in a battle of wills with a GPS system, repeatedly lowering the volume to avoid hearing her increasingly frenzied "recalculating, recalculating!"

She seemed to be exacting her revenge when she led us down a dark, bumpy street on a Saturday night in Platte, Nebraska, attempting to convince us that the hotel was just ahead. Luckily we decided to turn back to the main drag before the street ended abruptly.

During whole sections of New Mexico she gave up altogether, flashing a staticky 'Searching for satellite' signal. I suspected she had slipped out for a cigarette and a cup of coffee.

I guess I'd welcome her presence during our next trip, but I won't make the mistake of assuming that she's always right. And I won't be surprised if my husband locates a male version just so he doesn't feel like he's got two women telling him where to go.

Thanks to a review in BookPage, I read Poppy Adams' debut novel, The Sister.

Set in rural England, the novel opens with the 70 year old protagonist, Ginny, awaiting the return of her younger sister, Vivian, to their childhood home after an absence of almost fifty years.

The reclusive Ginny believes that she was always the 'sensible' sister, that Vivi was the more creative one. Ginny trained with her father and followed the family's passionate pursuit of moth research, becoming a respected lepidopterist -- that is, if we can believe her.

Ginny's personality, her scientific reasoning, lack of emotion and fixed behaviors suggest someone functioning through the veil of Asperger's Syndrome. We gather that she received some special attention as a child, and though she was the big sister, she was more likely to follow Vivi in her adventures.

Ginny wonders what Vivi wants, why she is returning now. Their reunion triggers a series of memories, most of them unpleasant, and reveals that the two women have very different perspectives regarding a family crisis that occured in the 1950s.

While I was initially impatient with the narrative, I grew to appreciate the layers of the story, and Adams' skill for creating suspense in an understated manner.

Two weeks and 3000 or so miles later . . .

"It happens all the time," the clerk reassured me.

Maybe, but it's never happened to me and I've never witnessed some other hapless, road-weary, sleep-deprived blunderer attempt to drive away from a gas station with the nozzle still attached to her car.

I'd been busy excavating layers of dried, dead bugs from the windshield. I heard the pump click off, I replaced the squeegee, got in the car and prepared to drive away. As the car rolled forward I heard a strange sound, realization popping into my head before I saw the open gas cap, the nozzle and section of hose on the ground.

A man in the next lane bit back a smile, "I think they make 'em so they snap off."

Hmm, maybe it does happen all the time.

I attempted to reattach the hose and it held in place but I didn't trust it so I went inside, "Could I have a receipt for pump 3 please? And, um, somebody might want to take a look at the hose."