Eleven Years Ago Today

There are only fourteen possible calendars for the year in the way we measure it. I know, seems like there ought to be more. Given that there are seven days to the week and that any year must begin on one of those days gives us the the first seven possibilities. The other seven arise from the existence of leap years, which also must begin on one of the seven days of the week. The difference comes in with the addition of that extra day at the end of February, rendering the rest of the year numerically different. Which means that eleven years ago today was also a Saturday, the last Saturday of July in 2002. Which in many ways was a day when my life took this fork in the road rather than that one. Which has me thinking that you just don't know what any given day has in store for you when you open your eyes in the morning. One thing I do remember specifically about this Saturday in 2002 is that we had recently taken delivery of a regular queen size box spring topped by a mattress sort of bed. The previous seventeen years we had been slumbering on a waterbed quite happily, thank you. Until my back and sides began to protest on a nightly basis which I attempted to remedy by poking pillows here and there for relief, never thinking it was the bed itself that was the problem. Earlier that summer we had taken a family road trip where I discovered that after a single night sleeping on a regular bed that my pain had disappeared. Prompting the purchase of one that we had been sleeping on for a week or so. The new nightstands had not yet arrived so we had fashioned a couple from cardboard boxes. When you are accustomed to living with pain it seems a miracle when it goes away. That's what I remember upon waking that morning as I noted the time on my clock radio sitting atop my swanky corrugated nightstand. That my back and sides didn't hurt. Saturday, July 27, 2002. Nothing particularly notable about this Saturday, July 27, 2013. But there are nearly five hours left in the day. And if I manage to stay up til after midnight without turning into a pumpkin, Saturday ain't over til I go to bed.